Built To Grow Fitness Business

Most gym owners open a second location and hit a wall. Devin Gage is building to 100.

In just over two years, he’s grown from one gym in Pennsylvania to eight – all corporately owned, all self-funded, and all running on a lean, scalable model. Small footprint, low overhead, high-touch service, and centralized systems for everything else.

Each location is under 2,000 square feet, costs about $75K to open, and runs on 2.5 staff. Break-...

Some gym owners just keep pulling away – month after month, year after year – while others stall out, stuck at the same level no matter how hard they push.

It’s not because they’ve got better software or some secret funnel. And it’s definitely not luck.

It’s who they’re around.

This is the final episode in the 7 Habits of Winning Gyms series – and this one’s the big domino. The habit that makes the rest of the business easier... or so...

Most gyms don’t realize they’re making business decisions in the dark.

They’ll cut the agency. 

Hire a new closer. 

Pause the ads. 

Raise prices. 

Then lower prices. 

Change offers… 

All based on instinct – or worse, frustration – without knowing whether the actual problem is upstream, downstream, or even real.

But there’s one voice in your business that doesn’t panic or sugarcoat anything. Numbers. They show you exactly where things are b...

Have you noticed that most gyms look alike?

The offers are recycled – “first week free” deals and other copy-and-paste promos. The ads all sound the same. The classes run at the same time. From the outside, it looks fine. But under the surface, that copycat approach is the reason so many owners end up just blending into the crowd: there’s no real edge.

The truth is, a lot of the industry isn’t moving forward – it’s running the same p...

Some gyms run full speed just to stay in place. 

Revenue jumps, then drops. Cash flows in, then disappears. And it’s not because anything looks broken on the surface. They’re selling packages, running challenges, hitting their numbers... 

However, the model resets every 30 days – so they’re always one deal away from falling behind.

But what if the gym didn’t have to reset? 

What if revenue were predictable and enough to cover the bills...

Your campaign is good. And ads are working. And the leads are flowing. 

And that’s exactly when most gym owners make the call that stalls their growth for the next six months. 

They tell the agency to turn it off. Not because it’s broken. But because it’s working too well. 

Because the systems downstream can’t keep up…

Because onboarding’s a mess... 

Because service delivery’s maxed out…

So the tap gets closed and the engine cools down. ...

“We’re saving money on rent…” It’s something a lot of gym owners are proud to say.

And it’s also one of the most expensive mistakes they make without realizing it. Because what looks smart on paper often creates a problem you can’t outspend your way out of.

When the gym’s buried behind a warehouse, tucked in the back of a complex, or missing entirely from search results… that’s not just a location issue. That’s a visibility problem.

T...

Most gyms don’t fail because the owners don’t care. In fact, they care too much. They pour time, money, and energy into anything they think might help them grow.

But that’s where things start to break down.

Instead of focusing on the one thing that drives revenue and builds reputation, they spread themselves thin chasing too many services and too many ideas. The business gets messy, hard to manage or sell... and even harder to scale.

...

Too busy to run ads. 

Too broke to hire help. 

Too tired to fix the stuff that’s clearly not working.

Most gym owners need to get honest about the resources they do have. It’s always one or the other: time or money.

Paid ads aren’t optional. Organic posts reach no one. And waiting on referrals is not a growth plan. The tools, the tutorials, and the tech are all there. If money’s tight, the only option left is time – and that time has t...

Most gym owners don’t realize how dangerous “average” really is.

It’s predictable and it looks safe. Manageable. But average is actually a trap – and it’s holding more gyms hostage than failure ever will.

Because once you land in the middle, you stop questioning it. The $25k months feel “normal.” The long hours feel “part of the job.” The slow grind becomes the expectation, and that ceiling hardens into reality.

The worst part is that...

It doesn’t hit at first. Not in year one. Not even in year five... But eventually, every gym owner has that moment. 

When the day-to-day feels a little heavier than it used to...

When the hours you’re pouring in don’t quite match what you’re getting out... 

When the thing you built for freedom starts to look a lot more like a cage...

And that’s when the questions start.

In this episode, Tim and Randy push beyond operations, beyond profi...

Meta used to be the go-to for gym leads. Not anymore.

Yes, leads are still coming in. But they’re not showing up. Or they don’t answer calls. Or ghost SMSs. Or… if you’re running Facebook ads now and you were running them 10 years ago, this probably sounds way too familiar.

The platform got more expensive and less reliable. The bots took over, and the follow-up pipelines got clogged with dead weight. Plus, most gym owners still have ...

Revenue swings of $20K, $30K from one month to the next – some gym owners think that’s just how it goes. One good month, then a drop. Then a spike. Then another dip. But that rollercoaster takes a toll.

Big upfront deals might look good in the moment – $5K here, $7K there – but they don’t fix the core problem. The cash is coming in, sure, but it’s coming in the wrong way. That kind of model isn’t designed to scale – it’s designed to...

“How do I get more leads?”

Gym owners keep asking this question, but it’s actually the wrong one.

Leads aren’t the issue – and they never were. They’re coming in. What’s broken is what happens after that.

This episode gets into the weeds of what actually moves people through the door and keeps them from bouncing. And it’s not just about marketing tactics – it’s about tightening up the entire chain of actions that need to happen for so...

The idea of finding someone to take tasks off the plate sounds great. But without knowing what to delegate, the whole strategy falls apart.

Most gym owners hear “Who Not How” and immediately think about hiring help or outsourcing. But that advice skips a step. The What comes first. Without a clear vision of the outcome, finding the right person doesn’t move the needle – it just adds confusion.

In this episode, Tim and Randy break dow...

Charging less doesn’t make a gym owner noble. It makes them broke.

There’s a weird pride that’s still hanging around the fitness industry – this belief that keeping prices low and barely scraping by somehow means someone is doing it for the “right reasons.” That making money and helping people can’t live in the same business.

This is the same pattern Tim and Randy keep seeing – trainers turned owners stuck undercharging and calling i...

Your gut says fire them – but your fear says, “Then who’s going to coach tomorrow?”

It’s one of the toughest spots to be in as a gym owner. You know someone on your team isn’t right, but you keep making excuses – telling yourself it’ll get better, that you can’t afford the gap, or that starting over will take too long.

This episode offers a way out.

Randy and Zach walk through a mindset shift and a simple strategy that lets you hold t...

You’ve got clients in sessions, your calendar’s packed, and on paper, things look solid. But behind the scenes, the team’s stretched thin, margins are tight, and the business still leans on you to hold it all together. The harder you push in one area, the more something else gives out.

Most of the time, it’s not a marketing problem. It’s not a staffing problem. It’s the model. And when your model isn’t built to serve the right peopl...

No gym owner expands or opens a second location thinking it’ll hurt the business. But for a lot of them, that’s exactly what happens.

The logic sounds solid – more space means more clients, more sessions, more revenue. But when the rent goes up, the overhead stacks, and the extra square footage sits half-used, the math starts looking very different.

In this episode, Tim and Randy share what happened when they went from 3,200 to 8,000...