In this episode of the Getting Raw interview series, host Richard Toutounji talks with fitness industry veteran Justin Tamsett, founder of JT Active Management. The conversation begins with a clarification of the difference between consulting and coaching: consulting delivers ready-made solutions on a retainer, while coaching equips owners to find answers themselves, aiming to make the coach redundant. Tamsett explains his preference for coaching despite market demand for quick consulting fixes. He then discusses his focus on marketing and strategic differentiation for gyms, emphasizing the need to package services as programs rather than generic memberships. The interview moves into Tamsett’s early career, recalling his first role as a "sweat boy" at Howzat Fitness World in 1989 and his first challenging fitness assessment with an overweight client, illustrating how the industry’s approach to client communication has evolved. Tamsett shares two major mistakes: first, printing 80,000 flyers for a new club without an address, highlighting the importance of clear, actionable marketing (the "12‑year‑old test"); second, neglecting his own health, leading to a stress‑related chronic illness that now requires lifelong medication, a personal irony given his mission to reduce Australian healthcare costs. He stresses the necessity of rest and personal outlets for fitness professionals to avoid burnout. Finally, Tamsett outlines his current business model—JT Active Management works with about 50 clients through one‑on‑one, group, weekly, fortnightly, or monthly coaching—aiming to help clubs improve marketing, differentiation, and overall business health. The interview concludes with a plug for his Twitter handle @jtactivemgmt and a mention of his website.
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How you going? It's Richard Mark Toutounji, and welcome to Getting Raw. Today I'm with industry legend expert, Justin Tamter. G'day. Now, if you haven't— if you're not— if you're in the Twitter world, if you're on the phones, you'll know Justin from there. Justin is a mad Twitterer and he's a connector. That's what he does. But you've been in the industry, Justin's been around for a while, and Justin runs JT Active Management at the moment. But I want to know what his story is and really what he does, because he does a lot of things. You do do a lot of things. You're always doing different things. Different things, man. Too many. Always in different states and he's always a face-to-face sort of guy. So I wanna sort of talk about that as well. So, but at the moment, basically what you do, you do consulting for gyms, business owners. Is that correct?
Yeah, no.
Okay, tell me.
Yeah, no.
I'm confused.
Yeah, well, and probably to a certain degree I am too. I would differentiate between consulting and coaching. Consulting to me is that I actually go in and give the answer. Coaching says, I go in and I teach you to find the answer yourself.
Got you.
So as a consultant, it usually means you're on a retainer and you keep coming in and in and in and just keep giving those, that information and those results. But as a coach, I actually plan to make myself redundant. That I give you enough skills that you don't need me anymore.
I like that. That's a very good definition.
Yeah, and so that's my goal. So, which is actually a problem because in the fitness industry, a lot of independent health club owners want a consultant They want the answers and they want someone to give them the answers so they can get the return on investment now. Whereas I'm like, well, I could do that, but that doesn't help you grow as a person or as a professional.
And you've got to keep working.
And I've got to keep working, which is actually good because I keep making money. That makes everybody happy, especially at home. But yeah, realistically, I prefer coaching. I prefer working with people and trying to help them get the ideas and get the understanding to then do the implementation.
And what do you work on? What's the focus? Is it business, like marketing?
Yeah, look, I would say predominantly is marketing, but also strategic development, differentiating themselves. I think one of the problems in the fitness industry is we're all so similar. We all have treadmills, we all have dumbbells. It's all exactly the same. The differentiation comes in often the service, but also the packaging. So I really try to work on people on how to package their product differently so they don't sell memberships, they sell programs, and hopefully that can then get them more people active. And what about you, Richard? My mission in life is to decrease the healthcare costs for Australians. So that's why I do what I do, and I just happen to offer coaching as a service.
Let's talk a bit more about that. You've been 20 years in the industry. That's a while. So were you in the Lycras back in the day?
No, I started when I was only 5.
Okay.
No, no.
You were doing kids fitness then.
You were teaching. Yeah. No, the first gym that I was at was Howzat Fitness World in Newcastle. And my very first job was sweat boy. Towels were not compulsory, and so my job was to go around and wipe the equipment off during a circuit class, which is pretty gross before.
That was one of the main roles, wasn't it? It was, you know, one of the main things you actually have to learn is how to wipe the equipment down.
That's right. Very important part. Critical part of, you know, your career path. But I'll never forget that gym because it was in 1989 that I started, and women would come into the facility, go into the change rooms, and come out with more makeup on and It was so cool. And the G-string leotards that had strategically cut so bits of flesh would come out. Right through your side.
I don't remember those days. I was only 9.
Well, I was 18, so my hormones are racing through my body. I'm going, this is a great job being Sweat Boy for this. But my very first fitness assessment was a lady who was— she probably would have been about 60 kilos overweight. She was a really, really large lady. Her name was Fiona. And I'll never forget it. I couldn't get her to sit down. the blood pressure monitor to go around her arm, and I didn't know what to say. This is my very first ever fitness assessment that I've done in public. And then she— then I had to do a skinfold test, so do subscap skinfold test, and the skin calipers wouldn't open far enough.
It's only this
much. Yeah, like industrial size. And she turned around, she said, don't worry, just put down heaps. And I went, oh, you make me feel Is that
what you said
to her? Yeah, yeah, yeah. 'Cause she could see how awkward I was feeling. Right. 'Cause I was brand new in the fitness industry. This is my, you know, second or third week working and I've got this.
Yeah.
And you're not trained to deal with—
Hasn't it really come a long way?
Well, I think it has in a way, but in another way, it's that communication to be able to make people who are overweight or unfit feel comfortable.
Right.
And she really made me feel comfortable and it should have been the other way around. Sure. And what was really cool is like over the next 18 months, she lost 60 kilos, went from a size 20 down to a size 12. And it was at that point there I went, you know what, this is a pretty cool industry.
Take me through 2 bad mistakes you've had owning a club. Bad negative experiences, lost a lot of money.
Lost a lot of money?
Bit of a random question, I know.
No, no, and I can tell you that the first mistake I made was in our very first marketing piece. Brand new club, marketing piece goes out. Actually, it was our second club, so it wasn't It wasn't even our first club, so I've really got no excuse for this. But our second club we'd opened, we put this beautiful flyer out. It was our Open Now flyer. Out it goes. Lots of good features about the club, great benefits about the club.
Beautifully designed, colors.
Beautiful, professional, on brand, perfect. Of course. Forgot to put the address on there.
And there was no website back then, was there?
No website, but we had the phone number.
Oh well, that's alright.
And my business partners at the time who were my mum and dad, said to— my mum said, there's no address on this.
After you printed them?
Oh, after we printed 80,000 of those brochures.
80,000 brochures?
Yes, 80,000 brochures with no address.
And you came home and said, listen, mum, look at mine. Yeah, check it out. And she goes, yeah, where's the address? And she gets back to cooking it.
Yeah. And I said, well, mum, you see, you don't go to any fitness conventions, so you don't know about the fitness industry. Here's how it works. We want people to ring up and then we I'm gonna give them the address. And she's like, you're so full of it, Justin. So yeah, that was probably—
All right, so really check your documentation by your mother beforehand.
Yeah, well, actually, when I talk about marketing, I always say give whatever marketing piece you've designed to a 12-year-old, someone who can only just learn to read.
Geez, that's a really good idea.
And if a 12-year-old can read your marketing piece and at the end of it you say, now what do you have to do They know exactly what to do. If they know that they then have to pick up the phone or go to your email or go to your website or walk into the club, if they can tell you, then it's a clear message.
If they can't tell you— That is a golden nugget. I like that. What's number 2? You can use that. I will use that. I'll rebrand that.
You'll rebrand that? Second one really came down to, and this was a really expensive and personal mistake that I made. And that was, I was of the belief, 'cause I love work. I just love doing what I do. And to the point where I go, well, it's actually not work. This is fun.
Sure. I think a lot of people in the situation—
Yeah, 'cause we're passionate about what we do.
Passionate. That's why we're in the industry, aren't we?
Yeah. And, you know, I let my health get in the way. Well, I didn't look after my health and I got a chronic illness. And when I was in hospital, I said to the doctor, you know, causes this? And they said, we really don't know. We don't know what causes this illness at all. And so I was talking to the nurses and trying to do some research. And what we found out when we researched was that it's an illness that's caused by stress.
Really?
And I had never, ever considered myself stressed, ever considered myself stressed. And if you talk to many of my staff, they said the only time Justin was stressed was the day before the debits came in from EasyPay. When they come in, that's the great day. And they said, that's the only I didn't know. But obviously I had manifested the stress internally, which had eaten away my insides, basically. And I had no idea. I had no idea I was crook because I was running on energy, running on adrenaline because I just loved what I did. Never took time out for myself. And so it wasn't expensive in the sense of money, but it was expensive in the sense of my health. I now take medication and will for the rest of my life. The Australian taxpayer, thank you down there. You're contributing. You're going pay $276,000 to keep me alive until I'm 80 because of the medication and the PBS. And so I feel really guilty now, but at the time I did not feel stressed, but I just never took time out for myself. I never really got away from work and had a holiday regularly enough and all those types of things.
That's a huge mistake, I think. But you know what? You know, in these interview series, I always ask— I like to ask that question because generally the biggest mistake is something that's changed the business or your life. And you just said before that your number one, you know, thing that you're after is obviously to decrease the healthcare in Australia.
Which is paradoxical because I'm increasing it myself.
You're increasing it, but obviously that's come from a mistake which now you want to pass on to others saying, don't do this and let's get healthy, let's get active.
Yeah, yeah. The problem in our industry is we are so passionate about what we do. Talk to personal trainers. There was an Idea survey that came out and they said that the majority of personal trainers reduce the amount of exercise they do once they become a personal trainer. Yeah. Because it's the last thing they want to be doing. You need a hobby, you need an outlet, you need something outside of business, which I also believe keeps you more productive and keeps your mind fresher. And I look back now and go, I wonder if I would have made more money. I wonder if I would have been more successful as a If I'd taken more time out of the business.
And we were speaking the other day and we were talking about, you know, pushing, getting push, push, push, push, push, and you're working, you're working, you're working for this big goal. And then you get, and then you gotta have that rest. And that rest period is when you actually recuperate, recover, and actually then you can go again and you can think clearer as well. So it is vitally important. But with an industry like this, when you're passionate, when you're out doing the aerobics with the leotards, when you're doing the personal training clients, you don't think it's work. You don't. But it is work.
It is work, and you've got to take that time out for yourself. I just, I really, it's my biggest regret in life. And now it's, you know, it doesn't give me a disabled sticker, so I can't park in disabled parking. But it's there, and it's medication. It doesn't affect what I eat. It means that I can't drink alcohol anymore, which many of my friends are happy about. But it's an interesting situation to be in, and it's something that I'd never ever imagined myself Especially
getting involved in the
industry. Because you're active and, you know, I was teaching classes, I was active, but the stress was manifesting itself and never came out. I never released it. So I really encourage everybody out there who's watching Raw to have that outlet, to have that time out from the business for themselves. But I honestly believe it'll also improve the productivity and the efficiency of your own business.
It will definitely improve that. Alright, that's some good 2 big mistakes. So going forward now, obviously you've got Active Management, and how many clubs and, I guess, people are you dealing with on a sort of monthly basis?
We've got about 50 clients that we work with at varying levels. Everything from doing one-on-one coaching to group coaching, coaching weekly, monthly, fortnightly. So, you know, we pretty much help a lot of different people.
Sounds good. Well, Justin's another expert on Meet Your Fitness marketing as well, so you can check him out at If you're not on Twitter as well, you're on there, you connect. So you find him on there and all your problems will be solved over there.
Yep, love to see you on Twitter. I'm @jtactivemgmt, Active Management.
