ghf inspired 1
TRANSCRIPT
GainesvilleHealth & Fitness
Journey!Th e
inspiredA LOOK INTO THE VISION BEHIND GAINESVILLE HEALTH & FITNESS
Turning a dream into a reality,“on a wing
and a prayer”
JOE CIRULLITHINK RICH AND NEVER GIVE UP Fin
ding Yo
ur
Purpos
e
pg. 5
2 | inspired | Gainesvil le Health & Fitness | ghfc.com
When it comes to building a company, I don’t 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 didn’t 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 friend’s older
brother when I saw him lifting weights wearing jeans and no shirt
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 take to make sure our members have positive experiences.
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,
writer Bo Burlingham traces the journey Joe Cirulli took to make GHF what it is today.
The GHF Commitment At GHF we have a commitment to the Gainesville
community. Check out the ways we put that commitment into practice every day.
Maybe it was Mighty MouseBy Joe Cirulli
Welcome to inspired
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 fi rst trip to a real gym when I was 13 and
the fear I felt walking into it. How would I fi t 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
inspired248
111623
inspired | Gainesvil le Health & Fitness | ghfc.com | 3
inspired is a special edition magazine for Gainesville Health and Fitness.
MAIN CENTER • 4820 Newberry Road, Gainesville, FL 32607 P: 352-377-4955FOR WOMEN • 2441 NW 43rd Street, Gainesville, FL 32606 P: 352-374-4634TIOGA TOWN CENTER • 12830 SW 1st Lane Suite 100, Tioga, FL 32669 P: 352-692-2180www.ghfc.com
GHF ContactsJoe Cirulli, Owner Jan Matkozich, General Manager Shawn Stewart, Operations Manager Ann Raulerson, Operations Manager, Women’s Center Debbie Lee, Director of Marketing Sheila Gardner, Director of Group Exercise Christie Matkozich, Director of Personal Training Brian Russell, Communications Specialist Ryan Beacher, Tioga General Manager Melissa Lynn Forgione, Director of Kids ClubErica Smith, Facilities Director Kyle Miller, Fitness DirectorAdrian Antigua, Front Desk Manager
being put in place for GHF to become a reality. Why Gainesville,
Florida? I’m 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 can’t say there was a direct
course. But somehow a plan was being put in place. (Read more
about Joe’s 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 can’t get anywhere being depressed so I put a
plan together instead.
GHF offi cially began in 1978 and started with $1,700. People
say we’ve come a long way. As I’ve told them, we had a long way
to go, and we believe we still do.
Over the course of my life, many things were being
put in place for GHF to become a reality.
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.
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.
I’ve always known why I do what I do. I have always had an
internal drive in me to become better, and for some reason I’ve
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 me—from
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 injuries—I want to help where I can.
In the pages of this magazine, I’ll talk about how a small group of
people took my passion and made it their own. I’ll share with you
how we defi ned who we are and what is behind GHF. My goal is
to give our members an understanding of the company that they’ve
elected to be a part of, and hopefully help some other businesses
understand how to move their own company forward.
From 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 it’s what has allowed us to
continually grow.
In the following pages I’m going to cover many of the things behind the
growth of our company. I’ll not only explain what our vision, mission, core
purpose, culture and core values are, but the process we went through to defi ne
them. Hopefully I’ll make it clear that a business does not become successful if
its purpose is to make money. As a matter of fact, I believe that’s why so many
go out of business. The purpose has to be something much greater.
Building a FoundationAs I’ve told people all over the world, we can’t build a strong company
without a sound foundation.
When I started in business, I didn’t 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
Our vision, mission, core purpose, culture and core values are important to the identity of GHF. Here’s the process we went through to defi ne them.
Why we do what we do
4 | inspired | Gainesvil le Health & Fitness | ghfc.com
inspired | Gainesvil le Health & Fitness | ghfc.com | 5
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,
you’ll 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, we’ll help. It’s that simple.
Finding Your PurposeMost people look at a gym as a collection of
rooms full of equipment, but to my staff and me
GHF is much more than that. One easy way to fi nd
out the value of a company is to pose the following
question to the employees: What would the impact
be on our customers and the community if next
week you found out we would no longer exist?
Then look at the reaction from the staff.
Whenever I have posed this question, the
initial reaction has always been sadness. But the
question you may ask is, “Is it because they will no
longer have a job?” Ask them. I have never heard
anyone refer to concerns about him or herself. I
have always heard them refer to people’s lives that
have been changed due their relationship with us.
Their concerns were with those members. It has
always made me feel good when I see this happen.
It tells me it’s more than a job—it’s a passion.
Years ago when I fi rst asked this question
of my management team, I followed it up with
another question, “Why does GHF exist?”
The fi rst answer was fairly straightforward:
“To provide a facility for people to get in shape.”
Then I asked the follow-up question, “Why is that
important?” The second response was, “To help
people lead healthier lives.” I asked them “Why”
fi ve times until we fi nally fi gured it out.
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, fi tness 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 you’re here. We want you to become the
best you can be as we work to make ourselves the best we can be.
When I fi rst started the process of defi ning who we were, I came
across an article in the Harvard Business Review. It was called “Creating
Your Company’s 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 else’s minds. I decided we needed to
get together and start discussing things so that everyone would be part of
defi ning our vision, mission, core values, core purpose and culture.
Once I fi nished 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.
In Their Own Words
This place truly is
a leadership factory.
Each day, my colleagues
do something that
impresses the hell out
of me. That’s a fantastic
feeling, knowing that
everyone on your team is giving it everything
they have each day. Plus, seeing that we have
the trust placed in us to do what we think is
right makes it easier to perform our tasks in a
high-functioning way.
- Brian Russell,
GHF Communications Specialist
CORE VALUEWe defi ne INTEGRITY as always doing the right thing even when no one is looking—we do not lie, steal or cheat. As Mark Twain said, “When in doubt, tell the truth.”
CORE VALUEWe actively search for ways to anticipate and accommodate the needs and wants of our fellow employees, customers, and community. WE WANT TO BE EXTRAORDINARY.
The GHF Book ClubCheck out some of the books that have
inspired GHF’s business practices.
• Think & Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill
• The Law of Success - Napoleon Hill
• The Strangest Secret - Earl Nightengale
• Start with Why - Simon Sinek
• Good to Great - Jim Collins
• How the Mighty Fall - Jim Collins
• The Great Game of Business - Jack Stack
6 | inspired | Gainesvil le Health & Fitness | ghfc.com
Cultivating Your CultureWe knew it was easy to defi ne culture: It’s the way we do
things around here. While we believed we knew what our
culture was, we had never spelled it out. We realized that it
would be important to write it out to give us even greater
clarity.
To uncover our culture, we assembled a key group from
our staff. Individually, we wrote down key words that we
believed described our company. We then took turns reading
one idea at a time as we went around the room. We wrote
each word on a board.
We came up with 53 different ideas of what defi ned our
culture. We had to narrow it down to less than 10. That was a
challenge, but eventually we got it down to six:
1. A learning and challenging environment that develops
leaders.
2. An environment of teamwork.
Charting Your CourseWe’re much more powerful as a company if everyone
is pushing in the same direction.
So, how did we do it? The fi rst step was setting up a
meeting with eight company leaders who didn’t all think
alike but respected one another’s opinion. Then we went
through a detailed process:
First, we had to defi ne the terms. This is what we
decided: VISION defi nes who we are at our highest level;
MISSION determines what we need to do to get there;
CORE PURPOSE defi nes why we exist; CULTURE is
how we do things; and CORE VALUES are the guidelines
that forever determine the rules we play by.
All together we wanted to describe the impact we
wanted our company to make on our world. We were
willing to make the emotional commitment it would take
to get us there.
So we asked the questions, “What is the highest
level of performance we can imagine attaining? What is
the value of our work to our community? What will the
story of our company be 10 years from now?”
One way to determine the future is to write it. So
I asked everyone to imagine it’s 10 years from today
and a national magazine is writing a major story about
our company. I asked them to write the lead paragraph
for the article, and that it had to capture the readers’
attention about the special things that have taken place.
We went through our stories and wrote down major
themes. The vision started coming through.
Vision: To become known as one of the best
companies for the world.
Once the vision was in place we moved toward
defi ning everything else.
Mission: To make Gainesville the healthiest
community in America one person at a time, one
business at a time.
Core Purpose: To create an experience that helps
people get the most out of life and inspire them to
become their best.
(If you do this with your company it’s important to
understand that if there’s a small gap between where you
are and where your staff wants to go, it shows very low
energy. If there’s a large gap between the two, it shows
your company really does have some energy.)
CORE VALUEHARDWORKING means we give 100 percent effort to everything we do and we work until the job gets done. The mental fortitude required in the high intensity workout interview sets the tone for this value.
CORE VALUEOur greatest power is the freedom to CREATE OUR OWN FUTURE: we decide what we do, what we think and where we go. No one can take this power away from us—it is ours alone.
In Their Own Words
Culture is defi ned as ‘the way we do
things around here.’ It’s not something
that you create, but rather something that
you discover within your organization. To
fi gure out what your culture is, observe the
behavior and attitude of your staff when
doing business as usual and when handling
the exceptions. Your business will be defi ned by how you
handle the exceptions.
- Debbie Lee, GHF Marketing Director
inspired | Gainesvil le Health & Fitness | ghfc.com | 7
3. 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 defi ned as intrinsic values of a business
that won’t change, no matter what. Even if they cost us
money, we still wouldn’t 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 that’s not how we want to impact
the world.
We followed the same process in defi ning 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. It’s 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
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.
Now all we had to do was accomplish the list!
In Their Own Words
A while back, a question
was posed to me, ‘Why
do we do what we do?’ I
immediately thought back
to a time that Christie and I
were having lunch when, as
we were leaving the restaurant, an older woman
tripped and went face fi rst into the pavement.
Instantly, without thinking, Christie and I ran over
to help the woman and to make sure she was
okay, while others just stood there watching. As
I thought about that experience, I realized that
what Christie and I did that day to help this random
stranger is the same thing that every staff member
at GHF would have done in the same situation.
So, the reason we ‘do what we do’ is because
every employee at GHF has an extraordinary
commitment to helping others. That is just one of
the many qualities that make Gainesville Health
& Fitness an incredible place to be a part of. We
genuinely want to help each and every person that
crosses our paths.
-Scott Larkin, GHF Personal Trainer
In Their O wn Words
Culture is the fever everybody catches when they
join our organization. One of my
biggest roles as a manager is to
protect the culture. You have to
quickly attack when something
is not part of the culture and
consistently reward when it is.
The number one aspect of the
GHF culture is ‘A learning and
challenging environment that develops leaders who
are responsible, professional, dedicated, energetic,
passionate, fearless, and knowledgeable.’ We only
promote from within the organization in order to keep
leaders who are ingrained in the GHF way. We are a
leadership factory. Every leader has the responsibility
to develop the future leaders of GHF.
-Shawn Stewart, GHF Operations Manager
8 | inspired | Gainesvil le Health & Fitness | ghfc.com
How we do itBy Joe Cirulli with intro by Shawn Stewart
Go back to high school. There are certain people who, if you saw them today—and I don’t care if high school was 30 years ago—will make you feel like you don’t 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 we’re making deposits into those accounts.
If you should go back to a high school reunion—no matter how long it’s been—you’ll fi nd those friends who made deposits into those accounts. They’ll 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 LeBoeuf’s theory, a deposit is made when we help an individual feel good about themselves. A withdrawal is made when we fail to fulfi ll 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.
The People FactorWe work to make our employees aware that when certain situations arise,
they have an opportunity to make something really good out of something that may not be so good. It gives them a great opportunity during those moments of truth—those challenging times when someone has a problem—to fi nd a way to solve the problem.
To make sure we’re hiring staff members who recognize these moments, we’ve incorporated questions into our hiring process. We have applicants review “moments of truth” and ask them to tell us how they would respond in each situation.
One example of a situation we might present is to ask the applicant to imagine they are working in a busy pizzeria and the oven suddenly breaks down. A customer who has ordered six pizzas for a party arrives and is ready for her six pizzas. We then have the applicant role play the conversation as the employee at the pizza place.
In many cases, there may not be a policy or procedure for certain issues that arise. We need people who think quickly and react quickly when responding to problems. These are the people we search for to be part of our staff.
The major thing we have learned over the years is that the purest form of customer service does not start with how an employee treats a customer; it begins with how the company treats its employees.
inspired | Gainesvil le Health & Fitness | ghfc.com | 9
The Company TreatmentThere’s only one of me, and there are hundreds and hundreds
of people on our staff who come in contact with the members
every day. I’ve always thought it was important to try and create
an atmosphere where everyone knew they were on equal standing.
There are no greater or lesser employees inside our organization.
I’ve always felt that if we take proper care of our employees
and if they know we care about them, they will show that same
type of care for the members. If we don’t take care of them, why
would they think it’s worthwhile to take care of our members?
We know there are other factors involved in someone wanting
to become part of our organization. One thing is making it as easy
as possible for a person to become a member. Another is creating
the programs and facilities that make an individual want to remain
a member.
We know that if our facilities are not centrally located, our
members won’t make it in. We know that the distance of travel
to our locations needs to be a relatively short drive from home
or work for the majority of our members to get the most out of
their experience here. That’s why we have three centers, and one
membership gives men access to two facilities and women three.
We also know that people prefer different types of
environments, with our three centers we can give them a choice
as to what makes them feel most comfortable, and we can
offer different experiences. We know many women do not feel
comfortable in a coed environment, which is why we developed a
women only facility at Thornebrook Village.
In addition, our main center is open 24 hours a day, allowing for
members with different schedules to utilize the facilities when it’s
best for them.
In Their Own Words
I had been working as a fl oor
instructor at GHF, and because I worked
all the hours that were available to me I
knew basically everyone.
A few minutes before closing, Hiro, a
very dedicated member who I had pushed
hard for the last year, asked to speak with
me. He had fi nished his degree at UF and wanted to say good-bye
and introduce his father to me, as he was heading back home to
Japan.
He reminded me that when he fi rst started with us, his goal was
to get as muscular as he could, to transform his body. After wishing
each other well he said, ‘I really want to thank you for this,’ and he
proceeded to roll up his sleeve and fl ex his arm, showing me a bicep
with just the slightest rise.
He said, ‘My family and friends back home will hardly recognize
me.’ Arnold Schwarzenegger at the peak of his career could not
have been more proud. At that moment, I knew I was working in the
right business for me.
As Hiro said good-bye to others, his father told me, ‘I want to
leave you with my thanks for befriending my son and leave you with
this quote, “If there is more of the world we will fi nd it.”’
-Jan Matkozich, GHF General Manager
10 | inspired | Gainesvil le Health & Fitness | ghfc.com
Creating the Right ProgramsOur programming is also part of creating the experience. We
developed the programs to help provide solutions for both our
current and future members. Here are a few of the programs
we’ve started at GHF over the years.
Supervised Circuit Training - A long time ago we had to
make a decision as to how our equipment would be placed on the
exercise fl oor.
I asked myself this question, “What would my parents do if they
came into a gym?” The answer: They’d be lost.
So we decided to align them in a way that
would make it possible for people who’ve
never strength trained before to learn quickly,
correctly and safely.
The solution was to set up the equipment
in a logical order to most effectively work the
muscular system. We would need instructors
available to motivate the members to get the
best results, and teach them how to do it safely.
For 30 years we’ve successfully implemented
the circuits in all our clubs. It’s possible for a
complete novice to join our centers and start
receiving the benefi ts immediately. They never have to worry
about not knowing how to exercise.
Core Spinal Fitness Program - Most people will suffer back
pain at some point in their lives. Our goal was to come up with
a solution that would help people reduce or eliminate back pain
forever. We know it’s hard to live your life fully when back pain
keeps you down.
Cancer Recovery - We have programs designed to help a
person keep their endurance up, because we know that’s a huge
challenge when you’re fi ghting or recovering from cancer. We have
programs through the health club and medically referred programs
through our rehab centers. The health club programs are free for
members of your family for weeks if you need us.
Arthritis Aquatic Classes - Though our pool can be used
for swimming, the entire area was designed for our members
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 fi nd 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 - We’ve 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.
They’re fun, challenging and rewarding.
It’s 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 didn’t 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 Florida’s 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.
In Their Own Words
One Sunday morning a lady came looking to
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 couldn’t believe
that she was doing this again. I then asked her why she didn’t 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
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 don’t have your own.
Our
programming
is also part of
creating the
experience.
inspired | Gainesvil le Health & Fitness | ghfc.com | 11
Who We AreIt’s important to defi ne who we are as a company if we want to make the biggest impact.
Afew 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 didn’t 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.
It’s 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.”
12 | inspired | Gainesvil le Health & Fitness | ghfc.com
I’ve been fortunate to fi nd 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.
Meet Your StarsIn every organization, there are different types of
employees. There are those “workhorse” employees who
just work and work. There are people who are trainees and
learning to become the best they can be. Then there are the
“stars,” the leaders of your company.
One of the things I learned a long time ago is that the
most dangerous people in an organization are the stars. What
makes them dangerous? Inside an organization, a star can lead
a department in the opposite direction from where everyone
else is going. In a different direction from where the owner
wants it to go. Why? Simply because, stars are leaders.
The most important thing is to keep a company aligned
and everyone focused. We do this by having regular meetings
where goals are discussed.
We have what we call Monday Morning Focus and Energy
Meetings. These meetings are designed for everyone to
be aware of and to discuss the department projects we’re
working on. But the larger reason is to make sure we’re all
moving in the same direction.
Over the years the goal of these meetings has stayed
the same, but the issues have grown bigger as the staff and
projects have grown larger. These meetings last two hours and
we can fi ll that entire time with no problem. We always have
plenty to talk about.
In addition to the Focus and Energy Meetings we also hold
two other types of regularly scheduled meetings; the fi rst
meeting is our Get Better Team Meeting, where we discuss the
future of GHF. We put together a strategic agenda designed
around how we can make our company better. They usually
last two days and are held offsite. Why? Because it’s impossible
to talk about the future or strategic issues of a company at a
meeting where you’re dealing with day-to-day issues. Short-
term thinking will always eat up long-term thinking. That’s why
it’s so important to have an entirely different agenda and style
of meeting.
In Their Own Words
I am most passionate about
the hiring of our employees!
I took over as the hiring
coordinator about fi ve years ago.
I think we have (I’ve been told
this) the most precise way of fi nding people
who really fi t our culture.
– Ann Raulerson, GHF Operations Manager, Women’s Center
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
inspired | Gainesvil le Health & Fitness | ghfc.com | 13
The third meeting, our Strategic Objectives Meeting, is where
we set up our plans and goals for the coming year. It’s 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 it’s more important to have a powerful team than to
have powerful individuals. I’m 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. It’s 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 doesn’t just talk about ideas, they
implement them.
Honor Your Eagles; Rock StarsAt the same time, a team is made up of individuals who
—according to author Ken Blanchard who wrote the book,
“One Minute Manager”—can fall into two categories: eagles and
ducks.
Blanchard said eagles are the people in your company who
look for ways to solve problems. Ducks are the people who just
quack all the time, saying things like “That’s not my problem” or
“That’s not my job.”
In 1996, when the fi rst main center opened, there were many
problems: The air conditioner kept breaking down, the parking
was limited, and every day was just one complaint after the next.
It was so bad I would go to bed at midnight, and wake up
at 2:30 a.m. to come back to work. I just couldn’t sleep—I
was trying to fi gure out how to solve the problems. I would
come into the club, it was hot as could be, and members just
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 ma’am, I do. You’re in here for about an hour and
I’m here for 20 of them; I know exactly how hot it is.”
That’s 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 wasn’t 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 fi nd us doing things
right, not just everything that was going wrong.
Remembering Ken Blanchard’s analogy, I knew we had a
bunch of eagles within the company. The plan was to ask our
members to help us fi nd the eagles and tell us about moments
when our staff went above and beyond.
I was asking the members to be the management’s 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 member’s feedback.
Studies have shown that “Employee of the Month” programs
don’t 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 voting—not 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
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 couldn’t fi nd one to buy. I asked Lindsay if GHF had extra copies — no, she said, but she’d try to fi nd 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 fi nally located. What thoughtfulness! What perseverance! What helpfulness!”
– Ann Bryan
There was a mix-up between a child’s parents as to who was picking him up, and due to that, the child was in the Kid’s 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
14 | inspired | Gainesvil le Health & Fitness | ghfc.com
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.”
Here’s the story: Someone is climbing
a hill one Sunday afternoon, and after
climbing for a while fi nds 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
can’t go any farther because there is a huge boulder in the way.
They can’t go on because there’s a great drop off to one side, and a
mountain on the other.
The group starts working together to fi gure out how to move
the boulder, and as they start working, more people come
onto the path.
Now there aren’t just fi ve or six, but 20, 40, 60, 120 and 240
people on the path, but no one’s 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 we’re here?”
They say, “Yes, we’re having a picnic.” They’re now brought to
the front of the line to understand why they’re really there.
That’s 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, that’s why we’re here. That’s 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
identifi ed the specifi c 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 defi nitely do a lot of that.)
Interviews DecodedThese sample questions help us determine if applicants share GHF’s core values.
Creating Your Own Future• What have you changed about yourself as a result of
criticism?
• What have you been criticized for that you have heard
from more than one source? What have you done to
improve that area?
• How will this job help you to reach your long-term goals?
• What accomplishments have you made that you are most
proud of?
• What was the last goal you set for yourself? What was
your action plan to achieve it?
• Where do you see yourself fi ve years from now?
Time Management• How do you plan a typical day? Week?
• When was the last time you had to rearrange your
schedule for something unexpected?
Dealing with Challenges• Explain a recent challenge or obstacle that you faced.
How did you deal with it?
• Have you ever worked toward a goal and not achieved it?
How did this affect you?
Extraordinary Commitment to Helping People• What skills do you think are necessary to work with
people?
• What is the most important? Why?
• What is the customer looking for in a business?
• All in all, when you come to work each day, what is the
one ingredient of your job that gives you the greatest
satisfaction?
• What most inspires you to do a good job?
• Describe your ideal job.
Handling of Angry Customers• Tell me about a time you had an interaction with an angry
customer? Looking back on it now, would you have done
anything differently?
• If you were going to train me on handling angry
customers, what three things would you want me to
remember?
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?
inspired | Gainesvil le Health & Fitness | ghfc.com | 15
Hire for ValuesSo how do you develop a team of Eagles and Rock All-Stars? It
all starts with hiring the right people. The question is, how do you
know who the right people are?
Determining the company’s vision, mission and core values will
show you who you need. Now the goal is to go fi nd those people.
Why is this so important? A long time ago I realized you cannot
teach someone your company’s core values. The goal is to fi nd
people who have them already.
At GHF we have developed a fi ve-step interview based on our
core values, which includes:
• Application
• Group Interview
• One-on-One interview
• Workout Interview
• Selection
The fi rst step, the application, starts out with the fi rst
impression our front desk staff gets. Did they have an engaging
personality? Were they smiling? Did they introduce themselves?
Were they professional? What was their attitude?
The next step, a group interview, allows us to put applicants in an
unrehearsed situation where you can watch how they interact with
other people. We ask applicants to tell us about themselves as we
watch to see how attentive the other applicants are. Then we may
ask a question like “Where did Sally say she was from?” Simple things
like this can give you a good idea of that applicant’s listening skills.
The one-on-one interview can help us determine whether or
not the applicant shares our company’s core values. (The sidebar
“Interviews Decoded” provides some sample questions we ask to
fi nd out if applicants would be a good fi t for GHF.)
The workout interview is not about the applicant’s fi tness level, it’s
about their ability to endure a challenging time. During the workout
interview, other staff members are watching and evaluating, and give
us their impressions on the applicant’s perseverance.
Selecting applicants who share our values means fi nding people
who believe in the same things we do. The process of incorporating
these new staff members into the company and teaching them the
things we do is a lot simpler when we share these intrinsic attitudes
and beliefs.
In Their Own Words
Each Monday morning at GHF the work week begins with a
two-hour meeting where the department heads and leaders of
the organization sit around a table and review, revise and alter,
if necessary, the strategic objectives of the company. Where are
we today? What trends do we see? What opportunities exist in
the marketplace? Where do we fi t in? If we are falling short in our
goals, why? What changes do we make to accomplish that which
we feel is important?
It’s here where a group that totals more than 150 years of
experience can offer input, hear all sides of an issue. What
better work environment could you ask for?
– Marty Huegel, ReQuest Physical Therapist / Director
In Their Own Words
The Eagle Program is a big job, but it’s
probably the most rewarding because I get
to read all 500+ nice things that are written
about our staff every month. Talk about
positive reinforcement!
Some of the eagles what you’d expect,
but others have literally moved me to tears, like the eagle a
member wrote about how he can now run a mile after doctors told
him he’d never walk again.
At our bimonthly Eagle Dinners, it fi lls me with pride to be able
to stand up and read all of the wonderful things we have helped
members accomplish that month. This, more than anything else,
shows me how different we are as a company—we care deeply
about each of our members, as if they were family.
- Allison Burke, GHF Marketing Coordinator
GHF’s Envisioned FutureA large part of reaching our goals at GHF involved describing our “Envisioned Future.” I’d like to give you an update on what has happened over the years.
• We will be recognized worldwide as a model company for improving the
health of an entire community by making Gainesville the healthiest city in
America. In 2003 Gainesville became the healthiest community in America reaching the Gold standard. This task took three years to accomplish. The rating has never been met or exceeded by any other city in America.
• We will be recognized as the industry leader in customer service. We’ve been voted the best health club in the world by the European Conference and in the top four in the world from a major consulting organization out of England.
• We will gain a reputation for developing leaders. Employees from our company have gone on to become business owners and integral parts of Fortune 500 companies, and can be found in important positions around the world.
• People from all over the world will visit us to learn about best practices.
We’ve been visited by people from all over the world and presented at conferences all over America as well as Canada, England, Italy, Germany, Russia, New Zealand, Australia, China and Brazil.
• 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’ve had people from all over the world do internships with us and continue to develop the training programs.
• We will form strategic alliances with local and national organizations. We’ve built a strong local alliance with many businesses and continue to work toward the national organizations.
• A best-selling book will be written about our business. Someday.
• We will win a national business award. 2001, GHF named World Fitness Center of the Year by the European Conference; 2003, Platinum Workplace Award from the Wellness Council of America; 2004, John McCarthy Industry Visionary of the Year Award, IHRSA; and many more!
• We will be on the cover of a leading business magazine as one of the best
companies in the world. I could tell you more about this one but we’ll let Bo Burlingham from Inc. magazine tell you the story from his perspective in the next few pages.
16 | inspired | Gainesvil le Health & Fitness | ghfc.com16 | inspired | Gainesville Health & Fitness | ghfc.com
inspired | Gainesvil le Health & Fitness | ghfc.com | 17
Editor’s note: This article is reprinted from the August 2008 issue of Inc. magazine.
By Bo Burlingham
It’s 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 Cirulli’s local fi tness empire. An intense,
compact, clean-cut fellow, Cirulli has been lifting weights ever since he got
his fi rst set at the age of 9. For 46 years, he has worked out fi ve or six days
a week, every week, usually at 5 in the morning. Nevertheless, you probably
wouldn’t mistake him for Charles Atlas, dressed as he is in the uniform of GHF
managers—a 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. He’s 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.
“That’s Michael,” Cirulli says. “He died here.” He died here?
“Yeah, I was at Starbucks one evening and decided to come back to the
& Never Give Up
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 fi tness empire. (Maybe there’s something to the power of positive thinking, after all)
Think Rich
18 | inspired | Gainesvil le Health & Fitness | ghfc.com
club. When I walked in, he was lying there with two doctors,
club members, standing over him. He was blue, and he didn’t
have a pulse. The doctors were trying to do mouth-to-mouth
resuscitation. They didn’t know I’d bought an AED [automated
external defi brillator] 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 weren’t breathing.’
I’m standing there thinking, Oh, man, what a great investment
that was!
“Turned out he’d 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 fi tness 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 fi rst 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
America—“one person, one business, one child at a time.”
Those aren’t just words. The company offers programs aimed
not just at promoting fi tness 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 GHF’s fi nancial
performance is its commitment to serving people who have never
been—and probably never will be—club 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, GHF’s 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
inspired | Gainesvil le Health & Fitness | ghfc.com | 19
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 landlord’s 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 fi rst day.
“Normally it takes months to do that,” the vice president of the
fi tness company told him over dinner that evening. “You don’t seem
too excited.”
“It wasn’t that hard,” Cirulli replied.
Or he might tell you about reading a book shortly thereafter and
fi nding 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 fi tness company’s 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 fi tness 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 McDonald’s and discovered he had just 12 cents
to his name. Finally, he landed a job at a new Gainesville health
club—and 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 fi rst goal, Cirulli would
have to raise money, fi nd 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 happy—the 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. It’s not enough. He fi nds a location, but banks won’t lend to a
health club. He fi nally wangles a personal loan, only to learn that the
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 story—a story about how one man’s
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 fi nd it. If the door is closed,
we must knock and keep knocking until it opens. We never
give up....”
Anyone familiar with the company’s 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 fi ve fi tness businesses he had previously worked for had
all gone bankrupt, leaving their creditors—including their paid-up
members—in the lurch. Bankers had been burned so often that
the mere mention of the words health club fi lled them with fear
20 | inspired | Gainesvil le Health & Fitness | ghfc.com
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 fi nds space in a brand-new mall. He
has $1,700 and three weeks to get the place ready—plumbing,
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
certifi cate 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 years—before 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 fi lled with people who
shared them.
If owning a business was, in fact, Cirulli’s 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 weights—fi rst 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 Moretti’s restaurant once when he
was in the hospital after breaking his leg. “Enjoy it,” his mother
said, “because you’ll never have one again.”
In 1971, Cirulli graduated from high school and entered
Corning Community College. After two years there, he still
wasn’t 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 fi nally 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
in the spring. He didn’t 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 fi tness 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 profi table 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 wouldn’t raise fees as
long as they remained members. Still, Cirulli faced an uphill battle
persuading the citizens of Gainesville to join, given the industry’s
reputation in town. So he turned his attention to the students of the
University of Florida, which at the time did not have a fi tness 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 fi gured 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
GHF’s 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 didn’t
sleep for two nights when I heard he might be coming to Lakeland,
where I was located. I called him up, and he said, ‘Don’t worry.
We’re not coming. We’re 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 fi tness center, he got into physical therapy and began
marketing aggressively to the Gainesville public. In 1996, after the
university built a second, even larger fi tness center, he opened his
giant fl agship 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 Cirulli’s 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 benefi ts to employees of large corporations. “He’d give you his
training manual, share his best practices.” Even if he wasn’t there,
visitors couldn’t help being impressed by how cheery and helpful the
staff was and by the cleanliness of the club.
inspired | Gainesvil le Health & Fitness | ghfc.com | 21
What impressed people most, however, were Cirulli’s results.
“Year in, year out, he’d 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 company’s distinctive culture and way of operating,
shaped largely by the ideas that Cirulli picked up on his never-
ending quest for self-improvement.
Wherever you turn at GHF, you fi nd examples of Cirulli’s
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, there’s 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. Blanchard’s 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. It’s all about self-
improvement. “We’re a factory for producing future leaders,” says
Shawn Stewart, the company’s 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 company’s
new employees.
There are fi ve 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 company’s 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
didn’t 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 haven’t 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. “That’s when the true self comes out.
We tell them up front we’re not looking to see what kind of shape
they’re 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 company’s large library of self-
help 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.
It’s 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 fi tness-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
‘fi x’ employees. That may be more insidious than having a selective,
somewhat authoritarian goal-driven business like Joe’s.”
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 fi tness 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
at the University of Florida. One student had interned at
Johnson & Johnson in Jacksonville, where she worked on the
company’s application for certifi cation 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 defi nes 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 certifi cation actually constitutes the
best measure of a community’s 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 fi rst Gold Well City, the community’s
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 affi liate 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
certifi cations 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
government offi cials from across the political spectrum put aside
their differences to get behind the campaign. When word fi nally
came in the spring of 2003 that Gainesville had won the award,
hundreds of residents turned out to celebrate.
The rest of the fi tness industry took note of the achievement
and GHF’s 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 he’s
integrated himself into the community, but I don’t 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 fi rmly 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 know-
how,” says Tompkins. Naylor now uses the program in recruiting.
By positioning itself as the city’s 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 fi tness 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 fi tness
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 Florida’s 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 fl ies 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.
22 | inspired | Gainesvil le Health & Fitness | ghfc.com
inspired | Gainesvil le Health & Fitness | ghfc.com | 23
The GHF Commitment
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. I’ve 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., München, 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 I’ve ever been to (I’ve been to a few).“- Stephen T., Gainesville, FL
“Your gym is amazing and it is incredible 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
“I’m writing this to thank you for the inspiring interview on Mixergy.com. It’s one of the best interviews so far in my opinion. Because of that I printed out a copy of Napoleon Hill’s book and I’m literally devouring it. I wouldn’t have done that if I hadn’t 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