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Gainesville Health & Fitness: Journey!
Gainesville Health & Fitness: Journey!
Gainesville Health & Fitness: Journey!
inspired
The
Journey!
Turning a dream into a reality,on a wing and a prayer
Fin d Pu ing rp Yo u pg os e r .5
JOE CIRULLI
Welcome to inspired
Maybe it was
By Joe Cirulli
Mighty Mouse
and thinking he looked like Hercules? Then running home and telling my parents that all I wanted for Christmas was a set of weights. I still remember my ninth Christmas and seeing my 110 pound set of Mighty Mouse weights under the tree. Maybe the stage was being set when I started bringing all my friends down to my cellar to see my gym and teaching them to lift as I encouraged them to work harder. Nine-year-olds needed some pushing. Maybe it was my first trip to a real gym when I was 13 and the fear I felt walking into it. How would I fit in a place full of older guys who trained like Spartans? Could the course have been set when I was a junior in high school and I brought all the football players to the gym and taught them how to lift? Or maybe it was being named captain of the team though I was the youngest guy in my class. Why did the coach do that? He told me it was something about leadership. I believe as I look over the course of my life, many things were
When it comes to building a company, I dont know if Gainesville Health & Fitness went by the standard route. I do know that most companies started by entrepreneurs begin on a wing and a prayer, and GHF is no exception. Who knows when a plan actually starts or when a thought unfolds and takes on a physical form? I know watching Jack LaLanne exercise on TV when I was 7 years old affected me. Maybe it was his enthusiasm that got me following his workouts. I knew I didnt want to have a double chin, or that fat he kept talking about that grows under your arms. I was positive no 7-year -old wanted that to happen. Or maybe it was my mother always saying that as long as you have your health, you have everything. And being a nurse, I guess she knew. Could it have been watching a group of 16-year-old high school football players weight lifting when I was 8 and being mesmerized by how they pushed each other? Or my friends older brother when I saw him lifting weights wearing jeans and no shirt
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inspired
Maybe it was Mighty Mouse Joe Cirulli discusses the reasons he started GHF more than 30 years ago. Why We Do What We Do Take an inside look at our vision, mission, core purpose, culture and core values at GHF, and the process we went through to define them.
How We Do It Customer service is an important part of the GHF company culture. Take a look at the steps we taketomakesureourmembershavepositiveexperiences.
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Who We Are Find out more about what defines GHF as a company. Think Rich and Never Give Up In this story, reprinted from Inc. magazine, writerBoBurlinghamtracesthejourneyJoeCirulli took to make GHF what it is today. The GHF Commitment At GHF we have a commitment to the Gainesville community.Checkoutthewaysweputthatcommitment into practice every day.
Over the course of my life, many things were being put in place for GHF to become a reality.
being put in place for GHF to become a reality. Why Gainesville, Florida? Im not sure why I fell in love with Gainesville after a visit from my home in upstate New York. All I know is, I did. So, how did things fall into place? I cant say there was a direct course. But somehow a plan was being put in place. (Read more about Joes journey in the article from Inc. magazine on page 16.) I knew the heath club business was where I belonged and I knew Gainesville was the place where I would do it someday, but I still had a few more challenges to go through. A bunch actually. There was only one time I wanted to call it quits, but that only lasted about 10 minutes before I came to my senses. I was once seriously depressed for quite a while, three hours to be exact. Then I realized you cant get anywhere being depressed so I put a plan together instead. GHF officially began in 1978 and started with $1,700. People say weve come a long way. As Ive told them, we had a long way to go, and we believe we still do. Over the years the staff has grown from the original three to almost 500; from one center to three; and from a tiny orthopedic rehab center in 1988 to three today. Ive always known why I do what I do. I have always had an internal drive in me to become better, and for some reason Ive always had something inside of me making me want to help others become better too. When I think of all the things that have impacted mefrom being bullied as a kid (always the youngest in my class), to the challenging years between 19 and 24, to the building of a passion, to surviving multiple injuriesI want to help where I can. In the pages of this magazine, Ill talk about how a small group of people took my passion and made it their own. Ill share with you how we defined who we are and what is behind GHF. My goal is to give our members an understanding of the company that theyve elected to be a part of, and hopefully help some other businesses understand how to move their own company forward.
PUBLISHED BY: Naylor, LLC 5950 NW First Place, Gainesville, FL 32607 P: 352-332-1252 or Toll-free: 800-369-6220 F: 352-331-3525 www.naylor.com Publisher: Tracy Tompkins Editor: Elsbeth Russell Layout & Design: Julie Weaver 2011 NAYLOR, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the prior consent of the publisher.
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Why we do what we do
Our vision, mission, core purpose, culture and core values are important to the identity of GHF. Heres the process we went through to define them.
rom 1978 on, GHF grew at a fairly strong pace. Our original 1,500 square foot facility eventually expanded to three clubs and over 106,000 square feet of facilities. I believe having a true understanding of why we do what we do is our biggest competitive advantage and its what has allowed us to continually grow. In the following pages Im going to cover many of the things behind the growth of our company. Ill not only explain what our vision, mission, core purpose, culture and core values are, but the process we went through to define them. Hopefully Ill make it clear that a business does not become successful if its purpose is to make money. As a matter of fact, I believe thats why so many go out of business. The purpose has to be something much greater.
Building a Foundation
As Ive told people all over the world, we cant build a strong company without a sound foundation. When I started in business, I didnt have anyone to go to for advice. I worked for six health clubs that went bankrupt. I learned a lot by watching what not to do. The true answers to moving a business and a life forward, I found in
books and tapes, and I built my business from the knowledge I gained. In one of those books, I read the quote, If you help enough people get what they want out of life, youll get everything you want out of life. It was written by Napoleon Hill and because I believed so much in what he wrote, I accepted it as truth and decided I would always do my best to help other people get what they needed. Whether that is to help people get in better shape and improve their health, or gain a better understanding of how to improve a business, if GHF can help, well help. Its that simple.
CORE VALUE We define INTEGRITY as always doing the right thing even when no one is lookingwe do not lie, steal or cheat. As Mark Twain said, When in doubt, tell the truth.
And this is how we developed our reason for existing, or more aptly put, our Core Purpose: To create an experience that helps people get the most out of life, while inspiring them to become their best. I believe that to become a great company we have to have a larger purpose. For us, fitness is the tool we use to help our members, but we want to create something much larger than a workout. We want you to want to be with us, to be part of a great experience; a place that makes you feel better simply because youre here. We want you to become the best you can be as we work to make ourselves the best we can be. When I first started the process of defining who we were, I came across an article in the Harvard Business Review. It was called Creating Your Companys Vision and written by the well-known author, Jim Collins. When I read his article, I realized a lot of things may be clear in my mind, but may not be clear in everybody elses minds. I decided we needed to get together and start discussing things so that everyone would be part of defining our vision, mission, core values, core purpose and culture. Once I finished the article I remember thinking it would take around eight hours to complete. How wrong could I be? Working on it diligently, it took us six months. Eventually we involved the entire company. At that time we had approximately 200 employees. CORE VALUE We actively search for ways to anticipate and accommodate the needs and wants of our fellow employees, customers, and community. WE WANT TO BE EXTRAORDINARY.
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A business that shows appreciation and reward for exceptional performance. 4. A place of continuous improvement. 5. A business that shares knowledge. 6. An uncommon level of commitment to our physical environment. Core values are defined as intrinsic values of a business that wont change, no matter what. Even if they cost us money, we still wouldnt change them. For example, we would never lower the quality of our company to offer a cheaper product even if we could make more money by changing. Why? Because thats not how we want to impact the world. We followed the same process in defining our core values as we did with our culture. We started with 23 and worked on it until we found our four: integrity, hardworking, creators of our own future, and an extraordinary commitment to helping others. Then we moved to the last step of the process: We had the courage to describe all the great things that would happen at GHF over time as we accomplished our goals. Its a fun experience determining your own future. The Envisioned Future included: We will be recognized worldwide as a model company for improving the health of an entire
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community by making Gainesville the healthiest city in America. We will be recognized as the industry leader in customer service. We will gain a reputation for developing leaders. People from all over the world will visit us to learn about best practices. We will develop a center for professional management training where businesses from all over the world send their staff to learn about our systems. We will form strategic alliances with local and national organizations. A best-selling book will be written about our business. We will win a national business award. We will be on the cover of a leading business magazine as one of the best companies in the world.
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How we do it
Go back to high school. There are certain people who, if you saw them todayand I dont care if high school was 30 years agowill make you feel like you dont really want to spend much time with them. Every day, adjustments are made to our emotional bank accounts. At GHF we strive to make sure were making deposits into those accounts. If you should go back to a high school reunionno matter how long its beenyoull find those friends who made deposits into those accounts. Theyll still be your friends. Not the same with those who drained your account. At GHF, we strive to be like those best friends. Following the theory of Dr. Michael LeBoeuf, who says that every individual stores the effects of each moment of truth, we feel that having a staff that can turn every interaction into a positive experience is critical. According to LeBoeufs theory, a deposit is made when we help an individual feel good about themselves. A withdrawal is made when we fail to fulfill the needs or desires of that same individual. Emotional bank accounts require continual deposits to keep a positive balance. After every interaction a member has with any aspect of our organization, whether in person, by telephone, through literature, or even contact with the physical facility, the individual will either feel better, the same or worse. Our goal is to make every effort to make each moment of truth a deposit in the account of each customer. Are we perfect? No! But our goal is to be perfect.
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In Their Own Words One Sunday morning a lady came looking to To take away one of the biggest challenges for growing families, GHF offers free babysitting with a great staff and availability all day long. We offer an array of amenities because we know people like variety. But we work on being much more. We work to be the place where our members actually enjoy spending their time; a place where people feel they belong. To help us achieve this, we designed areas where people can meet with friends, eat lunch inside or outside, and have access to free Wi-Fi. We even have computers available if you dont have your own. get set up on the line. She used to be a person who would work out every day. She said she had been a cycling competitor, but was unable to walk due to a car accident. After going through intensive therapy and almost learning to walk again, she decided to work out again. She told me she couldnt believe that she was doing this again. I then asked her why she didnt try a cycling class. She said there was no way for her to be able to keep up. I got her off the line, took her into the aerobics room and set her up on one of the old spin bikes there. I checked back 5 minutes later, and she was crying with happiness. Oscar Koeneke
suffering from arthritis. Many years ago we saw an issue of Time magazine talking about the coming epidemic of arthritis and made the decision to find a solution. We remodeled the entire area adding in a warm therapy pool as well as a 50-degree cold plunge to go along with our steam, sauna and whirlpool. We put these elements together, along with the therapy classes, and found we can help a lot of people live their lives on their own terms. Group Exercise Classes - Weve learned over the years what kind of classes keeps our members motivated and we review them every quarter. Our Group Exercise Director has been with us over 20 years and keeps all the classes up to date. Theyre fun, challenging and rewarding. Its one experience that keeps our members coming back regularly. They include: Cycling Classes, Zumba, Aqua Classes, Pre and Post Natal Classes, Yoga, Body Pump, Body Flow and on and on. Why so many? We know that we have to give you the variety and challenges necessary to help you become your best. Custom Fit - We know that some people like the one-on-one experience of personal training while others like the idea of training in small groups. Custom Fit allows our members to choose from a variety of classes including Boot Camp, Wedding Ready, Body Ultimate metabolic training, Pilates and others. A member can choose their own time while mixing and matching all the classes. ReQuest Physical Therapy - After I suffered a serious knee injury requiring surgery, I was sent to rehab. It didnt take me too long to realize what was missing. I felt a truly effective rehab had to be modernized, both in the environment and equipment. Within a short period of time GHF became involved in a major medical research study with the University of Floridas College of Medicine. The purpose was to analyze the newest equipment. The results were astonishing, and plans for our center were put into place. Staffed with an inspired team of therapists, the purpose of ReQuest is to move people beyond therapy and into total wellness.
Who We Are
Its important to define who we are as a company if we want to make the biggest impact.
few years ago I received an e-mail from a friend apologizing for an incident that happened 10 years earlier. We were walking across a street in New York City when a homeless woman fell and hit her head. I had some people get some wet towels from a restaurant close by. I cleaned the blood from her head and helped her up. That was it. No problem. I never thought of it again until I got his e-mail. He told me he was always sorry that he just stood there and didnt help. When I mentioned this to another friend of mine, he posed this question: Why does one person help another person? My response was fairly simple, Because you care about people. He took it a little deeper. No, he said, people help people because they see themselves in others.
He made me realize the importance of having people on our staff that looked at others this way. We need individuals who have an inherent desire to help other people become better. People who have an intense desire to become better themselves. Its important for us to know who we are if we want to make the biggest impact, and I think everyone who is part of an organization has to buy into it. Better yet, if we are crystal clear about it, we can attract people who already believe what we believe. As I heard marketing consultant, Simon Sinek, say, If a person comes to work for you for what you do, they will work for your money. If a person comes to work for you because they believe in why you do what you do, they will work for you with their blood, sweat and tears.
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Ive been fortunate to find the why people, which is one of the reasons that many of GHF employees have been with company for 15, 20, 25, 30 years and more.
Meetings Matter
Monday Morning Focus and Energy Meetings are operational, short-term meetings held to: Follow up on all projects Review all numbers to goals Discuss variations Regularly gain the power of the team See who needs help from whom Review the competition (monthly) Hold staff accountable for Get Better Team (GBT) action items Move issues to the GBT Keep the Stars Aligned GBT Meetings are scheduled with a dedicated team that is formed to think strategically and create better teamwork throughout the organization. The GBT meets to: Develop new programs Plan out marketing strategies Corporate/medical markets Discuss new services/expansions/equipment Read and review books Analyze the sales process Think innovation Review new competition entering the market and plan the response
The third meeting, our Strategic Objectives Meeting, is where we set up our plans and goals for the coming year. Its designed to help us determine our most important strategic objectives. These are the plans to help us become successful in the coming year. Once the goals are in place, we can then create our budget. I believe its more important to have a powerful team than to have powerful individuals. Im not downplaying the importance of a strong leader running an organization or department, but if you have a powerful team, you have combined wisdom and knowledge. Its vital to a company that when someone is having an issue in their department, everybody can work together to help solve the problem. A powerful team doesnt just talk about ideas, they implement them.
Eagle Examples
Here are some of the comments members have made about employees through our Eagle Program. We average 600-700 Eagles per month. At the front desk, Lindsay is tops! When the issue of Inc. magazine came out with the article on Joe Cirulli, I couldnt find one to buy. I asked Lindsay if GHF had extra copies no, she said, but shed try to find one for me. No luck. She asked her mom in South Florida to look no luck. But she kept on looking. Then, one week, she gave me one that her mom had finally located. What thoughtfulness! What perseverance! What helpfulness! Ann Bryan There was a mix-up between a childs parents as to who was picking him up, and due to that, the child was in the Kids Club for three hours while the attendants were trying to reach his parents. Rather than have the child be hungry and stressed while waiting for his parents, Shannon took him into the lobby and bought him lunch with her own money. She took initiative to make the child feel safe and comforted in a potentially stressful situation. Melissa Lynn
complaining left and right. I knew I was slowly starting to lose my patience. One day, a lady said to me, Do you know how hot it is in here? I said, Yes maam, I do. Youre in here for about an hour and Im here for 20 of them; I know exactly how hot it is. Thats when I knew I was starting to lose my patience. The breaking point was when a member came to the front door complaining about something and I actually pictured myself strangling him. I knew that wasnt something I wanted to teach about customer service, so I decided to leave and go to the beach. I actually slept all night long. I stayed there for three days. On the third day I came up with an idea. I knew we had to come up with a way that our members could find us doing things right, not just everything that was going wrong. Remembering Ken Blanchards analogy, I knew we had a bunch of eagles within the company. The plan was to ask our members to help us find the eagles and tell us about moments when our staff went above and beyond. I was asking the members to be the managements eyes and ears. The members would control the Eagle Program and it would allow us to reward our employees for doing exceptional things based on our members feedback. Studies have shown that Employee of the Month programs dont create better employees or enhance overall employee morale. Most companies have dozens of employees, but there can be only one Employee of the Month. Usually the same employees continually receive the recognition. This is because the supervisor/management team does the voting. The Eagle of the Month program solved these problems. First, every employee that receives an eagle comment from a member will be rewarded. This eliminates the notion that only one employee deserves recognition. Second, our members will do the votingnot our supervisors. This assures that all employees will have the opportunity to be noticed. It allows us to recognize exceptional employees. Altogether, I believe the program keeps everyone engaged and hopefully the net effect is
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Interviews Decoded
These sample questions help us determine if applicants share GHFs core values.
Time Management
How do you plan a typical day? Week? When was the last time you had to rearrange your schedule for something unexpected?
Eagle Potential
Give an example of a time you went above and beyond to meet the needs of a customer? Tell me a time when someone you know went above and beyond his or her call of duty? Do you believe it is necessary to go above and beyond for your job?
that every members visit will be a more positive experience. Every month I have the opportunity to take these employees to dinner (usually 15 to 30 at a time) and hear what our members have said about the staff. How responsive have the members been? On average we receive 600 to 700 comments per month. Another story that allows GHF to personify our employees who go above and beyond, is The Rock. Heres the story: Someone is climbing a hill one Sunday afternoon, and after climbing for a while finds himself in a mountainous area, and eventually, on a path. As the day goes on, more people start hiking and get to the mountainous area and onto that same path. Five or six people are walking this path, and they reach a point where they cant go any farther because there is a huge boulder in the way. They cant go on because theres a great drop off to one side, and a mountain on the other. The group starts working together to figure out how to move the boulder, and as they start working, more people come onto the path. Now there arent just five or six, but 20, 40, 60, 120 and 240 people on the path, but no ones moving. Further back in the line, people brought supplies and start sharing their food and drinks. Finally, one of the people at the front of the line goes to the back of the line and asks the people eating and drinking, Do you know why were here? They say, Yes, were having a picnic. Theyre now brought to the front of the line to understand why theyre really there. Thats what can happen in any company as the company gets bigger. We need to bring people up to the front of the line, show them the boulder and say, No, thats why were here. Thats the rock. We have to move that rock. But what does the rock represent to your company? At GHF we knew that to be successful we had to gain members and keep members. We had to do all the things that would make people become a member, and then do all the things that would make them want to stay. Each department has developed a strategic statement and identified the specific objectives they have to meet in order to help the entire company work toward its goals and move our Rock. Then we take it a step further and reward people who according to their supervisors were true Rock All-Stars. Honoring around 75 employees each time, department supervisors give employees the recognition they deserve at a large company dinner. (The word, company, comes from the Italian phrase to break bread together. We definitely do a lot of that.)
Editors note: This article is reprinted from the August 2008 issue of Inc. magazine.
Think Rich
Never Give
ByBo Burlingham
Its a warm Thursday evening in Gainesville, Florida, and the Gainesville Health & Fitness Center on Newberry Road is ablaze with activity. Downstairs, about 70 members stare at television screens as they run, walk, climb, and pedal furiously in the cardio area. Over at the indoor basketball court, a group of sweat-drenched players is leaving, and another group is taking its place. In the pool area, an instructor is counseling half a dozen arthritis sufferers who have shown up for aquatics exercise therapy, while a guy with a military haircut endures the 50-degree water of the cold plunge pool and some of the older members hang out around the whirlpool and sauna. At 66,000 square feet, this is the largest of the three health clubs and four rehabilitation centers that compose Joe Cirullis local fitness empire. An intense, compact, clean-cut fellow, Cirulli has been lifting weights ever since he got his first set at the age of 9. For 46 years, he has worked out five or six days a week, every week, usually at 5 in the morning. Nevertheless, you probably wouldnt mistake him for Charles Atlas, dressed as he is in the uniform of GHF managersa cobalt-blue shirt, tie, dress pants, and spit-polished shoes. We all dress up, he says. When I started working in health clubs, the girls were all in leotards, and the guys in tank tops, and I could see that some of the customers were intimidated by that. So we dress up and take them off guard. Just then, he happens to catch the eye of a man who could, in fact, be mistaken for Charles Atlas. Hes blond, middle-aged, and muscular, wearing a tank top over his ripped torso. He gives Cirulli a big hug. They chat for a minute, and then Cirulli moves on. Thats Michael, Cirulli says. He died here. He died here? Yeah, I was at Starbucks one evening and decided to come back to the
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&
Flat broke at the age of 21, Joe Cirulli made a list of 10 things he wanted to accomplish in life. One by one, he pulled them off and built a health and fitness empire. (Maybe theres something to the power of positive thinking, after all)
club. When I walked in, he was lying there with two doctors, club members, standing over him. He was blue, and he didnt have a pulse. The doctors were trying to do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. They didnt know Id bought an AED [automated external defibrillator] for each of the clubs. I went and got it, and they put it on his chest and gave him a jolt. Nothing happened. They increased the voltage and tried again. Nothing happened. They increased it again. Nothing happened. They tried one more time, and he sucked in air. I mean, you literally could see him come back to life. He started burping. One of the doctors asked him, Do you know where we are? He said, Yes. At church. The doctor said, No, you were working out. You werent breathing. Im standing there thinking, Oh, man, what a great investment that was! Turned out hed done a big workout after not working out for a while. When he stood up too quickly, he got dizzy, passed out, hit his head, and swallowed his tongue. He suffocated. Four years ago. He was 46. He has a wife and two girls. So he always gives me a big hug when he sees me. Cirulli may have one of the four best fitness businesses in the world (according to a British industry expert) and the best in the United States (according to an American one), but his company has as much to do with saving lives as with pumping iron and going to spin class. Indeed, he and his colleagues at GHF decided in 1999 that their mission should be to make Gainesville the healthiest community in America. Four years later, it became the first and only city ever to receive the Gold Well City award from the Wellness Councils of America. Previously, the best that any city had done was bronze. The accomplishment led GHF to modify its mission. Now the goal is to keep Gainesville the healthiest city in Americaone person, one business, one child at a time.
Those arent just words. The company offers programs aimed not just at promoting fitness but also at alleviating a variety of chronic ailments and helping to solve long-term medical problems. It has pioneered the use of specially designed exercise machines to relieve neck and lower back pain. It has been a leader in using hydrotherapy to treat arthritis. It has tackled childhood obesity, and thus the prospect of a diabetes epidemic, by holding events at schools, developing weight-loss programs for overweight teens, and offering high school students free use of its facilities in the summer from 6 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon, as long as their parents approve. Twice a year, it holds a Family Fun Fitness Day to encourage everyone in the community to be more active. Granted, some people might say that all that is simply effective marketing. Cirulli, for his part, makes no bones about his desire to attract and retain as many members as possible. Indeed, GHF signs up around 10,000 new members a year and has a retention rate of 77 percent, well above the industry average of about 60 percent. That ability to attract and retain members translates into sales of $16.7 million a year, with one of the healthiest pretax margins in the industry. Perhaps even more remarkable than GHFs financial performance is its commitment to serving people who have never beenand probably never will beclub members. The campaign to win the Gold Well City award grew out of that commitment. We believe we can have an impact on our community, and in our minds we have an obligation to do it, says Debbie Lee, GHFs marketing director and the point person in the campaign. The impact has been huge. The Well City campaign alone brought together people from throughout the community, including people from hospitals, businesses, government organizations, The Gainesville Sun, the University of Florida, and the local community college. Obviously, many factors are driving the burgeoning trend
toward workplace wellness, not least the explosion of health care costs and the demonstrable effectiveness of wellness programs in holding them down. And yet what has happened in Gainesville is also part of another storya story about how one mans obsession with self-improvement can imbue a company and then spread from that company to an entire community, and from that community to other communities far and wide. The employee handbook of Gainesville Health & Fitness is a 53-page document, prosaically entitled Customer Service Manual that spells out in minute detail things such as the rules for interacting with customers and a description of what Cirulli and his team want to see happen in the next 10 years. A particularly revealing passage can be found on page seven, under Core Values, one of which is Creating Our Own Future. It reads, in part, Our greatest power is the freedom to choose; we decide what we do, what we think, and where we go....We can do what we want to do; we can be who we want to be. We develop our own future by applying persistence to the possibilities. Our future is all around us. If we seek, we will find it. If the door is closed, we must knock and keep knocking until it opens. We never give up.... Anyone familiar with the companys origins can understand where such convictions come from. By all rights, Gainesville Health & Fitness should not exist today. In January 1978, when Cirulli assumed the debts of the Gainesville Executive Health Spa and changed its name, neither he nor anyone else had any reason to believe the club would survive. He was barely 24 years old, and the five fitness businesses he had previously worked for had all gone bankrupt, leaving their creditorsincluding their paid-up membersin the lurch. Bankers had been burned so often that the mere mention of the words health club filled them with fear
and loathing. Real estate owners felt pretty much the same way. Cirulli thus had the worst of both worlds, since his club occupied 1,500 square feet above his landlords business, which just happened to be a bank. On top of that, he had no money, no friends or family with money, and no experience running his own business. Yet Cirulli believed he could pull it off. If you ask him why, he might tell you about an experience he had had four years earlier, at the age of 20, when he was working as an instructor at his second health club in Gainesville and was given an opportunity to try his hand at sales. He signed up eight members on his first day. Normally it takes months to do that, the vice president of the fitness company told him over dinner that evening. You dont seem too excited. It wasnt that hard, Cirulli replied. Or he might tell you about reading a book shortly thereafter and finding it a life-changing experience. It was one of the classics of the self-help canon, The Power of Positive Thinking, by Norman Vincent Peale. The book persuaded him to set a goal: to become the top salesperson of the fitness companys 10 clubs. He achieved it in three months. Then again, he might tell you about coming back to Gainesville from his hometown of Elmira, New York, after Christmas to discover that the fitness company had folded, his last paycheck had bounced, and he could make the payment due on his new maroon MGB only by getting back the $95 deposit on his apartment, which left him homeless and broke. He spent the next few months sleeping in health clubs and his MGB. At one point, he went to buy a Diet Coke at McDonalds and discovered he had just 12 cents to his name. Finally, he landed a job at a new Gainesville health cluband read another book, Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill. From Hill, Cirulli learned that the secret of success lies in knowing what you want. He proceeded to take out a legal pad and write down 10 goals, which he was supposed to read aloud every night before going to bed and every morning when he awoke. He did so for the next few years. The goals were: 1. Own a health club in Gainesville; 2. Make it respected in the community; 3. Earn $100,000 by the age of 25; 4. Own a Mercedes-Benz like the one driven by the Six Million Dollar Man; 5. Own a home in the mountains and one by the ocean and build another for his parents; 6. Become a black belt; 7. Become a pilot and own a plane; 8. Travel all over the United States; 9. Travel all over the world; and 10. Save $1 million. So he believed it was destiny, not calamity, that beckoned when the owner of the Executive Health Spa confessed that he was an alcoholic, in the middle of a divorce, and about to declare bankruptcy. The following day, the bank announced that the club would be evicted in 30 days. To achieve his first goal, Cirulli would have to raise money, find a new place, persuade the landlord to lease it to him, get the necessary permits, build the space out, move the equipment, and somehow keep the club running and the members happythe entire time. How he did it reads like The Perils of Pauline. First, he persuades the banker to give him 60 days rather than 30. Its not enough. He finds a location, but banks wont lend to a health club. He finally wangles a personal loan, only to learn that the
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location has fallen through. The banker who is the landlord of the old club demands he return the keys. Cirulli begs. The banker relents but demands a signed lease and a rent check by 9 a.m. Monday. Cirulli miraculously finds space in a brand-new mall. He has $1,700 and three weeks to get the place readyplumbing, electricity, new walls, showers, lockers, the whole bit. The club is still under construction when he moves in the equipment in June, whereupon a building inspector threatens to shut Cirulli down if he sees anyone using it. The club opens anyway. The building inspector never returns. Gainesville Health & Fitness gets its certificate of occupancy six months later, and Joe Cirulli achieves goal No. 1. The other nine goals took a little more time, but he achieved all of them within 12 yearsbefore his 33rd birthday. He drew two lessons from the experience. First, you can accomplish just about anything if you put your mind to it, are willing to work hard, and refuse to give up no matter what adversity you encounter. Second, books can change your life. There is no limit to what you can learn or how much better you can become, as long as you keep reading, listening, and searching for wisdom. By then, moreover, he was well on his way to building a company molded around those beliefs and filled with people who shared them. If owning a business was, in fact, Cirullis destiny, it had kept itself well hidden prior to his arrival in Gainesville. As a child, he seemed destined only for a rough time. Linda Cirulli-Burton remembers her younger brother getting beaten up by the older boys at school. That spurred Joe to start lifting weightsfirst in his cellar, then at the local YMCA. Soon, he was so strong that no one dared pick on him. The Cirulli family lived on the hard-knocks side of Elmira. Joe was the third of seven children and the oldest boy. His father, Armand, was a 22-year Navy man who became a postman after his discharge. His mother, Frances, was a nurse. Making ends meet was a struggle. Cirulli remembers his parents bringing him a fancy chicken sandwich from Morettis restaurant once when he was in the hospital after breaking his leg. Enjoy it, his mother said, because youll never have one again. In 1971, Cirulli graduated from high school and entered Corning Community College. After two years there, he still wasnt sure what he wanted to do with his life. He decided to take a year off from school and travel around the country with a friend. When the friend backed out, he changed his itinerary and went to Gainesville, where his girlfriend was attending a community college. I arrived at 3 a.m. on October 27, 1973, he recalls. Later that morning, he worked out at a local health club. Before leaving, he asked the manager if he could work as an instructor without pay for the next month in exchange for use of the facilities. The manager agreed. Cirulli extended his stay for another 30 days and began earning $1.90 an hour. By the time Cirulli finally headed home for Christmas, Gainesville was in his blood. After the holiday, he intended to work with masons he knew in Elmira and save money for college, but the frozen ground gave him a good reason to revise his plans. He returned to Gainesville, thinking he would stay for three months and then go back to his job with the masons
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in the spring. He didnt make it. His success selling health club memberships obviated any need to earn money through masonry. Maybe that was when destiny took over. In any case, he had his own fitness center within four years. Cirulli immediately went to work expanding it. He began with 2,500 square feet in a wing of the mall that had 11,000 square feet of space altogether. The rest was occupied by retailers of one sort or another. One by one, they moved out, and Gainesville Health & Fitness moved in, eventually taking over the whole wing. At the same time, he was proving that a health club could actually be profitable if you behaved as if you really cared about your members, as opposed to treating them like a necessary inconvenience. He invited members of the failed clubs he had worked for to join Gainesville Health & Fitness and agreed to honor whatever terms were in their original contracts. Beyond that, he promised that he wouldnt raise fees as long as they remained members. Still, Cirulli faced an uphill battle persuading the citizens of Gainesville to join, given the industrys reputation in town. So he turned his attention to the students of the University of Florida, which at the time did not have a fitness center. The majority of them, he realized, could not afford the initial payments that new members were traditionally required to make when they signed up. But Cirulli figured that most students were honest and would pay monthly even if there was no up-front fee. He set up a fee structure for students and began marketing to them. Within a few years, students made up 98 percent of GHFs membership. By then, Cirulli was beginning to develop a reputation in the industry. Joe was already a legend in Florida when I started my business in 1982, says Geoffrey Dyer, founder of Lifestyle Family Fitness, a 57-club chain based in St. Petersburg, Florida. I didnt sleep for two nights when I heard he might be coming to Lakeland, where I was located. I called him up, and he said, Dont worry. Were not coming. Were just talking. Cirulli was indeed staying in Gainesville, but he had by no means stopped expanding. He opened a club for women in 1984. Two years later, after learning that a Wisconsin health club chain was coming to town and taking aim at his membership, he moved the original center to a new location and doubled its size. A couple of years later, after the University of Florida announced plans to build its own fitness center, he got into physical therapy and began marketing aggressively to the Gainesville public. In 1996, after the university built a second, even larger fitness center, he opened his giant flagship center. This time, he bought the building, because he realized he could control the market only if he owned, rather than leased, his facility. As the business grew, so did Cirullis renown. Articles about Gainesville Health & Fitness started appearing in industry publications, and people from other clubs began making the trek to Gainesville to see what Cirulli was up to. He welcomed them all. He was willing to let anyone come down, recalls Frank Napolitano, formerly an executive with industry giant Town Sports International and now the CEO of GlobalFit, a provider of health club benefits to employees of large corporations. Hed give you his training manual, share his best practices. Even if he wasnt there, visitors couldnt help being impressed by how cheery and helpful the staff was and by the cleanliness of the club.
What impressed people most, however, were Cirullis results. Year in, year out, hed turn in these incredible sales numbers, says Napolitano. And here you were, spending tens of millions of dollars on marketing and getting nowhere near those results. Naturally, people wondered how Cirulli did it, and he was happy to tell them. As speaking invitations rolled in, he began traveling all over the country and around the world, often taking members of his staff with him. Wherever they went, they talked about the companys distinctive culture and way of operating, shaped largely by the ideas that Cirulli picked up on his neverending quest for self-improvement. Wherever you turn at GHF, you find examples of Cirullis application of something he has heard about or read. Every month, for example, he meets for two days with what he calls his Get Better Team to think of ways to improve the business. On Monday mornings, theres a Focus and Energy meeting of managers from 8 a.m. until 10 a.m. New employees receive One Minute Praising or One Minute Reprimands, lifted straight out of The One Minute Manager, by Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson. Blanchards characterization of employees as either ducks or eagles helped inspire a GHF program called Eagles of the Moment, wherein club members nominate employees who have gone above and beyond the call of duty. Its all about selfimprovement. Were a factory for producing future leaders, says Shawn Stewart, the companys 32-year-old operations manager. Production begins with the hiring process, which is the foundation for everything else GHF does. The company, which now has 375 employees, typically gets about 1,000 applications a year for 70 to 100 jobs, almost all of which start at minimum wage. We compete on work environment, says Stewart, who oversees the selection of more than 75 percent of the companys new employees. There are five steps to getting hired at GHF, beginning with a four-page application form consisting mainly of puzzles and games. We eliminate most of the lazy people with that, Stewart says. Next, references are checked by phone, which further reduces the pool. The third step is a group interview, with at least eight candidates and a hiring team including supervisors and department heads, followed by a one-on-one with the department head. Stewart challenges his people to come up with creative ways to determine whether candidates really share the companys four core values: integrity, willingness to work hard, extraordinary commitment to helping people, and desire to create the future. One technique, for example, is the chair test, wherein extra chairs are left in the interview room. Stewart used it once with a candidate who had come through the group interview with rave notices. The candidate was sitting in the room when Stewart entered. They need some chairs next door, Stewart said and began picking up the extra ones and carrying them out of the room. He kept doing this until only two were left. The candidate didnt move, except to take his feet off a chair when Stewart asked him to. Well, said Stewart, thanks for coming, but this place is really not for you. The guy was taken aback. But you havent interviewed me yet, he said. Yes, I just did, Stewart said and ushered him out of the room.
Finally, candidates are taken through a high-intensity workout on the MedX machines developed by the late Arthur Jones, the founder of Nautilus. The idea is to work a particular muscle or group of muscles to exhaustion. We want to see how people react to adversity, says Stewart. Thats when the true self comes out. We tell them up front were not looking to see what kind of shape theyre in. We just want to know two things: Are they hard working, and can they listen and follow directions? Despite all the screening to that point, 25 percent of the candidates fail the test. The ones who pass become the raw material of the leadership factory. Most recruits seem only too happy to get with the program. That includes being shadowed by a veteran employee who serves as an on-the-job trainer and administers weekly quizzes in preparation for quarterly tests, on which they must score at least 90 percent. They are further expected to take advantage of the opportunities for continuing education offered by the companys large library of selfhelp books and tapes. And they have to follow the rules. Recruits receive points for things like tardiness, no tie or nametag, improper shoes, complaining, and cursing. Seven points in a quarter results in probation. Its not for everybody, which is intentional. The whole selection process is designed to weed out the wrong people, notes Will Phillips, a management consultant who runs roundtables, including one Cirulli belongs to, for fitness-industry CEOs. Joe takes very seriously the idea that you should hire for attitude and train for skill. When you hire people and try to convert them to your way of doing things, you create a horrible tension that training is supposed to fix employees. That may be more insidious than having a selective, somewhat authoritarian goal-driven business like Joes. Of all the goals that Cirulli and his colleagues set for themselves, none seemed more daunting than making Gainesville the healthiest city in America, though the choice of that mission was hardly a surprise in itself. For years, Cirulli had been saying that the ultimate measure of a fitness business should be the health of the community in which it is located. But it was one thing to have such a mission and quite another to measure your success in achieving it. Debbie Lee was the one who came up with the mechanism. She remembered a project she had overseen when she was a coordinator of undergraduate programs
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at the University of Florida. One student had interned at Johnson & Johnson in Jacksonville, where she worked on the companys application for certification as a Well Workplace by the Wellness Councils of America. It turned out that WELCOA also had a program for certifying cities, based on the percentage of the work force in Well Workplaces, which the group defines as companies, organizations, and institutions with comprehensive wellness programs. Cities with 20 percent of their work force in such a program won the bronze, 30 percent took silver, and 50 percent earned the gold. One could argue whether a WELCOA certification actually constitutes the best measure of a communitys health. But the program did lay out a plan of action that could be used to rally the community, and other cities had already participated, making it possible to compare results. And because no city had ever done better than a bronze, why not go for the gold? But GHF could do only so much by itself. If Gainesville was going to become the first Gold Well City, the communitys movers and shakers had to get behind the effort. With that in mind, Cirulli and Lee approached Marilyn Tubb, who was then vice president for community affairs at Shands HealthCare, a University of Florida affiliate and operator of several hospitals around the state, and had just become president of the Gainesville Chamber of Commerce. In short order, Tubb and Lee put together a steering committee of 16 people, including representatives of media outlets, health care programs, and local government. The committee immediately went to work building support for the campaign. To win the award, at least 20 organizations had to participate in the effort and obtain their Well Workplace certifications within three years leading up to the submission of the Well City application. That called for a lot of work in a relatively short period of time. The organizations had to select coordinators, organize health fairs, get people screened for health risks, hold meetings, launch exercise programs, and so on. Shands HealthCare donated the health screenings. The Gainesville Sun contributed advertising. GHF provided consulting, speakers, meeting space, exercise programs, whatever. And
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government officials from across the political spectrum put aside their differences to get behind the campaign. When word finally came in the spring of 2003 that Gainesville had won the award, hundreds of residents turned out to celebrate. The rest of the fitness industry took note of the achievement and GHFs role in it. Many clubs contacted Debbie Lee to learn more. Only a relative handful, however, launched Well City campaigns of their own. People admire Joe for the way hes integrated himself into the community, but I dont think many of them try to emulate him, Napolitano says. They feel as though they have a lot more pressing issues to take care of. And maybe they do, or maybe they have overlooked what Gainesville Health & Fitness got out of the campaign from a business standpoint. Beyond signing up a lot of new members, the company firmly established itself as the wellness resource of the community. I know that if I need help with anything, I can call GHF, and they will always either provide it themselves or point me in the right direction, says Tracy Tompkins, who served as campaign coordinator at Naylor LLC, a custom-publishing and event-management company. We wanted to become better organized around wellness, but we lacked direction and knowhow, says Tompkins. Naylor now uses the program in recruiting. By positioning itself as the citys wellness resource, GHF has gained an enormous competitive advantage that its salespeople have been able to make good use of in selling to the corporate market. That advantage is certain to grow as health care costs continue to rise and more companies discover that a serious wellness program is one of the only responses they can offer. By the time the rest of the fitness industry catches on, however, Joe Cirulli will no doubt be on to the next big thing. Whatever that next thing turns out to be, it will happen in Gainesville. Cirulli insists he has no desire to have a fitness center anywhere else. He loves his city, and the feeling is mutual. Three times GHF has been named Business of the Year by the Gainesville Chamber of Commerce. Cirulli has received the Distinguished Entrepreneur for Lifetime Achievement Award from the University of Floridas Warrington College of Business Administration, in addition to being named Industry Visionary of the Year by the International Health, Racquet, and Sportsclub Association in 2005. Along the way, Cirulli has become a walking advertisement for the power of positive thinking. He still owns the little Mercedes, but he mostly drives a Lexus these days. His parents live in a house he built for them in Gainesville. Cirulli has his own home there, as well as a beachfront place on Anna Marie Island. Once a week, he flies his A36 Bonanza, often to Sarasota, where he has a condo. Although he never made another list of goals for himself, he did get together in 1999 with his managers to draft one for GHF. We will be recognized worldwide as a model company for improving the health of an entire community, the document began. It then listed 10 goals for the next 10 years. The fourth was, We will be on the cover of a leading business magazine. Guess they can check that one off. Bo Burlingham is an Inc. editor-at-large.
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Why inspire?
I know that with this kind of support I can only succeed at my fitness goals. - John M., Gainesville, FL I love that gym so much. Ive traveled all over the world and that is the best gym I have ever been to. - Brittany Daniel, Hollywood, CA You have provided us with so many wonderful ideas which are spreading now from Gainesville into the whole world. Everybody admires you in the industry. I wish you and your people everlasting success, luck, happiness and of course the most important thing HEALTH. - Jasmin K., Mnchen, Germany Thanks for all the things you do to make us a better community to live and work. You are a true leader! Thanks for your friendship. Good health and many more successes. - Perry McGriff, Gainesville, FL Just wanted to thank you for providing Gainesville with the greatest gym Ive ever been to (Ive been to a few). - Stephen T., Gainesville, FL Your gym is amazing and it isincredible to see what you were able to accomplish! I truly admire your ability to create great relationships with your clients. You can see their excitement when they are in the gym. - Ray C., Lexington Park, MD No wonder you guys have a winning business. - Giang B., Fontana, CA Im writing this to thank you for the inspiring interview on Mixergy.com. Its one of the best interviews so far in my opinion. Because of that I printed out a copy of Napoleon Hills book and Im literally devouring it. I wouldnt have done that if I hadnt seen your interview. Thank you very much for your time!!! - Constantin G., Romania Wow, what an inspiration you are. - Sarah P., Tucson, AZ
I just read the article about you in Inc. magazine and was compelled to email you. You are an inspiration to all. - Donna D., Atlanta, GA