Tom Leonardis
Sales coach for fitness pros
About
The night I shushed my daughter.
It was seven on a Tuesday and I was supposed to be chasing my daughter around the house. Hailey and I have this thing — she runs around the stairs, she squeals, I pretend to be slower than I am. It is the best part of my day.
But that Tuesday I was on a call. A prospect I had been chasing for weeks had finally called back. Hailey came up. She tugged on my shirt. She wanted to play.
I shushed her. Not aggressively. Not meanly. Just a quick finger to the lips. Shhh. Daddy's on a call.
I closed the deal. Felt productive. That night I sat in the kitchen and something cracked. A few weeks later my son Hudson — eighteen months old, can barely talk — found Hailey's old toy phone and started walking around the house with it pressed to his ear. Pacing. Talking gibberish.
Doing exactly what he had been watching me do every single day.
They are not listening to what you say. They are watching how you live.
The part most authors keep short
I have never owned a gym. What I have done, since I was seventeen years old, is run them. Rescue them. Rebuild them.
My first job was at New York Sports Club in Colonia, New Jersey. I lied about my age to get hired. I loved my first boss. Then they had three different bosses in six months. New trainers every week. Staff walking out before they learned anybody's name. I was seventeen years old watching a business bleed out in front of me.
I was young enough to see it clearly because I had not yet learned how to make excuses for it.
Get help while building your vision.
Not while you are trying to save it.
Twenty years, every room
I have an Exercise Science degree with a focus in biomechanics. None of that mattered until I figured out the sales and leadership side. The degree tells you how the body works. It does not tell you how to sit across from a frightened human being and help them believe in themselves.
Since then I have been inside of every kind of room this industry has. Big box. Boutique. Small group. One on one. Corporate. Mom and pop. I have seen owners lose everything because they would not have a real conversation about the sales floor. I have seen owners triple their revenue in six months because they finally did.
Good teams equal better members. Better members equal great outcomes. That is the whole thing.
If any of that sounds like your seat.
Let's have a conversation.