HALO Talks: Elevating Wellness

Rachel has been with Peake Media (the parent company of Club Solutions magazine) for over 7 years. Peake also publishes Box Pro, Mindful Studio, Campus Rec, and Community Rec Magazine, each with highly specific B2B audiences in the HALO sector. Their Mission? "Educate and empower fitness pros in a variety of niches," says Zabonick. Listen to this IHRSA 2019 interview and learn what trends Rachel i...

Jared has been in the HALO sector for over 10 years. He's a native Houstonian and scaled Dynamic Fitness to 3, full service locations ranging from 30-35,000 sq feet. "It was a whole lot harder than what I thought it would be. Overwhelming would be an understatement!" he joked. "It's about learning from each mistake that's made and continuing to move forward." Listen to learn more about Dynamic's m...

The National Strength & Conditioning Association (NSCA) is, by a large margin, the industry leader when it comes to educating top tier strength coaches who--many times--later go on to work with colleges, universities, and teams nationwide. They've educated over 30,000 professionals so far and operate as a non-profit. "We want to stay at the principle level and make sure that everything we're shari...

A 30+ year veteran in the fitness industry, Dr. Kevin Steele earned his Ph. D at Pepperdine and had a personal training business even before there was even a term for it! Dr. Steele taught and coached at the university, and continued in the HALO sector with the legendary Don Wildman, Founder of the Health & Tennis Corporation of America. Dr. Steele later went on to research and scale the first nat...

As the Executive Vice President of the American Council on Exercise (ACE), Graham has been in the HALO sector since 1991. As a former competitive cyclist with a BS in Athletic Training, he notes, "Our Mission, really simply stated, is to get people moving." With over 90,000 certified professionals in 100 different countries thus far, ACE continues to make its mark. As a non-profit, ACE is also sel...

"The industry is now embracing and accepting the space between medicine and fitness," states Lisa Dougherty, Founder of the MedFit network and--clearly--a woman on a mission! Like many of the best businesses, MedFit Network evolved organically from (an extremely important!) need that had yet to be met. It is now the largest directory of fitness professionals on the Internet who work with special p...

"I wanted to become the greatest we could become in one town and through influence, be able to affect the world," says Joe Cirulli. . .and he's done exactly that. Everyone in the HALO sector knows Joe's name. He's been a trusted Mentor, adviser and friend to many of the top people in the industry and is highly respected across the board. He worked for 6 clubs that all went bankrupt before borrowin...

Chuze Fitness currently has 25 locations with 8 under construction and is one of the foremost brands in the San Diego area. Started by two families, Nick and Cory's parents were business partners in the hospitality space who parlayed that into the HVLP sector. This highly experienced team only decided to take on private equity on their 14th location. They operate off the maxim, "We want to be the...

Club Insider has become the "gatekeeper of the industry's history," says President Justin Cates. . . and anyone who truly knows the HALO space knows he's not exaggerating! If you haven't yet had the pleasure of meeting Justin's Dad, Norm. . .perhaps you haven't been around long enough and you're missing out! Industry icon, Norm Cates, is one of the Founders of IHRSA with 44 years under his belt an...

"Selling fitness has always been incredibly intangible, you're kind of buying it on faith. . .we made it tangible. You can see the vision of your future self," says Daron Allen, CEO of Visual Fitness Planner. Selling memberships used to be "incredibly unprofessional" and has changed significantly from what it was 10 years ago. VFP has been at the forefront of this, with everything now being "API f...

Sean has been in the HALO sector for over 15 years. He (along with inventor Don Brown) was instrumental in launching the Ab Roller which went on to earn over 1 billion dollars. Flash to the 2007 IHRSA where, with only two prototypes in hand, he debuted the Ab Coaster, which also went on to huge success! The Abs Company never took outside funds and--in this wide ranging discussion--Sean discusses e...

Josh McCarter's background goes back to when a T1 line cost "thousands" to install and when AOL was first scaling their dial up service! And through it all he's been adamant that, "Education across the board is super important." MINDBODY became a leader in the online booking field by--among other things--constantly driving this point home. And as far as scaling a successful SaaS model, "It doesn't...

A 40+ year industry veteran, Andrew began his career with Joe Cirulli--where shirts and ties were required for Nautilus instructors. . "which was the only machine available back in the day," laughs Levine. "He didn't want us in athletic wear and we had to watch 50 training videos at the Nautilus HQ. If you didn't pass you weren't allowed to work for minimum wage. And you know what? We all fought f...

Jersey Strong used to be called WoW (Work Out World.) The club (which was started by Stephen's Mom) eventually morphed into one of the most well known independent health club chains in New Jersey. Stephen Roma, Jr. began from the ground up and was instrumental in helping the club stay on the cutting edge of sales & marketing strategies. Learn how this family continues to remain on top, how they we...

How do you avoid standard interview responses? What's a better way to give & receive feedback? How do you get comfortable as the company rapidly expands? What's the 'right' number of clubs for Area & Regional Managers? Shawn started in the HALO sector in 1994 and worked with Joe Cirulli for 20 years at the iconic Gainesville Health & Fitness, ". . . doing every job you possible can!" Currently the...

With 20 years in the fitness industry and a former Danish national karate team member, Rasmus Ingerslev is a pioneer in helping to spread (and change the perception of fitness) in Denmark and other European countries. In 1999, his first venture became the largest club group in the country. Fresh Fitness, his next project, now has 75,000 members. He started the Danish Fitness Organization and helpe...

"The best ideas are the ones people struggled with themselves, and suddenly had that epiphany of a great solution. If they had this problems, probably someone else did as well!" states Randy Hetrick. A 14 year veteran of the Navy SEALS,  TRX (which--fun fact--was initially called Travel Fit) was born out of necessity while deployed. Randy's invention is now part of the DNA of the HALO sector. Lear...

"My motivation is to change the way people look at and experience life," states UFC Gyms President Adam Sedlack. A long time industry veteran, Adam moved 20 times in his career with 24 Hour Fitness. He jokes, "Initially, I thought UFC Gyms was a terrible idea!" Only after seeing a fight camp and the incredible number of people involved in making a fighter "the best version of himself" did he reali...

Mike opened his Paramus, NJ location in 1992. As a former finance executive, he and his partner Art mused, "There was just something about bringing the California mystique to New Jersey that made us check out Gold's." Instead of going "out" however, the team decided to go "in." As opposed to growing for growth's sake, 26 years later Gold's Paramus is an integral fixture in the community. "We found...

"He & she who change the most number of lives, wins," state Don & Tammy Murphy. Don grew up in the industry. It was a family affair, always a part of his life, and he learned it from the ground up. Tammy is a former CPA and finance executive who entered the business a bit later. They continue to make massive strides in their community with two Gold's facilities in Middletown and Newburgh, NY. The...

With 30+ years in the beauty & skin care industry, Denise knows how to build and scale massive consumer brands from the ground up. How do you take a concept from PowerPoint to something on the shelf? "Success is a little bit of magic, a lot of discipline, and a lot of hard work. Everything begins with an idea, inspiration, or concept," she states.  In an industry with very low barriers to entry, w...

Formerly with World Bank and now at Bain since 2011, Chris discusses a (fairly) new type of instrument private equity firms are using these days--an Impact Fund. "We're not pretending our investment of 10-15 million per business will change the obesity epidemic or solve global warming. However, what we can do is help fund scalable models which can be one of the hopefully many things to eventually...

As a Portfolio Manager in Emerging Markets at Blackrock for over 8 years, Nicholas effectively created his own "HALO portal" within the massive organization. Certainly not an easy feat in a company with over 14,000 employees! How he did it, and how he went about navigating the twists and turns politically is incredibly useful advice for anyone facing similar challenges within their corporate cultu...

"We launched for a very simple reason: It was way too hard to find a great pair of workout shorts!" laughs Keith Nowack, Founder of Ten Thousand. They're now growing at a fantastic clip and Keith and team team remain, "Focused on profitability and not just raising capital every 12 months!" A former pro soccer player and seasoned entrepreneur & investor, Keith highlights the highs and lows that com...