Pamela J. Brown leads talent strategy for 530 Crunch Fitness locations, hiring 500+ personal trainers a year in an intensely competitive market. But her real superpower? Building leaders who build leaders, opening doors for the next generation, and proving that great people strategy drives revenue, not just cost savings.
In this episode of Talent All Stars, Pamela shares practical wisdom from 25 years of leading people teams across insurance, financial services, and fitness. She breaks down the exact coaching framework she uses to develop leaders, how she built credibility in a brand-new industry by getting vulnerable, and why leading with service creates opportunities that come back to you in unexpected ways.
You'll also hear how Pamela uses AI to audit her own leadership effectiveness, how she distills complex roles into clear hiring criteria (sales, service, science), and what metrics actually matter when you're trying to prove the business impact of your people strategy.
You'll learn:
Connect with Pamela: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamelabr
Follow Multiplying Moves for Pamela’s Thought Leadership: https://lnkd.in/edWard7R
Check out Crunch’s website for great career opportunities: https://www.crunch.com/careers
Connect with us:
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[00:00:00] Pamela Brown: I'm constantly looking for ways to add value to other people, and that comes back in unexpected ways and indirect ways, and I don't do it for something to come back to me. I do it for the love of giving, but it has played a strong role in me being very comfortable in asking for introductions to other people.
[00:00:18] Dave Travers: So what does it really take for your business to attract world-class talent today? I'm Dave Traves, President of ZipRecruiter, and on Talent All-Stars, we shine a light on the people and the day-to-day processes behind recruitment and retention at some of the world's most influential businesses.
Today's Talent All-Star is Pamela Brown, Head of People and Culture at Crunch Fitness. The fast-growing global fitness brand known for its high-energy workouts and its no judgments culture. Pamela brings a sharp data-driven approach to talent leading high-volume hiring across 530 locations. In one of the most competitive frontline environments out there.
There's a lot of value in this episode from how you get others to open doors for you, to the exact script Pamela uses to coach your direct reports, plus how she uses AI to audit her own leadership. So let's dive in. Pamela Brown, welcome to Talent All-Stars.
[00:01:10] Pamela Brown: Thank you so much. I'm really happy to be here.
[00:01:12] Dave Travers: Excited to be here, excited to get fit and talk all about people in HR and culture. Okay, so before we dive into everything where you are now at Crunch Fitness, I want to go back to the beginning of your People Leader journey and your HR journey and say, pinpoint for me, where was it that. Being a people leader really started to feel like, this might not just be my nine-to-five.
This might be a thing I wanna do for my whole life. I love this. When was that moment for you?
[00:01:42] Pamela Brown: That moment for me happened 25 years ago when somebody that I had supported in more of an administrative capacity opened a door for me and. The role that was available was HR and facilities, and I did not have the background, but he knew I could do the work, and he knew I would learn as I went.
And having had that door open for me and having the responsibility for hr right after that moment, I wanted to pay it forward in the same way and really develop people. And at that very same company, I had this opportunity to develop the junior team members. And seeing their growth is really my North Star.
[00:02:22] Dave Travers: So I wanna think about this concept of door opening. It feels so good when someone opens a door for you and tells you you belong. How do you do that for people? Like, I wanna be a person who's seen as a door opener, and I also wanna be a person for whom doors are open. I think we all do. You know, give us the, the secrets on both ends of that.
How do you put yourself out there so that you are a person to whom doors are opened? And as a leader now where you're at, how do you become a door opener for others?
[00:02:51] Pamela Brown: So I think that in order to have people open doors for me, first of all, I try to lead with service. So I don't start with how people can help me.
I start with how I can help other people. And sometimes college students or recent college grads have asked me, well, I don't have anything to offer, so how can I offer my help? And I think that. In the case that you don't have something tangible to offer, you can make things easier for the people opening doors for you.
You can do that by scheduling the Outlook meeting and not waiting for the person that's helping you to schedule the meeting. You can do that by finding out do they prefer email, text, or some other method of communication. I know that my mentees and I have a lot of them, they're best to reach me by text.
So if they find that out proactively and also books the calendar meetings with me, they're much more likely to get my help. So that's my advice for getting doors to be opened for you and also by being curious, taking, coaching, and showing that you're worth the investment.
[00:03:58] Dave Travers: I think the, the reducing as the person to get the door opened for really thinking about who's the person in a position to do that for me and how do I reduce.
The friction for them? Are they super time-impacted? Are they so I can ask for 12 minutes rather than 30 minutes? Or are they, to your point, are they a text person rather than a phone person or an email person? That's exactly right. So now, okay, so I put myself in a position, really think about the person who could open the door for me.
Now you're in this incredible leadership position. You could do this for others. How do you think about that in your leadership role?
[00:04:30] Pamela Brown: So I love opening doors for other people. I look for the people who. Again, we'll invest in themselves. We'll take coaching, we'll grow all of the things that I just gave advice for.
And the way that I go about doing that is by being of service to everyone in my network. Anyone in my network can call me at any time. If you call me tomorrow and say, I need three chief people officers for this podcast, you will have them in your inbox with a warm introduction from me, and I'll pick the best people for you.
So, I'm constantly looking for ways to add value to other people, and that comes back in unexpected ways. Indirect ways, and I don't do it for something to come back to me. I do it for the love of giving, but it has played a strong role in me being very comfortable in asking for introductions to other people.
[00:05:24] Dave Travers: I think that is such incredible advice. There's this incredible book, actually called Influence by Robert Cialdini, where he talks about the power of reciprocity. But two things you said there that really come across as you talk about that. One is that the first thing you said was that I love doing it. And so, and that comes across just as you talk about it.
You can feel the twinkle in your eye. And so, as the person who wants the door to be opened, rather than feeling like you're imposing on a person, you know, think about how do you make it, this person would love to be in a position where to open a door for you, if that makes sense for them. And so how do you make that as easy as possible for the person who's in a position to do that?
And then also to your point of being in service, I think. The whole power of reciprocity is if you put it out there and be of service first, you'll be amazed by how it comes back to you. It won't be formulaic. It won't be one for one. The timing will be very hard to predict. You know, it won't follow a plan, but it will happen.
And so if you put yourself out there that way, it is incredible how that pays itself back over time, a thousand percent.
[00:06:30] Pamela Brown: And also, I would also say about 15 years ago in my career, when there was a financial crisis, and I found myself near a transition because the company I was working for was going into runoff.
I asked someone, I had interviewed for a board position for this exact advice, and so I'm gonna give everyone the benefit of that advice 'cause it helped me tremendously. He suggested that while I was still in my job, that I find opportunities to teach, to speak. To write and to brand myself as an expert, and I absolutely did that then.
And it led to four different job offers at the time the company did go into RA. So the advice was tremendous advice, and today I have my own newsletter, which is just thought partnership, and that's also putting myself out there in a generous way where I get to touch a lot of people and really build some scale.
[00:07:34] Dave Travers: I love that. I think if you give first, you'll be amazed by both how rewarding it feels and by how the giving comes back to you in the long run. Okay. So now one of the things about you though, is not just your passion for this and giving and people and culture, but the fact that you've become a leader.
And so talk about leadership in particular and when was the moment when you said. Hey, doing this and working with people and on people teams might not just be a thing for me. I could be a person who leads others in doing that. How did that come about, and how do you think about that?
[00:08:09] Pamela Brown: So I think that came about in my first HR leadership role from that door that was opened for me, and I always have tried to be helpful to everyone.
And then I remember the head of communications. His office was right near mine, and he was always astounded that I had a line of people outside of my door. And he would joke with me that in his prior lives that HR was a place to stay away from. And how did I always have this line of people outside of my door?
And I think it was in those early days that I realized that I wanted to build leadership capability in myself. But then also. To really impact the company, it needs to grow at scale with everyone around you.
[00:08:55] Dave Travers: So, as I think about building its scale for everyone around you, the thing is that is such a different skillset than doing it yourself.
So it's one thing to have the line around the door. It's another thing to have the people who then walk out your door. Go do that for others, which is where you get that scale. How do you send someone, you know, if you're having people come to you as you're a leader now formally or informally, you're rising early in your career leader, how do you send people out the door, so to speak, or at the end of an interaction so that, how do you convince them to go do what you would do as a superstar individual contributor?
[00:09:31] Pamela Brown: I have seen this online in several different places where a leader isn't a leader until they've created a leader and a leader that's created another leader. So I definitely think about it that way. So, as people come to me for help, even now, I have a team of direct reports and reports of those reports, the leader of leaders.
But in the early days, even when I had no direct reports, I tried not to send people out of my office without critically thinking about the solution. And I would say in my early days of leadership, it was a little bit more rough around the edges, and it's more developed today. So today I would lead with coaching questions.
So how are you thinking about that? So thank you for bringing that to me. Great point. I would compliment them for all the work they did, and then I would ask some probing questions to get them thinking about the answer themselves versus giving them the answer. And that really does build capability. Then I also think it goes back to Simon Sinek.
You wanna start with why? What's their why, so that you can mentor and coach to the style that they prefer and their reasons for wanting leadership. Then finally, I would say that in the beginning it probably sounded like. Why don't you think about this and come back when you have some solutions? I would say that I have a more refined way of coaching now, but I know my mentee from 25 years ago we're still in touch.
She's a successful executive in HR. And she shared back with me that I would always say, come back with solutions.
[00:11:11] Dave Travers: That's so cool. The thing that I think is so difficult for leaders, because you, you often get into the position of being a leader because you're good at your individual job, and so what you talked about is not solving the problem for them, and say, okay, I understand your situation.
Go do exactly this. But the probing question approach, as you laid it out, makes them feel like they got a little help from you. But I'm a capable leader who's now solving problems for myself. And when I get stuck, I have a place to go, but I don't go to just get a strict instruction set that I then go execute.
I'm an independent thinker and leader myself. I think that's a fantastic frame to think about leadership.
[00:11:53] Pamela Brown: I would also give everybody out there two practical tools. One of them is AI. So if you're using AI a lot in your day-to-day to craft your email communications and your AI is personalized and knows you, you can actually ask AI, be brutally honest with me, am I developing other leaders, and how can I be better?
You'll be astounded by the coaching you get for yourself in building leaders. And then the second tip related to AI is I had a team member in a prior life that wanted to give a pretty tough evaluation, and the evaluation sounded to me like they were frustrated. And so I helped that mirror up. That manager and they said, yes, I am frustrated.
And so we helped. We worked together to pull the emotion out of that so it could be a really productive performance conversation because otherwise, if you give the feedback the wrong way. It's gonna have a counterproductive impact.
[00:12:58] Dave Travers: It is such a powerful hack when using AI to prompt first, be brutally honest with me, 'cause the default settings of most AI is to be way too obsequious and way too complimentary. And so if you give the explicit anti instruction, don't do that to the AI, you get much crisper insights. I think that is such a smart way of prompting.
[00:13:21] Pamela Brown: Yes, it's a great point. You articulated that really well. The other way to do it would be to say, how is the other person going to view this response?
[00:13:30] Dave Travers: One of the other things about being a senior leader like you are now is you're not just dealing with people in HR and on the people team. You're dealing with stakeholders across the company. So if I come up as an emerging leader through people, teams, or talent teams, or some other part of the HR world, how do I then start to get comfortable interacting with other senior leaders who have so much expertise in some area that's new to me?
If I need something from them or they're coming to me with some question and it's very legal in nature, very financial, in nature or whatever.
How do you develop those cross-functional relationships as you start to run?
[00:14:11] Pamela Brown: I've loved that question, and I feel like this is an area of expertise for me in my first 90 days at Crutch Fitness. I had not been to the gym in many years, so let me lay that foundation. I got myself to the gym. I got vulnerable.
I actually had to get on a scale in front of colleagues, which was new to me. I worked out in front of colleagues, and I had probably. 1% strength in my body. So lots of vulnerability there, and being in the gyms forced me to learn the language of the business. So I learned that we call new member units or NMU, and that's what it stood for.
I learned that attachment is if people buy personal training with their membership. So those are just two examples I've learned the language of the business, of the sales team, of the personal training team of the front desk. What are their challenges, what do they aspire to? What are the career paths?
And I just got really curious, and sometimes that looks like vulnerability. So it's talking to the salesperson that's been here 20 years and saying, I have 25 years of people and culture experience and zero years of fitness experience. Can you help me be successful? And sometimes, if you just ask that question, people are very happy to help you.
Then also looking for how can I help? What are your pain points? Who are the people who you're lifting up in the organization that I should know? So those are examples I'm modeling for you. The questions that I might ask. And then. It's building those relationships all around the organization. And also a lot of us have tools in our backpack that we got at a prior employer.
So what are the tools that are applicable in fitness that I learned in insurance and financial services? A lot of the financial language will translate. So, using the language I know, but also leading with curiosity with my CFO who has, again, 20 years of fitness experience. What did you learn from Crunch? What did you learn from the prior employer you had in this business?
[00:16:20] Dave Travers: So smart. I think the being opening to open to learning from people with different experiences and expertise and showing that curiosity to learn about the business so that you can speak to them in the language of the business. If you have to go to a sales leader with a people problem walking in and saying, we have a people problem, I want to talk to you about is so different than saying, my understanding is this team is super focused on new member units.
So in the spirit of driving more NMU. I see an issue here like that all of a sudden that leader's defenses are down. Like I have a fellow person who wants to solve a business problem with me. It's not, I'm being taken to the principal's office by HR to, you know, be told what I'm doing wrong. I think that is a really powerful way to use curiosity to open up doors.
[00:17:06] Pamela Brown: And also then there'll be opportunities to look for those early wins.
So what's important to the salesperson? What have they not received from this function before so that I can make sure that I'm under-promising and over-delivering on whatever it is that they need. And then if there comes a time that I need something, they're gonna remember that I was helpful. So there's that reciprocity.
Again, I would say that it's not just reciprocity as well, it's really important that it's authentic. So for me, it comes from a place of wanting to help first. That's served me really well. You shouldn't do it just to be served.
[00:17:45] Dave Travers: Absolutely. Okay, so we've gone a little bit into your background. I want to, I wanna talk a little bit about Crunch.
Now. You've got 530 locations, many states, multiple countries. Talk a little bit about what's the type of talent you need that is specific. You've worked in different industries. What is it specific about fitness and about gyms? What's the type of talent you need? And give us a sense of the scale at which you guys search for talent and need to hire every year.
[00:18:13] Pamela Brown: The highest volume would be the personal trainers we hire about. 500 a year, and that's just for our 31 company-owned gyms. We have a 530 gym network and a big franchise network. So the 500 a year that I'm speaking to is only 31 of those 500. 30 plus gyms.
[00:18:35] Dave Travers: Got it. Okay. And so as you think about your, your highest volume talent need, what is it specific? What makes a great personal training higher?
[00:18:43] Pamela Brown: Thank you so much. Great question. It is someone who gets sales, service, and science. Those are the three bucketed areas that we're looking at. And on the service mentality, there is a joy in getting people healthy and living their best lives. For some people, it's a callin,g and if we can find the people where it's a calling, the science and the sales piece will come.
They're leading with a service heart, and that's really what we love for,
[00:19:16] Dave Travers: If I'm at a leading talent or leading people at another company and I have a high-volume, hard-to-fill role, that's critical to driving my business. I think I hear that, and I'm like, wow, they've really dialed down sales, service, and science, the three core pillars of what this person needs.
I haven't even thought about that as a talent leader. Like I can't distill my hard-to-fill high-volume role like that. How do I go down the path of distilling it so clearly and simply if I haven't done that or my organization hasn't done that before?
[00:19:49] Pamela Brown: First, you could start with your job descriptions, but job descriptions sometimes are dated.
They're not always accurate. So if you're coming new into an organization, I would also do exactly what I did. In my case, it was join a gym and get myself a personal trainer. So I work three days a week, hand in hand for an hour, three times a week, three hours a week with my personal trainer. And there was no better way to learn what was important to the role than doing exactly that.
When I worked in insurance, I actually went to insurance school with all the young salespeople to get my license to see what it is that they go through, and I didn't tell anyone what function I was coming from. I wanted to be treated like any other salesperson. I was able to get my insurance license and also go out on client visits and live the life that they live.
There's no better way to learn the business than to get yourself into the business. And by the way, it's a great way to build relationships with salespeople, with customer service people, and different functions in your organization if you ask them to take you along with them. They'll do it. I've yet to have someone say no, and in the end, I understand their business much better.
[00:21:04] Dave Travers: So valuable. That advice. I think, you know, anytime you're struggling with a talent situation where you need more of a certain type of talent or need to upgrade a certain type of talent going to the customer, whether it's the ultimate customer of the business or an internal customer, depending on the role and working backwards all the way through the organization to then what's our high level strategy?
So smart, because you will learn so much more about the ground truth of what a great personal trainer is by experiencing it yourself and then working backwards. How are we gonna distill this into sales, service, and science? I love that. I love that. Okay, so now that we've talked a little bit about talent, but let's talk about a little bit about technology.
We're all in the midst of this world where technology is being discussed. AI and other forms of technology. There's a million potential new technology things to try. We can't take them all on. How do you think, as you approach next year, what are the one or two or five technology projects to take on from the myriad of options out there that you could potentially choose from?
[00:22:07] Pamela Brown: So, for the people and culture function. I could think about my top challenge, which is recruiting personal trainers, and that feeds directly to top-line growth, so I know it's important to my leaders. So the advice I would give is, first of all, know what's important to your leaders. In my case, it would be the recruitment of personal trainers, and we have to do that at scale, which is the perfect project for AI.
I have learned that a risk in doing so is that you're gonna fill the top of the funnel so fast that it might impact candidate experience if you're not ready for it. So we're planning to start with screening and scheduling before we look at the top of the funnel. That is an example of one plan. And then the other advice I would give to people starting out or more junior talent is always know the dominant priorities of your company.
I've worked for three different organizations in leadership roles in this function. Over the past 25 years and at each company, I could have told you off of the top of my head the four dominant priorities of the company for crunch. That would be accelerating club openings, improving club performance, and always enhancing brand and member experience.
And enriching people and culture, which of course, is the heart of what I do.
[00:23:31] Dave Travers: You are one of the top four priorities of the organization. That's amazing. Okay, so we always end these episodes with a lightning round. So I want you to, you know, you're in Manhattan today, so it's a perfect scenario for you.
You're getting in the elevator. The CEO of Crunch happens to get in with you and says, Hey, Pamela, and you have that 60 seconds until you get up to your floor. You know, I was thinking the other day. How should we be measuring the performance as for 2026, and you know, we think a year ahead, how should we be measuring the performance of the people team? What's the right way to think about that, or how would you respond?
[00:24:07] Pamela Brown: So retention is a huge metric that is incredibly important. We've been actually able to impact that by double digits, by paying close attention and evaluating the different. Gyms bringing members in for leadership training. It changes the whole team member experience and retention grows.
We looked also at a deep look at our benefits with retention in mind, and that work is paying off. And I can't tell you that your senior leaders, your CEOs, presidents CFOs, are going to take notice of that because onboarding people is expensive. Turnover is expensive, and especially in a gym. So I actually did have two different personal trainers when my first trainer left because turnover does happen.
I actually fell off the wagon on my own journey, and I got back to it, but it really hit me that business is at risk when employees turn over. It's more than just the cost of turnover. There's a revenue loss. When there's turnover. So that's my number one metric.
[00:25:18] Dave Travers: I think that is so smart, 'cause you tied that back to business metrics and not just about cost savings as you so eloquently put and made it a story rather than just the data.
Like I think we can make more money if we improve retention. You personalized it, which makes it so much more memorable for a leader. Great executive communication tip there. Okay, one more. Same scenario, you're getting in the elevator. There's the CEO of Crunch. And says, Hey, Pamela, you are the people expert and the talent expert.
I spend a ton of time interviewing. Sometimes it's internal folks, sometimes it's board members, sometimes it's external. Folks, give me your one best tip to be a better interviewer.
[00:25:57] Pamela Brown: Look for the candidates. Why, first of all, what motivates them? And then is that a fit for you? First of all, that's a yes or no that you know early on in the interview.
And if they are, then. Past behavior is your best indicator of future performance. So it's important to ask behavioral questions that aren't just a yes or no, and probing questions. And then here's one that's challenging for me.
[00:26:28] Dave Travers: Really tap into your active listening skills, how to become a great active listener in an interview for me.
[00:26:31] Pamela Brown: I actually had a coach once ask me, when are you good at active listening?
And it caused me to think critically. I realized that when I'm interacting with an introvert, I'm a better listener because what happens is body language, facial expressions, micro expressions, and so you have to be looking to listen and not thinking your next thought. So that question though, led me to realize I have the skill, and so when it's hard for me, I can just tap into knowing I have that skill.
[00:27:05] Dave Travers: I love it. Pamela. It is so clear why you were a Talent All-Star. Thanks so much for joining us today.
[00:27:11] Pamela Brown: Thank you so much.
[00:27:16] Dave Travers: That's Pamela Brown, Head of People and Culture at Crunch Fitness. We'll put her LinkedIn profile in the episode description, and as a reminder, we put the video versions of these conversations on YouTube, also on the official ZipRecruiter channel. And if you have feedback for us or ideas for future episodes, send us an email to talentallstars@ziprecruiter.com.
I'm Dave Travers. Thanks for listening to Talent All-Stars, and we'll see you right back here next time.