In this episode, Ben Luckens interviews Dan about why remarkable client experiences will become a major competitive advantage for fitness businesses in the age of AI.

This episode covers some of the topics from the 2026 Perth Fitness Business Client Experience Workshop. Learn more about that here.

Dan explains why businesses need to move beyond simply delivering a service and start creating experiences that make people feel something and give them stories to share. They discuss experience marketing, the value of doing things that do not scale, and how better member experiences can improve retention, referrals and revenue.

Dan also breaks down his one-size-fits-all, one-size-fits-some and one-size-fits-one approach, and explains why the employee experience will become just as important as the client experience.

In this episode, Dan Williams explains how personal trainers can design a PT session that clients remember, value and talk about.

(it's also a summarised 'sneak peak' of the upcoming 2026 Perth Fitness Business Client Experience Workshop)

He walks through how to map every client touchpoint, identify the pits that damage trust, improve the forgettable parts of the session and create a small number of memorable peaks.

Listeners will learn how to use intended feelings, intended stories, benchmarking and the Ten Star Thought Experiment to improve client retention, referrals and the overall personal training experience.

Learn more: 2026 Perth Fitness Business Client Experience Workshop

I'm proud to use this episode to announce the 2026 Perth Fitness Business Client Experience Workshop: https://gobsmack.com.au/fitness/

The Perth Fitness Business Client Experience Workshop is a practical, 12 hour event to help fitness business owners design a more remarkable client experience.

You'll work with myself (Dan Williams) and my team to design a jaw-dropping client experience strategy that helps your fitness business become the one clients remember, return to and recommend.

We are capping this event at 15 attendees, tickets $1497 each. Afterpay is available.

Learn more at: https://gobsmack.com.au/fitness/

Retaining staff is one of the biggest challenges in the fitness industry, yet Ben Luckens's four key team members have each stayed with him for more than seven years.

In this episode, Dan asks Ben the leadership principles behind that loyalty, including self-leadership, vulnerability, difficult conversations, empathy and leading by example.

He also shares how Stoic philosophy shaped his approach, why leaders are often their business's biggest bottleneck, and the practical actions business owners can take to build a stronger culture and become the kind of leader great people want to follow.

Dan talks about how most people are using AI backwards.

It's resulting in businesses becoming uninspired commodities, void of originality and humanity. And it's leading business owners down a path of removing the elements of a 'full life' that make them uniquely human.

In this episode Dan explores what people need to stop outsourcing to AI in their business.

In this episode, Dan pulls back the curtain on the personal productivity system he has refined over many years to run multiple businesses, support his clients and protect time for his family, all while working around 20 to 25 hours each week.

He breaks down how he uses time blocking, deep work, shallow work, recurring tasks, Todoist, the Pomodoro Technique and carefully protected white space to get more meaningful work done without constantly feeling busy.

You'll also learn how to build a system that helps you increase your output, reduce mental clutter and create more freedom outside your business.

For today's episode, you'll actually hear an episode of the Fitness Education Online podcast where Dan was interviewed to talk about all things customer experience in the fitness industry.

In this episode he introduces Gobsmack Consulting, a practical framework for turning ordinary client touchpoints into experiences people actually talk about.

Most fitness professionals are delivering a good service, but good service is just the cost of entry. Dan walks through how to map every client touchpoint, identify the pits and the forgettable middle, and redesign them into moments that create a genuine emotional response.

The big takeaway: in an AI-driven world where everything is being scaled and commodified, the most powerful thing you can do is the opposite. Do the unscalable.

Download the free 75-page customer experience framework for FEO listeners: https://gobsmack.com.au/feo/

If the content strikes a chord with you and you see customer experience as the future of your fitness business, drop Dan an email at dan@gobsmack.com.au. He'll send you details on upcoming events he's running to help you move your business into the experience economy.

For the last year, I've been building a new business. And every step of the way, I've been documenting the process.

In this episode, I walk you step-by-step through this process.

I explore how to build a new business from market problem to launch, using research, IP, branding, productisation and marketing strategy.

Here are five things you'll learn from this episode of The Business of Fitness Podcast:

• Why the best fitness business ideas should start with a real market problem, not just a good-sounding idea.
• How deep research can help you create stronger intellectual property, better services and clearer business positioning.
• Why naming, branding and website copy are useful tools for clarifying your business strategy.
• How to turn one body of knowledge into digital products, workshops, consulting, courses and ongoing content marketing.
• Why awareness, customer experience and word of mouth should be part of your long-term fitness business growth strategy.