At a glance: Karlene Dagg and co-owner Hector run Holistic Health Club, a premium personal training gym in Darwin. Their “Body and Lifestyle Project” campaign with the LeadsNow team (then More Gym Members) produced 745 leads at $2.80 each, around 70 in the first two days, and the club’s best quarter in 4.5 years — while the owners spent two months of it overseas.
The numbers, as stated in the filmed interview
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Leads generated | 745 at $2.80 each, over roughly five months of campaign pushing within a 12-month period |
| Leads in the first two days | Around 70 — against a guarantee of at least 40 in a month |
| Best quarter on record | In 4.5 years of the club being open — with the owners out of the country for two months of it |
| September alone | 15 premium 12-week one-on-one packages sold |
| Time as a client at filming | About a year and a quarter |
Watch Karlene and Hector tell it themselves
A note on the era: this campaign was delivered by the LeadsNow team under its fitness brand, More Gym Members, and the video was filmed in early 2020. It predates the AI sales agents LeadsNow runs today — what you see here is the team’s earlier high-ticket fitness work: lead generation and the sales and team systems to handle it, exactly as described on camera.
Where Holistic Health Club was before
Holistic Health Club isn’t a budget gym — and the owners are the first to say so. It’s a premium personal training facility in Darwin, built around qualified coaches and a knowledge-based, high-end service. As Hector puts it on camera about their own club: they’re not cheap, but they deliver what they promise.
The problem was getting new people through the door. In Karlene’s words, they had no idea how to reach out to new people and get them into the gym. Referrals were their only marketing channel that worked. Karlene had tried running Facebook ads herself, and they’d also had someone running Facebook for around four months — which Hector describes as a complete waste of time. So they reached out to see whether a professional could actually make it work.
What changed: the Body and Lifestyle Project
Together with the team, the club launched the Body and Lifestyle Project at the end of January — a campaign built to sell Holistic Health Club’s own premium offer: a 12-week one-on-one personal training package priced in the multiple thousands. No cheap trial passes, no discounting the brand — a high-end campaign for a high-end facility.
The pitch came with a guarantee: at least 40 leads in a month, or the team would work free. Karlene admits they signed up half-sceptical, just to give it a go. Then the campaign went live.
“We jumped in and then we got like in the first two days 70 leads … we were quite shocked.”
— Karlene Dagg, co-owner, Holistic Health Club
Roughly 70 leads arrived in the first two days — nearly double the monthly guarantee — and, as Karlene notes, a fair chunk of them were serious people wanting to make a change, who had already filled out an application form rather than needing to be cold-called.
The honest bit: the leads outran the team
Worth being upfront about: that volume caused a real problem. The owners thought they were ready for the overflow of new customers, but the person handling sales and office admin couldn’t keep up with the volume of new clients coming in, and it put genuine stress on the team to lift their capacity to cope with the extra work. That pressure — keeping the team ahead of the lead flow — has been a constant for the club in the year since. It’s also, as you’ll see below, part of why they stayed.
The results: 745 leads at $2.80, and a record quarter from overseas
Over the 12-month period, the club pushed the Body and Lifestyle Project on and off for about five months in total. The tally, as stated in the filmed interview: 745 leads at $2.80 each. In September alone, the club sold 15 of its premium 12-week packages — and it kept pushing hard through September and October, at a time of year when things slow down for a lot of gyms.
Then came the part that makes this story unusual. Holistic Health Club had been open four and a half years — and its best quarter on record arrived while the owners were away. In Hector’s words on camera: “we weren’t here in the country and we still managed to pull the best quarter ever”.
Karlene and Hector’s approved summary of the engagement:
“We took a 2-month holiday this quarter and STILL had our highest quarter on record.”
— Karlene Dagg and Hector, Holistic Health Club (approved client quote)
Why they stayed: more than ads
After a year and a quarter, Hector’s answer to “why have you stayed so long?” wasn’t about the advertising. It was the coaching that came with it — help with the team, with sales, and with the systems for getting customers to come back. The ads filled the pipeline; the coaching helped the club build the capacity to handle it. Their plan, as stated on camera: keep working together for as long as the team can handle the extra work.
What the growth is buying: the owners’ time back
This is the real angle of the Holistic Health Club story. Karlene and Hector have a four-year-old and a one-year-old, and as Hector says in the interview, being at the gym 70 hours a week is no longer sustainable. The plan for the next 12 months: Karlene stepping back from the office work, building leverage and systems so the business produces income without the owners in the building — and protecting work-life balance for the whole team, whom they name as their top priority. The record quarter they pulled from overseas was the proof of concept: the business can run, and grow, without them standing in it.
Their advice to other gym owners and personal trainers, from the interview: go with the professionals rather than burning months trying to do it yourself — go straight to the expert and get it done. And on their own philosophy of premium delivery:
“We’re not cheap, but we deliver what we promise. So 100% go ahead — best in Darwin.”
— Hector, co-owner, Holistic Health Club
Frequently asked questions
Is $2.80 a lead typical, and is it what LeadsNow charges?
Neither. The $2.80 figure is Holistic Health Club’s own ad-cost result for this specific campaign, in this market, at that time — as stated by the owners in the filmed interview. It is not a price, a promise, or a benchmark you should expect. Cost per lead varies enormously with offer, location and competition; for a grounded look at what Australian fitness businesses actually pay, see our cost-per-lead benchmarks for Australian gyms. And note the guarantee in this story was about lead volume (40 in a month or work free), never about cost per lead.
Why would a multi-thousand-dollar 12-week PT package pull 745 leads?
Because the demand pool is enormous and largely unserved. The World Health Organization’s physical activity fact sheet reports that 31% of adults worldwide — about 1.8 billion people — do not meet the recommended minimum of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per week. A serious, coached, one-on-one program is built for exactly the people who know they need structure and accountability to close that gap — and as Karlene notes in the interview, a fair chunk of the leads were serious people wanting to make a change, not tyre-kickers.
Does LeadsNow still work with fitness businesses?
Yes. This campaign ran under LeadsNow’s fitness brand More Gym Members, before today’s AI sales agents existed. The same team now works with high-ticket coaching and fitness businesses under LeadsNow, with 1M+ leads generated and 50,769+ AI-booked sales appointments since 2017. For another premium fitness result from the same era, see the JB Transformations case study.
Want to see how other clients have gone? See all client stories.