At a glance: James Bartolo runs JB Transformations, a fitness business with its own gym. LeadsNow (then operating under its fitness-vertical brand, More Gym Members) ran done-for-you Facebook ad lead generation for the gym. Over “the last two months and three weeks”, the campaign brought in 291 leads, 98 new clients joined, and James did $58,506 in front-end sales — before any back-end upsells. All figures as told by James Bartolo on camera.
“$58,506 and 98 new clients in just 12 weeks. If you want help, just do it!” — James Bartolo, JB Transformations
The numbers
| Metric | Result (as stated in the filmed interview) |
|---|---|
| Leads generated | 291 |
| New clients joined | 98 |
| Front-end sales | “About 58 grand” — $58,506, as confirmed on camera |
| Timeframe | “The last two months and three weeks” (roughly 12 weeks) |
| What’s not counted | Back-end revenue — James notes the upsells come “after the eight weeks”, on top of the $58,506 |
Watch James tell it himself
A note on the era: this interview was filmed in 2019, when LeadsNow ran its fitness campaigns under the brand More Gym Members. It predates our current AI sales agents — what James describes below is done-for-you Facebook ad lead generation, exactly as he tells it on camera.
The situation: a gym owner who’d been burned before
James wasn’t new to paid marketing. He’d already run his own Facebook ads, and he’d hired outside help before — in his words, “maybe two or three other places”. One of them was a big-name agency, and when we looked under the hood together, the lead generation efforts were, frankly, pretty thin. He could get some leads himself, but as he put it, “I wasn’t getting as many leads as I would have liked.”
He found us the way a lot of clients do: a random Google search landed him on our website. A campaign called the “Hero’s Crusade” caught his eye — James is a big sci-fi fan — and the copy convinced him to opt in for a strategy call. By the time Riley rang him, the decision was already made. In James’s words: “I was already just like, ah, I’m gonna do it… I was just like, I wanna do it. Just take my money and get it done.”
What was done
The engagement was straightforward, done-for-you Facebook ad lead generation for the gym — the same client-acquisition model we now run for high-ticket coaching and fitness businesses across Australia. Leads started coming in quickly — quickly enough that James had a new problem:
“Sometimes it’s a little bit annoying when you’re getting leads and you’re like, damn, I just wanna focus on this other work. I’ve got leads coming in, which is a good problem to have, I guess. It’s definitely better to be having too many than not enough.”
— James Bartolo, from the filmed interview
James worked the leads, ran his sales conversations, and signed people into his front-end program. The back-end — the upsells that come “after the eight weeks” — sat on top of everything counted below.
The results, in James’s own words
“We pretty much had 291 leads come through. So there was a hell of a lot of leads, and did approximately a total in sales about 58 grand. I was pretty stoked with that.”
— James Bartolo, from the filmed interview
Riley confirms the tally on camera — 98 people joined, and the exact front-end figure was $58,506 — and James agrees. Again, that’s front-end only: “that 58,000 is just from the front end and then after that, you’ve got the upsells.”
How did it compare to the agencies he’d tried before?
“I’ve used a couple of different agencies for Facebook marketing before… there was maybe two or three other places, but working with Riley… has been the best. So in terms of results and likeability and going the extra mile.”
— James Bartolo, from the filmed interview
The “extra mile” part had a story behind it: Riley had posted James a book with a handwritten note — and it happened to be the next book on James’s reading list.
Thinking about your own client flow? Book a call and we’ll see if it’s a fit — it might not be, it might be.
Where James wanted to take it
At the time of filming, James had one gym — you can see it in the background of the video — and much bigger plans: more locations, franchises, starting in Australia and then “if I feel like going international, why not?” His number-one piece of advice for other fitness business owners wasn’t about lead generation at all, though. It was retention:
“You could get all these leads and make some money on the front end, but there’s no point if people don’t stay… They’re paying for the accountability, the environment, the trainers, that one-on-one connection as well. So just giving the best possible service you can and implementing systems of accountability.”
— James Bartolo, from the filmed interview
We couldn’t agree more. Lead generation fills the front door; service keeps it full.
His advice to anyone on the fence
“Just pay your money, just do it… It might seem like a bit upfront in the first place, but it makes it back… you pay Riley’s fee and then you start selling people and then you make money.”
— James Bartolo, from the filmed interview
Frequently asked questions
Was this campaign run by LeadsNow’s AI sales agents?
No — and we want to be straight about that. This story was filmed in 2019, when LeadsNow ran fitness campaigns under its More Gym Members brand, before our AI sales agents existed. What James describes is done-for-you Facebook ad lead generation. Today, LeadsNow pairs lead generation with AI sales agents that qualify and book leads automatically — since 2017 we’ve generated 1M+ leads and 50,769+ AI-booked sales appointments.
Why does it matter that the leads came in fast?
Because speed-to-contact largely decides whether a lead turns into a conversation. Research published in Harvard Business Review, covering 1.25 million sales leads, found that firms contacting a new lead within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to qualify it as those that waited even an hour longer — and more than 60 times as likely as firms that waited 24 hours or more. James felt that pressure first-hand (“I gotta call these leads”) — a good problem, as he says, but one worth planning for.
Are the figures in this case study verified?
All figures — 291 leads, 98 new clients, and $58,506 in front-end sales over “the last two months and three weeks” — are exactly as stated by James Bartolo in the filmed interview embedded above. They are his own numbers, told on camera, and they exclude back-end upsell revenue. Individual results vary with offer, market and sales follow-up.
Ready to see what your version of this story looks like? Book a call — a quick chat to see if we can help, come up with a plan, and go from there.