Jennifer Halsall has had a stellar twenty five-year career in fitness, and she’s just getting started. Her first job in the industry was as a personal trainer at SportsClub in Canada. Her unique talents and aptitude for leadership were quickly recognized, so she rose to Personal Training Manager, then ran the department for the Canadian market. Remarkably, her personal training career was only the beginning of her journey to top global fitness executive. Jennifer went on to serve as National Director of Personal Training at GoodLife Fitness, amongst other roles, and wherever she went, her teams experienced exponential growth and record-breaking success. 

But before she spearheaded high-profile projects and led large teams, she learned fitness acumen and business savvy from her parents after school. Jennifer was born into a family full of fitness entrepreneurs; her mother was a group fitness instructor, and her father was a gym owner. She grew up helping her parents instruct classes with her sister and fell in love with strength training while developing an appreciation for the empowering nature of exercise. 

Her passion and dedication are evident in her truly remarkable career, which has included numerous leadership positions, professional memberships, and awards. Jennifer has brought her visionary leadership to the companies she has worked with and given back to the community as the Chief Operating Officer of The Women in Fitness Association and a member of the supervisory board at Morla Moves. 

Coach360 had the privilege of speaking with Jennifer about the lessons she’s learned along the way, her advice to new entrepreneurs, and the exciting next chapter she’s embarking on with her innovative consulting agency, launching in late 2024, called The Collective. 

My Fitness Origins 

In the late 1980s, my parents began working in the fitness industry as a side hustle to supplement their incomes. My mom taught step aerobics back when they used wooden steps, and my dad worked in various bodybuilding gyms before starting his own. I could either be a latchkey kid or get dragged to the gym. For many years, my sister and I demoed the high- and low-intensity options for the choreography in my mom’s classes. Going to the gym with my dad was one of the only ways to spend time with him. I always liked how my body responded to strength training, enjoyed being one of the only girls in the free weight area, and working out became a source of confidence for me during my teenage years.

Stepping Into Professional Fitness

After graduating, I moved to Toronto and took two short-lived marketing jobs. I got laid off from both, so I took six weeks, got certified, and walked into a SportsClubs of Canada location on Wellington Street in the Toronto financial district. I started as one of the few women on the personal training team.

Personal Trainer turned into Personal Training Manager. I always worked with a talented group of PTs, and the teams I worked with broke records in sales and service. In 2004, I joined the GoodLife Fitness Member Services Department and ran the Personal Training business in many regions across Canada. The Member Services Team was a group of rockstars at the time, and we shifted the focus from selling PT sessions to prescribing PT as part of a lifestyle formula for clients to achieve and sustain their goals. We started a PT advancement program to motivate trainers to raise the bar in their own self-development continually. We paid bonuses on the number of sessions serviced rather than sales commissions. We grew exponentially, broke records, and had a blast doing it.

Challenges And Growth In Europe

By 2010, I realized that I wanted to build my own department from the ground up and was searching for an opportunity to do this. I was invited to a Fitness Congress in the Netherlands to give a presentation about Personal Training in Canada. I was introduced to René Moos, founder of the HealthCity and Basic-Fit club chains across Europe, during that visit. We went to dinner the day before my flight home. He took me to this excellent Thai restaurant and ordered the seven-course menu (SEVEN COURSES!!!). We had a good click, and he had terrific ambitions to grow his club chain across Europe; he wanted Personal Training to be a big part of his business. I told him that he needed to hire me as we were getting our appetizers, and by dessert, we had agreed on my position and package. I moved from Toronto to Amsterdam with my family a few months later.

It’s 2011. Professionally, I had everything (I thought) I wanted. The opportunity to craft and launch a fitness concept, to live and work in Europe, and to learn new languages and cultures. It was a big change, and I underestimated how much an international move would impact my personal and professional life. When the opportunity was offered, I was caught up in the excitement and fantasy of it. The first year was so hard. I was the only native English speaker at the office, one of the few women in senior leadership, and I was juggling being a mum of a dazzling daughter and a wife in a crumbling marriage. I washed my clothes in fabric softener for two weeks before knowing the word for laundry detergent. Cate, my daughter, had a full toilet and sleep regression when we moved. I underestimated the impact on her.

My ex-husband and I endured the first strained year, barely hanging on to our marriage, and then decided to split. There were many moments in the first few years of moving to the Netherlands when I felt very alone and doubtful of myself, my strength, and my abilities. I was in the middle of the tunnel, and I just had to keep on going to get to the other side. I found a great group of friends to support me, and the amazing HealthCity team kept me inspired and engaged. Together we started redefining what the Personal Training business could achieve across Europe.

Pivoting To Digital Fitness Solutions

The journey with HealthCity switched gears when the investors saw a stronger business case for budget fitness. The company split into two brands, and the entire head office switched to Basic-Fit. I had a new challenge: how do you provide fitness services when you don’t have staff? I had the fantastic opportunity to pivot and create a new skillset, moving from developing and defining people-driven services to developing and defining content-driven services on different digital platforms to make great fitness programming available to millions. Looking back on it, I feel lucky to have been a part of this team responsible for so much digitalization and innovation.

My last pivot at Basic-Fit was to step out of the Fitness Department completely and start working on understanding fitness customer behaviour and developing the customer journey for more than 2 million (at that time) Basic-Fit members. I had a small incubator team dedicated to developing the journey, testing campaigns, and reporting insights. This initiative eventually rolled into the marketing department and now has at least three teams managing the different journey phases.

The Birth Of Duende Solutions

That milestone eclipsed my 10-year anniversary at Basic-Fit Health City. I needed a change. We were right in the midst of Covid, Basic-Fit was making cuts, I didn’t want to join the marketing department, so I took a package and left. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted, but I knew it was time for me to start calling the shots professionally. I started my own business to support companies in the fitness sector with their growth plans.

My initial plan was to take six months, defrag myself, get centered on who/where/how I was right then mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically, and make a plan for my next steps. Naturally, the opposite happened. I was two weeks out of Basic-Fit when my first client approached me to step into a fractional role running the Women In Fitness Association as COO. I couldn’t say no; as a feminist, I really wanted the opportunity to make an impact. I was already an ambassador and had co-created a leadership program that we were offering to the WIFA members. I accepted the position and jumped in with both feet.

I lifted my head, and it was 18 months later. The fractional contract had ended, and I still didn’t have a business plan. I had basically treated myself like an employee with my first client rather than really understanding the difference between working for and working with a company. I had another opportunity to hit the reset button and start defining how I wanted to work. I took four months, started working with a coach, and intentionally got to work.

Introducing The Collective

Fast forward to December 2021, and I took on a fractional position with a German Tech company. This time I set clear rules of engagement and milestones: reorganize the department, redefine the key account service strategy, implement both, and pick up the next project.

My second fractional role took nine months, and I rolled right into my third. Each opportunity, I reflected on, got a little sharper with my terms of engagement, scope of practice, working days, and payment terms.

I learned that I really needed to get good at scoping and holding my time boundaries—this is a big challenge for me. As a consultant, if you hire me for two days a week, I need to make sure that is exactly what you get. I am a time optimist, and often the days stretch into each other. This leaves me overextended without enough time to strategically look forward, do my own administration, or conduct new business outreach.

Every time a project or fractional role wrapped, I would find myself feeling a little bit terrified. What next? What if no one wants to work with me? Am I going to be able to earn enough this year? Work is either completely overwhelming or too slow; I can’t deal with the pace change—it’s exhausting. The gremlins were real. In my second year working for myself, I really considered re-entering the job market because I was feeling so insecure. I was able to turn myself around by connecting with a few truths for myself: there is no security even in the job market; I really love the freedom of getting to work with who I choose and on what is meaningful to me; I know that I have delivered great value for my clients and will continue to; I trust in my ability to hustle when I need to. This has turned into my mantra when the gremlins come out. I’m ready for them.

I kept myself out of full-time engagement so that I could pick up smaller projects and start building out my services offered. I wanted to build out frameworks that would be part of my service offerings that I could train other people to work with so I could begin to scale myself. I decided that if I wanted to continue consulting, I needed to build a team. It can be very lonely if you are a company of one.

So here we are in the middle of the next iteration for my company—it started as Duende Solutions. Duende means overwhelming authenticity, which represents my number one value. Duende was a translation of me. At the end of Q3 2024, I will launch The Collective with three powerhouse partners. The concept and the team are growing, and I am really excited and proud of this.

The Vision For The Collective

At The Collective, we help health, wellness, and fitness businesses worldwide break free from the grind and focus their growth strategy. We provide a diverse, global perspective and powerful strategies to help you develop a long-term aligned roadmap, accelerate your growth, and optimise your operations. Our expertise empowers you to seize impactful opportunities and drive your business forward with clarity and efficiency.  Check us out at https://wearethecollective.world/ 

Looking Forward

Here’s what success looks like for us in the next three months. Our biggest challenge with a great network and experience base is not trying to be all things to all people. Therefore, having a clear and short menu of services is essential for us, but this is still a rumble process. We want to be in a position to grow the core team by the end of 2024. That means having a few big mid/long-term projects on the go.

Nothing is more fulfilling than building a business that aligns with my core values and allows me to work with people I admire and trust. This gift drowns out any voices of insecurity that may come up as we navigate the shifts.

Advice For Aspiring Entrepreneurs

The hardest part of starting as an entrepreneur is doing something alone. My advice to those thinking of taking the leap is to find a partner or a core team. Create a safe collaborative environment where you can inspire each other and hold each other accountable. It’s not easy, but the impact you make on the world is truly your mark to own.

Meg Lambrych, RN, NASM-CPT, PN-1
Meg is a registered nurse, personal trainer, and nutritionist with 15 years of experience helping people reach their goals and expand their knowledge. She now works as a freelance health writer, partnering with innovative brands to educate and inspire readers in the digital publishing space.