Little Gym, Big Heart with Devin Gage

Focus on gym growth in 2026 to ensure your facility thrives. Learn the single most important action for long-term success. Most owners get distracted by shiny objects, but true success in the fitness business comes from mastering the fundamentals. If you want to scale effectively, you must stop chasing complexity and start prioritizing what actually moves the needle. Successful gym ownership requires a disciplined approach to your business strategy. By narrowing your focus to the one activity that drives revenue and client retention, you create a sustainable model that withstands industry fluctuations. Subscribe for weekly fitness business breakdowns, and comment below what you are focusing on this year.

Do you want to be a better public speaker? Learn the simple tips and tricks to improve your stage presence

Summers in the Fitness Industry are notoriously tough. But in 2026, our companies GREW by a large margin, and maintained a 96% retention rate all summer long. In this video, our COO Jeff Schumacher and Devin Gage discuss exactly what they did to lock in for the summer

Are you a woman in Fitness Sales?

Raychell Kosh is a high ticket closer in the fitness industry, and in today's episode she shares what women need to know about closing more deals, building confidence and changing more lives in our industry. Make sure you like and subscribe for more content!

Discover the exact blueprint for climbing the ladder in the fitness industry, moving from an unpaid intern to a gym facility leader in exactly two years. In this episode, we sit down with Jose Rivera, the first employee at Engaged Personal Training to ascend through every single level of the organization. From an exercise science graduate unsure of his career path to taking the keys to our newest location, Jose shares the mindsets, strategies, and actions that made him entirely undeniable and highly promotable to ownership. Whether you are a gym owner looking to develop rockstar talent or a personal trainer eager to build a sustainable, high-growth career, this interview breaks down what it truly takes to succeed.

Are you tired of posting nuanced, balanced fitness tips that get zero traction online? In this episode, we sit down with Matt Simmons, the go-to content guy for gyms on the East Coast and owner of Simmons Media and Westchester Studios, to break down what is working right now in 2026 for organic content marketing.1 We reveal the exact strategy we used to test a professional content team against normal gym-owner content—and why nearly every single metric grew exponentially. If you want your brick-and-mortar fitness business to become "5-mile famous," this episode is your blueprint.23

Do you want to sell more memberships for your personal training gym? Tom Leo has sold millions in personal training, and is now in sales for the gym business consulting industry alongside Vince Gabriele and the SPF mastermind. In today's episode, we talk about all the critical skills and tactics you need to apply to sell more for your training gym!

Is your Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) just a formality before a firing?

If so, you’re failing as a leader. In this episode, we dive into the "coward’s way out" of management and how to transform the dreaded PIP into a genuine tool for growth in your fitness business.

Most leaders wait too long to intervene, turning the PIP into a "pink slip before the pink slip." We’re breaking down the exact structure you need to give your employees a real chance to succeed—or exit with mutual respect.

CJ Appenzeller built a 550-square-foot storage space into a five-location training operation across South Jersey — and he did it without sacrificing the technical excellence that made him an industry expert. In this episode, CJ breaks down the exact framework he uses to scale coaching expertise across multiple locations: how he documents every movement standard into a "playbook" course shell, why he hires great people over great coaches, and the hard-and-fast training convictions that keep his product consistent at scale. We also go deep on the ego death required to stop being the technician, the Dunning-Kruger trap that makes experienced coaches harder to onboard than beginners, and why the gray area in your coaching standards is slowly killing your business. What you'll learn: The "playbook" system CJ uses to onboard coaches and maintain quality across 5 locations Why hiring people with zero coaching experience often beats hiring experienced coaches How to turn technical expertise into a scalable business (without losing what made you great) The pre-mortem exercise that reframes your entire career How to build industry authority through content, coaching trees & relentless curiosity Why having hard convictions — not nuance — is what actually scales

Fitness Sales Objection Handling: The 3-Objection Framework for Gym Owners

Most sales reps choke on objections — not because they're hard, but because they never train for them. In this episode, you'll get a repeatable framework for navigating the three objections every fitness sales conversation produces: "I need to think about it," "I have to talk to my spouse," and the money objection.

What you'll learn: – Why "overcoming" objections is the wrong frame (and what to do instead)

– The "buffer statement" — a simple reflex that buys your brain time mid-call – How to isolate a stall from a genuine objection

– The "book a meeting from a meeting" follow-up move – Risk reversal for the spouse objection – The money objection decision tree: logistics vs. fear (and the two branches of fear)

– Why drilling soft skills matters as much as drilling a kettlebell swing

Influenced by Jeb Blount and Alex Hormozi, this is a tactical playbook for gym owners, studio operators, and personal trainers who want to close more sales without being pushy.