She Means Fitness Business (Debra Atkinson)
Explorez tous les épisodes de She Means Fitness Business
| Date | Titre | Durée | |
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| 01 Jun 2022 | Training Women in Menopause? Are You More Ageist Than You Think? | 00:20:05 | |
I think training women in menopause comes with a responsibility. If it’s our mission to serve them, then we’re tasked with the need to call out them… and us… when we’re misfiring ageist messages. 00:00 I think we can agree with this: Age doesn’t matter. It’s ability. But age will matter as long as clients say, and you give validation to: I’m _____ (age) what exercise should I be doing? You look great for your age! I just can’t do that any longer at my age. After menopause, you need to take it easier.
None of the answers to those questions is founded in science or legitimized by anything but years of conditioning and habit. How you answer unless you’re schooled in the science of muscle, bone, fat, and metabolism for women over 40 wouldn’t be anything more than your conditioning and opinion, or maybe a desire to sell something.
We’re not immune to ageism though, especially if you hear a question or statement like one of these are immediately are forming an answer… INSTEAD of stopping the conversation right there and talking about the impression they have falsely acquired. 03:16 The Real Conversation If you’re training women in menopause, you unintentionally could be falling into this trap. And it’s not your fault… until well, now.
Because once you know, if you think like me, if you have the ability, you have the responsibility to change it.
You are either the change or a part of the problem.
If training women in menopause comes with a responsibility to know beyond the basics of exercise prescription (and of course it does), then we have to think more closely about our own use of messages in conversation with clients, including reaching them on social media.
Let me give you some more examples of potential ageism.
Book titles and hashtags and program names all fall into this gray area that takes some dissection.
Younger Next Year #foreveryoung #agingbackwards #aginginreverse #reverseaging #turnbacktime #turnbacktheclock #antiaging
I’ve recently shared (something you want to know more about if you share resources with your audience) C60 Purple Power with my audience. I’m using it (I don’t share anything I don’t use and then share the actual experiment with my audience).
It’s a carbon molecule that has been found to be able to influence many things associated with aging. Among those are not only restoring libido, and mitochondria production, but wrinkles, fine lines, and graying.
So, I wonder, even in that, if I’m ageist if we seek to turn back the clock to a time when we didn’t have gray hair (for me, unfortunately, that would be 26!), or wrinkles… then aren’t we trying to defy aging instead of embracing it? 07:23 Is that ageism? There are other virtues of the C60 product that support energy, vitality, and physical performance improvement rather than accepting a decline that “naturally” occurs with aging. Isn’t that, of course, beneficial to sustain or increase mitochondrial production if it can be done without medication, and simply by exercise, even an intermittent fasting, window, and the support of C60?
Is wanting to age better, ageism?
I don’t think so. I want to hear from you though.
I know there may be listeners who would say that you don’t have a hormone problem if your hormones are flatlining after menopause. You might say, that’s normal.
But… is normal and common acceptable? What about optimal? When did we start saying average is okay?
If it’s possible with bioidentical hormones, use of C60, or other products that are not medication with negative side effects, to have profound effects on your health, is that ageism?
Let’s look at some other words associated with age. 10:23 Neutral or Positive Age-Related statements: Every age Any age Change the way we age Change the way we think about aging, which is the entire philosophy behind Flipping50.
Change the way we age, by the way, is the tag line for the International Council on Active Aging. So, do give credit where it’s due in using it. 11:11 Consider These Positive or At Least Not Negative Phrases: Active aging Older wiser Age is irrelevant (a podcast title by Helen Fritch, by the way, please also give credit) Older fitter stronger – a book by Margaret _______________ Faster After 50 – a book by Joe Friel Proaging
Even hashtags and statements like #nevertooold … when you think about it. The statement makes old, and bad. It’s bizarre if you think too deeply about it. But there is a mild connotation with old being negative.
Of course, the recovery you’ll say is, no, it’s saying you’re never going to be that. But again, that suggests that old is something you never want. And I don’t know about you, but I think we’re not going to win that game. I like to ask questions when I’m with clients that I know the answer to… or at least know the answer to the answer they tell me. 13:33 Actions for You: Review your last 2 weeks of emails, posts, or videos Look for hashtags or statements you made Do you like your message? Anything you want to change?
I’d love to hear from you. And this is a great conversation starter with your clients! None of us realizes we do this intentionally.
The way a woman wants to age is her business. And our goal shouldn’t be to change her. Just to allow the way we each choose to age, and how we choose to get there to be just fine. If we ask, did she have work done? What’s she using?
Or say, I would never do that, or I think she looks so fake… we really should on everyone. I was at a restaurant with two friends recently and when the waitress walked away, one said, “Was that a bad botox job or what?” I didn’t notice it. So therein lies the differences we all have to what is acceptable… but yet, an opportunity to say, if she likes it, then go her! Why not celebrate the woman in a green dress even if you hate green, or the one wearing the mini that you would feel slutty in? If she likes it, she feels confident in it, do we really want to judge?
Whether age or otherwise, training women in menopause will bring you an opportunity not just to change the sequence of exercises and diets for the better, but to change acceptance and peace within ourselves that makes this a better world.
BTW, when you see me do something with an ageist slant, it’s all fair, ask me about that. We won’t make this flip overnight, any of us.
Resources: Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist https://www.flippingfifty.com/specialist More Midlife Clients in 5 Days https://www.flippingfifty.com/midlife-clients
Other Episodes You Might Like: Women’s Fitness, Health, & Hormones | Training Menopause:https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/hormone-course/ 20 Tips to More Midlife Fitness Clients Post Pandemic | #319:https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/more-midlife-clients/ | |||
| 19 Dec 2019 | Tools to Get Clients to Stick With Their Exercise | 00:34:40 | |
Tools to Get Clients to Stick With Their Exercise Clients who stick with their exercise get better results. That’s a no-brainer. We’re clearly not doing well getting that to happen. This episode unpacks things you’ll want to consider to change what happens for your clients, especially those new ones. Dropout rates are consistent over the past 30 years. Adherence to physical activity in a way that it positively improves health and fitness has not improved. Let’s set you on a course that helps your clients stick with their exercise – and makes you a rockstar trainer. My Guest: Nathalie Lacombe is mover, shaker, and joie de vivre giver! She blends her 25 years of international fitness experience with her degrees in psychology and exercise science to passionately connect with fitness enthusiasts and professionals. After a decade as an executive at canfitpro, Canada’s leading fitness education body, she left it all to move closer to family and launch the second half of her career. As a fitness instructor, personal trainer, international speaker, and Yoga teacher her purpose is to enhance fitness adherence and increase the number of people who find joy in being active. Questions we answer in this episode:
Connect: www.nathalielacombe.com She’s on social: Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn: NathalieLacombe Facebook Pro Page: NathalieLacombeFitness Thanks for leaving a rating in iTunes! 1 visit Voice for Fitness Professionals in iTunes 2 click listen in iTunes 3 leave a star rating and a comment 4 know how much I appreciate it! Learn how to attract the MOST lucrative market and KEEP THEM! Click here to learn more about attracting the #1 most lucrative market now and for decades. | |||
| 19 Nov 2018 | 4 Ways to Get More Fitness Clients Faster | 00:17:33 | |
4 Ways to More Fitness Clients Faster Even during the holidays
This is what we call the low-hanging fruit for sure. When you want fast clients to fill your week you need to target those people who want it now. The fast track to more fitness clients is fitness seekers not couch potatoes. You can always add those who need more education or more time to make decisions but they don’t help you grow fast.
They are on line. Know you’re demographic (please, don’t say everybody). Then find out where they get their recipes, find workout ideas, where they connect with friends, or if they love to binge watch IGTV.
You get more fitness clients by giving more fitness tips they love. They will come back for more. To do this you have to know your audience. Is your ideal client fed up with every WOD featuring burpees she can’t do or hates? Is she in constant knee pain and wants to exercise and feel better but limited by painful movement? When you nail your ideal customer’s problem you know what she’s asking Google or YouTube and you can create an answer. What you can’t give in this moment is your philosophy. No one wants to tune in to read a blog that’s preaching at her. If you aren’t thinking about ONE customer you are talking to then you’re talking to no one when you write a blog or create a video. To get more fitness clients you’ve got to be empathizing, using words she uses and making a connection.
When you’ve done all the first three steps don’t leave them hanging! Once you’ve created 3 alternatives to burpees or 4 ways to relieve arthritis pain and move comfortably, then be sure you tell them what to do next! That’s called call-to-action and you think it’s silly but people need to be told exactly, don’t mince words, what to do. Click here for my next video Enter your best email here for my five inflammation reducing foods list Be specific and tell them what to expect. How will it be delivered? How soon will it arrive?
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| 21 Jun 2019 | The Positive Power of Negative Customer Feedback | 00:23:51 | |
The Positive Power of Negative Customer Feedback In this post I’m sharing negative customer feedback. It’s all about how you can increase your business, and improve your customer satisfaction by attending to the customers who aren’t satisfied! People are not used to nice. Let’s just get that out there. They’re used to being taken advantage of and automated responses where you click 1 if, and 2 if… and you never get to a real person. The Advantage of Small If you’re a small or medium business (or a large one for that matter with a dedicated responder) you can win with this kind of customer service. Look, none of us is going to please all the people all the time. But you can learn from them and create an ally by handling sticky situations right. I’m going to start sharing 3 steps to dealing with negative customer feedback. Then I’ll give you 3 very practical ways to do it when you do so you are set up for success. 3 Response Requirements for Negative Customer Feedback
Instead of “no” here’s our refund policy When someone quits, asks for a refund, or cancels a subscription – always a phone call.
Explore the options Understand what you wanted when you purchased/registered Find an alternative that is a good fit
Look, I don’t want to refund you, it hurts! Is there another way I can serve you that is a better fit? Let’s look at that. And if not, I don’t want you in the wrong place for you. What I’d like to learn what attracted you, what disappointed you, and where potentially we can do a better job messaging the membership program in the future. I’d really value your feedback, if you have a few minutes. Sometimes the things you want to avoid become the things you learn the most from. 3 Tips for Making These Kinds of Calls 1) Make sure your customer service front line people know how to positively – and quickly - respond. Give them scripts, and text snippets to use. Don’t assume they know what you’re thinking. If you have complaints, keep those emails, and transcribe those phone calls to use to create responses. One of my customer service team members recently responded with a “here’s our refund policy” and it was a little cold. If I had been on the receiving end, I wouldn’t have liked it either. You know the way to deliver a sandwich of constructive criticism. This is similar. =>Express empathy: I’m sorry that happened. Let’s see if we can resolve this for you. =>Deliver the bad news/refund policy: Here’s a reminder of our refund policy. =>End with a positive: However, every situation is unique and we want to understand what’s happening for you and fix it. Debra would like to talk personally to you. What’s the best phone to reach you and what days and times are good for you? 2) Do it at a time you’re upbeat and ready. For me that’s morning after coffee and maybe a dog walk! It’s the first thing I do in the morning (or the second, right after something I know will be positive!) – if of course that fits with the individual’s time. Even if it’s not though, I will use something like Bombbomb to create a video response or a simple audio message to them via text or email … so if their schedule and mine aren’t aligned for a direct connection right away, I still am reaching out. They hear my voice and or see my face so they know I’m authentically trying to understand them before anything else. In that message I don’t allude to anything more than exploring options, desire to understand what’s happening and request more feedback about her experience. It’s less than a minute. But it gives hope for a neutral not negative conversation. 3) Set your mind: be willing to do the right thing. I will refund if someone is in the wrong seat on the bus. You don’t want an unhappy customer. That can spoil the goodness you have going. It’s draining for you. In the case of a program – say that’s $200, it’s just not worth it when there’s 10 people who ARE right for it. It’s a good opportunity to review:
My Recent Brush with Negative Customer Feedback The customer I just talked to yesterday happens to be a Physical Therapist. She bought the program for herself. By creating a positive problem-solving experience for her, I may have increased the likelihood that she refers the women in my demographic she’s working with in her practice to me. When you can exchange one for many? Yes. You can save a customer who gives negative feedback. You can often create a raving fan in them. Whether they buy or stay or not, they will be impressed if not shocked that you took time to listen. My book recommendations if you’re setting up a system for Negative Customer Feedback: Both above by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval Raving Fans by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles Show notes at fitnessmarketingmastery.com/negative-feedback
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| 16 Sep 2023 | 5 Fall Fitness & Health Professional Business Growth Strategies | 00:27:42 | |
Fall is here! Fall fitness & health professional business growth strategies are also here. What you do now not only determines how you finish this year but how you start the next. The last quarter of your year is pivotal. You currently have enough data for the current year to look back and determine your revenue sources. You can look at your best sellers, your time and energy drains, and best decide where to eliminate, condense, archive or delete. Most of all, you want to know right now where you are according to your goal for each month of 2023. Are you ahead, behind or right on target? And why? Do you know what worked? You always want to have a goal. Monthly, then weekly, and daily. When it comes to a podcast, we have a number of downloads we want each month. The point.. Is only when you know what goal you’re running toward do you know how to get there. If you’re just using “hope” strategy, that usually doesn’t work out very well. Health Professional Business Growth Strategies
Once November hits… it starts and attention spans end
Resources: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/scorecard https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/copywriting-course SEND a message to support@flippingfifty.com if you’d like info about joining the fitness pros mastermind group Other Episodes You Might Like: Fitness Marketing Video Strategy: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/fitness-marketing-video-strategies-get-customers/ 7 Simple Sales Strategies: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/simple-sales-strategies/
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| 02 Dec 2023 | 5 Inspired Reasons to Be a Menopause Fitness Specialist | 00:16:06 | |
This list of why serving midlife women, the why to be a Menopause Fitness Specialist encompasses it all. #1 Reason to be a Menopause Fitness Specialist Legacy. How do you think most women drawn to doing this are midlife or approaching it themselves? Or they're slightly younger and they're working with older women, but a little bit wiser maybe beyond their years and want to really leave a legacy. Really. I mean, women in menopause, in early stages, specifically Perimenopause, are also many of them in the workforce. And they're struggling to get support in the workforce. They're struggling with problems with hot flashes with night sweats, leaving them Sleepless in menopause, in the workplace. So they're not functioning as well. So when you can leap in know, how do I pivot? In order to help decrease the signs and symptoms of menopause. You're helping so many things, you're helping the workforce you're keeping absenteeism down, you're increasing and enhancing productivity, and just overall increasing the life and happiness of a single woman and every woman in her ripple effect. Her immediate family and others who either suffer when when she does. #2 Reason to be a Menopause Fitness Specialist This is a very lucrative market. One of the reasons why we're seeing a surge of title menopause expert menopause and coach, menopause lifestyle coach. Without the education certification qualification, experience, history proven track record. We're seeing a title acquired in minutes but the knowledge the experience level, the credibility and the ability to create consistent, predictable results reliably, is not yet there. And this is where we can give you the formula that has been proven. First of all, based on science of 30 year history and then based on these last 10 years of being proven. And if it wasn't proven, or thrown out, we've dialed it in. It's done for you. And we can stand on our trademark copyrighted property and say, here's what works. #3 Reason to be a Menopause Fitness Specialist Community. You get a community of coaches, and right now an opportunity to congregate with this community and get support with your marketing and your PR, your ways of attracting new clients and of being sure that you're way ahead of them. Asking what's next? What now, when that first program or that first challenge is done these are such important pieces of what you're going to do. #4 Reason to be a Menopause Fitness Specialist Freedom. About 52 million women are in menopause right now. There are women who you're able to work with and set your own time. You get to change and set your own schedule when you're the boss, which is what we want as much and maybe some would say more than the money is that we want freedom and flexibility. It takes a community who can say do you realize what you're doing? Do you realize that you're doing this yourself? Why don't you change that class? Have it at an earlier time, have it in the morning habit at lunch? Don't have it in the evening. You may not attract the same people; they may not be able to go with you. Okay, attract other people who can have the availability that you also have. These things are, are really key. And one advantage of being a flipping 50 Menopause fitness specialist is that you can realize that you too were thinking a little bit crazy and that limiting beliefs are really a piece of what stopped us knowing we can see it so well in somebody else. But when you're in the frame, you can't necessarily see yourself what mistakes you might be making. So this community is really, really key and critical. #5 Reason to be a Menopause Fitness Specialist Last but not least, this market is not going away. So women are going to continually go through menopause. If we can capture them when they're 30 and they're 40 If you get that thriving program going there's no reason why you can't rinse and repeat, keep growing, it's scaling it and expanding to the women you're working with now will be 10 and 15 years old or soon, there will be something else that they need in addition to what you've already given them. For those women who have daughters, younger friends, you're going to be able to attract and expand to them. How can you reach midlife already in better shape. You've got an expansive service but you're not all over the board. You can create a program, drill down deeper that program and offer it in so many different ways. Then expand from that program. Once it's up and running, it's already working. And there you have it. For my Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialists, what would you add? And what about you? Have you got a community? A market begging for clued-in competent and confident professionals? Do you have a future that looks extremely bright where you can develop a niche and serve it exclusively instead of jumping all over trying to be a jack (or jill) of all trades? Resources: Your Business Scorecard: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/business-scorecard/ Marketing to Women Copywriting Course: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/copywriting-course/ Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist™ Course: https://www.flippingfifty.com/menopause-fitness-specialist-program-2022/ Other Episodes You Might Like: Training Midlife Clients | Zone 2 Training For Menopause https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/zone-2-training-for-menopause/ 3 Ways to Coach Menopause Clients Out of Mistakes https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/coach-menopause-clients/ The #1 Way to Reach More New Fitness Customers https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/1-way-reach-new-fitness-customers/ | |||
| 19 Apr 2023 | Should You Suggest Supplements for Better Client Results? | 00:12:01 | |
What if every workout you created for yourself or clients got even better results? Should Trainers Suggest Supplements? What’s your stance on that? I believe that in 2023, it’s still and has always will be food first. Yet, I find it almost impossible for even me who I’d say is incredibly conscious of what I will and refuse to put in my mouth to eat enough and enough diversity on a consistent basis, or to eat all that I would need to in order to make the nutritional needs I have. It’s going to take more to compensate for depleted and overworked soil, sabotaged by pesticides and fertilizer. And as new discoveries are made, about molecules we didn’t know could support human health, do you ignore them or are you curious about how they can help you and your clients? Brought to you by the Flipping50® Menopause FItness Specialist
My Guest: Jennifer Scheinman, MS, RDN, LDN, completed her dietetic internship at New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center and went on to complete her master's degree in Integrative and Functional Nutrition at Saybrook University. Over the past 20 years she has worked at some of the country’s leading institutions for health and wellness, including Hospital for Special Surgery and Optum, where she led the creation of nutrition and health education programs that positively impacted thousands of people's lives. Jen is currently the Senior Manager of Nutrition Affairs at Timeline Nutrition, educating healthcare practitioners and consumers on the latest scientific breakthroughs in healthy aging. Questions We Answer in this Short Episode:
Try It For Yourself: https://www.flippingfifty.com/mitopure Code: Flipping50 on Social: Instagram: https://instagram.com/timelinenutrition Other Episodes You May Like: With Jenn Scheinman on Mitopure: https://www.flippingfifty.com/healthy-aging Resources: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/scorecard https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/copywriting-course
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| 04 Oct 2021 | Why Your Business May Be Stuck: (3) Worst Thing for Productivity | 00:24:57 | |
Having to get things done can either be the best or worst thing for productivity. Some perform well under the gun, others not so much. If you’re in a habit of waiting til the last minute, in other words, you’re probably a perfectionist, here are 3 tips to help you get things done easier without the cortisol-escalating adrenaline rush that may not produce your best work. You’ve got programs and workouts to write. You’ve got blogs, articles, videos to create. You have follow up emails, or cancelled appointments to reschedule. When does it all happen? Well, some things have to happen at the optimal times and others can happen whenever. Once you figure out when you’re most creative so you can schedule the things that require the most brain power, then these will tips come in handy. I’m sharing what I’ve learned and how I cope when my attention-span wanes. You can’t go from 0 to six-figure months randomly getting things done. Here’s how I did it. The absolute worst thing for productivity to do is to open another word document and start a new idea thread. And I try to do it all the time. It’s usually an equally important or urgent task, so I can justify it. So, if I don’t keep a list of what I need done and when and then translate that into blocks of time weeks before that I will focus on that thing, I’ll get to the last minute with too many things on my plate and nothing gets done. Even though I know I do this, it still happens. So, here’s how I handle it. The publishing calendar I create for myself has a block of time every week to work on something due at the end of the month. When I get started on it weeks before I’m the most creative. https://www.flippingfifty.com/getstronger Ready for Resistance If you’re a creative like I am, I resist doing the work I’ve put into my publishing calendar sometimes because it feels like I’m backed into a corner. I have to remind myself that I can still have latitude with the treatment of the topic, and what I use to engage my audience. A creative mind- like so many entrepreneurs have – hates to be put in a box and told to do a certain thing! I never work well like. You know when you go to meetings and people are put into groups or individuals are asked on the spot to come up with something? I don’t perform well during those! I need to go away, get quiet, play with the ideas and then come back to it. Then I love to share. But I’m often a blank for my own work. We Can't See the Nose on Our Own Face That’s why hot seats work so well for me and others! It’s why we do 12 of them in the accelerated 12-week Build Your Business mastermind course. You and I can see someone else’s problem so much more clearly than we can see our own. So, instead of saying, here – work on this and then share your answer during sessions, you just present your problem/challenge/question and other’s brains can go to work on it. That ends up freeing your ideas too. It’s a win-win-win. Everyone involved gets something from hearing the problem, hearing answers from others who aren’t emotionally attached to them, and you get to put them all in your pot and let them marinade for you. The second worst thing for productivity is to make myself work through a longer block of time than my brain wants to focus. Your brain will wander at about 90 minutes and your productivity takes a nose-dive if you don’t take a break. A productive break is an exercise break. Clear your head, increase circulation to your brain. The Western world has done this forever. Those 8-9 hour days and 10 and 12 hour shifts, really do not lead to more productivity. You know how we most-recently know? The pandemic proved to companies that when people are allowed to work at home (most likely with more breaks) they got more done! People were happier. Many companies considered not bringing people back in, or doing so only in limited capacity and allowing people to choose. Sprints vs Marathons While it (at home) doesn’t work for everyone, if you have a job that requires creativity, problem-solving, it most likely is best to work in short sprints of focus and then leave a project and come back to it. Here’s how I avoid the #1 worst thing for productivity – I take myself out of my environment. I do it in two ways:
Worst Thing for Productivity May be Too Much Forced Productivity! This kind of “white space” is sometimes missing from trainer’s days. It’s an old cliché that you’ve got to work on your business, not just in your business. Meaning that you can’t just schedule your training sessions all day and leave no time to develop the business plan and systems. You’ll sink fast. You’ll paint yourself into a corner so busy with clients that you are “too busy” to focus on scaling. You can’t scale one-on-one sessions. Unless you can keep raising rates to $100 and $150 and $200 per session, and get clients to pay it, at some point you’ll be aiming at too small a pool to make that work. When do you work best? When are you most creative? When can you think and focus best? Work Best For me – and most- thanks to cortisol, it’s morning. So, I’ve made two changes in my business life over time.
Productivity an Issue for YOU? Is it that you don’t know which tasks are the highest priority? Or is it that you can’t focus due to too many distractions? | |||
| 07 Aug 2024 | Fear to There | How I Built This Online Fitness Business | 00:46:20 | |
This was seriously from fear to there. I'll share how I built this online fitness business from the ground up. Before you dive in: there were tears. Oh, I had big dreams, and I had no fear of rolling up my sleeves. But I was a midwestern girl from an upper middle income family in a conservative small town in the middle of the midwest. I had no parents engrossed in entrepreneurship or sales. They and I thought I had "made it" when I began teaching at the university. Stable, steady, benefits. Wasn't that the goal? Well for me there was always a desire for more and wondering what was on the other side. What was it like to have a more flexible work life and be in charge of the speed at which you did things?
One of the things few of us show on social media is the struggle. We get right to the good stuff and don't share our low points. They're the curated images that have been air-brushed or full makeup and a "thin" day. When you consider how I built this online fitness business, you'll understand it was ugly and hard and one of the hardest things is no one talks about the mental struggle. Again, we just pretend it was always this way. If I share the good, I think I owe it to you and to me to share the bad, don't you agree? Please let me know how you liked, Fear to There | How I Built This Online Fitness Business Website: https://fitnessmarketingmastery.com On Social: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debraatkinson Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flipping50tv YouTube: | |||
| 14 Jun 2023 | You Will Screw Up! How to Handle Mistakes It When They Happen | 00:37:31 | |
You’re human so how you handle mistakes is a need-to-know part of business. In a word, fast, is the Cliff notes here but stick around for this episode. I wish this is something I’d had to listen to and lean into when I was just starting.
Before I knew that hassles and mistakes and random website updates would happen… you know, all the stressful moments when you’re in a launch and the website goes down or it’s Black Friday week and the cart has a plugin update.
All just stuff.
I’ll share those and a few more mistakes with you in this episode. And most importantly, what we’ve implemented as the SOP to fix things.
Handle Mistakes with Grace (or at least tenacity)
If you’re just starting it may be hard to imagine you’ll make these mistakes. But if you grow, you inevitably will. Or someone working for you will. It’s just the fate of being human. Being human and juggling a lot of things in this life.
If you’re growing you’re probably experiencing these growing pains!
1 Customer service language really matters and it’s not going to happen by accident.
Give them some permission and authority to smooth things over on your behalf.
Can they offer… A free access to a gift you don’t even have for sale? A course they don’t already own?
Make it congruent with why they reached you in the first place!
Make it complementary to what they wanted.
Problem with a “free” thing, give a low cost or “free” thing.
Problem with a paid thing, give them something hidden, invisible, or that you created for just exactly this purpose. Because we all know human error and technology are going to create instances where it just doesn’t work.
2 If it was a tech glitch or a campaign oversight it’s best to have a team member send. You as the owner, unless you’re still wearing all the hats, should have your team member who missed something send the email.
The subject line includes an emoji and says Oops, We Goofed! Here’s this…
Inside, my team member will say, Hey this is “Sam”, you don’t usually hear from me, I’m behind the scenes of all the tech and programs here and you recently received an email with the subject line “xxxxx” and I made a mistake!
He’ll go on to say what the mistake was.. Something that shouldn’t have been sent.. Or was sent at the wrong time… or an incorrect link… but that then for me.. Makes me the good guy still.
He apologizes… and again restates what’s true and that’s it. Super short.. But from him.. Not me.. And explaining how embarrassed he is that what happened…
And it works so well. Often they’ll all comment, even have empathy for him for being so honest and quick to fix it.
If you want to do this, I suggest taking a screenshot, crafting a couple of examples. I had a developer who was great at this and just naturally did it. For my next hire we needed to go over why this was so important that it come from him when there was a mistake behind the scenes. Not everyone you hire will know to do this, so you’re going to help make it a safe place for mistakes to happen, and then train them how to handle mistakes when they do by having this as a part of onboarding training.
3 What if it’s not your fault?
It wasn’t your fault… it wasn’t your team’s fault and it wasn’t your tech.
It was a user-error.
First, accept that your ideal customers having a user-error can provide insight on how to prevent it, make it easier or show you how to be different.
We have people type in wrong addresses, zip codes or .con instead of .com frequently!! Then they wonder why they can’t check out, or why they didn’t get their product or their emails. They even go as far as doing a chargeback which takes you as an owner down a rabbit hole because instead of reaching out to you… they went over the top for a refund. Buyer’s remorse set in, maybe with the knowingness that they did make a mistake but frustration in life led them to just wanting to forget it all happened. How we handle this: I call them. Or video call them. I text them.
Personally.
4. What If We Dropped the Ball? This Mistake Hurts How we handle this: I call them. Or video call them. I text them.
Personally.
It’s Me. I. I’m the Problem its Me.
At this point, someone else might say, how can you still be doing that? But I think, how could I not? It's my business. Every team member is my responsibility that they know how to do their job, know their role, and has what they need to succeed. So, I could have someone else do this, but I don’t think that’s right. There’s value for me in valuing relationships.
Maybe a part of me likes it when someone squeals with surprise that it’s really me. Not every phone call goes like that though. Sometimes people are genuinely mad. No amount of apology or offer to make it right help.
But mostly, I make these calls after. After we’ve refunded, honored a chargeback without a dispute and just call to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry it ended that way and that - if we did - that we dropped the ball and I’m sorry it had to be them that made us aware of the need to make some upgrades behind the scenes.
5 I Handled a Meeting with a Team Member Poorly Resulting in Quitting
The outcome of the meeting was not a mistake. How it happened and why was.
I had let a situation escalate giving too many second chances, and the benefit of the doubt, when a team member was non-responsive to requests to connect. You don’t need to know the details to know this. As I sat at an airport waiting to board a flight on a Sunday afternoon, I had reached the end of a fairly patient streak. I’d been taken advantage of, paid in good faith and the numbers didn’t add up. Essentially, my temper led to words inappropriate and offensive.
Bottomline is no matter what needed to happen and did, no matter what someone else’s behavior was, you and I are responsible for our actions.
I kept hoping he would apologize, make me aware of a reason for the odd behavior, point out the error in charging me twice what he worked, and it just didn’t happen. I used a poor choice of words. He quit within hours, leaving my team member, holding the bag, to cover for him.
How did I fix that? Well, I was already out more than $1000 of time that hadn’t been worked and lower quality work than matched our expectations. Nothing I could do about those. But I also owed the biggest apology to our team member who ended up covering that base until we hired again.
You get better at hiring slow and firing fast when this happens. I also think there’s some growth for everyone when you mess up as the team leader and own it and make it okay to mess up since we’re all going to.
Handle Mistakes in Your Health & Fitness Business Fast
Here’s the bottom line on mistakes:
The painful ones are the biggest growth opportunities.
Resources: The fitness health coaches scorecard:https://www.flippingfifty.com/the-fitness-health-coaches-scorecard/ Menopause Fitness Specialist Programhttps://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/menopause-fitness-specialist/
Other Episodes You Might Like: How to Hire the Right Person for Your Team: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/hiring/Female Fitness Leadership: It Starts with You: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/female-fitness-leadership/
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| 24 Aug 2021 | Still Teaching Multiple Fitness Classes & Sessions a Day? | 00:23:06 | |
Fitness professionals…Are you teaching multiple fitness classes a day online? Running personal training sessions online and doing the workouts with clients? Feeling beat up, exhausted, tired all the time? All the while juggling….
In the past two weeks, I’ve heard all of those. Many of them from the same person. You can’t sustain a life or income stream by doing that. If you go down it all crumbles, right? It’s beyond time to work smarter… and it’s easier than ever There is a way better business model. It’s not just that the 1990s called and wants what you’re doing back. It’s time to let go of limiting beliefs you have about online training. And… it’s your time. There has NEVER been a better time to create something as a solo entrepreneur that serves people, uses your skills and talents without burning you out. Listen, first get this: Health coaching is a multimillion dollar a year industry. And access to classes does not have to be live. Be honest.. have you been correcting people in your class on their form? Really giving them feedback? Then there is VERY little different from the perspective of your customer between a recorded session (that allows them to pause and rewind) and live. The convenience of having access 24/7 so they aren’t dependent on you at a certain time is a WIN for them. A benefit you can charge them for. If they love you, they love you. Let me back up and talk about health coaching again. I began health coaching back in 1995 and raised my rates when I went from meeting clients in person to meeting them on the phone with the convenience of being in my home or traveling when I did it. When I stopped training completely (by then I was only doing 2-3 sessions a week at most anyway) 3 years ago my 50-minute personal training sessions were $100 while coaching is about $300 per 50-minute session for one-on-one. When I do a group I make $500-700 per session. If a group didn’t reach that revenue I’d either cancel or we’d look for a few more participants. Why Do One-on-One But I don’t even do one-on-one anymore except for a handful of professional women I love to work with. Because I can’t afford to. A group coaching program triples my hourly revenue but even then, managing a business that brings in 6 figures a month means that my time may be more valuable spent elsewhere. When I do it because I enjoy it, I’m in the comfort of my own home or in a hotel or with my mom. I have an online business. Most people have no idea what that means. You might hear it and think that means I’m a personal trainer delivering one-on-one sessions online. Not ever have I done that. Not once. What Does an Online Business Look Like? Here it is. Yes, I’ve been a personal trainer, medical exercise specialist, strength and conditioning coach with all the certs… yoga, Pilates…. For years. But I’m not doing it daily. I’m not even doing it weekly unless I’m launching a new program. Even then, I often don’t need to create a new workout, I can use pieces of prior programs. It’s all there! So, I’ve created programs once…. ONCE. And sold them for years. I’ve put thousands of women through them for $97 - $249 and then they go on to do the next thing, I’ve also already created once and sold hundreds and then thousands of times. And so can you. I laugh when trainers say my Flipping50 Fitness Specialist course is more expensive than most. Whatever you’re thinking of doing with it … you’re thinking too small, my friend. You no longer have to think about the people within a 25-mile radius who will be willing to drive to you. You don’t have to wonder if people will show up for your 4 o’clock class. Since 2020: Fitness Has Changed Fitness has changed for fitness professionals. It’s become convenient for consumers. They can choose from anyone in the world. Don’t let that scare you, because most fitness professionals don’t spend time getting to know and care about their customers. They don’t polish their communication and marketing skills. They don’t know how to write copy. But you can. If you’d like to learn more about how to do that… And how to promote that so you aren’t lost in the sea of trainers, health coaches, Pilates and yoga instructors, and barre classes available… all online vying for the same customers right now… Then I encourage you to take a step. Step I First, register for the 5-Day Build Your Business bootcamp to grow your business. It’s the start of growing your presence, your confidence, your clarity about your message. If you’ll commit to yourself and your business for 5 days, you’ll have the process that’s grown my following to over 200,000 women in my niche, who then join my email list, who then join programs. Wherever you are in your process of starting, growing, or scaling your business so you don’t have to do everything personally or physically and finally can have freedom and health you’re teaching others to have… in order to get a change, you have to change. Step II Next, if you work with midlife women, register for the Flipping50 Fitness Specialist course. This month you get a complimentary Marketing to Women Copywriting Course with your purchase. If you’re worried about the cost, you and I need to spend time together so you understand how to make the single sale that pays for that and then keep doing that over and over again. We’ll do that with a virtual conference late fall to help you outline the business – and the life with freedom – you want. Links to Resources: 5-Day Build Your Business Bootcamp Marketing to Women Copywriting Course
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| 26 Jul 2023 | When and How to Share a Personal Challenge Publicly | 00:22:25 | |
If you haven’t wondered how to share a personal challenge with your community or clients, you probably will. Life is full of them and there’s one that’s bound to be one you keep to yourself for a while but that in fact maybe you can’t. It could be physical and impossible to hide if you’re on camera or in photos regularly. No matter what…
There’s a right time and way, so this episode dives into how to share a personal challenge publicly. There are lots of reasons this might come up. You go through a breakup or divorce, especially if you’ve shared content that includes your family. You have a health issue. There’s a tragic death in the family.
The Best Times to Share There are things to consider that may help you decide when to share if you have that luxury. (Remember you may not always if it is something physical).
You may recall a recent podcast episode I shared early in 2023 after interviewing one of our Menopause Fitness Specialists, Amy. (Link to both the Flipping 50 and the She Means Fitness Business podcast in the show notes today)
Could Sharing a Personal Challenge Backfire? Sharing too much could blur your own personal and professional boundaries. It can be a challenge to make the distinction if you are the brand. Is your name in your brand for instance? Then it’s you, right? I chose carefully to have a Brand name that was saleable later. Though I’m the brand for now, it has a mission, a message, and a project that are all trademarked.
I know a friend who as recently as 2016 was struggling as a divorced, single mother who took her kids camping so she could Airbnb her home to make the mortgage and in 2023 is traveling the world and thriving. To tell her story, revealing her name would be wrong. It’s not my story to tell. It also may be a story she doesn’t tell for another decade because it may be too recent, and may change the way her audience feels about her.
When I was living in a town of 50,000 and everyone knew me because I’d been a fitness professional in private gyms, churches, universities, and corporations, published a weekly column in the newspaper, hosted a radio show… I was very private. My personal life was my personal life and customers were customers.
When I shared my personal story in my TEDx talk, it was years later, I was speaking collectively to the world, not to a small group of next-door neighbors. So context is something to consider. You’ll know when you consider how it will make you and your family feel.
Other Episodes You Might Like: Being Healthy Enough to Beat Breast Cancer: A Trainer’s Story: https://www.flippingfifty.com/beat-breast-cancer/How to Be Healthy Enough, Profitable and Successful Enough: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/successful-enough/Resources: Marketing to Women Copywriting Course: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/copywriting-course Health & Fitness Business Scorecard: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/scorecard My TEDx Talk: https://www.flippingfifty.com/TEDx/
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| 28 Dec 2021 | The Top Fitness Marketing Podcasts of 2021 (and all time) | 00:11:25 | |
This episode is a countdown of the Top Fitness Marketing Podcasts of 2021 (and All Time). I couldn’t resist throwing in some that are huge standouts from prior years (this show is in its 9th season)! You can find the episodes at fitnessmarketingmastery.com, Apple podcasts, iTunes, iHeartRadio and anywhere you listen to podcasts. In true David Letterman style, which is what any self-respecting Iowa girl would do, here we go! The Top Fitness Marketing Podcasts of 2021 (and all time) #10 Why You Don’t Want Your Social Media to Go Viral #272 Shocker right? Why don’t you want your social media to go viral? I lay it all out here. It may be an eye opener about a number of other goals you thought you had that aren’t serving you. #9 Fitness Marketing in Less Time: How to Get It All Done The most precious thing you have is time. If you’re doing busy work constantly, chances are you’re not getting it all done and you’re not doing it well. #8 How to Get Results on Instagram Without Wasting Time If you’re using Instagram, you want more than to see your own brilliant pictures or REELs. You want engagement, and to grow your email list. #7 Is Passive Revenue Too Good to Be True? If you are new to or a stranger to affiliate marketing, this is your introduction. Revenue in your jammies is not an impossible wish. Just what and how do you do this though? #6 Do You Pay Yourself First? It’s a big question and it’s often not the first thing considered by a health coach or personal trainer. The dollar per session may sound good, but when you factor in travel, time, writing programs, doing all the things…. If you haven’t learned to automate… then this. Take your business further faster with less time in 2022. Continuing with the Top 5 Fitness Marketing Podcasts of 2021 [Seeing this on another platform? Link to the show notes for the links to all podcasts from the countdown: fitnessmarketingmastery.com/top-podcasts #5 2020 My Systematic New Fitness Client Process This is by far one of the most popular episodes. It’s clear you want help structuring a system to work with clients and deliver excellence as you set up your business. Here’s how to set up yours. #4 Start and Grow Your Menopause Coaching Services If you run menopause fitness coaching services or want to, this is for you. Do you know the difference between training a woman 50 and one 70? Between a woman in perimenopause and post? Do you know what triggers belly fat and hot flashes and how to adapt an exercise prescription that improves her flashes? Here's an inside look at how to be the go-to-authority. #3 Taking Care of You, Personal Trainer & Coach Business Plan This episode content came from my observations and conversations with female health coaches and fitness trainers and business owners who are intelligent women doing things they’d never be able to – or allow – their employees to do. If you’re overworking, underpaying yourself, operating with a schedule that doesn’t mimic what you tell clients to do… this is for you. #2 4 Steps to Create Fitness Marketing Videos Video is still and is always going to be king and queen. So, this episode coming in at #2 is no surprise. You know you should. You are. You want more success doing it. Help is here! #1 Are the Words You Use Costing You Customers? If you’re not in your customer’s head, heart and thinking and feeling like them, it’s going to be very difficult to support a “yes” decision when it comes to getting started with you. Chances are if you haven’t created your programs with that same unique slant you’re going to struggle to make programs they love and experience wins doing. Did you know there are 5 unique buying personas of female buyers? So even if you’re trying to reach women in their 40’s they aren’t all going to respond to the same words (or images). This episode will help. Resources Mentioned: | |||
| 02 Jun 2019 | SEO for Fitness Businesses | What You Need to Know | 00:23:37 | |
SEO for Fitness: Can Customers Find You? SEO is not a sexy topic compared to fat burning, health coaching, and suspension training. Without it though you will be missed by those customers who want your services. Why waste time thinking about your logo, colors, and the words on your pages if you don’t optimize your “findability” factor. This episode is all about how to make you the one they find when they’re looking for answers. And they are looking. There’s proof everywhere that SEO can be powerful if it’s done right. There’s good news in this episode. You’ll like the path to better SEO for fitness businesses. My guest is Alec Gorjestani, an engineer who has been writing all kinds of software for 16 years. From automated vehicles to mobile to web software, he likes to build things. His wife is a Zumba instructor so he’s got an inside glimpse at what fitness pros do like to focus on. Alec runs a business and understands the unfun tasks that are required to run a business and help people find wellness options they’re looking for. He’s committed to helping you do just that. We dive into what Fitness Pros Need to Know About SEO. Questions we cover in this episode: Is S.E.O. dead? What is it? How can you organically increase SEO? How are many websites overlooking simple things they can do to support SEO? What are the next level steps in SEO for fitness businesses? What questions should a business owner be asking developers or tech staff? (that they don't know to ask) – Alec gave three tips! Don’t miss those! Where should you be looking to know how well you're doing with SEO for fitness? Google Search Console How long does it take, given the SEO for fitness tips are implemented, to see a boost in SEO?
Connect with Alec: Offeringtree.com/debra | |||
| 22 May 2020 | Open for Business: What You Can Sell Right Now | 00:12:04 | |
You can sell right now. You can do it without being insensitive or tone-deaf to what’s happening. You need to do it with that frame of mind. There are plenty of people who seem completely blind to the fact we’re in a pandemic and everyone is making buying decisions from a unique perspective. You don’t want to be one of them. This podcast is for trainers, coaches, and owners who are attempting to take their business online, and who are in early stages of reopening, or those about to reopen or take their business in a new direction. The things I’m going to cover are:
Your customer’s needs right now are unique and different than they were 8 weeks ago. If you’re still talking about weight loss, they may be talking about sleeping. If you’re still talking about toning those arms for summer, they’re talking about how much vitamin C to take. If you’re still talking about core to get a flat stomach and bikini body, they’re talking about how to prevent stress-related back and neck pain. Know Your Competition It’s now the world. Everyone is online. By that I mean every trainer, fitness instructor, health coach. Are you better? More charisma? More unique? Have you established loyalty? But I also mean every news broadcast, and Netflix-binge-worthy season, and zoom free-for-all you can imagine. You’ll win if you’re serving. That means you’re serving in a way that they’re looking for. Don’t think that because you’re down the street if they were driving in their car or coming in during their lunch hour they need to go to your site or your social media page. Do you really offer an answer that they’re searching for right now? Some businesses are afraid to email. They hesitated to create content talking about immune boosting habits and how to deal with stress and get better sleep. They missed early opportunities to round up experts and communicate regularly. It's Not Too Late That doesn’t mean it’s too late. We’re going to be in this for a while. There are still problems there aren’t enough solutions for and that means there’s still opportunities for you. You’ll win by not being tone-deaf like thousands of other fitness pros that are using the same advertising strategy they had two months ago, ignoring the change in climate.
Do You Believe No One Is Buying Right Now? Is your customer really not buying now – or are they just not buying what you used to sell? Most likely they’re not buying what you were selling 2 months ago because they don’t have the same problems they had 2 months ago. Are you still trying to sell something that made sense pre-COVID19? Or have you created services that support this moment and these needs right now? Customers have new problems. They still have needs and they’re still looking for solutions. Not everyone is not buying or not able to. Some just aren’t buying because no one is offering them a “right now” solution to the “right now” problem they have. They want less stress, less tension, more energy and better ability to sleep. They want immune boosting exercise. They want it for less. They can’t buy your EFT 3 times a week program but they might buy a six-week program with accountability. They want a program that they can do at home if they have to or want to. They want a routine and schedule. They need accountability more than ever. And they know it. This Won’t Last Forever Fitness is forever changed. It’s not going back to the way it was. Not in Scottsdale, Arizona. Not in Boulder, Colorado, and not in Ames, Iowa or where ever you are in the world. It will look different. But it’s anybody’s guess as to how. You can be a part of creating it as it unfolds. If you’re the one asking customers you’re on the front lines of business rebuilding. If you don’t sit back and wait, if you listen, you’ll be leading them. You will eventually be able to sell something more and you will when they’re ready. They’ll want to buy from you. How Are You Communicating? Have you changed the way you talk to customers? Have you changed the message you’re sending to them? Are you helping them understand there is a unique way to use your services- potentially new not same services – now, that helps them get what they want and need now? And are you pointing out in your messaging that it’s not their fault they don’t know how, or may not have realized they’re making mistakes following the same exercise routine they had 2 months ago? Ask them. Listen to them. Tell them you’re creating something for them. Tell them you’re not just trying to take what you’ve always had and shove that down their throats. Change your conversation. Talk about how to feel good. (They’ve had it up to here with stress talk. They know they’re stressed, start telling them how to relax.) Tell them you’re listening. Tell them you’re creating something based on their responses. Then do. Not based on what you’ve always sold in times that were predictable but based on right now and what they need, want, and deserve right now. There you have it. 1) If you want to sell something now, start communicating. Put out a quiz, a survey, a poll. Ask customers what they most need now, what’s the hardest. I can give you a hint at what my customers tell me and that’s routine, a schedule, some anchor in the day and the week. Work with that. 2) Create something new, something now. Create a mini-series. Create a solution to a problem. Worry last about how to create it. Most often in the past if you’ve been lucky and made the mistake of creating services based on equipment and space instead on the problems of people, you’ll have to change the way you create your business. You’ll start building a stronger business based on people. 3) Price it and offer it in a way that makes sense for the time we’re in and still allows the touch someone needs. If this was helpful, leave a comment and subscribe in iTunes (or on Stitcher or iHeart radio). Make a difference. Stay strong at home. | |||
| 30 Nov 2021 | 6 More Ways to Increase Your Fitness Sales This Season | 00:18:30 | |
Rest assured; I’m going to give you 6 more ways to increase your sales this season. But I’m going to do it a little backhandedly. That is, I’m going to share why your marketing ISN’T bringing you more sales. These are six reasons why too many fitness pros are striking out when it comes to social media, or any marketing for that reason, and what to do about it.
Posting generic information that another fitness professional can post, you need to ask why. There are currently about 375,000 trainers in the US alone. Yet, keep in mind no one is restricted to training with a trainer “locally” anymore. I’ve worked with clients in Italy, Trinidad, UK, Australia as well as all over the US recently. Personal training is expected to grow by 39%. That is, the number of trainers, not necessarily the number of clients. Now, what’s happened during the pandemic? Big chains, medium and small ones are losing 2 to 5 trainers at a time right now because there are not enough clients to go around. There aren’t enough members coming back in. That doesn’t mean they’ll all be successful with online businesses. Either way, be the unique one serving the niche you serve better than anyone. Get press, get partners, get wise on social media strategies and then use them, every time.
Posts about random health habits for the holidays are generic commodities. What deeper layer can you provide that shows understanding of exactly what emotions your customer has during the holidays? Are the emotions excitement and desire to toss abandon to usual health habits to have pleasure? Is it fear of gaining weight and losing control? Is it a depressing time due to emotions of holidays past or losses? You can’t know how to help them if you don’t focus on what they feel and think at this moment. You also can’t do a post so inclusive that you target someone who is depressed and someone who loves the holidays in the same piece of content. You’re doing it again – trying to serve everyone all the time. That level of marketing forgets what really works, targeting one individual.
You have to know what works and toss the rest. What are the results of your digital ads? How many visits to a landing page and from unique visitors, how many sales? You have to track your conversion rates. On social, how many website clicks result from your posts? How much engagement matters too, but if you’re not moving them off social to your email list, what’s the point? Email is where you nurture and sell. Those are the people interested in real help and support.
Get to the answer within seconds. Whatever your title or image promises to deliver. Do it. No long bumper or talk about the show or anything but the thing you promised in the title that was so juicy it got them there. If you’re on a live and you wait “until a few more join”? and I got there on time? You’re wasting my time. So, start when you said you’d start. YOU should join early if you want to wait a few minutes to dive into material, but it is maddening for busy people or just prompt people when you ignore them in favor of the latecomers, or when you don’t just give me the info you promised before some long prelude.
It’s easy to think they need to know who you are and launch into years of experience or degrees. They don’t. And for that reason, they’ll choose a stranger who has simply been a fitness enthusiast for years, happens to have had good luck and next to no training if they get a quicker answer than listening to a dissertation about your background. There’s a place for it but don’t lead with it. There they are - a backhanded way of finding 6 ways to increase your fitness sales this season. I’ll link to previous episodes where I’ve shared others. Do you make any of these mistakes? Choose just one and change it first before you try the overwhelming task of changing them all. If you’ve felt like you just can’t understand why what you’re doing doesn’t work, these may give you the ability to see it. Other Episodes You May Like: What to Say to Close the Fitness Sale 10 Social Media Tips that Work for Fitness & Health Professionals | |||
| 11 Nov 2023 | 3 Questions Away from Better Productivity | 00:35:37 | |
Let’s be super clear. Better productivity is about getting more done in less time. THAT last little detail is very important! Ever finish a busy day feeling like you’ve not really gotten anything knocked off your list that was important? You’re 3 questions away from better productivity! There are plenty of reasons why this happens. I could lose 2 hours easily on Canva creating a single elaborate post for Instagram. I love to play with graphics and words and I’m good at it. That doesn’t mean I should be doing it before other things. There are certain things we love to do and we’re drawn to them for one reason or another so we could be distracted by something unimportant all day and not really ever get to the things that matter. In this time we’re in we all have so many things we want to do and that can fill our time. You have to remember that while you’ll have times when you do need to roll your sleeves up and do the work, you have to find the white space too. That is the time when you’ll be most creative and inspired and without that, girl, your light will go out. Don’t let that happen. 3 Questions to Better Productivity: · Does it generate revenue immediately? · Does it generate leads immediately? · Does it just matter today or will it matter next year? There’s more though. What’s the MVP of anything you’re doing. That is, the Minimum Viable Product. And is that enough? If this is an evergreen product you’re going to use for years and you are sharing with your partners, then your MVP is going to be far higher and require more time and energy. But if this is a quick lift to something that is a one-off… then a lower MVP, say for a handout or a cheat sheet at a masterclass or a surprise asset in a zoom for coaching clients, might be enough. Here’s an example of my Wednesday in real time. Tasks I had to do: · Post on Instagram · Complete promotional content for 3 products for our affiliates · Review our Team SOPs for the month · Review our new podcast manager’s posts · Work on next month’s Gift Guide · Create the Recipes & Challenge for our Membership · Reorganize some content within our membership The real question may not be where on a to-do list these things go but whether you should be doing them. If you or someone on your team are doing a lot of tasks that don’t lead directly to revenue or lead generation (aka, growing your email list), then how are you measuring successful completion of job responsibilities? Every position should have a list of success or KPIs, that the hired agrees they will be able to complete and they will report weekly to you. This makes it easy to have them begin determining their own questions for better productivity. If it’s not going to help them achieve the measures of success for their role, then they should think twice about doing it. If it doesn’t generate revenue or leads but increases expenses, they should think about that. The numbers don’t lie. So, in your weekly goal of spending more productive but potentially less overall time, you have to be deferring to numbers. Know the revenue from a promotion, leads generated per lead magnet or freebie, and your email list growth. So, let’s come back to this list of questions you can use to determine whether something that needs to be done should be done by you. 3 More Questions to Ask that Will Lead to Better Productivity: · What is your time worth? · How much would you have to pay someone else to do this job? · Could someone else do this better than you for less than you? *I have to admit this so in case you too do this, while I was making the notes here, and including the list of things to do, I wanted to continue to add to it. Stop yourself from doing that. You know just because there are 24 lines on a yellow legal pad, you don’t have to fill that entire page that says Monday. And there’s an infinite number of slots on a spreadsheet if that’s what you’re using. Don’t do that. Consider that you are an employee. What would they say if you gave them all that for a day? Goodbye comes to mind! Questions about pricing, offers, how long a funnel to promote a program? These are all answered in real time in hotseat format with the WELLPROS mastermind & mentorship. Last week after the first session, a member reported she had two new sales and 6 consult appointments booked within 2 days of the meeting. Right now, you can still join for the Founder’s Rate of $49/month (regularly $79) – extended one last week. It’s month-to-month, no obligation. If you’re getting the answers, putting them into action and getting results you’ll want to stay and rinse and repeat. Resources: WELLPROS mentorship group: https://www.flippingfifty.com/store/uncategorized/fit-pros-health-coaches-monthly-membership-founder/ Your Business Scorecard: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/business-scorecard/ Marketing to Women Copywriting Course: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/copywriting-course/ Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist™ Course: https://www.flippingfifty.com/menopause-fitness-specialist-program-2022/ Your Business Scorecard: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/business-scorecard/ Other Episodes You Might Like: How to Stop Being So Busy So You Can Be Productive https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/busy-be-productive/ The Productive Fitness Professional: How I Get More Done in Less Time https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/productive-fitness-professional/ Get More Things Done – Right – with a Quality Hire https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/get-more-things-done/ | |||
| 05 Jun 2024 | Rising from Unknown to Online Success: Building Your Brand Presence | 00:38:05 | |
Building your brand presence is a series of things that make YOU not another trainer or coach but THE recognizable one that attracts your ideal client. For many of the trainers and coaches I’ve seen just starting out, this is the missing piece in designing a life and business you love. But there are 3 ways you might get stuck building your brand presence: .
Today’s guest is rebuilding her own. She’s pivoted at 50 as many women do to something more soul-satisfying and that had the prerequisite of gaining the life and professional experience you have now. If this sounds familiar, and your midlife flipping your focus or really digging in, I think you’ll love this. My Guest: Jenna Capozzi brings over 30 years of C-level executive experience, having led innovative projects for global brands such as Samsung, Target, and BMW, and produced notable films and TV shows. Transitioning from Hollywood to empowering the next generation of leaders, she leverages her extensive background to guide individuals towards impactful leadership with Forte Femme. Jenna dedicates herself to mentoring individuals, emphasizing the importance of community support and personal growth. Her mission is to nurture leaders ready to make a significant difference, utilizing her vast achievements in entertainment and advertising, coupled with her passion for helping others achieve their goals with confidence and clarity. Committed to the idea that leadership and purpose are crucial for lasting change, Jenna aims to support emerging leaders in making a meaningful impact, by building an audience and assisting others on their journey. Questions We Answer in This Episode:
Connect with Jenna: Social Media: Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/jennacapozzirutgersson Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jennacapozzi_forte Other Episodes You Might Like: ABCs of Branding: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/abcs-of-branding-your-fitness-business-for-more-business/ Facebook Ads Strategy: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/facebook-ad-strategies/ Resources: Business Scorecard: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/scorecard Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist: https://www.flippnigfifty.com/specialist
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| 10 Dec 2014 | Your Best Professional Year | 00:24:29 | |
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. All to overused and yet all to infrequently applied. You have the best of intentions. Yet, intentions aren't actions. As a fitness professional in almost any environment, whether you are a solo entrepenuer or you are a manager/director of a fleet of trainers, life gets in the way unless you plan. The creative professional, that trainer who likes working for him or herself is the enemy as well as the asset. As a "creative" you have more ideas than time to implement. You're amazing ideas often don't ever get implemented. Here's how to harness the idea factory you are while handling day-to-day fires and time commitments. At the end of the year you'll have been much more productive with a publishing plan that includes marketing and life activites that make the work worth it.
For more information: https://www.voiceforfitness.com/bestyear Subscribe to the channel for new videos Https://www.youtube.com/voiceforfitness For more fitness professionals marketing and selling without selling tips: https://www.voiceforfitness.com/fitprosolutions
We’re social
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| 10 Jul 2020 | Fitness Business Lies: The Know, Like, and Trust Myth | 00:13:47 | |
What’s the Know, Like, and Trust Myth? The fitness business lies you’ve been told weren’t always lies. They’re often carefully hidden in a partial truth. At one time they may have been true. Right now, during corona, and in the future after the pandemic is under control, there is one specific myth I want to tackle here. It’s this: Customers need to know, like, and trust you. If you’ve been in business and done a little marketing homework, that’s what you’ve been told.
The customers who will buy from you need to believe they are like you or you are like them. They have to see themselves in you. Even if they aren’t there now, if you ignite or reignite some desire they have, then you are closer to creating a fan, a follower, and a customer. Three Types of Customers
This last group needs a lot of nurturing. It’s your job to make sure you have content for each of those types of avatars. The first group is ready to join you and take action. They want to start you just need to give them a simple point of entry. How do you increase your “Like” Factor Faster? Share you. Business is getting personal. Think about it. You’re in people’s living rooms, kitchens, and ears. With the increased likelihood you’re doing business online if you’re going to stay in business, you need your content to feel like it’s on that intimate level too. A cold, quote unquote, professional presentation is not going to warm up a cold audience. A Story about Getting Personal I had a customer last year reach out to me. She wanted to join my membership site but she couldn’t afford the single payment. She wanted to know if I could split it so she could do the more economical annual payment but split in two. She explained her circumstance. She had a young adult daughter with Down’s Syndrome, she was working full time and trying to juggle selfcare with it all. I called her personally. Her daughter heard me leave the voicemail and ran upstairs to tell the mom that someone called, and she thought she recognized the voice as someone she knew. It turns out the daughter was also doing the workouts with her mom. You may or may not know Down’s Syndrome patients also have weight issues that predispose them to health risks. That’s the kind of personal reach you want to have. If you ever called and talked to customers live they feel like they know you personally, not just as some authority figure. Ways to do this:
Leave your professional, cold voice at home. No one wants it today. They need connection with people not a business. If you’ve done okay doing it your way with cold, professional, made-up, dressed-up content before this, try getting real. You’ll accelerate the connection and improve your know, like, and trust factor in a much more authentic way. Last Note You may have imposter syndrome and think you have to convince people of your qualifications and justify why you by being falsely “professional.” For others it’s potentially not the first thing of importance. They want connection. Resources: Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist
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| 28 Apr 2023 | 7 Things I Wish I Knew Sooner | Health & Fitness Coaches | 00:34:31 | |
What I wish I knew sooner that 39 years has taught me. 1) It's about them not about you. Marketing, emails, speaking would have gone so much better so much sooner had I realized this. Heck, teaching at the university would have gone better because that too is selling from the minute they step foot in that classroom to the minute they turn in the final exam. 2) As soon as you start listening to your heart, things will fall into place much faster and doors will open for you that wouldn't open for anyone else. Connecting your mind and heart, or your “gut” are big keys to success in business. You know the right thing to do.. Just remind yourself of that. 3) When you are triggered by people or circumstances, or you're uncomfortable... what it means is you recognize parts of yourself that you don’t like. There’s a measure of truth to it for you that hits too close to home. 4) When you have things you just "have" to do... "have to eat" "have to exercise" .... they are running the show and not you. 5) There will always be hard things, if you build it that way. If you don't start with the idea that there are things only you can do and identify them, you're identifying the things you can first hand off to someone else. For the freedom you want this is a must. 6) Consistently -doing the right thing - pays off. Do any of these things I wish I knew sooner resonate with you? I have one last one to share. 7) You truly have to be willing to invest in yourself for anyone to invest in you. Resources: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/scorecard https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/copywriting-course Write me! What are your personal “things I wish I knew sooner”? Other Episodes You Might Like: Recession-Proof Your Business: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/fitness-marketing-secrets/ Stop Overworking and Under Earning: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/overworking-and-under-earning/ | |||
| 14 Dec 2021 | How to Make Small Talk Matter Big Time | Say This Not That | 00:13:05 | |
Love or hate small talk, you can make small talk matter big! Here’s how to take the most benign questions and turn them into an opportunity to showcase your work in a way someone becomes intrigued by you and wants to hang with you longer. If you’re an introvert, I’ll bet you can relate to this. You end up at a party or mixer, not knowing anyone very well, and wishing you didn’t have to show up but knowing it’s supposed to be good for you. You dread that small talk and the feeling that your responses to questions are lame. Not anymore, my friend. First of all, I want to address the fact that if you are indeed an introvert, you’re not alone. Did you know? More of us in fitness and health are than aren’t. Many professional speakers and actors are introverts. Still, it’s like required reading. You’ve got to do it. Where to Make Small Talk Matter Big
And so many more!
They’re questions that are likely to come up during holiday parties, in Zoom breakouts, and at fitness conferences. The way you answer could be the difference between, “oh, cool,” and the start of a relationship with a new client or a collaboration with a new company or partner. Here’s what you’re not:
Why? Because it either means nothing to the listener or it means what they think it means. Why? Because whoever you’re talking to knows at least one person if they aren’t that person who needs and wants your services. Are you going to let that get away? Have you imagined what it would be like if the owner of a company said, I’d like to do this for all of my employees, could we work together on something that makes sense for both of us? Or you connected with a grocery store owner who said they’d like to start monthly fitness & health tips and want you to head that up? You just don’t know. Opportunities come, as long as you swim out to the boat. When you’re in front of people, make your words count. So let’s say this not that. Not, personal trainer. Say this:
For instance, Your response will be a question. That’s important. You know busy professional women in midlife who struggle with time and fatigue who want exercise for stress relief and more energy? Why a question? A question leaves an open loop. It compels the listener’s brain to answer. They usually will.
And with that, you’ve opened up a conversation. With a simple answer like “personal trainer,” you’ve closed it. In fact, if you’re uber qualified? So tell them, specifically what it is you do or want to. Dig into your niche with your answer. You’ll extend your reach far faster. Make small talk matter big. Cheers fitness & health pro! Whether it’s a holiday party, a New Year’s health panel, or something else. Small is big. Other Episodes You May Like: 6 More Ways to Increase Your Fitness Sales this Season
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| 31 Jul 2020 | Are You Spending Your Time Right? Priorities for Fitness Pros | 00:09:54 | |
Spending your time wisely right now is more important than ever. I’m a big believer that you have to guard your personal workout time. Also that if you’re still doing the fitness plan that you had in February of 2020, and you’re experiencing any additional stress from the pandemic that you’re doing yourself a disservice and depleting your immune system. Enough on that. Let’s talk about spending your time right now. Come back with me right now to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. You learned it in psychology 101, again in your health class potentially. At the bottom of the pyramid is Safety and Security. If you don’t get that right you can’t rise above. In January of 2020 you may have been focused on the top of the pyramid, in influence and legacy. Yet, potentially now you’ve dropped back as many of us have to needing to secure finances, and reduce expenses. What activities you spending your time on now? Be sure that the way you spend your time reflects where you are right now. You’ve got to drop activities like influencer posts in social media, and detailed SEO work, or trying to reach indirect lead generation sources. You do want to be spending time figuring out how to make a sale today. You’ve got to take direct responsibility for asking for business today.
At the end of the day, a friend’s husband said he knew how his business was doing based on this one simple thing, “If I have more money at the end of the day than I had at the beginning.” | |||
| 25 Sep 2019 | 10 Ways to Fill Your Fitness Programs Right Now | 00:24:36 | |
10 Ways to Fill Your Fitness Programs Right Now Right now as you read this you’re either in the middle of launching a fitness program, or preparing to launch a next one. You either are super confident you’ll fill it and have a wait list or you wish you had that problem! It’s the cycle of fitness promotions. Here’s the truth about these 10 things that I’m sharing with you right now. Those who do them, most if not all, consistently repeatedly, fill more programs. But I don’t want you to be overwhelmed. So I don’t want you to do them all or even attempt to right now. First, I want you to pick two or three you’re already doing and do them better. More consistently and consciously. Then, pick another one and do that equally as well. If you hop down to #2 for instance, once you do that – as tedious as it may be if you haven’t done it yet – you will be better prepared next time to tell the people who absolutely want the solution you provide so they can register. If you do #9 it’s a one time change out when you’re starting a promotion. You do it, everyone on your team who emails does it, and you’re done. You may need to create a graphic and get a change date on the calendar so it’s up to date and you switch back when the promo is over, but it’s not an ongoing task. #1. Email More Than You’re Comfortable. There’s no sense in fearing people will unsubscribe if they weren’t going to be customers anyway. There’s a system you want to use during a promotion that means you’ll email at least 5 times in four days. If you’re not doing that during specials, you’re leaving money on the table. #2. Segment Your Lists. Send the right email to the right people. If you don’t know how to segment lists so you’re emailing the right stuff to the right people get help now. People will either leave those unopened (which will hurt your delivery results anyway) or they will report “spam” if it’s not relevant to the reason they subscribed to you. #3. Announce on Social Media After…. You give, give, give. If you only post announcements of sales and opportunities to buy you won’t have enough of a following to make it matter. So yes, do change your Facebook cover and do live videos. Just be sure you’re giving tips and take aways ALL year and not just selling all the time. Less than 20% of your time on social should be selling. #4. Add Banners on Your Website. Place them on your home page or at least on a special blog post. Don’t keep your promotion a secret. #5. Create at least one special content. Write a special blog post, create a special podcast, or video (live or recorded). Right now as I record it’s bonus time at Flipping 50 Specialist cert. When you enroll in the Advanced Specialist you get 4 bonuses to boost your hormone balancing fitness business. This ad for the promotion is going right here right now. When I do the audit that’s a part of the bonus for you, I’ll be looking at how you can best adapt these 10 promotional actions. Register for the Flipping 50 Advanced Specialist Right Now to be eligible for 4 Bonuses through Oct 15, 2019. (ends Oct 16, 2019/only Advanced Specialist)
#6. Gift Some Spots for PR. During a Social Media giveaway or a live streaming video give away a spot in the program you’re promoting. You then have a chance to describe the program and benefits fully. You can use the giveaway to grow your social media following too. After you give, announce the winners on all your platforms and via email so you have another reason to promote the program. #7. Include Nearby Businesses or Affiliates (digital) No one reaches big success alone. Start asking partners whose customers or audience would benefit from your program. #8. Create Swag. T-shirts, water bottles, journals. Everyone loves to get swag for “free” as a part of a program. Start wearing it yourself. Give one to every registrant and tell them if they’re caught wearing them (sending you a selfie) or seen in the club, they’ll be eligible for a prize.
#9. Add Your Program to Your Email Signature. In every communication be sure you’re using that real estate wisely. If you have a customer service or support ticket service you use like Fresh Desk, for instance, make sure you optimize it. Sample:
#10. Answer Questions. Create videos where you answer questions about the program. Discuss the benefits, the logistics, what to expect, what participants need to succeed. Include testimonials. Discuss the format. Close: ask for the sale. Thanks for leaving a rating in iTunes! 1) visit Voice for Fitness Professionals in iTunes 2) click listen in iTunes 3) leave a star rating and a comment 4) know how much I appreciate it! | |||
| 25 Aug 2015 | The Commitment Difference in Fitness Business Success | 00:18:56 | |
You need confidence underlying it all. No question. But what's next? You can say you're committed but if you're not doing the things that count you could be running fast in the wrong direction. What are the "Cs" of success? Connect! | |||
| 19 Aug 2023 | 7 Simple Sales Strategies for Health & Fitness Pros | 00:32:10 | |
We all want simple sales strategies to make it easy and quick to make sales and get clients and the truth is, it can be! There are a few things clear to us here behind She Means Fitness Business that get in the way. First, not knowing exactly what you want and need to happen for success this week, this month, or this specific launch promotion… you can’t get there. Do you have a sales goal?
For instance, I have a spreadsheet for every monthly sales record since 2018. I look at it every month. I also look at it and dig into it every October or early November. I look at not just the numbers but dig into what sold, what didn’t, where did I spent my time and energy and what should I potentially stop doing or start to work less and have it reap better benefits.
Working More Isn’t a Sales Strategy I’ve studied with some great leaders, and Michael Bernoff is one who really nails the fact that if we don’t set out to build the kind of business and lifestyle we want, 5 years from now you’ll still be doing the same kind of business you’re doing today. If you’re not making enough money now, you won’t then either. If you’re working all the time, you will then too. Let’s both hope it’s not both! Solo entrepreneurs can do that too easily. You are not alone. Find your tribe and get support for you… and your business. So, with this mindset that we can do it, there is a clear need and confusion we can help stop, let’s dive into this episode. 7 Simple Sales Strategies – Adopt them right now! - Launching expectations and Launching realities
- Shifting your selling mindset
- Selling the transformation instead of the features
- Persuasive words for the personality type (copywriting skills in case you don’t know these) - Being okay with getting a no (expecting you will not always get yes)
- Showcasing how well someone will do with this and what could happen if they don’t.
- Everyday Actions:
Resources: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/scorecard https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/copywriting-course
Other Episodes You Might Like: 4 Ways Dating Advice Will Boost Marketing for Health & Fitness Pros: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/marketing-for-health/Fitness Marketing Hacks: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/fitness-marketing-hacks/
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| 27 Jul 2024 | Magnetic Brand Visibility for Health & Fitness Coaches | 00:44:30 | |
To grow a thriving business you need magnetic brand visibility. Everyone needs to know you and identify with you. Or at least, your ideal customers do. In fact, anyone else should be somewhat repelled. This episode is worth the listen. Before you listen, bring to mind any pictures you may have posted on social media, any images on your website. Think about the favorite pictures you have of yourself, and think of those you dislike. That will all make sense as you listen. I think you’ll find this episode insightful and if you’re planning social media posts or a new photo shoot for your website, priceless. Maybe you’ll consider joining us in a future pros retreat for upgrading your brand. My Guest: Julie Magnussen is a brand photographer helping women in business transform their visual brand through her signature Magnetic Brand Photoshoot method so they can embody their worth, showcase their authentic brand story, attract soulmate clients and expand their bottom line. Questions We Answer in This Episode:
Connect with Julie: https://www.jmbrandphotography.com/ On Social: Instagram: @juliemagnussen Other Episodes You Might Like: Social Media Marketing: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/social-media-marketing-strategy/ Define and Develop Your Brand Voice: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/define-your-brand-voice/ Resources: Crafted to Click may look familiar!! https://jmbrandphotography.myflodesk.com/craftedtoclick | |||
| 08 Apr 2021 | Fitness Pros, Are You Alienating Your Ideal Customers Unknowingly? | 00:09:37 | |
Alienating your ideal customers? It’s easier than you might think to fall into this trap. You want to teach them and give them the clear instructions of what they should do! You mean well! But it comes across as teaching and preaching. Instead of alienating your ideal customers you of course want to be nurturing them. Here’s how. Raise them up. Lift them up. You crave it and I crave it. So does your audience. I teach a concept in our mastermind I’ll share with you right now. Raise & Praise vs Teach & Preach™ It’s human nature to avoid messages that feel like lectures, sermons, or our parents enforcing rules. We run towards positivity and encouragement. It can be a challenge to know which you tend to use. You may not even realize you do it. It’s important to consider whether your content is answering a burning question for your audience and solving a problem for them. If it’s not, why will it have relevance? People find us for quick wins. Providing a lesson or teaching won’t do that for them or do any favors for your business either. Go back to basics.
Read 5 of your recent posts. Answer these questions: Does the post start with a question or a statement? Does the post tell someone to do something or discuss a problem they have? Does the post jump to an answer or explore why there is a certain belief or behaviors they default to? Does copy in the post text copy or compliment the image? Does the image peak curiosity or tell the whole story (so there’s no reason to stop scrolling)? Your answers when you look at them all combined will reveal your default and why you might not be getting as much traction with posts. There may not be anything wrong with your message. It could be your delivery. How to avoid alienating your ideal customers? Raise them up. Avoid preaching. At some point if you’re working with a client you need to take on that persona of an expert who gives advice. But while you’re romancing a prospect you want to raise them up by coaching them with questions. Resources: Facebook.com/groups/fitnessmarketinginsiders Next Q and A masterclass about the Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist | |||
| 19 Nov 2021 | Dealing with Strong Emotions and Doing Business Anyway | 00:23:13 | |
We all have to deal with strong emotions and yet if you’re an entrepreneur you also have to figure out doing business anyway. If you’re running a business, no wait really, if you are the business, then inevitably you’re going to run into moments when life happens. You will have to both run your business and deal with the unpleasant reality that our loved ones are born, get married, break bones, have accidents, die, and you have emotions around all of it. You’ll move, have arguments, and break up. You’ll miss planes and get stranded. You’ll encounter technology not working. You’ll lose people and you’ll need to train others. You’ll get sick or have car trouble. You will have an old dog that needs care. All of those things will show you the leaks in your business. At least they did for me. Doing Business Anyway You’ll have to make hard choices and sometimes through all of that, you can’t control your emotions. Recently, I went through a tough time. I’m talking about it here because of the opportunity it’s provided me to see what needs to happen next for me. I also realized that much of what I default to doing to myself is not moving my business forward as much as it is a distraction and a comfort to leftover feelings of fear that may not be justified in the moment. Strong Emotions and Doing Business Anyway One of the last trips to see my mom, and it wasn’t pleasant. She’d struggled after her fall and surgery. She felt less stable. She was resisting moving to assisted living. This is all the emotions and decisions that any adult child goes through really. It’s not a surprise. But you definitely get it when it’s you. I was locked and loaded with a hot spot so I could work while I sat with her. And then that never happened. There’s just way too much to do. And she and I spent time quality time going through memories and journals. And that time was absolutely precious. But other moments of that trip were horrendous. There was a quarantine from covid the first day I was there. I got food poisoning and so for the last two days I was there I couldn’t see her. I then had a flight cancelled and was stranded for two days in Des Moines, Iowa, still recovering from the food poisoning. That was just the beginning of a downward spiral of my mom’s health. Fear I had fears at the beginning. I definitely did, and for good reason, really. I got down to very little in my bank account. My house was for sale but there were no buyers and it was -20 too near Christmas for anyone to really want to buy. It was then that I learned the habits I’ve kept for longer than they serve me. I roll up my sleeves. I go to work. I make things, I’ll say that too. Like you maybe, which is why I say this, I tend to create things. The reality is that I’ve become the most successful by slowing down creating and amplifying the marketing. I have award-winning content and programs that get rave reviews. So, what I really need is not another program, but more people in my programs. But we default to the old patterns… at least until we break them. Greif Most recently this has been what I’m dealing with. My mother passed and for the last couple months it’s been down hill and we knew it was on an accelerated path. I found myself not wanting to take care of other people, just wanting to be taken care of. When you feel like this you only have so much bandwidth to function. You’re not likely to be able to take care of everyone else in the way that you usually do. Juggling things that normally are nothing are much harder. So, if you keep having the same expectations of yourself, but aren’t able to have the same work habits as you usually do, it creates some friction. All of that leads to fatigue and it can get hard to take care of yourself. This one must be the hardest of all to handle. It’s unpredictable. It’s not a fever, a cold, or the stomach flu. It’s not a fight that you’ll be mad about and then make up from. Holidays You also have to think about the holidays. I say that now because it’s fresh on my mind that these will be the first holidays without my mom and it’s a fresh wound anyway. It’s not the first holiday I haven’t been able to be with her. We all experienced that during COVID. And I’d had others where that was true too. But I’ll be alone this Christmas and at Thanksgiving without that phone call to make where we pass it around the room. What do you do during the holidays? How do you automate during the holidays? How do you promote? It’s time to think about not just making things happen or attaching your “success” to how much money you’re bringing in, but to how you’re doing it. Are you bringing it in in a way that is sustainable, and you love? Or are you building a business you don’t love and want to keep doing? It’s so important to consider your answer to that. Sooner rather than later. Had I not had time to pause I may not have realized how much I’ve carried over habits I began when business was very different to now when I can build a sustainable business and do it with more thought. What’s the Bottomline? The biggest take-aways from this episode are that business will have ups and downs. Those are more predictable usually, though I think we can agree the pandemic threw everyone for a loop. But more importantly, life will have ups and downs. The way I describe ideal workout planning for women in midlife is that it’s a sweet spot of stress. Just enough, not too much not too little. So, if life is full of emotional stressors or financial ones, then the workouts should back off. It's the Same in Business The same is true of business. When you’re struggling with a lot of emotional stressors, or you’re trying to hit a big physical activity challenge yourself, it may not be the best time to push any business goals. Your business might plateau or even dip. Sometimes that’s ok. At least you want it to be ok. You want to know where your space is for your breakeven. Your burn rate. Like every month I know how much my team expenses are going to be. And I know how much equipment and platform expenses will be. I want a profit margin above that. If I’ve had a healthy couple months with a large profit margin I might expect things to be a little quiet and be fine with that, knowing my average is still up. Resources: Masterclass for Fitness & Health Business Black Friday Specialist Event [add to cart for details]
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| 16 Sep 2017 | What, How, and When to Launch for Fitness Business Success | 00:44:00 | |
How do you launch? What is a launch? What are the first steps to a successful launch? Amber Spears is an experienced sales professional, entrepreneur, and Internet marketing expert who specializes in helping companies develop and implement sales and online marketing strategies. Learn how much you should Earn Per Click, Earn Per Lead, (or what those are if you're not there yet!) and how to truly nurture relationships that will reward both you and your partners. Find Amber at: www.mimosamastermind.com www.east5thavenue.com | |||
| 06 Jan 2021 | 10 Fitness Business Podcasts to Grow Your Fitness Business in 2021 | 00:23:06 | |
In this episode I share top episodes to grow your fitness business in 2021. From solving superficial problems you can handle today to identifying where you can change bigger systems and strategies for the long game, you’ll find a trove of answers. Every one of these episodes I’m sharing was released during the pandemic and relates to the “new now” in our fitness industry. It doesn’t matter if you’re totally digital, you’re offline or you’re doing a hybrid, you’ll find marketing and other strategies at the foundation are very similar. Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist & Mastermind Details When You Can’t Get Fitness Clients I share 7 questions to ask yourself when you can’t get clients. I also shared the mistakes I made early in my career when I wasn’t getting the clients I wanted. And trust me I still make that mistake occasionally. In fact, fairly recently, a 20-minute consult turned into an hour-long session and I knew in the first 10 minutes it wasn’t going to work out. But I was so mystified I let her keep controlling the conversation. That’s a story for another day. If you’re not consistently turning those interested people into customers I share why that’s probably true and what to do about it. Branding for Fitness Professionals | Personal Trainers In this episode.. and if you like it, you should join me in an upcoming fitness pros master class to learn more about playing the long game. You don’t develop a brand with pictures. Or a logo. You do it with a message. One that breaks through the repetitious crap that people are tuning out because they hear it so often. I had a great time talking with a photographer who CAN however get you killer photos and can do the whole package. We dished all things branding and building the business that stands out… instead of blends in. If you find yourself buying the same tights and the same jackets and doing the same poses… as everyone else… are you being you? Cause everyone else is taken. You are just throwing yourself under the bus. There’s only one you. Identify what and who that is. Pssst… you’re going to have to be real, be who you are when you haven’t showered and made up sometimes. No Time to Build Your Fitness Business? Step- by- Step There is never going to be enough time to do all the things you add to your to do list. You can’t do them all and have a life and love it. So you have to work hard and focused when you’re working. Then you have to stop working and have the life you’re doing the work for. Sadly, if your work becomes your life or you hold yourself back from a career you really want saying you can’t because of your family, will you train boys to love strong women or girls to follow their dreams? In this episode there’s no judgment about what you want but before you listen I encourage you to be honest with yourself. It’s easy to use your family as an excuse not to go for it. That way you don’t have to put yourself out there, you don’t have to worry about what people will think or if you’ll fail or make mistakes. You don’t have to learn it all and ask questions and feel vulnerable. But you also won’t satisfy that you inside that knows you have something… you have a purpose and this is it. Are the Words You Use Costing You Customers? Of all the podcasts to help you grow your business in 2021 this is one of my favorite. Words, meaning the ones you use in copywriting matter. And copywriting is everything. It’s what you say, what you write. It’s the way you start an email and the way you finish it. It’s the words you write in a text. It’s the way you introduce yourself and tell someone what you do.
If you’re not testing it all and looking at the analytics, you should. What would 10% greater open rate do for you? What would more smiles at the front desk do if you’re in a brick-and-mortar business? That greeting is copy. You’re either using it or not. Listen to this episode and you’ll get curious about why you love certain restaurants. It may not just be the food. They may train their staff so well that you’re feeling the effects of copywriting. Taking Care of You | Personal Trainer & Coach Business To grow your fitness business in 2021 you have to work smart and so you are simultaneously taking care of yourself. Have you figured that out while you’re getting up early, training over lunch and in the evening? There are 3 parts to planning your business success. And that three-legged stool requires them all. Start and Grow Your Menopause Coaching Services in 2021 You can and should know every detail about hormones and exercise. You need to know why exactly late day high intensity is likely to throw a menopausal woman under the bus. But without the knowledge of how to attract, and keep her for the long run you’ll never build a sustainable profitable business. And look, what’s the point of having a fitness career that doesn’t even pay the bills if it were all you had to rely on? It’s too many hours, starting early and going late, squeezing your own workouts into minutia to really be a healthy lifestyle for many trainers who really make it a career instead of a hobby. And yet it’s too easy to make a living equivalent to a hobby. So listen to this ‘cast about what you need to know how to reach them, enroll them, and how to measure your success.
Steps to Create Fitness Marketing Videos If you want to grow your fitness business in 2021 you’re going to create video. You’re going to create videos for programs, for courses, for passive revenue streams that make clients more successful when they work with you. You’re going to create video ads, and live video to talk to your clients. You’re going to create coaching videos and interview videos and demonstration videos. If you’re afraid of the camera or don’t have a plan, this tactile episode will help you do the things that make a video better even before you turn on the camera. The Dirty World of Fitness Conference Content Here’s what you have to ask yourself when you go to a fitness conference, read an article, post or listen to a podcast just like this one. Has this person – the source of the information – done what I want to do? In similar situations to mine? Consistently over time? What proof do you have of it? I revealed some interesting tidbits from behind the scenes of fitness presenters that are only too happy to get up on stage and teach business of how to make more money. Yet, they have never had to make the money, they’ve always collected a paycheck. So if you’re a trainer who wants to create money where there never was money, you are going to want to make sure you have a legit business success teaching you how to do it. That is not one who’s not made mistakes, one who has, and has stood back up and can help you see the path because of it. Past Fear | Grow Your Personal Training Business in 2021 Does fear stop you from pursuing your fitness career dreams? You want to present internationally? You want to be a fitness influencer? You want to be the one they think of when they think of your niche? You want to earn more? You want to offer that unique program? You want to run your own business? But you don’t know how? And that scares you so you don’t take actions to learn it, share the dream, speak the things no one else is willing to say. If you see something that you know isn’t working and you think you could do it better, you have a solution, and you know it… but you’re quiet? Who can you help? If you know these feelings and thoughts… thinking… that should have been me. That could be me. Then listen to this episode. The State of Fitness During the Pandemic |Business in 2020 This episode released in October may have surprised you. We thought everyone had gained 15 pounds and been watching Netflix eating chips and drinking more wine. But not everyone, in fact not a lot of everyone. I can vouch for our Flipping 50 members. Many of them are in better shape now (and were in October than when Covid19 began). But there are things we should be worried about since the pandemic. My guest shares information from a poll of over 10,000 people about their exercise during the pandemic. There you have it, 10 short listens to help you grow your fitness business in 2021. Need support? For more support all year, learn about the fitness business mastermind designed for heart-centered, skilled trainers and health coaches who are tired of not being the one that did it. The one that said yes to now being the best time to start. This moment is not coming back. This one post- pandemic, new year, new awareness of the need for health, immunity, fitness and mental wellness.. through fitness. | |||
| 06 Jun 2020 | What to Post on Social Media | How I Decide | 00:17:09 | |
How on earth do you decide what to post today? First, of all, my process is more efficient than ever. Although I love to get random ideas and I used to take random options, the more people I help the less I can do that. So while I do jot down notes, save them on my phone while I’m riding my trainer or when I finish a walk, I don’t just start posting based on a great idea. I batch. First I plan content around the topic or topics I’m focused on this month. I know what my new students have to know and believe before they get started, before they buy. First, though this: This should go without saying that you and I are both here to help people. You have something of value to offer. You are a client-centered coach and know the science behind what you’re doing and why it works and who it is perfect for. Because just anyone using marketing when what they have isn’t science based and heart-centered has led to the wide continuum of fitness industry quality. Okay, now let’s dive in. If I have a program that’s open soon for enrollment I am going to want to be sure everyone who is a perfect candidate knows about it. (I also avoid telling someone about it who doesn’t want anything to do with it.) I identify what they need to know and what they think they know.
How do I relay a message and make them feel smart, savvy, and respected for whatever they’ve been thinking and doing? I ask that because no one responds well to a condescending message. I want to teach not preach. So back to the batch. I pick my theme What's my topic or theme based on what's happening in our business? My topic this month is about a Strength training program. I want them to believe it’s crucial to aging and hormone balancing and think they absolutely need it. I want them to be doing it, with me, and know why there is a specific way how that is unique to hormone balancing. I meet them where they are. They’re doing barre, Pilates, yoga, and using small weights, bands or tubing. I also know they want to get rid of belly fat. They are very interested in core exercise. So topics I’m going to create content around include all of those things. I play with titles. I use YouTube, buzzsumo, answer the public and other tools to create titles that inspire my content. Then I gather for primary research on pub med, and specific journals I use. Next I make notes. I like to use at least one but up to 5 primary sources. I also link back to my own relevant articles on my site or other sites which increases the total scientific proof because they’re also referenced. I write bullets I create subheadings, and think about images and graphics that I would post on social media that encourage saving and lead back to the content where there is a specific call-to-action. Keep in mind your image doesn’t always have to be directly connected! It just has to get their attention. Note: no one is inspired by a set of dumbbells. Really. Call to Action (1) One option, a waiting list for a program. I can nurture them before the program opens. (2) Second, a direct link to a program that is open. This is much more shot-in-the dark unless this is a low-ticket item or you’re targeting a specific audience you know is interested with an ad. You have to remember you may be there to sell but customers are there to connect with friends and family and get helpful tips. Make sure you connect before you ever just promote your stuff. You’ll never grow your social or bring them into your world where you can influence theirs and their life. Help You Know What to Post? There you have it… that’s how I create social media. All of that happens after I’ve done foundational homework about who I want to reach what they want and what’s true of them now. If you want support, and you’re ready to take a next step.... Two options: Book a consultation about private business coaching Or Start the Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist if you work with women in midlife and beyond. From the Advanced Specialist option I will help you leverage your knowledge and uniqueness to grow your business. I’ll link to both in the show notes Fitnessmarketingmastery.com/what-to-post
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| 16 Apr 2021 | Do You Have Shareable Fitness Content, Fitness & Health Pros? Mom was right! | 00:19:26 | |
Shareable fitness content gets you more likes, comments, and um, shares. But more than that it gets you more exposure. When the right people (your ideal customer) shares, saves, comments, or likes (in descending order of importance), you get more love from your platform. First things first. Are you on the right platform? If you have no audience, no followers and more of your tribe are on Facebook than Instagram and you’re killing yourself on Instagram, you’re wasting your time. There’s only so much time. You don’t have time to waste right? So the post creation, posting, responding to your comments and asking questions to engage… you likely have other things to do today. Make sure the time you spend (and yes, you need to be there) on social is giving back to you. Now, let’s talk shareable fitness content. I’d be willing to bet that you have some posts that you thought were juicy, thought-provoking, and deserved more love but got the cold shoulder. Am I right? If that’s true don’t be afraid to go back to it and repurpose it into one of these ideas. What’s shareable?
Why they’ll share?
Make it specific: not “everybody” friendly. Here’s why… if you want to grow a niche and a strong following, you are talking to one demographic. A large gym? Having multiple accounts would be smart. Time consuming? Yes, but guess what? The time you’re spending talking to no one specifically now is a huge waste of time getting you nowhere. Give your accounts to the trainers or people who work with a specific demographic. Middle and older women, young moms, and young men are a best start. Resources I use:
Never steal. If you look at someone’s post, you love it and you share it, take note. What about it did you love? And realize you’ve just been marketed to in the best way. Someone gave you something you find useful and want to use again. Do that for your tribe. | |||
| 27 Jan 2021 | 10 Parts of the Ultimate Free Consultation to Get More Clients | 00:28:16 | |
If you offer a free consultation to get more clients, you may have any one of these problems:
Then there’s what if you don’t make a sale at the consultation, if that was the purpose of it, what you do next with that lead. Stop the Anti-Sales Chatter Let’s be clear that I totally understand none of us wants to be salesy, pushy or sleazy. So, since I didn’t even mention that ‘til now, I want you to do a selfcheck here on how you even feel about this whole episode title and the topic of sales. Unless you’re going to work for someone else, and even then, if you can’t sell, you’ll never be in charge of your own destiny. People who can sell, run the world. The people you can help need to buy your services. Improving your success at any step of your consultations will help your business. Improve your success at every step will boost your business significantly. >>If you aren’t a part of a mastermind or a sales and marketing strategy group so you review: how you get leads
…it’s time to be sure this is a part of your business, every week. The earlier in your business you start, the sooner you realize, if you didn’t ask anybody to become a client today, no one can say yes. Before you even take any of the suggestions I’ll list in this episode, I highly recommend that you start tracking your statistics. Look at your insights. Listen, you can do that on a platform like Facebook or Instagram that you don’t even own, so if you’re not looking at every move you make in your own business, what are you doing? Track these things:
You or Your Team? If you personally don’t do every – or any - free consultation to get new clients for your business track anyone on your team who does. Should they be? Or should they have additional training? Average closing percentages in the business are about 40% for consultations. But if you do a good job of preparing people before they get there, I believe they should never be lower than 50%. Look, most of us did not go to school to learn sales, or persuasive language, or copywriting. I’ll bet that the courses and continuing education that you’re taking are all about conditions, and training strategies, or joints, or something you feel lacking in as opposed to something that will help you get the clients you want to train with that knowledge. Don’t be the best kept most educated secret. It takes sales: do well at marketing and the sales is easy If you’re not a part of a group of people supporting you to grow your business, your profit and identify how to keep the money you make by being smarter about expenses – so that you don’t out-educate yourself, instead of marketing yourself, find a way to fix that. If you want to be in charge of your own future, and the revenue and profit you make, you know how to sell. You’re good at it and you enjoy it. If you’re not there you can learn. It’s the path to helping people. If you have a money relationship that is damaged, you’ve got to fix it and that’s another episode. If I could have shared that message in thousands of trainers that I’ve met from university teaching, managing personal training department, and presenting internationally, it would be that. Yes, of course, you’re passionate about the workouts and the learning more as you should be, but the presenters you envy and love … don’t even have the life and freedom you want. Make sure you’re following someone who both loves their life and has built the business. Is a free consultation to get clients a good idea? It is if it works. But look closely at who books and how long they’ve followed you and been looking. A free consultation is a big, huge, first step for someone who is intimidated, feels like a failure, and doesn’t want to be judged. So that leaves about 15% of the population who are already quick decision makers and they’re ready that will be most likely to book a session. If you’re not careful with them, you could talk them out of it. They’re already annoyed that they can’t get started and couldn’t figure out how to buy what they wanted. So, it’s clear you have to be clear. What is your objective for the free consultation? And what is the message you send the potential customer about this free consultation? If you don’t send them a message about this being the time when they decide WHICH way they’re going to work with you and take care of all the details of getting enrolled, but that’s what you intend? Then they may expect a free session that will show them what they need and how to workout so they can do it on their own. What Happens If They Feel Misled? Imagine how they feel if they don’t get that. Not likely that if you shock them at the session and there’s no exercise, or assessment, that they don’t get what they wanted they’re going to be excited about working with you after that. Imagine instead that you’ve asked exactly what they want at the session, so that you can give it to them. What if you share with them the exact process of how the meeting happens and the objective, and what they’ll leave with before the meeting. Then you remind them of how you’ll spend time during the consultation during the first few minutes, and then you summarized the session at the end. How will they feel after a session like that? If you’re nodding your head, you get it. We all like to know. Clear expectations make a huge difference in our satisfaction of an experience. So, those big signs and invitations for a free consultation with a trainer or a health coach or nutritionist are a big mistake. Give them some description. Start with who this is for, who it’s not for, what you’ll learn, and what you’ll take away. 10 Parts of a Free Consultation to Get Clients 1 Free vs Fee Paid – flat Paid – and applied to first purchase 2 Preview & Screen A survey before they can book 3 Reminder Email, text You’ll contact if they don’t arrive on time 4 Overview The way these sessions go… Ask permission 5 Middle The more they talk the better Problem Agitate 6 Pre-Close If I could … Would you like help with that… 7 Close Would you like my help with that? Take care of the details Here’s what to expect next Many of my customers ask to add ___, do you want to do that too? If you’d like to I’ll add that for ____ off. Or you can get it later, if you want to think about it, at the regular rate. 8 Follow Up – immediate Same day for either a thank you, or for the links to complete transaction 9 Follow Up - a couple days A down sell for those that didn’t purchase and a check in for those that did It wasn’t the right time to do ____, I do have this group/program, starting and I have some spots left, and I thought of you 10 Follow Up – long term nurture Is now a better time? Are you still interested?
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| 16 Jul 2020 | Training Women in Menopause | Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist | 00:24:37 | |
If you’re training women in menopause, you have questions. It’s not all a to b to c to d… and success. The best way to learn is to be in a group where you can go over your cases and clients because there is no one absolute path. You can find those easy ones, and yet you’re going to think you’re doing everything right and realize no, the belly bloat, the lack of fat loss, the extreme fatigue are still obstacles. Questions about the Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist I answer today:
Training women in menopause ... easy mistakes to make Working with women in this phase of life is rewarding and frustrating. If you're still trying to focus on fat burning by eating less and exercising more you could make clients feel worse not better. During perimenopause when many women haven't even begun to realize they're not getting results because of hormone changes, you can find opportunities. Training women in menopause with a blueprint for assessing hormones makes it easy. When you can interpret both the signs from the body and from lab reports and suggest testing options you can create a unique and in-demand business. You're not limited to training women in a geographic location. Once you've got the skills menopause is something every woman in the world goes through. There area 46 million women in menopause now and 6 thousand women enter it every day. RESOURCES: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/programs
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| 17 Sep 2015 | 10 Ways to Boost Fitness Leads, Sales and Revenue | 00:27:18 | |
You can easily get overwhelmed by too much information. Choose one or two things and go for it like your life depends on it. The life of your business does. There is no changing the fact that social media is going to be front and center in the marketing campaigns of successful businesses in the future. Get started now with both the online and face-to-face promotions that cost nothing but time and energy. If you're not full yet, you have a bit of that. Connect: For the entire 50 (+1 bonus) Ways to Boost Fitness Leads, Sales and Revenue check out the Fit Pro Blog. | |||
| 25 Jul 2020 | The Things You Should Say No to Right Now | Personal Fitness Business | 00:12:50 | |
Say no right now should be on the top of your list if you want to not just survive but thrive in the coming months and years. Yesterday I went over what you need to say yes to. If you missed it I highly recommend you go return and you’ll have the complete loop. Another thing you should take a serious look at is the last 4 spots for the Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist open right now. Say no to these if you want to focus:
Say no Saying no to some of these things is hard. You will struggle with it. No one wants to lower their lifestyle. But as you earned more and times were good and you were enjoying the lazy attitude you’d always rely on someone to do things for you, you increased your lifestyle to a point where you have little wiggle room. Am I right? The house, the car, the things you had to have the kids in? The nails, the hair, the facials, the massages. Some of those things aren’t happening right now and can’t. That alone is saving you money. Find Money There is money in other places if you look. Make this a game. How much money can you find this month? The last thing you should be saying no to is thoughts that sabotage you. Don’t be a victim. Do be creative. You can’t be creative when you’re stressed. S take time, go hike, nap, sing, listen to music, podcasts, color, draw, journal. Do what you need to do so you can get creative and think what if… Resources: | |||
| 13 Oct 2020 | The State of Fitness During the Pandemic | Business & Activity | 00:33:33 | |
Fitness statistics right now are a little grim for gyms. How does physical activity stack up though? Pretty well. It seems the public is discovering they don't need gyms, trainers, or at least onsite, in order to move more. The best news is that those who were least active are getting more active. And not detrimental for immune system-sake, the most active, perhaps most reliant on gyms, are now exercising slightly less. This episode I had the pleasure of interviewing Paul Ronto from runrepeat.com. If you haven't visited the site, check out the articles they're publishing now. My guest: Paul loves adventure. Over the past 20 years, he has climbed, hiked, and ran all over the world. He’s summited peaks throughout the Americas, trekked through Africa, and tested his endurance in 24-hour trail races. He has worked in the outdoor industry for over a decade and continues to focus on athletic pursuits. Our Conversation:Share a little about the survey methods, who you surveyed, how you did so for listeners. Demographics of those surveyed? What did you notice about age groups, and genders? What qualified as “exercise”? Other questions we answer in this episode:Do we know if this is active being more active, occasional exercisers becoming more intentional, or inactive becoming active or any breakdown of that? With an increase in exercise 88%, the big question is, especially for my listeners -at risk for losing muscle and bone in a big way during menopause - "are they exercising right"? Muscle loss and bone loss are accelerated for women in midlife not exercising with optimal exercise prescription. What are your thoughts on that? "Walking" for instance and yoga or Pilates.. while wonderful exercise will not sustain muscle or bone for women with accelerated losses due to hormonal changes. Who knew there'd be a dumbbell shortage?! What do you think about the solution to that supply- demand problem? Fitness Statistics Right NowA couple weeks ago now Business Insider published an article on 5 major fitness chains and athletic stores declaring bankruptcy. What are your thoughts for privately owned fitness businesses? Is there a difference in the "umbrella" fitness business (serving all ages, full service childcare, pool, gym, group fitness, training) vs. boutique niche studios (Pilates, yoga, small 1:1 training) and projected success rate? Major at home equipment and programming retailers like Peleton have gained great success during this time. What are your thoughts about the future of fitness? Beyond that point when a vaccine is discovered that's then proven, tested, and return of confidence by consumers what do you think about fitness centers as we've known them to this point? Will what is now known as online, hybrid, or brick-and-mortar business be forever changed? The message: Health and fitness are more important than ever. You're not irrelevant if you're a trainer, as long as you're not using the same message you were pre-pandemic. No one "needs" you to move more. We're learning that people do prioritize exercise and when they have the time, they do it. Certain populations stand the most to lose (bone density, muscle, strength, mobility) without exercise. So while there's still a need, if you're focused on getting back to what you were doing you could be missing a huge opportunity. Connect:Resources: Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist Create Your Best Bio | Stand Out Beyond Alphabet Soup
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| 19 Apr 2021 | 5 Fitness Business Legal Documents | Your Checklist | 00:16:43 | |
Your fitness business needs a minimum of 5 legal documents and probably more. But here’s a start. What not to do: Just go online, Google terms of service, copy and paste and use it on your site. You are not protected. You have no idea if your services and products are all included. Here are the 5. Think of this as your checklist for what you have and what you need on your website. Don’t panic; but do start putting your next legal step on your radar.
Terms of Service In this document you include everything about delivery, what they have and don’t have after purchase, access, and the refund policy is also often here. Each product or service you have may have a unique clause. My membership for instance, is an automatically renewing subscription until we’re given notice for cancellation. We specify when then cancellation must come or we can withhold a portion of the refund if we choose to on a late cancellation. Refund Policy People will pursue refunds even if you’ve clearly stated your refund policy. It will still take time and time is money. It’s also stress and takes you away from what you should be focused on. But at the least if PayPal or a credit card chargeback do occur, you have recourse. You can show the service or product terms agreed to, that you did your part, and 4 out of 5 times I’ve “won.” Though it’s never a sweet victory. The customer is still angry. Often, I was too in the beginning. I’ve softened. Usually, a customer is confused, stressed about something else in their life, upset they didn’t keep track of their purchases and it was never about you. Affiliate Disclaimer Sharing any equipment or products you love? Maybe from your Amazon store? You have to tell them in plain site that you’ll make money if they use your link. I have a resources page. I highly recommend to our Flipping 50 Fitness Specialists that affiliates be a part of their business! There are products and services that make your customers more successful. If you’re recommending them, why shouldn’t you get some credit? You should. But you do have to have a disclosure statement on the web page, or in an email when you share. Privacy Policy Everyone wants to know you don’t share their information with anyone. You don’t store their credit card information on you website. As an extension of this you may also want to tell them if you’re using cookies on your site. Disclaimer If you are posting images of exercise, or videos, or even discussing how to create a workout, a disclaimer is important. And yes, you should be doing all of those things. But you should do so under the umbrella disclaimer that “Not all exercise is appropriate for every body. The advice on this site is in no way a substituted for medical advice. Before starting this or any exercise program seek the advice of a medical professional.” Legal documents shouldn’t be an afterthought. Have them updated regularly. As you add, delete, or change your services, so too should your legal documents change. Other Items You Want Legal Advice on:
Lost in Legal Document Mumbo Jumbo? In May and June as a part of my Mastermind Masterclass series I’m hosting not one but two lawyers who specialize in these details (as well as Trademark and copyright types of questions). For a special early bird rate, I’m opening these two masterclasses to the public, and if you want in, just respond to this email. I’ll shoot you the rate (we don’t even have the order form filled out yet – but you’ll get first dibs on asking your questions if you’re in early). And I’m also hosting a tax strategist. You can get the two masterclasses together for one low price, and one major relief for a business that’s truly in good shape. GET TAX & LEGALLY STRONG: https://www.flippingfifty.com/taxmc (for the tax & legal masterclass bundle: early bird through May 4) | |||
| 30 Sep 2023 | 10 Things to Know About Coaching Menopause Fitness Clients | 00:22:57 | |
Coaching menopause fitness clients? They aren’t going to respond the way men or younger women do. In this 3rd episode in the series I actually pull back a bit to look at the big picture, so you can see both perimenopause and postmenopausal need for modifications.
Coaching Menopause Fitness Clients Is Rapidly Becoming a Niche There is a huge demand and a need to be approachable. Since 2018 we’ve educated hundreds of primarily female coaches and trainers with the Flipping50 Menopause Fitness Specialist. There’s a huge need for those who understand the science. Many have even their own frustrations – we’re not immune – so if this is you, you’re not alone! Don’t be afraid to be transparent. Talk about issues you’ve had. Mistakes you’ve made. We’re looking for more trainers and health coaches to join our directory as more and more customers are seeking in real person menopause specialists. If you coach weight loss, athletes, overall health, and you want to be included in this group, I’ll share how to get started during Menopause Month in October and gain some huge perks as a results. You don’t have to have a perfect body to be a good menopause coach. You do want to have adequate experience coaching others in the niche you’re in or have solved a major problem for at least yourself. A proven track record or credentials make a difference. A title is not a qualification and too many coaches and trainers are finding out, as savvy clients become more educated themselves. Resources: Your Business Scorecard: For Fitness & Health Coaches: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/business-scorecard/ Copywriting for Marketing to Women Course: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/copywriting-course/ Menopause Fitness Specialist™ Program: https://www.flippingfifty.com/menopause-fitness-specialist-program-2022/
Send an Email to support@flippingfifty.com if you want to learn more about the founding member’s rate for the Health & Well Pros mastermind. Other Episodes You Might Like: 5 Things to Know About Perimenopause Fitness Clients: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/perimenopause-fitness-clients/ 6 Things to Know About PostMenopause Fitness Clients: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/postmenopause-fitness-clients/
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| 17 Apr 2021 | 5 Ways to Increase Every Fitness Sale | 00:17:33 | |
If you could increase every fitness sale by 15% or 20% would that make a difference in your bottom line? Of course, it would. Have you ever gone for a massage or booked online and had the option of adding a scalp massage, or an eye treatment? The massage itself was $85 or $100 and the add-on was $10 or $20, right? That was my recent experience for a birthday massage anyway.
There you have it, 5 more ways (I’ve shared others) to increase every fitness sale. If it works with chocolate cake, it will work with health and wellness right now. But only if you ask. The biggest key for you, is doing this “upselling” so that you’re not exchanging more of your time. You make it easier for your customer to succeed at the core service they purchased by offering something they need to do that. But you create it once and sell it many times so they use it on their own, or with prompts from you during their sessions. If you’ve never created this type of passive income that gets your customers much more actively engaged in your business, and have no idea where to start to create something of value, join me for a masterclass about building your business. It’s the start of how to learn more about serving women in midlife. More episodes you might like: | |||
| 01 Nov 2023 | Successful Facebook Ad Strategies for Fitness & Health Coaches | 00:43:09 | |
FaceBook Ad Strategies may be something you’re burying your head in the sand about, something you’re trying to do yourself or something you just have to farm out due to time restrictions, but regardless, you need to know! My Facebook ad strategies have swung from me doing to me hiring poorly to me hiring wisely and that brings me to today’s episode. Full disclosure, I don’t share anything I don’t know like and trust with any community members. That’s whether we’re talking skincare, whole body vibration, or Facebook ad strategies. Today’s guest is my ads strategist or media buyer as you will hear her describe herself.
We will cover how to grow traffic, increase leads (and therefore email list), and how to advertise to a paid service. My Guest: As a seasoned professional with over a decade of experience in growth and performance marketing, online sales, and digital advertising, Carrie has managed $25+ million in ad spend. Her expertise includes META Campaigns, specializing in Direct Response, eCommerce, Events, App Downloads, and Lead Generation. She excels in full-funnel conversion optimization, attribution tracking, and troubleshooting for the health and fitness industry, serving coaches, activewear brands, naturopaths, and doctors. Questions We Answer in this Episode:
Connect Carrie’s Website: Carrie on Social: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cgottschalk/ https://www.instagram.com/carriegottschalk/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/cgottschalk/ Guest Headshot: https://www.flippingfifty.com/wp-content/uploads/elementor/forms/64f88c5eb2824.jpg Resources: Your Business Scorecard: For Fitness & Health Coaches: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/business-scorecard/ Copywriting for Marketing to Women Course: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/copywriting-course/ Menopause Fitness Specialist™ Program: https://www.flippingfifty.com/menopause-fitness-specialist-program-2022/ Other Episodes You Might Like: Fast Fixes for Social Media: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/fast-fixes-for-social-media/ 5 Tips for Health Coaches: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/health-coaches-marketing-formula/ | |||
| 07 Oct 2024 | Using Words for a Competitive Edge | 00:22:17 | |
You can use words for a competitive edge no matter what level of experience you have. In this world of seconds-long attention span and how do you come up with the words that attract the right audience? Those that would love to learn and follow your guidance? My Guest: Sam Horn is the CEO of the Intrigue Agency. Her 3 TEDx talks and 10 books have been featured in New York Times and presented to Oracle, Intel, Accenture, and NASA. As the former Executive Director of the world-renowned Maui Writers Conference and one of LinkedIn Learning's most popular communication instructors, she helps people craft one-of-a-kind books, talks, and careers that scale their income and impact - for good. Questions we answer in this episode:
Notes from Sam Horn:
Do you use of words for a competitive edge right now? I encourage you to think about how much intrigue you yourself stir when you’re in conversation with someone. You are not boring! It is not uncommon though for us to give a quick answer because we aren’t used to the spotlight and it’s not even that we assume someone knows what we do, we just haven’t flexed this muscle of being the one talking and we aren’t going to be comfortable with it right away if that’s the case. I’ve observed trainers from college coursework, to internships to first jobs to 40 year colleagues. There are varying degrees of confidence. But notice a long time coach? He or she doesn’t mutter, doesn’t care who else hears it, they want that message loud and clear.
Connect with Sam: On Social: Facebook: Instagram: Twitter: LinkedIn: Other Episodes You Might Like: Social Media Marketing Strategy from a Boss Babe Herself: Develop & Define Your Brand Voice | Fitness Marketing Made Easy:
Resources: Marketing to Women: SOMEDAY is Not a Day in the Week, What Are You Putting Off?
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| 11 Nov 2020 | Taking Care of You | Personal Trainer & Coach Business Plan | 00:21:01 | |
A personal trainer & coach business plan is about the last thing some fitness and health professionals will want to focus on. Have you got a plan? Are you running a business or a hobbyist? And there is nothing wrong with how you answer that question. Unless… you have the income and revenue of a hobbyist and feel as if you spend the time and energy of a business. If you work with midlife women, I can help. I can help you recommit to definitely doing more of what you love, and doing it in a way that rewards you. Because when you make more money you have both more influence and freedom. The Money Dilemma If you want to do more good, it requires money. You can change things with money. Whether that’s through scholarships, and donations or it’s through your own freedom to create more programming to support more individuals, the influence you have on the world, your family, will be in part due to money. This Thursday I’m holding a special master class for personal trainers, health coaches and women in midlife who would love to be involved in a healthier career choice. By the time we’re off the class you’ll know if this is the right choice for you, and how to really start, grow or scale your business .. you’ll also know why now is the right time. Link in the show notes.. or visit flippingfifty.com/specialist-masterclass for details. Personal trainer & coach? You need a business plan! It’s called a proforma in most circles. A Business Plan? If you’re just now getting serious about what you need to do now to succeed or start for the first time… yet you’re already falling in love with the idea of becoming a personal trainer & coach you may think that a business plan is something entirely different than what I’m about to share. This business plan is for those trainers who feel like this is all gyms, equipment, exercise, and motivation. Really, you will have to have a business plan. One that outlines how many customer you need and how you’ll get them. You’ll need to project how much the advertising and marketing will cost you and how much it costs to get every single lead. You’ll have to project the amount of revenue from each client, the average time each client will remain a client, and if they’ll pay you monthly, annually or another frequency. Because, hey, banks like to know that. And even if you aren’t going to use any borrowed money and you’re going to invest very little to start your online business, you’re going to want to do your homework. Be Heard Above the Other Personal Trainers & Coaches It’s busy out there. Loud and noisy trainers want the same customers you do. So you’ll need to pay somehow to get your message in front of them unless you’re a celebrity. Nervous? Well, you can relax. Although those things are definitely things you’ll need to think about before you really declare yourself a business. Before you incorporate, and decide if LLC is the best for you, if you can secure the business name you want, or whether someone has already trademarked it and could sue you. Just relax about all that… we’ll talk about that another time. You may be interested in walking through it with the Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist 2.0 10-month program. I’ll link to that in the show notes. This business plan I’m about to share is more down to earth. Your Personal Trainer & Coach Business Plan This is not your typical business plan, so if you’re hoping I’ll give you a personal trainer & coach business plan like a proforma, let me get clear. It is the plan most out of balance if the proforma business plan is going to happen it has to be in order. Listen, if you’re driven to success, in your own personal fitness, and your fitness business goals, there’s a chance when you begin working on your business you’ll let other assets you need to build it, slide. Here’s how to keep this three-legged stool in balance. There are three critical parts. Some of us may have felt these slipping away in 2020. There was so much business pivoting that more creating, more keyboard time, more learning time, more online meetings all had to happen. That squeezed something out. What was it for you? Exercise? Good food prep? Sleep? Or did you go the other way? Focus on your own physical plan. Flirt with over exercise, under eating and hyper diligence to an extreme? If you’re going to be your best for the long run, which is business, you need all of these. Here they are. There are 3 Critical Parts to this Plan: First in your personal trainer & health coach plan is … Critical Part #1: Physically Planning– Are you exercising in your sweet spot? Are you planning your own meals ahead? Are you prioritizing the amount of rest that you need? Look, most first time trainers, health coaches, fitness instructors work a few hours a week. But they exercise an astronomical amount of time. They think they’ve got to look better than anyone else, be fitter than anyone else, and do more than anyone else as if that somehow qualifies them. In someone’s eyes it does. Let’s look at this though. First, fitness comes from the right amount of exercise and right amount of rest. A few repetitions done to muscular fatigue, the right amount of protein- veggies – carbs and fat for the individual, along with the right amount of rest is more potentially specific to fitness than more volume. Personal Trainer & Coach Beware and Be Smart I won’t get into some research circulating right now that women over 40 need more volume, but I will share with you that without assessing an individual women… who also needs more rest between workouts simply giving a blank statement about volume is going to create more problems of over exercise and under rest. That trainers is what we’ve been trying to break through for years. With one article in IDEA magazine containing one small line about rest and recovery, we could set women back for years.
Trainers are too willing to blindly read an author’s interpretation without reading the primary research and thinking through it themselves. Number of subjects, how was the research conducted? And all the details – like current hormonal status and nutritional compliance matter. Okay, end of rant! If you do take a look at it, read with consciousness that this is not about more volume alone. There are many ways to achieve volume: weight, or increased reps, or increased frequency, and you must not do any of them alone in isolation without looking at rest & recovery including sleep, time between reps-sets-and workouts, and nutrition while understanding the signs a women’s hormones are messaging you and her. Critical Part #2: Mentally Planning – Are you allowing yourself what you need in order to be creative? I had to guard that creativity by not taking any appointments until noon. I block off full days to do planning for events or several days to do year planning. Recently, I took 2.5 days to work on a specific project where I could work, hike, eat, and sleep with no distractions. It took me a while to figure out that if I don’t, I’m working more but working poor. I’ve tried to work this into a purposeful trip, and I’ve learned that never works. There’s always something spontaneous that comes up. You’ve got to be fully present and fresh to do good work. Even this last week, I got away for 2.5 days to work on my next year plan. I know I have to do that. I have to block it off and out. I’ve gotten about 15 months of planning done – into forecasting January 22 as it’s the beginning of November 2020. But that couldn’t happen without time, space, mental bandwidth to focus on and evaluate. You Need Time To Evaluate Your Business You want to evaluate what you love doing, what gives you energy, those clients or tasks that suck the energy from you, and the value of your time and what you could train and pay someone else to do so you have more time yourself. You get into business for two or more reasons. You want freedom. Freedom to do the kind of work you want, but freedom of time and money to do it. So, if you’re simply working around the clock or you’re broke, something is not working. You may need to dig into where your revenue came from last year. What flowed to you easily, how much time it took, what does that mean for the amount of time and energy you place on what you do and the amount of revenue you generate? Are you earning your hourly worth? Or are you just working a lot without a real profit and loss statement that works for you? For You, If You’re Just Starting If you’re not creating a course, or program or package, this might sound a little foreign to you. Yet, maybe it’s time for you to take a look at how you will scale your business. So, that it’s not all you leading personal training sessions or bootcamps or group fitness. It’s not all you coaching by phone. But you’ve got a program, a group, some passive income from a course and you have products that help you make money when you’re not required to be there to make the money. Unless you can continue to raise your rates and charge $100-$200 an hour or more, it’s going to be hard to make a good living training exclusively and also have a life. No matter where you live, you’ve got to have free time, and be able to enjoy yourself. And finally, Critical Part #3: Spiritually Planning – Fill yourself up. Maybe for you that’s something specific or alone time. Maybe it’s partly your exercise or outdoor time. Whatever it is for you, acknowledge it and then guard it. I am more spiritual than I am religious. I do pray, but more so I mediate, and I enjoy quiet time, and time in nature. You will find me in church on Christmas eve and giving thanks before family dinners. I won’t be in church regularly, but if someone asked me to teach Sunday school or help with Bible School, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Know You You need to know what fills you up in this way. Belief in something beyond you and this moment is sometimes necessary in business to keep going. Seeing this just as something, something others have gone through, you might go through again, something with meaning and meant to lead you to the next step, that can make all the difference when things are hard. And if you’re really running a business, not a hobby, it will be hard. There will be hard decisions. Decisions about people. People who let you down or disappoint you. You’ll make business decisions not on emotion but on numbers. That’s three legs I told you about. But there is another consideration in your personal trainer & coach business plan. The Extended Part of Your Business If and when you’re ready to hire a team, or even a virtual assistant for the first step, you’ll want to check on whether they’re taking care of themselves. Do they get enough sleep, exercise, and take their vitamins? Do they have all 3 legs of this stool working for them? There you have it 3 Critical components to a personal trainer & coach business plan that don’t include your revenue, assets, marketing plan, but instead includes the foundation from which you’ll be able to make objective decisions about that business. Questions? Comments? Leave them below show notes at fitnessmarketingmastery-dot-com/business-plan If you’re working with midlife women (and hey, who’s not) especially if you are one .. or if you’d like to start, I’ll link to a special master class I’m teaching about why right now… is the absolute best moment in history to start and or grow and scale your business. The Master Class will cover: Fitness Specialists #3 Secrets About Now, You, and How to coach women in Menopause [Save Your Spot] You Might Also Like: | |||
| 22 Mar 2020 | Future of Fitness Post Corona Virus | What Now What Later | 00:39:57 | |
My guest is Erin Carson, co-owner and Operating Manager at RallySport Boulder, and trainer to some of the world’s greatest endurance athletes if not America’s athlete sweethearts. She is also a world class age-group athlete herself. She's a leader in so many ways and I tapped into her knowledge and gut feelings about the future of fitness and the fitness industry in this special episode. 1) What’s the Corona fitness climate in Boulder right now? What are you doing online now to connect with your customers now? How are you serving them differently? 2) You and Melissa your co-owner and partner sent out a special email yesterday about how you’re supporting your salaried staff and your customers right now – share a bit of that You wanted to add to the conversation about taking care of your people? 3) I’ve seen you – very early on – be one of the first and potentially only individual/business owner/fitness professional offer to help get groceries, run errands and just basically serve… those with compromised immune systems. How can others focus on who they are that will impact the future of fitness? 4) You also made a statement and PSA about being careful right now with workouts… With so many choices given all fitness pros are jumping online and offering workouts and plans ….It was a word of caution – let’s talk about that because it was great advice. 5) What about the integrity issue you’re seeing either emerge? 6) How are you personally buffing up your immune system? 7) I’m going to ask you to speculate on the future of fitness which is dangerous and yet I think by doing it we may help any trainers listening… What do you think this period in history will do for the fitness industry? We’ll all be changed from this – how do you think the fitness industry – and let’s bring it down to individual personal trainers… how will trainers be impacted by this? And in the end… how will this effect consumers? Clearly this is the first week of real impact of the Corona virus. Stay tuned for more as we explore how each of our businesses is changing. Connect: Instagram @Ecfitboulder for a discount code for an Oura ring Connect with Erin: ecfitboulder.com https://ecfitstrength.com/ Find the show notes at: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/future-of-fitness
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| 22 Nov 2018 | How to Hire the Right Person for Your Team | 00:40:55 | |
Note: this how to hire the right person podcast was originally posted October 5. Technology somehow through a wrench in the audio. This is a must-listen - thanks for your patience as we resurrected the audio file. How can you hire the right person every time? If you’ve ever hired the wrong person, or struggled to even find a few solid candidates to interview, then this is your episode. If you’re going it solo, a part of a team, you’re on Main street, deliver services, or you’re online definitely take a listen to this podcast. I recently had this conversation with my best friend who has more than 35 years of experience hiring and between the two of us we’ve been hiring, training, firing or being quit for a hundred years! Yikes! We both agreed this is still one of the hardest things to get right. So if you want to earn from our mistakes and from my guest today… pop your ear buds in or turn it up because you are going to need a team if you’re going to grow and make a difference. No one does it alone. My guest today is Claire Garrigan. She was among the top 3% nationwide for membership and personal training sales year after year, Claire now helps small-to-medium sized fitness facilities increase their revenue by teaching owners and staff how to sell consistently and effectively. Her sales training program, The Selling Fitness Blueprint, has been used in membership-based gyms and by personal trainers throughout North America and Europe to help fitness professionals not only increase revenue but to get them confident and comfortable with selling-without feeling like a used car salesman! Download the cheat sheet for this podcast right now to help you get the most out of this podcast. You’ll hire the right person with a plan and you can create it right now. 1) For a fitness facility hiring membership sales staff OR a digital trainer hiring his or her first team members what are some of the key traits they should be looking for in a potential hire? 2) What are some of the mistakes facilities make when hiring their staff, sales staff or otherwise? 3.) Before you even get to an interview what are some ways you can screen to filter out the best clients and repel those candidates who would hate the job and make you both frustrated? 4.) What steps do you like to have candidates do to weed themselves out? 5.) What’s are some questions we should be asking during an interview to find out if our potential hire would be a good fit for our facility and truly are the right person? 6) Once you hire the right person, how do you set them up for success? Connect with Claire: http://www.whyilovemondays.com https://www.instagram.com/whyilovemondays/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-garrigan-a5153b90/ Additional Podcasts You Might Like: Career Truths podcast with Erin Carson Personal Training Job Skills with Tom Durkin
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| 03 May 2023 | At 70 This Trainer Trained Himself Up Kilimanjaro with 3 Artificial Joints | 00:15:32 | |
Kilimanjaro with 3 artificial joints; got your attention? Feeling a little tired… after your early morning swim or your HIIT session today? This will give you a new perspective. Even better, with adult kids. If you’re a parent you know what that would mean. If you have parents, especially if they’re gone, you may know what it would be like to have a memory like that with them. What kind of life lessons are tucked into experiences like this. Maybe you pursue marathons or triathlons, maybe you like bodybuilding. Is it for you, or ego, or is it also something to create a life for later you love? Is it to put something in your life that is more meaningful, or to escape reality of today? There are so many reasons to add a "reach" experience to your life, and none of them wrong. Perhaps the only wrong is in not knowing why you want it or do it. Enjoy this short Q and A. My Guest: Dr. Irv Rubenstein, exercise physiologist and personal trainer (NSCA-CSCS, CPT, Certified with Distinction; ACSM-EP; FAI-Functional Aging Specialist), is president of STEPS Fitness, Nashville’s first personal training center. He has been an educator for fitness professionals with Exercise ETC; a contributor to online articles on fitness myths, functional training, and proper exercise technique; and has also contributed to books and articles for and about personal training. He was a founding member of the Eating Disorders Coalition of Tennessee (now Renewed Support) and served on its Executive and Education Committees. Dr. Irv has presented nationally and regionally on exercise and anorexia, arthritis and exercise, exercise and weight management, and several other exercise-related topics. He currently is an advisory board member for the MFN, has provided webinars for the MFEF, and is co-author of its Orthopedic Fitness Specialist course. Questions we answer in this episode: How did it impact your leadership or did you use it as an example in that way? What does a person do after reaching a personal goal like that? Was there any fear of separation or isolation from clients? How did this help you relate to your clients, or did it? The full episode: (included video footage) https://www.flippingfifty.com/kilimanjaro Other Episodes You Might Like: Adventure, leadership
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| 08 Jul 2020 | Best Social Media Fitness Posts Right Now | Personal Trainer Marketing | 00:16:44 | |
What are the Best Social Media Fitness Posts? Looking for the key to fitness posts and wondering why you can’t get any traction? Well, here’s what’s getting in the way for most fitness centers and trainers. Especially if you’re an introvert! Because as far as social media and fitness posts, it’s the personal ones that do best. That’s you … a person… talking, sharing, taking someone on a tour of your home, your kitchen, your pantry, your gym. It’s you… having your massage therapist, nutritionist, personal training director or most popular trainer do the same. It’s you as the general manager or owner getting on talking about what YOU do… and what you struggle with, what a typical day is for you. Your Best Social Media Fitness Posts for Personal Training & Fitness Programs Now Connection with people who feel isolated, lost, uncertain, and need a positive message that fitness can provide is a foot-in-the door for fitness professionals who will do the work. You have to do something that many trainers aren’t willing to do. You have to 1) open the kimono and 2) share the imperfect side of your life 3) tie it to your audience. If you can do that, and will do it consistently you can win hearts, alienate the people you are so wrong for anyway, and you will help people. This episode is all about what makes the best social media posts. Best Social Media Fitness Posts right now include:
In the episode I break down each of these and give you examples of how you can use them. Here’s how you take your unique qualities and create the best social media fitness posts to position you for your ideal customers. Tie Your Business to Your Social Posts Combine your unique interests and skills with your client’s desired transformation and the unique method you use to get it for them. Are you an artist? (that’s one of mine) and do you help athletes or midlife women like I do? And how do you do it? Even if you think you don’t have a unique method or system, I bet you do. You meet with a client first by? Phone call or consultation, currently by zoom. Nothing unique?
You may not be able to see this “thing” yourself. Someone else can though… consider asking someone else- a dozen someone else’s to tell you why working with you was so great and got them such good results when nothing else had. Then go back through the list… and you’ll have a better idea of how to tell stories and you can also plant the seed about your unique process/method/or system in all of your messages. As you keep mentioning over and over again, people will want to know more. End Notes In this episode we covered the prompts for the best social media fitness posts right now. They’re personal. You have to connect. And we covered the what is missing in many posts that could be “best” … but that won’t ever result in more business. When you use your special sauce and combine these, you will steadily see your influence and your leads begin to grow. Resources: Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist
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| 18 Nov 2017 | #1 Way to Increase Sales from Fitness Consultations | 00:32:29 | |
The #1 way to increase sales from fitness consultations, or bookings (if you do them) has nothing to do with your degree, certification, experience, or the type of body fat analyzer that you use. Whether you spent $10,000 on an Inbody or $60 on an Omron or something else, has nothing to do with the buyer's perception of you during your session. And that is all that matters. What does make a difference in your sales from fitness consultations? Your attire can increase sales from fitness consultations or make it harder to sell. Your competence can increase sales from fitness consultations. Your customer perceives your competence from your name tag (does it say "intern"?), the proficiency of putting on the blood pressure cuff, and informing them what's going to happen next. Are your hands shaking? Are you sweating or hesitating? Are you distracted? Do you seem to be trying to remember what comes next? It all matters. Too tight of clothing and too baggy clothing both hurt your ability to increase sales from fitness consultations. Buyers, primarily women, were asked about their perceptions. They perceived both revealing, tight clothing and layers of baggy clothes as a clue the trainer was less competent, unprofessional, and less successful. We all want to work with someone more successful. Eye contact, rate of speech, and warmth with a customer matter. A weak handshake could reduce your ability to sell while a strong voice and handshake or touch at just the right time can increase sales from fitness consultations. Not doing fitness consultations? Your first meeting is your first impression no matter when or how that happens. A fitness consultation in itself is a sign of confidence. No one is wearing blinders today. We all are aware that free service is usually followed by an offer to take the next step. Few of us want to do a free consultation unless we're confident in our ability to help a customer, to interpret how we can help them, and ask for the sale. Increase sales from fitness consultations by practicing now. If you're listening at the end of the year when it was recorded, nail this before the start of the New Year! for a complimentary consult about the language and process you use (and a potential offer to take the next step, wink, wink) contact http://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com
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| 12 Aug 2023 | What Trainers Need to Know About Hormone Replacement Therapy | 00:14:34 | |
In this behind-the-scenes quick episode with Dr Terri DeNeui we discuss what trainers need to know about hormone replacement therapy. We open up about how to recognize a woman is in menopause, and how you can help be a part of a collective team supporting her. You spend more time than any professional with your clients so optimizing your value is all tied up in this episode. If you’re not yet a Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist, on your way to increasing your clients, your revenue, and your freedom, we’ll link to that in the show notes too. My Guest: Dr. Terri DeNeui is a board-certified nurse practitioner, nationally renowned speaker, author, and entrepreneur. She holds advanced certifications in Hormone Replacement Therapy, Preventive Wellness Medicine, and Functional Medicine. Her career in medicine began as a hospitalist in emergency medicine, where Dr. DeNeui quickly realized that day in and day out, the focus was on disease management instead of disease prevention. She felt saddened and frustrated—she wanted to do more for patient care and for that, she had to know more. This was the catalyst for what has become her life’s work. She began to pursue extensive education in hormone optimization, integrative health, preventive care, and alternative medicine. Dr. DeNeui founded Hormonal Health & Wellness in Southlake, Texas (now EVEXIAS Medical Centers) in 2008 as the first step in her new pursuit. In her practice, Dr. DeNeui strives to help men and women find optimal health. Questions We Answer in This Episode:
Resources: Fitness and Health Coaches Scorecard: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/scorecard Copywriting Course: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/copywriting-course Other Episodes You May Like: What Women Need to Know about Hormone Replacement Therapy: https://www.flippingfifty.com/what-to-know-about-hrt/ | |||
| 13 Nov 2017 | Social Media Strategies for Fitness Business Success | 00:15:47 | |
Social media strategies are still a mysterious marketing tool for many fitness professionals. Getting into the work of creating programs, delivering services, responding to inquiries and just keeping up with day-to-day activities makes social media seeming less important. It's not. It's not going away. Social media strategies can make social media a source of steady, streaming traffic that creates the first impression with your next clients and then shortens the time to you actually being able to help them. You go through a series of steps with every new prospect. There are common questions that most prospects have and new customers ask after that. All of those can be partially answered even before someone begins with you. With social media strategies you can overcome objections of new customers before they get in the way. The social media strategies you employ for your fitness marketing campaigns can shorten the dating phase of your relationship and move you right into a longer term committed relationship. The reality of marketing's importance in the scheme of fitness business success is known to every successful and every failed fitness business. Relationships and community whether virtual or literal are increasingly important in our world. People disconnected due to technology and phones, working virtually, traveling, isolated at home, or due to distance learning, want to belong to something greater and feel less alone. Watch and follow Flipping 50's community on Facebook. Though you can't see the private groups created you can see the way women interact with gratitude. Define your niche, create the space dedicated to your demographic. Talk to them and listen to them. For successful social media strategies you must connect the parts of your whole campaign. From your programs and services built based on your listening to clients and customers wants, to your website where they live, and the content where you attract customers by offering solutions, the social media is the legs for your content. If you've been beginning your strategy with social media as the beginning, go back and reroute. It will be well worth it. Connect with me for a strategy session: http://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com
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| 17 Apr 2021 | Fitness & Health Coaches How is Your List Building Strategy? | 00:18:27 | |
Do you really need to be list building when you think you need to be training clients, and writing workouts? Do you really need to be learning how to write better copy on the sales pages you have (or need to create) so that you can sell the products and packages you have now? Do you know if you need list building, or more products or to raise your rates? Many fitness professionals love training. They love people basically. They feel good doing training. They love sharing what they know about fitness to help clients. But they also want to have a home, a family, a life and time outside of the work they love. Busy Isn’t Productive You can’t see the picture when you’re in the frame. -Mary Morrissey You’re doing lots of things. You’re busy. You can easily fool yourself that you’re doing meaningful things but look up at the end of the week or month or 6 months and know the truth. You haven’t made any more money. You may have gained clients, but you also lost them. You’re in the same exact spot with no time to take off, no two weeks of vacation, certainly not paid, and you don’t really jump out of bed loving what you’re doing. Where do you need to focus?
Almost all fitness professionals can improve in each area at least a little. We all want to be doing what we do better and more effectively, right? But there’s one thing that will make the biggest difference for you right now. Do you know what it is? List Building Isn’t Sexy List building for many is not very sexy. But it is the real estate you own. List Building or Dumping Members? Unfortunately, too many fitness businesses think of it as a place to dump their members when they join. So, they can email them spammy emails about more ways to spend money with programs. That’s not a model that works very well. If you’re not giving your email subscribers something to look forward to in your emails, a recipe, a gift, a workout, a research study, a statistic, why do they need you? The Harvard Wellness newsletter or the Google can give them more support and fewer sales pitches. Episodes you also might like: Show up When You're Not Selling Fitness Services Always Let Them Know You Sell (without selling!)
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| 16 Dec 2023 | Health Business Email Marketing Mistakes that are Killing Revenue | 00:22:26 | |
If your health business email marketing is not up to date with current delivery parameters, in tune with your community and continually cleaned up, you need to brace yourself for 2024. In this episode I’m breaking down the most common misconceptions that result in mistakes. No matter whether you’re starting or you’ve got a list, you are primed to do better. Email marketing is a puzzle for all industries but the secrets are simple.
Your success in any relationship is in understanding what someone else is thinking and feeling. If you’re not doing that as you write every single email, you are losing this race. For a very small percent of your email list this is a sprint. For many many more it’s a marathon. But you have water stations and port-a-potties all along a marathon. The fitness of your email marketing depends on the frequency and intensity of your email. Sound familiar? In this episode why these health business email marketing mistakes hurt:
If you aren’t tapping into emotion with every email, you’re missing out. If you aren’t segmenting your email list, you’re suffering. When you get curious about why your open rate is low or click rate is poor, you can solve problems quickly. Was it the day and time? Was it the subject line? Was it the lack of repetition inside the email or the congruency of the message with the reason the subscriber got on your list? Resources: Menopause Fitness Specialist™ Program: https://www.flippingfifty.com/menopause-fitness-specialist-program-2022/ Health & Fitness Business Scorecard: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/scorecard Marketing to Women Copywriting Course: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/copywriting-course WELLPROS mentorship group: https://www.flippingfifty.com/store/uncategorized/fit-pros-health-coaches-monthly-membership-founder/ Other Episodes You Might Like: Better Email Marketing: Love Letters To Your Customers https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/better-email-marketing/ Email Marketing for Fitness Business Success https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/email-marketing-fitness-businesses/ The Truth About Email Frequency and Content https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/email-frequency/ | |||
| 10 Jun 2014 | Finding Your Uniqueness To Stand Out Not Blend In | 00:40:05 | |
When competing with a large organization, corporation or big box is out of the question for your budget it's time to reorganize. Your small business has an attraction that a big organization does not. Finding the blend of personal and professional is key to allowing your customers, your next customers, to get to know you. Shelia Ray, owner of ReformingU joins the podcast today. Sharing her unique history of cancer, motivation to share the cooking movement along with her personal training services she does it from a rural Texas location. Hear what she's found most effective in attracting new customers to her site and how she is marketing and advertising on a low to no budget. | |||
| 04 Apr 2020 | Becoming an Online Trainer in 2020 | COVID19 Will Change Fitness | 00:21:52 | |
Right now the fitness industry is full of trainers and instructors flooding the online space. No one was prepared for COVID19. And yet, becoming an online trainer was a good idea before this pandemic. It wasn’t crowded for any single niche. Note: I’ve been an almost 100% virtual personal trainer & health coach for women in perimenopause, menopause, and post menopause, focused on hormone balancing exercise since January 2013. In March of 2013 I created my first online course. I offered my first online marketing and sales training course for trainers in August 2013. My advice is to jump in. Do not wait. This many years later it is easier, and it will get more crowded if you wait. Be first. Be best. But done is better than perfect. My business model is hybrid – providing live retreats for women, fitness pros, and live workshops and speaking. The beauty of hybrid is that a trainer isn’t defined or limited by circumstance. A hybrid trainer is able to adjust to the needs of a client and provide online, in person, training sessions, programs, nutrition coaching, tele-sessions on an as-needed basis. The content gets delivered on the platform that works best at the moment. You’re not limited as a trainer by geography or technology. In 2019 I launched the Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist certificate to provide the training for other trainers and meet the huge demand for 46 million women in menopause, growing by 6000 every day (ACOG, 2019). As a part of that training I offer an online build your brand & business program for trainers and health coaches. Now has never been a better time to 1) already have leverage online 2) create your online strategy 3) leave random or “someday” options and commit to business that is either hybrid or 100% online. For trainers who have an interest in becoming an online trainer this is the time to pivot. For trainers who want to continue doing training in person this is the time to develop online training tools that support customers and leads. It is the time to develop an online presence if even by showing up regularly, not necessarily to contribute to the mass of “exercise” options, but to be there supporting and creating community. This doesn’t mean spending your life on social media. But it means willingness to research what your customer needs right now. What is the biggest problem your customer faces? Now is the time to plan. Create a strategy that is informed from homework about the clients you want to target. If you currently had been serving clients face-to-face in a wide array of ages, conditions, and goals, that won’t equate to an easy target online. You need to focus on:1) Who you want to serve 2) Who you need to be 3) How you help them and 4) What’s unique about you and them Before you try to add “online trainer” into your website or social media bio, spend some time really focusing on the business plan and model. The ProcessBecoming an online trainer will all but guarantee you become a better trainer. You will learn how to market and promote and serve your customers in a way that boosts your value. What are we and aren’t we talking about?I’m not only talking about delivery of your services via teleconferences or Skype or Facetime. That virtual training simply changes where you are and may increase the convenience of delivery for you or your client but is still an hour-for-a-dollar method of training. You hit a limit to the number of hours you have to train. Does it offer a little more freedom than face-to-face sessions? Yes, but it may actually end up being less than the amount of revenue you’d otherwise make. You still have to be in a quiet space with control of your environment. Your kids can’t be coming in and out of the room. Without celebrity status or a bestselling book your clients may not want to pay you as much for this service. So more clients paying less money unless you’re talking a LOT more with say an online bootcamp you’re doing live is not an optimal model. Will virtual sessions now help you recover income otherwise lost? Yes. You can conduct Skype, Zoom, or Facetime sessions with your clients scheduled just like any other sessions. Unless your business model is stuck and you refuse to figure out how to it this way, there is a way. Most of the time the greatest learning and fastest forward progress happens because its needed and necessary: not because you’re ready. Why is Online Training (and Coaching) So Beneficial?There’s no income ceiling if you strategically create programs. It offers you a way to make passive income if you’re sick or on vacation. You can train anyone from anywhere anytime. You can have as much hands-on or DIY as clients prefer and you build. Accountability is Still KeyCustomer service between sessions is still and all-important part of your value. Clients who need accountability (which is about 98% of humans) need your personal touch. You still have to show up. You need to coach them, have check ins, have Q and As and in some way be there for them so they do what is available to them. Online Training Revenue Streams Beyond the Old 1-to-1 Model
What Doesn’t ChangeYou still have to choose a niche. You can’t serve “everybody.” If you’re still marketing mass bootcamps for all ages and men and women without pre-qualifications and specific outcomes, you’ll fail. Going “broad” like this in the future will guarantee your failure. Can you imagine people wanting to be in large groups where they share battle ropes, and TRX, and dumbbells, and mats while they’re sweaty? The overwhelm of prospective clients is real. They can’t distinguish between one program or trainer and another. If you’re a so-so trainer, that’s good. If you’re a highly skilled expert trainer, that’s bad. A 60-something woman may think her daughter who just graduated from college with a degree she paid for can help her because after all she’s a beginner and need the basics. Never mind the osteoporosis, arthritis, hip bursitis and rotator cuff issues she has. Unless you clearly distinguish yourself and create a message that a customer gets at hello, you will be lost in a sea of trainers scrambling right now to get an online presence. Online Fitness Service Options
Examples of Information Products to Add
Membership ModelsOnce you have begun and learn what’s working a membership model with subscription is the way of the future for many. Though we don’t know exactly what will happen post COVID19, we do know that things will change. Health is important. Quality will have more value than ever. Software, Course-Building, or Word Press
You have options. Before you go shopping for the options to build something lay out your plan so you can create a customer experience. Once you do that you’ll best be able to choose the products that will create it. The biggest mistake? Trainers tell me, I know I have to get a website up. If you too are saying this before you even know who your target customer is, that would be a bigger mistake than not having a website. Whether you deliver in-person personal training or online personal training this is the absolute most important and most often skipped part of every struggling fitness business. Especially now. Any fitness business can have a certain level of success due to novelty or newness or the vast offerings. Or at least could at one time. If you want to survive and thrive during and after COVID19 you can. You can't however wait it out. Find a Niche and ServeToday customers who are more overwhelmed by facilities and amenities that they don’t use are less likely to go to a big umbrella gym. The bigger it is and the less time a customer has, the mere walk to the locker room and back to find a classroom is a time inconvenience. An older adult who has to climb the stairs or even use the elevator to reach the track or an exercise bike may decide it’s all too much if that’s all they want to use. So your specialization and your specific message are more appealing than ever. Define your target market. Learn what options already exist for them. Identify a gap and determine if there is great enough demand. Decide the model you want. Then plan the customer journey before you shop for how to put it together. You want to create the ideal program and offer in your head and on paper before you ever start a website, a membership area, or start creating videos. If you want support and step-by-step coaching on creating, reaching, an offer customers love schedule a breakthrough with me. When you’re ready, these are your steps:Identify your ideal customer - Begin attracting the right person who has a problem is actively seeking solutions, and has urgency around it and willing to invest in it. Spend the most time developing this so you can evaluate how many customers fit this niche and the 4 criteria that make this niche a wise one. Learn how to create rapport with anyone - in your emails, on your website, on the phone, and in person so you can put them at ease and learn what they want. There are word you want to avoid and words you want to use, and a right time to use them. Generate leads that grow your business – Learn the marketing tools that work right now. You want to create leads that grow your email list every day automatically. Create Offers – Learn how to create offers that convert customers and that position you as a trainer of value not a trainer of discount. There are 16 parts to making an irresistible offer. Client Care – You’ll learn how in person, online, and hybrid trainers win the loyalty of the clients with the best follow up, accountability, and customer love strategies. A small percent of people today have any brand loyalty and 50% switchdue to poor customer service. The good news is 93% of customers will make a repeat purchase when there is excellent customer service. | |||
| 10 Apr 2017 | The Mindset of Growing Your Personal Training Business | 00:21:03 | |
Marketing is essential to personal training growth. The right mindset about marketing makes the marketing strategies available to you work. In this episode the difference between how you market as actions vs marketing strategies that have a destination, measurable tracking and truly help you grow more quickly with less effort. | |||
| 21 Jun 2023 | Do Your Health Coaching Clients Abuse or Avoid HRT? | 00:16:21 | |
Your clients may choose to use HRT or avoid HRT... But I propose they could also abuse HRT.
What to do in both cases…
I’m going to cut right to the heart of the message.
If I have it, keep reading and I’ll explain (and so will a podcast).
Muscle is an endocrine organ – Muscle is HRT for Women 40+ It is HRT.
Still, reading? Good… let’s do this.
Hormones and Training 101
Once a woman doesn’t have the same level of estrogen and progesterone she did, building muscle makes a big difference in the way she ages.
Cortisol has an uptick when estrogen falls. That means, women no longer have the muscle-stimulating effects of estrogen AND they have the deleterious effects of cortisol breaking down their muscles further.
Loss of muscle means a gain of fat. By default, even if fat isn’t gained, the percentage of body fat goes up. But in minutes- or so it seems for many women – your metabolism slows (not because it must… but because she may have this first wake-up call that she hasn’t been eating enough protein, sleeping enough, or doing enough or the right kind of strength training. She will gain fat. Even if her false golden idol scale says she hasn’t gained weight, she has changed her body composition such that she doesn’t have metabolically active tissue anymore. She will gain weight, and it will be 100% fat.
Flipping50 Menopause Specialist: https://www.flippingfifty.com/specialist
She hasn’t thought about it like this. Have you?
Look… if you’re going to the trouble to understand what happened for you, what’s happening for her… by knowing signs and symptoms and offering all the tools that support her (Check out the Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist), then you must know how to talk to her about it.
In a way she’ll listen.
We hit on estrogen and progesterone levels. They play a big part in glucose regulation. A high percent of women become less insulin sensitive, or said otherwise- insulin resistant because they’re eating the same as they’ve always done, exercising the same as they’ve always exercised and it’s not going to work the same. More muscle acts like a bigger sponge for blood sugar. Then each time you move that muscle – in daily activities of life, in walking, and in intentional exercise, the muscle is acting like HRT for Women 40+. It’s not giving extra estrogen and progesterone, but it’s helping take up where estrogen left off and where insulin would have to take over, with its negative effects. (Progesterone, BTW, responds well to certain foods and making sure you’re not going too low on carbs too often is a big part of balancing this hormone).
How Can Exercise Negatively Affect Hormones? Women who revert to cardio, cardio, and cardio are also potentially elevating cortisol with endurance activity. More pronounced even if they’re already stressed, sleep deprived, or eating too little protein and carbs to fuel. This is at that moderate level they’ve been led to believe (even we as fitness professionals have been led to believe, is best).
With less cardio and more strength training + low-level exercise, + anaerobic work (getting breathless) -when appropriate, a woman stands a chance at improving her life.
A woman not lifting is live choosing to avoid HRT. Overexercise is abusing it.
Resistant Exercise as HRT for Women 40+ and Mood Then there’s mood. A recent study in the Journal of Physiology (Jan 2023) found that high intensity has a far greater effect on the BDNF factor in the brain. Studies in the recent past years (excluding the pandemic) showed high-intensity high-impact studies done on postmenopausal women to be not only effective in bone density benefits but also researchers discovered something. They said in the discussion that the participants liked the HIIT. Compliance and adherence rates were high, and the exercise had notable favorable effects on mood and sense of accomplishment.
These are all related to serotonin, oxytocin, dopamine and of course endorphins. More muscle enables more motivation to do other activities that bring each of these as well.
Weight training done correctly has a positive hormonal effect on HRT. No weight training, it’s another way your clients may abuse or avoid HRT. Whether you’re a coach or a trainer, or a combination, there is no other exercise that substitutes for the positive impact on hormones like a proper resistance training program.
Overexercise has a negative impact. Chronic cardio has a negative impact. Your clients, you know those that overdo it, do it too frequently, don’t rest… are essentially taking double doses of their hormone shots, creams, or pills. No one would do that… but she doesn’t see that she is.
Without you. Are you ready to dig into the science and the way to deliver it with confidence you know how to help your menopause clients now and tomorrow when her status changes? Can you pivot? The Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist course is open and comes with 2 huge bonuses and a special rate for podcast listeners. DM me on IG or send a message to support@flippingfifty.com to get this $500 off and 10K in bonuses now!
Other Episodes You Might Like: Muscle is an endocrine organ – Muscle is HRT for Women 40+: https://www.flippingfifty.com/hrt-for-women/ 3 Ways to Coach Menopause Clients Out of Mistakes:https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/coach-menopause-clients/
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| 17 Feb 2015 | Passion To Profit | 00:33:02 | |
Guest And Balance Yoga Lounge owner, Sandy Eimers shares her journey from safe, secure job to entrepenuer. The risks of taking the leap, the risks of not taking it are here. The Yoga Teacher's Toolbox Sandy mentioned can be found here. and the book One Person/Multiple Careers: A New Model For Work/Life Success is by Marci Alboher. Connect with our guest Sandy at Balance Yoga Lounge or on Facebook As always you can find Debra at www.voiceforfitness.com | |||
| 09 Jul 2022 | How To Do Over 10k Personal Training Sessions in 6 Months | 00:43:22 | |
10k personal training sessions in 6 months? Do you want to know? or Hard pass? In my 38 years of full time fitness industry experience, I can include a 6 and a half year period of time as personal training director for a multisite fitness center with over 20 personal trainers. During that time our conservative count suggested that I’d supervised about 250,000 personal training sessions during that time. So, I'm as curious as you. If the title of this episode got your attention, you might be wondering how. You also might be wondering what kind of profit margin there was, and or if you’re skeptical like me, how “personal” the sessions truly were. Questions we answer in this episode: Do you want to be the Walmart… lowest price to as many people as possible? Do you want to be the Nordstrom’s … higher price to fewer higher quality clients? What are the pros and cons of each? Is there a downside to either? My Guest: Joshua Ford is the CEO & Co-Founder of HipTrain, a VC-backed startup that provides live, 1-on-1 personal training sessions for just $6.99 a 30-min session. Prior to HipTrain he helped build Uber and Candid and worked at The White House. Joshua was a Fulbright Scholar and is passionate about providing affordability and accessibility (particularly in health and wellness) to the masses. Questions We Answer in this Episode: What was your role in building Uber? And Candid? And what job did you have at the White House? What made you choose this career? Did you personally provide over 10k personal training sessions in 6 months? Tell listeners exactly how this happened and as you said in your notes to me these were “individualized” sessions. $6.99 is not all that attractive to many listeners. In fact many of us prefer 3-digits before the decimal, so, how are you going to make doing 10,000 at $6.99 sound sexy? Who are your trainers? Why are you able to hire them for $6.99 for 30 minutes, pay them, and make a profit or pay merchant fees? How personalized? What’s your definition of personalized? Based on need, movement screen, or client’s desire? Average qualification of your trainers? How much experience? Liability for you as owner? That’s a lot of sessions, a lot of clients. How do you personally create healthy habits around your work? What led you to create the model you currently have? What was the inspiration? Number of real people in the business now? What’s next? Do you have any idea what percent of people you’re providing service to who were not exercising consistently prior to starting with Hiptrain? CONNECT with Joshua: https://www.instagram.com/hiptrainfitness/ https://www.tiktok.com/@hiptrain
Marketing to Women Copywriting course: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/copywriting-course Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/menopause-fitness-specialist | |||
| 31 Mar 2014 | Best Fitness Recruiting, Interviewing, and Hiring Practices with Debi Pillarella | 00:43:05 | |
How do you hire? It's a skill set we often don't come to the fitness profession with. If you've grown up through the ranks of fitness trainer to having a business of your own it's a guessing game that can cost you. If your business is dependant on customer care and liability is a concern, the right person is key. What works? What mistakes should you avoid? Guest Debi Pillarella has 30 years fitness industry experience. With 80 employees and an 80% retention rate at Community Hospital's Fitness Pointe in Indiana she's learned the ropes. Hear what she has to say, whether your interviewing or the interviewee. The resources she mentions include: Match, Top Grading, and Ask The Right Questions Hire The Right Person Contact Debi at 219-924-5348 or dpillarela@comhs.org See a written transcript of this podcast at www.voiceforfitness.com by using the fitness professionals tab and The Dollars and Sense of Selling Exercise blog. | |||
| 12 Jul 2020 | Personal Trainers | Why Your Emails Don’t Get Sales | 00:22:13 | |
Your emails don’t get sales because of your copy. It may be your subject line, or your content or both. Subject Lines are Only the Beginning First, they have to open it though so let’s start with the best subject lines. You can GOOGLE the “best subject lines of all time” and get a bullet point list of some. But that’s not the best way to get your customers to open. The best way is to know them. Then you learn to write copy… copy that converts. You can’t copy someone else’s copy… but you can learn from it. What’s the difference between copy writing and copy that sells? So that you can understand why your emails don’t get sales and flip the switch? Copy is sometimes clever, so carefully grammar and punctuation checked, that it misses connection. You’re neither writing for your college literature professor or for an article in Science Digest. You’re writing to get someone to take the next step. You’re having a conversation with the reader. If you’re not thinking about what they currently think and feel you’ll never connect with them. If you’re not thinking about what the logical next step is for them, you haven’t come up with a Call to Action (CTA) makes sense for what you want them to do next. How can you write good copy? The kind that gets you sales? Not the kind that makes you comfortable or is grammatically correct? Not the kind that tells your reader how smart you are or how much they don’t know and need you for… because even that dance is tricky. If you offend someone or convince them they are doing it so wrong right now without making an emotional connection, you won’t inspire them to keep reading. It may be true, but you’ve got to take their side. Nothing bonds like a common enemy. So … play it that they haven’t failed, the system failed them. Like COVID19 has bonded a lot of people in the world – we all want this over. No one likes wearing a mask. What can you have in common with your audience, not know better than them? Big Reasons Emails Don’t Get Sales (and what to do about it)
Take action: Take an hour every day this week and write. Write in a whole new way. And even if your open rate is far about industry average, and your click through rate is too, we always strive to improve it, right?
When you can take someone from pre-aware that there is a problem, to awareness there’s a problem, to awareness there’s a solution, and that you have a solution, and that your solution is the only solution… That’s the role of good copy. Know exactly who you’re writing for when you write copy. Are they aware they have a problem? Are they aware what they’re doing isn’t working? Or are they pre-aware there is even a problem with the way they’re exercising? If you haven’t really sat down and thought about first, what stage the customer you are writing a love letter too is in, how can you really write anything that will help them? This is a game changer. You’ll go from finding your emails don’t get sales to a significant change in your email conversions. And you’ll feel better about the messages you’re sending. Marketing after all is a conversation when it’s done best. Resources in this episode: Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist Private Fit Pros Facebook group
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| 20 Apr 2022 | Viral Reel Ideas for Female Fitness Influencers | She Means Fitness Business | 00:13:44 | |
First of all, what is a viral reel? Truly it may not be your best goal. Because your business isn’t likely to grow from one viral reel. Now, if you were doing a TEDx talk and it got 10M views, that’s going to help your business. 00:00 What’s the difference? The credibility that provides authority that then makes you the go-to expert. And.. you have to remember that if you don’t have a call-to-action that is obvious when people land on your website, or when they link to your profile, still a viral reel isn’t what you want… yet. But let’s say for the sake of this podcast, you’ve lain the foundation. You have a freebie that people want and ask for all the time. Or listen, they don’t have to ask for it by name. But they do have to ask for the solution to a problem that your freebie clearly solves and by a name they recognize as doing exactly that. Hey, by the way, if you’re a gym owner or studio, trainer or health coach and you’re offering a complimentary session or call? It’s too big a step for someone who doesn’t know you, so step back and let’s find a better answer for you. Freebie 02:45 What’s the recipe for a viral reel? You never know. But you might be discovered or shared if you’re smart with hashtags and congruent from content to hashtags. So, the safest, surest, steadiest way to grow (and potentially win instead of spending $$ on lottery tickets that are a million to one) is this: Create content that educates, inspires, and entertains. 05:30 Viral Reel #1: Educate your audience You can point to words, jump into different scenes, or just talk straight to the camera. 06:58 Viral Reel #2: Inspire Do they want to grow old better than others? Then show them examples of how to do it. You can create reels sharing images of older adults doing amazing things, of sites and accounts that share adults doing amazing things, or do a video of you introducing say 5 unique individuals. 08:12 Viral Reel #3: Entertain your audience Yes, you do have to be creative here. An entertainer changes costume, changes the type of songs in the set, does some old favorites but also throws in something new. You’ve got to be similar. For more help with content creation that finds you real, not fake clients, check this out https://www.flippingfifty.com/5-day-fmm-specialist-challenge-opt/ Other Resources: Marketing to Women: fitnessmarketingmastery.com/copywriting-course Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist: flippingfifty.com/specialist
Other Episodes You Might Like: Social Media Advice for Fitness & Health Pros #3033 Reasons Your Social Media Isn’t WorkingPersonal Trainers: How to Boost Your Social Media EngagementVOTE NOW! Choose your favorite podcast title: https://debraatkinson.typeform.com/to/F0MdiZBv | |||
| 22 May 2024 | 3 Quick Ways to Boost Engagement for Health Coaches | 00:29:46 | |
Hold your hat, here come 3 quick ways to boost engagement! If it feels like you’re posting all the time but crickets all the time in response, this is for you. These are quick and dirty ways to get more engagement, therefore grow your reach on social media and that potentially means grow your email list. When you grow your email list, you have a better chance of launching more successful programs every time. If you’re not already growing your list every single day, with a juicy lead magnet - you know - the opt in they’ll trade their best email for then grab my Ultimate Freebie Guide. Yes, how meta is that? The freebie guide to freebie guides. But it’s easier now than ever with Chat gpt. If you know how to prompt and ask questions! Let’s dive into this short but effective list of 3 ways to boost engagement now.
If you continue to post reels and carousel posts and live videos or image posts and you know the post is good and helpful and hits on a topic your audience cares about and is looking for a solution to (and if not see my ultimate freebie!), then stories could be all you need.
It could be mine- last week I had a tooth extracted. I chose a holistic dentist. So I talked about why and the difference. I talked about the trek to LA to have it done. I talked about the worry I did ahead of time and the outcome of the whole thing, from hours in the chair, the pain, what I was able to do after, how I prepared for healing and inactivity so I wouldn’t lose muscle.
Make them personal. Last women’s history month, we’ve been blessed to see Caitlin Clark from the University of Iowa excel in basketball and change the game forever. She’s become a celebrated athlete, not just a women's basketball athlete, and all-time athlete. Because of that we’ve seen more female athletes and coaches highlighted that in the past take a backseat to men’s events. Resources: Fitness Business Scorecard: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/scorecard Menopause Fitness Framework: https://www.flippingfifty.com/specialist Other Episodes You Might Like: Affiliate Partnerships: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/promote-affiliate-partners/ Social Media Marketing Strategy: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/social-media-marketing-strategy/ | |||
| 04 Jun 2018 | 7 Professional Secrets of Personal Training Success | 00:17:47 | |
Personal training success is dependent on a mixture of fitness education, communication skills, and business intelligence. This episode is a round up of six influential fitness professionals. I’m introducing the career planning optimization series and I’m hosting influential fitness professionals about the business. Each is either a master trainer, or fitness owner, or industry leader in some way who has enjoyed longevity of successful and profitable business. They share their response to "What do you wish you'd known before you got into personal training?" This episode previews the series of full episodes with each and every one of them where they share their tips for your personal training success. Earn from their mistakes by applying their tips to invest in your education, coaching, mentoring or hire better for staff members who can cover the bases you can't or don't want to do! Inside this episode you'll hear from: Dan Ritchie of Functional Aging Institute, FAI, about the importance of email marketing in personal training success. Dave Smith, founder of an online fitness professional's organization about the importance of influencing fewer people in a bigger way for personal training success. Shawna Kaminski, influential Canadian business owner - midlife women's fitness specialist, and coach for fitness professionals, shares her 4-step process of vetting a coach and the the value of coaches and mentors. Forty-year business owner Tom Durkin shares the disappointing reality he faced after adding personal training to his programs and services. It provides insight for personal training success skills you want in order to stand out. Lisa Dougherty, Medfit Network founder, talks about what she wished she'd known about the population's changing needs. Barry Ennis, who has an international presence and career that will inspire you, discusses his biggest tip for personal training success and a career bigger than you might imagine right now. Erin Carson, owner and manager of Rallysport in Boulder and ECfitBoulder online training for triathletes and anyone who wants balanced fitness shares her golden secret for personal training success. It's not another degree, another certification, and it's available to potentially any trainer. Leave your comments below the show at http://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com Leave a rating in iTunes (and subscribe to get the shows right to your phone). | |||
| 26 Jan 2022 | Training 7 Women’s Hormone Phase of Life | Fitness & Health Pros | 00:21:06 | |
Every one of women’s hormone phases of a woman’s life provides a unique demand for exercise protocols that are most beneficial. Then you layer in the nuances true of her right now. If you find you’ve gained weight due to the pandemic or it came on during menopause and you haven’t learned that it’s just a sign what you’re doing now doesn’t work, that’s a nuance for you. If you’ve just learned you have osteoporosis and you don’t know what to do with that information, you could easily fall prey to programs that can all say they improve bone density but that may help only to a small extent. If clients need better pelvic floor strength, they might be told Kegels or Pilates are the best way. They’re not for all. And that’s where the need-to-know exercise for women’s hormone phase of life comes in. You do need to know. You need to know your client’s personal priorities: Weight loss Bone density Muscle strength Energy Sleep support Libido boost Mood & Cognitive support And from the answer to all of these 3 questions: What stage she’s in What conditions, injuries, or limitations she has What priorities she has …You choose exercise based on the best protocol for the combined collection of each of those. Let me walk you through why this is so important and clients can get derailed so very easily. Clients start doing something like this: that one woman described as “She’s a hormone specialist just like you” and realize anyone can talk about hormones. It’s always been part of exercise science, but until the last 10-15 years we didn’t understand how much every hormone phase of a woman’s life is unique. A trainer or program targeting everyone is designed for no one. Let’s Talk Fitness (& Health) Coaching Marketing "A fitness or diet program that says “for women in menopause” with no science featuring women in menopause, is just good marketing." There are fitness and health celebrities I just love. There are behaviors of the same celebrities I just hate. And this is one of those behaviors. Targeting midlife women with a weight loss program that was not specifically designed based on their hormone health, gut status, and signs & symptoms are just irresponsible use of celebrity. "It’s like the professional athletes our kids cherished using steroids or taking money to manipulate the game. At a time when women are vulnerable to feelings of low body confidence, exhaustion from insomnia, and betrayed by a body they can’t figure out any more any message that resonates with them and hits you at a time they feel all the frustration, is enough to make them take a risk. " A big fitness icon who's sold millions in fitness programs is doing just that. Several fitness pros just entered midlife themselves. So, I get it. She’s experiencing menopause, she’s talking about it. That is a good thing. But slapping a marketing campaign on another diet program just to take advantage of midlife women is a crime. Her programs have always targeted women… of all ages. But as I checked out this new program she was offering, the only thing that had changed from 10 years ago was the marketing on the front side. So, let’s be realistic. If you’re paying attention and have been here, at Fitness Marketing Mastery or following Flipping 50 for a minute, you know that what works for mice, and men and young women will not work for women in midlife. So, programs targeted for 20 and 30 and 50 and 60 something women, were built with no one of them in mind. Every Women’s Hormone Phase is Different … but pros aren’t addressing it that way Even two women in menopause differ. One may be a small-framed who wants to add muscle and bone density, even gain weight while another needs to focus on gaining muscle in order to lose weight, and still, another could be either one of these women with prior injuries. One has adrenal fatigue and one is fine but just new to exercise. A program and a trainer or health coach needs to be able to see the top priorities for a women’s hormone phase choose the most important variable and start there. Yes, it’s true, they have the same body parts. But every decade of life – simply as a good way of arranging it – needs to change slightly. Better than each decade, in every phase of hormone change exercise needs change. In pre-puberty: Building bone density Building a lifetime of love for activity Experiencing a variety of movement In puberty and young adulthood: Continued building of bone density Optimizing peak muscle mass Building body confidence Establish strength training habits & sound technique Learning proper technique & injury prevention Pre-natal: Maintaining (even gaining) fitness for optimal fetal and maternal health Avoiding too much heat early in pregnancy Avoiding too much joint stress late pregnancy Offset changes in the center of gravity, upper and lower back stress Pelvic floor integrity Post-natal: Ensure gradual recovery from pregnancy for long term joint/ligament health Optimize wellness in new mother Continued support for back in recovery from birth with newborn Begin the transition to strength and cardio activity post-partum Peri-menopause:
Menopause (late peri/early post):
Post menopause:
Marketing without Science in Programming Seduces Them It’s beyond time to stop false marketing --- but it’s not going to happen. You can help promote YOU, but not if you’re only saying the same thing as other trainers and coaches. Be different. Say the truth. Be willing to take on those who oppose what you say. Clients who should be working with qualified trainers and coaches like you: Fall for programs promoted by midlife women who look good but don’t use those same principles Fall for programs based on the celebrity’s creativity instead of evidence-based science used to build them Find a one-size-fits-all approach – even for programs designed based on hormone balance – without flexibility for unique joints and energy needs Why Not YOU? Coaching a Women’s Hormone Phase Are you taking a stand? Are you willing to say the unpopular thing? Are you willing to share the facts? Take the heat if you go against the dogma? That’s what it takes to stand out against a crowd. Once you have the knowledge then you have the confidence to apply it and to have a stronger voice. I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment below the show notes at Fitnessmarketingmastery-dot-com/ women’s hormone phase Resources Mentioned in the show: Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist
And something you may also want if you are qualified but they just aren’t coming…. Marketing to Women Copywriting Course
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| 14 Nov 2019 | Training Exercise in Pregnancy and After | Women’s Fitness | 00:29:56 | |
Got Client's Who Want Exercise in Pregnancy Experts? Be it! In this second (of three) podcast episodes dedicated to women’s health, fitness, and hormones I’m joined by exercise in pregnancy expert Danielle Spangler. This follows my interview with Dr Michelle Maddux on adolescent female fitness. Next up in this series I’ll round up with insight on training that booming market of women in perimenopause, menopause, and post menopause. Exercise in pregnancy and after delivery can be a significant part of working with women. As part of a new course being developed by the Medical Fitness Network, pregnancy and post partum are discussed in this episode. The course will launch in 2020. There will be a live pre-conference workshop at the Medfit Tour stop in Irvine in Feb 2020. Pregnancy and Exercise Expert Danielle Spangler, creator of CORE MOM (Corrective Obstetrical Related Exercise), is also a nationally known speaker, presenter, and contributing writer for the Medical Fitness Network and Medical Fitness Education Foundation. She’s been researching in the prenatal space since 1995. She owns her own boutique fitness studio and together with her husband is parenting three children. (She’s been there, done that!) In addition she’s authored prenatal programs for continuing education for the National Academy of Sports Medicine and Fitness Learning Systems.
Connect with Danielle: Danielle@coremomfitness.com www.coremomfitness.com More information: Women’s Health, Fitness, and Hormones pre-conference workshop at Med Fit Tour in SoCal Thanks for leaving a rating in iTunes!
Women's Fitness & Hormone Expert?
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| 17 Apr 2020 | Created a Program and... Crickets? | 00:02:34 | |
Have you created a program and announced its for sale to the sound of crickets? It happens. It's all in how to package it, price it, position it. Don't miss this next Voice for Fitness Professional's podcast interview with Stu Schaefer. Stu Schaefer is the 20-year veteran trainer that other Personal Trainers use when they want to learn how to quickly and easily get clients and build their business so they never have to worry about money again. | |||
| 14 Jan 2023 | The Difference Between Coaching and Advising | 00:15:58 | |
What’s the difference between coaching and advising a client? Are you using the title coach but a little unsure of what that means? There are thousands more coaches of all kinds: health coaches, business coaches, life coaches, wellness coaches, divorce coaches, career coaches, and many wear the hat of an expert in their field too. So, whether you are or you’re not a personal trainer, this is for you. Coaching has great value. Yet, when you’re playing the role of cheerleader or you’re giving expert advice you’re not actually coaching. This episode explores when coaching is valuable and when you want to advise, if you do have the knowledge. Coaches: Support Ask questions Improve accountability Encourage autonomy Encourage self-examination Ask for realistic goals Trainers: Provide assessments Give recommendations for actions Set realistic goals Give answers Evaluate performance Determine next steps When clients don’t know what to do in order to achieve results, trainers determine the actions that make the most sense for them. When clients know what to do but aren’t doing it, coaches help discover why that is true. To be an effective leader in programs, you may be both. First, you’re trying to determine the exercise plan based on a scientific combination of current status, health and activity history, hormones, goals, and limitations. That’s training using exercise science to create an exercise prescription. Concurrently or next you may be trying to consider why past attempts failed or why clients are non-compliant. That’s coaching using questions. Both skills are necessary for the improvement of fitness. Where does the line between coaching and advising blur? Where coaching and advising blur – and where effectiveness begins to wane, is when what is intended to be a coaching call becomes empathetic and without objective. A coach is definitely a warm person. However, it’s not enough. Are you able to ask questions that help someone see the answers for themselves? A coach allows an individual to have more personal power. When a coach praises or judges and evaluates she robs the client of personal power. Let me do a check-in with you, respectfully. You may have just felt a little offensive to what I just said. I’d like for you to stay with me. I hope you’ll consider that you’d only take offense if it was something you felt you did. If you say, good job! I’m proud of you! I’m so glad you did that… Any of those is evaluative and a judgment. Though they’re praise and you may see that as positive, they indicate an evaluation. If instead you asked, how do you feel about that? Or I can only guess how good that feels, what’s it like for you? How is that different from what you’d experienced before? If you’d like more information on how to buff your coaching skills. Not those we associate with cuing and positioning clients, but skills like mirroring and reflecting, stay tuned. I’ve got a Coaching Midlife Women’s workshop coming up later this month you’ll love. Resources: Fitness Business Scorecard: https://www.flippingfifty.com/the-fitness-health-coaches-scorecard/ Other Episodes You May Like: How to Charge More, Raise Your Health Coaching Rates, and Not Pee Your Pants Doing It: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/raise-your-health-coaching-rates/ 6-Figure Months From 6 Mindset Shifts: Fitness Coaching Business: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/6-figure-months/ 4 Fitness & Health Coaching Website Pages that Make Sales Easier: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/website-pages/ | |||
| 29 Jun 2017 | Filling Your Personal Training Programs for Fall | 00:18:11 | |
It's personal training program planning time. Profitable, full, programs don't just happen. Planning, programming, setting fees and then launching content for at least 8 weeks is what successful programs do. Here's how to take advantage of your summer blues. | |||
| 11 Jun 2018 | How to Get More Personal Training Clients | 00:29:11 | |
How to get more personal training clients using simple strategies with today's guest. Dave Smith is a professional fitness and weight-loss coach who was chosen as “Canada’s Top Fitness Professional” in 2013. He also founded the Online Trainers Federation, which helps fitness professionals start and scale their online businesses. The number one question by almost any trainer is how to get personal training clients. Until that's not the question trainers struggle to make a living doing what they want to do, and what can change lives. You can get more personal training clients easier than you think. Essentially, Dave is teaching his secret sauce to other trainers. And today, he’s giving it up for you. In our time together I have two questions for Dave:
Dave delivers on how to get more personal training clients. Dave and I have had podcast play dates together before. The spoiler alert is this: we have a good time. I think that’s so important… because I think it means that you will take more away from this episode because of it. Pretend you're brand new. You've trained your roommates, your parents, and your best friends. Maybe you've designed a program for your sister-in-law to get her body back after baby. Now what? How do I get paid to train and attract those kind of clients? Then… how do I attract more clients? TAKEAWAYS from today's episode:
Resources: Link to Facebook split testing tutorial Connect with Dave at onlinetrainersfederation.com
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| 17 Nov 2020 | Are the Words You Use Costing You Customers? | Fitness Pros | 00:33:09 | |
This post explores words you use costing you customers! No one wants that from time and energy spent writing articles or doing podcasts! Create a Common Enemy For us all in 2020 it’s been COVID19. For the first time in the history of the world we all have a common enemy. No matter who you might blame or back or what you do or don’t agree with about how it’s been handled, we are just people. We’re daughters and sons, parents, siblings, significant others who care about the health and well-being of our own. It doesn’t matter if someone speaks your language or is across the street or across the globe, we’ve experienced a moment in time connecting to others. If all workplaces communicate their mission so much that teams hold take not just the mission but the obstacles to achieving that mission personally, they’d thrive. If entire teams come together fighting the same cause – as opposed are pitted against each other – there will be fewer internal rivals and more job satisfaction. There are Plenty of Bad Guys And if you can harness a villain – be it age, or bone loss, or cancer, or sedentary jobs, or misinformation about fitness for midlife women… you can then become a part of a team with your audience and tribe. You fight with them, instead of preaching or teaching. It feels very different. Teaching, without intending to, can feel like judgment. If you instead are sending your message to “them” or to “the cancer” or “the menopause” or the “stigma”… then you’re fighting the battle with your audience. Read/Listen to these two headlines: Why What You’re Doing Is Not Working for Midlife Women/Clients How to Harness the Power of Misleading Information Feel the difference? In the first there is a hook and it’s more negative. Like, you are doing it wrong! Don’t make this mistake. There’s definitely something to be said for it. There is certainly a large percent of population that will be more likely to click on that than something giving them content. In the second example, however, there’s no blame on you the reader. It still suggests something is wrong, yet it implies that I’m going to give you the secret to be a part of the solution instead of telling you you’re a part of the problem. They’re both potential subject lines or titles for a blog or podcast. Which one speaks to you more? Which one would you click on first? This Very Post's Title There’s a time and place for either a negative or positive title. And the best way for you to decide which you use is to test it. I’ve found many times that say, 3 Biggest Mistakes, will get more clicks than 3 Biggest Secrets. But… don’t guess. Start testing, even if only by looking at your statistics on traffic to your blog, or on popularity of YouTube videos. I’ll let you in on a secret. I considered variations of two subject lines and narrowed it down to these two before choosing: Are the Words You Use Attracting More Customers? Are the Words You Use Costing You Customers? Obviously, I chose the latter. Because it’s more urgent. Do you feel that when you hear it (or read it if you’re at the show notes)? Pay attention to how it feels. And remember every one of your customers is going to experience responses unique to their life, sense of humor, prior experience about the topic. When in doubt, run your titles by some of your customers. Come up with at least 10 if not 20 variations of titles. Narrow it down to a few good titles. Use a tool like Headline Analyzer to see how well you’re doing. Be conscious of key words in your title you want to use throughout your post text too for S.E.O. Did I just lose you with SEO and the importance of key words? If you want step-by-step support for doing this and treating your content like part of a real business, that attracts real customers I’ll link to how to learn more about the 10-month Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist. It’s open now for a limited number of trainers and health coaches and only for a limited time. You want to leverage your content to stand out in the noise.
So, let’s explore some words that are dripping with emotion and how you can use them. I’ll give you some examples of how I have used them recently. Avoid Words You Use Costing You Customers with These Examples Gambling (In my TEDx talk after I revealed the poor statistics on science for women and exercise I mentioned it's like "gambling... with really bad odds." That makes listeners who are impacted, angry. Crap (Sit ups are Stupid, Crunches are Crap is the title of a book by a recent Flipping 50 podcast guest. Brilliant and I wish I'd thought of it myself! The title is important because crap, doo-doo, or the actual word, conveys very succinctly that something stinks. Not you but it. Lies Everything Women in Menopause Learned About Exercise May Be a Lie was the title of my TEDx talk. I’ve used it again in blog posts and podcasts. The word lies conveys strong emotion, and certainly brings us together if I’m revealing lies to you that you didn’t yet know about. Then I’m going to give you solutions for revenge in the content. Not telling the truth… “I haven’t been telling the truth, I was doing it wrong, we’ve all been doing it wrong.” These words, some exactly this and some implied were also a part of that TEDx talk. Let me also make something clear, you don’t create a talk and then move on and create another. Your signature story is your signature story. You go to a Bruce Springsteen concert and expect (or demand) to hear Born to Run, right? James Taylor had better play Shower the People. They may weave in new content, but audiences want and need repetition. Before you start talking about a topic, make sure that in a year and 5 and 10 you still want to be talking about it! Betrayed I’ve used phrases like betrayed by your body and betrayed by the fitness industry and even medical community in blogs and presentations. It evokes a strong emotion, right? So it’s not the same as if you’d been betrayed by a spouse, but betrayal by anyone or anything can make your content memorable, or remarkable. And to stand out, be something liked, shared, commented on that’s exactly what you want. What they don’t tell you… This one would be easy to insert into a post. What they don’t tell you is… When I talk about stress with clients, especially when I’d first published You Still Got It, Girl! I would point out that though our parents probably all had the sex talk with us, what they didn’t tell you was that we were going to feel stressed. They didn’t give us the ways to abstain from that or to a morning-after solution if we did have stress. There wasn’t a stress-talk like the sex talk. In talking about it like that I made it not their fault. And I made them think back to that moment when they had the 5thgrade health session where parents come to talk about puberty and all the things. It got personal because of a memory. Misleading … I’m about to publish a post for my Flipping 50 community about Misleading Fitness Studies and Poll Results from an annual trends report. I do it every year and yet it always a hot topic among both fitness professionals and midlife women seeking intelligent fitness tips. So think about how you can look at 5 of your recent titles and see how you could have put an emotional hook in the title. Myth-buster – This is used commonly in titles and it’s almost always a winner. The only exception is if you over use it or it’s not an emotionally enough charged title directed at a narrow enough audience. Weight loss Myth-Busting Debunking Weight Loss Myths Those are both potential titles. Yet, they’re pretty general. Change to Menopause Weight Loss Myths or to Debunking the Menopause Weight Loss Myths in 3 Recent Fitness Magazine Articles - now you’ve got something specific, targeted at an audience, and timely with some urgency. Two More Empowering Words These last two words- and by no means this is an exhaustive list - you may realize you do have emotional words in your posts, emails and conversations already. This podcast is just going to give you more of them to use strategically. These two words are ones you could use in titles and in copy to provide a solution when you might start talking about your program or service. Reclaim Here’s an example of a title: How to Reclaim the Muscle You’ve Been Losing Since 30 That would peak curiosity for one, if women are like, wait a minute! I’ve been losing muscle? And it gives a solution for them too, and gives a solution to someone who you may already have informed of muscle losses that start after 25. Here’s an example of using that word in the body of an article or email: You can reclaim that muscle and in doing so boost your metabolism. Get back This is another way to say reclaim. Try them both out, or use them both. Because remember you’re going to be writing, and talking, and creating video about your topic for a long time. You’ll want to use different words to appeal to different customers as you do it. There you are! Some specific examples of how to avoid words you use costing you customers! It’s Not To Late! Remember it’s not too late to change titles of YouTube videos. If it’s not getting traction and you know it’s good, go revise it. If you really haven’t had any traffic to your website articles, and you’re sure S.E.O. is something you’ve never thought about? I’d go in and change it. Then from here on out think about your title, the key words in your title you want to be found for (these are words and phrases your customers say and search for frequently), before you post. For now, what I want you to do is go back and look at your content and title. Are you repeating the words you want to be found for? For instance, the words you use costing you customers is the phrase I’m using in this post. Did you hear/see what I did there? I just inserted the phrase again in the post. Words You Use Costing You Customers (and relationships) Really, this works two ways. The words you use, and the words you don’t use could both be costing you customers. And it’s no surprise. Because if you’ve got a family, whether it’s kids, a spouse or parents and siblings, it’s HOW you say anything that gets the results you want, right? So, try on everything! Read your Instagram posts! Do they sound preachy and teachy? Instead of the motivating and inspiring you were shooting for? That’s good homework. Then as you begin to weave in some of these emotion-laded words you’ll begin to engage even more. Resources mention in this post: Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist FREE masterclass You Might Also Like: Words to Leave Out of Your Posts, Tweets, and Blogs It’s Not Your Content That’s Killing You, It’s This: Get More Traffic to Blogs, Videos | |||
| 28 Dec 2022 | Talk to Customers You Want Most | 5-Minute Marketing Tips | 00:10:22 | |
Can you talk to customers the way their friends do? If the customers you want to attract want clarity, want to end the confusion, want confidence, they also want to sense it from you. Two Common Incongruencies: Fitness and health coaches who are over the top on social videos, moving in a frenzy, speaking with overzealous enthusiasm … that isn’t a fit for the market they want to attract with money to spend, and the commitment to follow through. Fitness coaches forget about the customer they want to attract and the mistakes of making videos on social media – that don’t get any likes, shares, views, comments or saves. Don’t forget WHO you are and WHO your ideal prospect is. Reverse engineer from your ideal customer – the one you know has the most success and that you love working with! Talk So Customers Listen How do you talk to customers in a way they’d listen? What tone of voice, what rate of speech, what type of video would appeal to THEM? If you’re just trying to compete for eyeballs without caring which eyeballs, your popularity, if you get it may cost you. Wasted time on people who want freebies, or entertainment… and maybe not even that. Because without being authentic, it’s hard to attract anyone. Know who you are, and who the customers you want to attract are! Be you and speak to them like a friend not like a speech or performance. You want to talk authentically whether you’re writing, actually speaking, or in a video moving. Other 5-Minute Marketing Episodes You May Like: How to Promote on Your Timeline Posts: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/timeline-posts/ Post Less, Engage More: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/engage-more/ Resources: Health & Fitness Business Scorecard: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/scorecard Marketing to Women Copywriting Course: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/copywriting-course Last chance! If you're seeing this and you work with women in midlife, now is your chance! Join the Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialists already earning and learning more to boost their business this year!
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| 11 Dec 2017 | Using Lab Tests and Nutrition Coaching to Get Better Outcomes, Legally | 00:44:23 | |
Nutrition coaching... is it for you? Can you legally do it and be within scope of practice? A personal trainer who wants to be authoritative, credible, and stand out among the noise of health coaches and trainers today wants to have knowledge and tools beyond the norm. A degree and certification are not enough. If lab tests about nutrient sufficiency, hormone balance, blood sugar response, and food sensitivities are getting your attention, you'll want to listen and pay attention to this episode. This is the future of personal training that results in not only functional movements but functional protocols that balance hormones. It's not a doctor-only world any more. You can identify and use the right labs with the right customer needs and support change that changes lives. Nutrition coaching that is informative and supportive of change is not necessarily out of scope of practice for a personal trainer. Know what is and isn't an option for you. Reed Davis is a Certified Nutritional Therapist, received honors for his postgraduate work at The University of San Diego School of Law, and is the Founder of the Functional Diagnostic Nutrition® (FDN) Certification Course. Reed is known as one of the most successful and experienced clinicians in the world today, having provided functional assessments to over 10,000 clients for hormone levels, bone density testing, adrenal function, digestive problems, immune system and detoxification issues as well as testing for pathogens, food sensitivities and many related health problems. Get more information and make 2018 YOUR YEAR: https://ua175.isrefer.com/ Discount Code for $500 off the course (exclusive to our listeners): GOTIT500 Debra's Favorite Quotes from this episode: “healing opportunities" “treat nothing specifically, everything non-specifically” “poop on insurance” “No guarantee, [instead] responsible expectations” “D.R.E.S.S. for health success” “repair, rebuild, restore, rebalance” Connect and Follow Reed and Functional Diagnostic Nutrition: https://www.facebook.com/FunctionalDiagnosticNutrition/ https://www.pinterest.com/FDNTraining/ https://www.instagram.com/fdntraining/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7xDnEKCe9gKeWZ2vbE3C8w https://twitter.com/FDNtraining https://plus.google.com/u/0/+Functionaldiagnosticnutrition https://www.linkedin.com/company/498977/ | |||
| 16 Jan 2020 | How to Stop Being So Busy So You Can Be Productive | 00:20:19 | |
How to Stop Being So Busy So You Can Be Productive Are you so busy that you can’t take a day off? Yet you’re number one wish is to make more money from personal training? You’re not alone. If you’re a director, manager, or personal trainer, most likely you are doing a lot of things. You wear a lot of hats and you are so busy you may feel like you’re not even loving this career choice any more Training a Niche? This episode is brought to you by the Flipping 50 Specialist. It is the first and only hormone balancing fitness training for personal trainers and health coaches specifically focused on working with women in perimenopause, menopause and perimenopause. As an advanced specialist you get a listing in the trainer directory. The number one question I’m asked after a media appearance or speaking to a women’s group is how do I find trainers who know this. And the back end of your course is all about how to be productive, position, and package services your customers want so you’re less busy and more productive in that marketing time. I’ve got you covered. It’s flippingfifty.com/specialist First 50 for 50% off in 2020. Use certificate50 Getting things done that make you more money from personal training is very different than just being busy. For instance as a personal training director, I was busy doing personal training AND running the program. Until I let go of all but about 10 hours of training a week I wasn't really productive doing the things that grow 2 dozen people's business. Questions I answer (and ask you) in this episode:
Busyness is a comfort zone.
When you first begin podcasting, doing Facebook lives, offering free seminars, or free consultations… you do have to pay your dues for a while. You have to build up an audience.
For a lot of us, and I was one, being busy prevents us from feeling that the fear that this isn’t working, that we’re not making enough money, and becomes an obstacle for learning what will work. But the danger is that you can convince yourself “I’m working so hard. I’ve tried everything.” But truthfully you’ve tried what’s comfortable and doing more of what’s comfortable – it’s a lot like clients who got to you doing a lot of what isn’t working and ended up injured, exhausted, or at least frustrated. It’s doing the right thing that’s going to get results… not just more of the wrong thing. So you have to really be honest with yourself and look at some concrete evidence that what you’re doing is getting traction. Measure the fans and followers. Measure the email list subscribers. Measure the engagement you’re getting when you discuss certain topics or on specific social media platforms.
That is the key. So if you’re busy writing blogs and your audience isn’t even reading blogs, they prefer to listen to podcasts, you may need to switch gears. Maybe that doesn’t mean you go all in and do a podcast but you do a regular Facebook live show or live stream YouTube (or both simultaneously) if they want to listen (and or watch). And then you have to remember that you do not own those platforms! So download those videos and put them on your website. Connect: Flippingfifty.com/specialist Use certificate50 for 50% off if you're one of the first 50 in 2020! Thanks for leaving a rating in iTunes! 1 visit Voice for Fitness Professionals in iTunes 2 click listen in iTunes 3 leave a star rating and a comment 4 know how much I appreciate it! For support both creating a lucrative niche who is seeking answers and leveraging marketing that works, the Flipping50 Specialist is a perfect match. You'll find it both on Flippingfifty.com and fitnessmarketingmastery.com because some of the absolute best trainers and health coaches are this population of midlife women themselves. Is that you?
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| 19 Mar 2019 | Fix Your Copy to Attract More Clients | 00:16:27 | |
Fix Your Copy to Attract More Clients You want fitness sales without being salesy. Yet if you try so hard to be nonchalant you can actually send business away! You share video after video of exercises. Blog after blog with no call to action. You write for the local paper but don’t put a link in your bio with a call to action. These are all ways you lose amazing opportunities to use your awesome content to do the talking for you. There is always going to be a sentence or two that makes the difference between “that’s nice, thanks” and “where do I sign up?” 1) Meet your reader/your viewer where she is. Not where you want her to be! Mistake: Our brand new program starts next week! Here’s the link for details. Fix Your Copy: 2) Make your reader feel understood. Mistake: Here’s who we are and how we can help Fix Your Copy: You’re probably thinking…. Fix Your Copy: Does this sound familiar? 3) Make a clear and logical next step your call to action. Mistake: All of our personal trainers are ready to support your next step. Fix Your Copy: Share your biggest question about choosing your fitness routine here. Fix Your Copy: Join our free master class to get all of your fitness questions answered. Tell the one person you really want to help exactly what to do next. Mistake: Check out all of our group programs starting soon! Fix Your Copy: Click here now to save your spot Or Click here now to download 5 recipes to get started now. 4) Be direct. Mistake: I hope you liked this! Will you share it? Fix Your Copy: Tag three friends who would love this for a free xyz! Mistake: You’ll find other podcasts and blogs at www.Imawesome.com Fix Your Copy: Link here to the resource mentioned in today’s podcast. If you really believe you have something that can solve a problem tell her! Tell her exactly what to do next and why what she’s doing now won’t help. Fitnessmarketingmastery.com/fix-your-copy
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| 19 May 2020 | How to Stay Calm in COVID19 | Reopening Fitness Centers | 00:37:18 | |
Note: this episode was recorded a few weeks before things began opening up. No matter when you listen you'll hear a leader making pivots, share how to stay calm and make rational decisions. How do you stay calm during these times? Anxiety does not discriminate right now. How are you doing? I’ve brought on a friend and colleague to chat about COVID19 as a business owner and talk about opening up, right now opportunities, and what she’s been thinking and doing. My guest: Robin Robertson has owned and operated the Bellingham Training & Tennis Club for 20 years and ushered in a 600% growth in membership while she took the club from a mom & pop 4 court tennis club to its current world-class facility with 5 indoor tennis courts, two strength studios, an indoor cycling studio, locker rooms stocked with amenities and a cozy member lounge with fireplace and free coffee. She is also the founder of Healthy Knees Coach and author of “Healthy Knees Cycling” with a new book due in May called “Healthy Knees Strength.” Questions we covered in this episode:
We are rewriting our standard operating procedures for cleanliness, creating options for members to purchase branded equipment packs so they have their own of the harder to clean like bands, talking about putting fears to ease with how to space in group training, what to do about indoor cycling spacing and ventilation) Connect with Robin: www.betrainingtennis.com www.healthykneescoach.com robin@healthykneescoach.com or robin@betrainingtennis.com Resources we mentioned: Book:
Program:
Show notes: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/COVID19-update | |||
| 13 Apr 2024 | How to Develop Relationships with Medical Professionals | 00:33:15 | |
Developing relationships with medical professionals was going to be easy once Exercise is Medicine™ was announced! Trainers and gyms thought it was going to be great. Imagine it raining clients told by their physicians to exercise and start working with a trainer. No one came. "Exercise is Medicine was established in 2007 by the American College of Sports Medicine to inform and educate physicians and other health care providers about exercise as well as bridge the widening gap between health care and health fitness."(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7444006) It's Up To YOU. You want an endorsement from a physician. They want to know their patients get a safe referral and their credibility is supported.
Mistakes when Trying to Develop Relationships with Medical Professionals
Because very few are doing this well right now, you have a huge opportunity. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. I’ve witnessed physicians actually become part-time fitness instructors. Chiropractors and physical therapists were gymnasts and fitness instructors before they were practicing. Learn more about physicians. Try taking an interest in them and begin creating a relationship the same way you’d create a friendship. The more you’re interested in them and how you can help them the more likely you are to get attention. Other Episodes You Might Like: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/podcast Resources: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/scorecard https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/copywriting-course https://www.flippingfifty.com/wwwexercise
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| 07 Dec 2015 | 25 Tools I Used to Grow My Fitness Business Fast | 00:20:06 | |
We all think someone else has an army of a staff behind their success. Or we think it's easier for them. We think they're a natural at it. The truth is no. Anyone starting out is the staff, the boss, the janitor. So how do you keep up with it all. These 25 tools make life much easier and make your marketing look much more professional. Anyone can do it. www.voiceforfitness.com/fitprosolutions | |||
| 31 Dec 2022 | 20+ Simple Ways to Market Your Health & Fitness Coaching Business | 00:33:21 | |
You may have the best heart, the best program, or be the best local trainer or health coach, but if you haven’t figured out ways to market your health & coaching business consistently, effectively, then no one knows about you. There are dozens of ways for you to market your health coaching business here. Some are direct and others indirect. Indirectly marketing means you’re not just sharing your freebie. That still feels a little like someone you’ve never met stalking you for a date. You have no reason or motivation to get a freebie (let alone, to those of you who are posting on social media your programs and hoping that people register from social media – that strategy unfortunately would go on the “20 ways to kill your organic marketing” list. Indirectly marketing your freebie means you’re sharing it but leading with some other generous offer first. Did you know? We no longer require 7 touches before someone will know, like, and trust you – potentially even enough to give you an email, let alone buy from you – it takes about 21 today! Yes, 21 times(many say 28) in front of someone. And they are not seeing every post you painstakingly made on social media. People have lives. They don’t wait for your next post, email, or video. So create, yes. Then share, send, and resend when they didn’t open. Be purposeful, have a plan and it’s then that these will get your wheels creative juices going! You can return to this over and over! It’s not a checklist suggesting you need them all, but you do need number 1, then you need to give it wheels as many of the additional simple ways to market your health & fitness coaching business will. Create a Freebie If you don’t have one you love, that works consistently, focus on this until you do. Where do you post it? Not just hidden on your website. In your blogs, podcasts, interviews, and on social posts in an organic not spammy way. Be sure that you don’t make this mistake: make a freebie, and then leave it. Or this mistake: make a freebie and then make another and another. Stick with your freebie. Promote it, and drive traffic to it (in ways I’ll share below as well as paid traffic depending on your budget). Watch your conversions every week. How many people actually opt in for it? If you create anything… that no one wants.. you’ve wasted time. So be sure you base what you make on what your customer wants. Keep tweaking until you know that the conversion rate (number of people who land on your freebie thank you page after being presented with your freebie) is high before you go and create another one. Not many things on this list will market your health & fitness coaching business the way a freebie will. It’s going to be true for a long time. Pop Ups Add a pop up on your website to the freebie. Examples of pop ups include: announcing something special, are you leaving/before you go, and did you forget? I’m including 3 images of pop-ups in the notes here that may give you ideas. And yes, they can be annoying. But they do work.
Create content that lives forever: Write an Article or post for someone else. Every time you post a new blog (relevant), video, or podcast, insert a ‘native’ CTA for the freebie and then create a slice of that content and share it on at least 5 platforms with a graphic. Haven’t been doing this and have tons of content (a book? Blog or podcast?)? You can go back and do this for every one of them! Continue to share them once created over and over again. This is really an indirect share of your freebie. You’ve got gold, now you just need to harvest it! The gold here is that as long as the content is still relevant, you can and should drive traffic to it regularly. Examples of These Simple Ways to Market your health & fitness coaching business in Action: I have a knee strengthening video on YouTube. It has millions of views. In it there are 5 or 6 exercises. I can and should share ONE of them in a short video post and tell them that to get the rest of the exercises they can watch the full-length video here…xxxx. I can also share a study about omega 3 and inflammation in knees (I have in my arsenal) and suggest if they want other ways to exercise for relief... they watch the video. So while I’m sharing a free social post to another free full length video... in order to finally give them an option to “opt in” and subscribe to my email list with another “freebie” – it often takes that kind of chain reaction to prove the trust factor to a new prospect. (85% of consumers make a slower decision than the 15% of us who may jump in) Got tons of blogs? Create a book using them. Each blog can be a chapter. In every chapter link to or send to the free resources in your freebie. The book itself can be your freebie. Using a free book with shipping or a free pdf version with a small fee. (Often called a “trip wire” based on the theory that buyers of a small item are usually the best buyers for something more). Be a Guest. Every time you’re a guest on someone’s stage, podcast, or summit, share your freebie, with a juicy description. It’s not a pdf, it’s a solution to a big problem your audience has. Ask for a Referral current members to give you a paid client. Ask ONE person for one referral. Don’t send some kind of a broadcast to a group of people expecting someone to step up. What happens when you do that in a room? Everyone believes someone else will but feels no obligation or inspiration to do so. Tell them how to do it in a specific way and reward them both. Share success stories/ testimonials. When you do this, how you get your testimonials matters. It’s not an accident. There are questions you absolutely want to ask and those that you don’t. Want help collecting testimonials? Sponsor an event. Events are always looking for business partners who then get their name on the t-shirt, or the advertisement, or get to talk at the event. Explore how much it would be and the visibility you would have. What this looks like: I sponsored an event for $12500. I was a keynote speaker, had a vendor booth, and gave a workout one morning before sessions. I paid for my sponsor multiple times over in the revenue from new clients and students that continue to be a part of programs today. So don’t dismiss these paid opportunities to be in front of a dream live audience. They may be a far better investment than paying for Facebook or Google ads to strangers. Brand It Consider putting your own brand name and logo on a t-shirt. Then wear it every time you’re on camera. Strategically you want to make sure placement of the logo is clear and legible and probably higher up than you might ordinarily have it on a t-shirt. I was on with a colleague recently and watched a replay clip of us he shared. In it, he had on his branded shirt, and while I was in brand colors, he was a billboard in his shirt, as well as in the graphics framing the clip that was used for social media. Brilliant! I go to the gym or to run errands regularly wearing a visor. Why wouldn’t I get branded visors made? In fact, I have one. There are dozens of ways you can apply this. Be a Vendor Be a vendor with a booth at a health fair or women’s event/kids’ event (where would your customer be?) There’s a fee but if it’s your specific demographic it’s probably a lot better way to spend that money than spend the same on Facebook ads. Host a program for your (or other) church Present at Women’s Meetings Contact women’s organizations in the late spring/early summer about doing a program for them next year. This is when many organizations wrap up for the summer, new officers are installed, and t he new Vice President or Education chair has the task of deciding the programs for the next calendar year before fall. Sometimes organizations -specifically women’s philanthropic organizations – have multiple divisions in the same town/city. In the college town I lived for 30 years there were 20 unique subdivisions and I presented at more than half over the years. Market Your Health & Fitness Business with Radio Exposure Contact the local radio station about a month or day – sleep awareness month, osteoporosis day – and offer to provide tips and do a talk show or be interviewed with their host. When you’re booked, promote promote, promote. After you’re on, get the recording, send it out and promote, promote, promote. Use that station’s logo on your site in an “as seen on.” Be Seen on TV Contact the local TV station and pitch a newsworthy story. Use statistics, and tie it to their largest audience. You’ll need to do research on the kind of stories they do, the kind of guests they host, as well as know key soundbites that you can give them. They’re busy. Make their job easy by providing the news, why it’s relevant, timely and why you’re the expert. Provide your contact info and 4 questions you can answer. Call, email, and keep asking to talk to the producer until you get an answer. Once you’re booked, do a good job and you’ll be asked back. Double your Reach Create a Buddy Pass**. If you already have clients joining your programs, whether your paid or your freebies, give them a buddy pass to share with a friend for 50% off. You’ll want to tie this to some kind of reward for the one who shares it. She wants to save! So… you can do this for a special product right off the bat, a buy 1, get the second 50% off and say instead of each option costing $50 the two can join for $75. Make Gift Giving Easy Mother’s Day, Christmas, Birthdays… are all perfect opportunities for gift certificates, or special promotions. But… don’t stop there. It’s not really special for you to say, “Spend your gift money here.” Instead sweeten the pot. Include a package they can wrap up: send an actual book (not a pdf), a journal, a set of bands, a t-shirt, sweat towel, small ball, etc. Make it something you’ll incorporate into your workouts or coaching. Then include a $10 off or $50 off a next step program for the gift recipient too. So you’re not just getting a new client sale, you’re increasing the chance they’ll make a second purchase and planting that seed for them too. **About buddy passes and gift giving ease: These are ways to market your health & fitness business… as long as you talk about them! And if your ideal target market is following you, invite them to share the news with their gift-buyer! Or Be sure you know WHO you’re talking to when you post or email… in the gift case you’d potentially be targeting a partner or daughter or son. You have to give that some thought. Attend Training with Other Business Owners The networking with other business owners that you do alone can be worth the cost of attending. This could be as small as attending your Chamber of Commerce business networking breakfast once a month. But it can today be virtual and if your business is virtual, even better. Yesterday in fact, on day one of a two-day training on business skills (yes, even after marketing fitness for 35 years I still invest in learning and getting coached myself). In our small group, we had a chance to hear each other and everyone in my group needed what I have. When you have your radar open to every situation you’re in, there is a potential to meet others who need your services, it can happen organically. Even if not them, their wives, or moms or daughters or a corporate presentation could be waiting for you. There you are! All the best in 2023! Resources for building your business: Marketing to Women Copywriting course: https://www.flippingfifty.com/copywriting-course Flipping 50 Menopause Specialist: https://www.flippingfifty.com/specialist Help Your Clients Sleep: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/sleeper
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| 09 Jul 2021 | You Want to Wake Up to These Kinds of Texts and Emails | 00:28:06 | |
People are texting asking me if they can promote my program to their group. Carole, who I met a few years ago at an event we were both attending and we’ve been friends on Facebook and see each other annually otherwise (except for COVID). That’s it. But she knows what I do. She knows me and she knows her audience. She knows they need what I have. And she’s seen me promoting. I’ve been in lives on Instagram and Facebook on my own timeline and been a guest on a mutual friend of mine’s timeline. I’m advertising in Facebook and she’s probably seen the ads. Typically, you will reach out to others. And I have. I have 3 others promoting for this launch. But Carole is not the only one, another friend asked last week and she and I did a live for her audience Thursday night. So that’s 5 people actively promoting to their audiences who share my target customer. When you successfully grow your email list all the time so that you can launch to your own list (and not burn the same people out selling the same product), and then… You have others who have a significant sized list email and promote for you… You will not only grow your sales… You will grow your email list… You will grow your social media following… And you will have another chance to sell something more or sell something the first time to these people. Texts and Emails can become overwhelming at times. But I’ve always got room for these kind. Your homework: List 5-10 affiliate marketing partners that you would love to have promote you List 5-10 affiliate marketing partners that you could promote (the lists might overlap) Start nurturing those people. Like their social media posts, comment, share Think of someone you know they should meet and ask if they’d like in intro And? Register for the copywriting for marketing to women workshop! https://www.flippingfifty.com/copywriting | |||
| 15 Jul 2014 | Raising The Bar in Nutrition Products With Breeze Bars' Breeze Brown | 00:34:34 | |
Registered Dietitian Breeze Brown didn't know it at the time but she perfectly went through the steps that would make her bars appealing to a growing number of people with Celiac Disease and professional athletes. Find out how a purpose and $300 launched her business in 2009 and learn more online at www.breezebars.com Have you got a product or service you know will help solve a problem for someone? | |||
| 18 Apr 2015 | Business Branding, Building Customer Loyalty with Betty Designs Kristin Mayer | 00:28:18 | |
Kristin Mayer Chief Betty of Betty Designs talks starting a business with a fresh idea in a sea of competition, customer service that builds loyalty and the importance of knowing and growing your brand at your pace. Don't miss her website if you bike or multisport or coach women who do. www.bettydesigns.com www.fb.com/bettydesignssickgear As always reach Debra at: www.voiceforfitness.com/fitprosolutions
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| 04 Apr 2021 | Which Fitness Marketing Works for you| Ask Them How You Met | 00:09:08 | |
Doubt that fitness marketing works, or at least what you’re doing does? I’ve grown organically from you YouTube channel (and grown that organically). But I am not always sure and neither are you that it’s still working without asking. So here’s how. In a birthday post recently… I shared some funny, odd, things about my background, not all related to fitness or being a coach or research-driven wellness pro. At the end I asked people to tell me how we met. They did, and many of them said ... youtube. Trust me there was a lot of blind faith posting when there were hardly any views on posts. When I recorded with a really bad microphone in a really bad basement bedroom where internet was an issue. But over time, my consistency and on target message got through. And it can for you too. Proof Fitness Marketing Works… and changes lives A woman also told me in March that her husband had passed March 5th. Before he died he made her promise to keep working with me because he knew how much it meant to her. She had first “met” me there. Then did a course, then joined my membership. And 4 years later she’s still a member and such a helping hand to other members. It’s amazing the reach you have and the impact of a free video, if it truly helps people. Other episodes in this series you might like: Resources mentioned:Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist Learn More About the Mastermind
Working with women in menopause? Not getting results? Or maybe it's you! You and I are not immune to hormone change! Visit my home page, watch the video and if that resonates, I'll send you exactly how to start working with women who are definitely actively seeking hormone balancing fitness specialists! | |||
| 17 May 2023 | HOW TO PROMOTE Health (and earn) EVERY DAY! | 00:16:54 | |
You promote health. You promote fitness. And ultimately you do now or will want to promote your own products or services. But if you feel salesy, or spammy, it’s going to show in your communications. Consider what’s in it for them. Tell them. Tell them why you trust it and you have proof they trust you if they’re on your email subscribers list! So they DO want to hear your recommendations! This follow-up to an affiliate promotions podcast gives you some very specific tips that work for me. And affiliate revenue is an amazing way to promote and earn even when you aren’t launching!
Successful affiliate promotions (where you share something you know, love, and trust will be a benefit your community will love) require just three things. 1. Commit to promoting your affiliate repeatedly on each platform you choose. Two minimum and three is even better, emails are MUCH MORE EFFECTIVE than 1 email, and 1 social media post. People are BUSY. They don't see your posts the way you might imagine in your head! They may skip days of hopping into social media. (Lucky them!?) So.. you want to tap someone on the shoulder several times to get their attention. Use a new image or new Subject Line in your emails each time. In the body of your email, the first time you send you can get really detailed about why this is relevant : My friend and colleague, Debra Atkinson created this event to answer questions you have AND those you may not yet know to ask. She gathered 40 experts... not "influencers" flashing bare bellies, but the in-the-lab experts, the go-to speakers for industry events and education. And you can access it for free! In the body of your second email - a couple of days later you can refer to the first email: A few days ago I shared this with you and I know that exercise is an important reason you're here and plays a big part of your success. In the 3rd email (maybe the 2nd), I put it at the TOP of the email above the actual greeting and make it short: Real quick: I don't want you to miss this and know you're busy. I mentioned this FREE event for Women's Exercise Over 40, It's starting NOW... so CLICK HERE to get in. I'll be sharing some of the highlights I'm loving from it with you too! See you there! 2. Come back to the email about the affiliate product you send and later in the day. Resend it to unopens. This one is ridiculously easy ... and often OVERLOOKED. So if you're disappointed in the performance of your emails, no matter what you wanted (open rate, click-through, sales) ... you may make FAST improvements by being sure that your busy audience SEES the email. Remember they aren't sitting on their device waiting and hoping for an email from you! So resending brings it up from the buried inbox emails we all get. 3. Treat Social Media with respect when you Share affiliate promotions! Share and share again. Know your social media channels! On IG... share in stories and use the LINK so all someone has to do is CLICK. Be prepared with a link when someone DMs you and says, Where do I find that? AND use the link in your bio to go to multiple with a link tree or your custom page on the website where they get right to it. DO NOT put an ugly URL in your post copy. Get smart with Facebook too. Stories are hot, news, and clickable. Use them that way! Posts are good.. but buried if you don't nurture them by liking and commenting and sharing with your personal pages. Add to groups or link groups to the post.
You can easily promote health and fitness and earn revenue without feeling salesy or spammy. If it’s something you believe in, tell them about it with conviction! If it’s not, reconsider sharing it. I’ve had plenty of products or people I once shared and no longer do for one reason or another it just stopped feeling right.
Other Episodes You May Like: Promote Affiliate Partners: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/promote-affiliate-partners Social Media Advice for Fitness & Health Pros #303: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/social-media-advice/ Resources: Business Scorecard:https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/ScorecardMarketing to Women Copywriting Course: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com//Copywriting-course Menopause Fitness Specialist: https://www.flippingfifty.com/specialist
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| 24 Jun 2023 | Business Partnerships and Collaborations | Amazing Health & Fitness Growth | 00:21:58 | |
Business partnerships and collaborations are great opportunities. “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” – African Proverb
Got a business partner or thinking about it? There’s less risk, there’s more minds, more eyes… and there are more opinions about everything, so getting an agreement in place regarding the business venture you’re starting before you do it, or now if you’ve not done it, is a good idea. Invest a little time and money into making it legal, making sure everyone signs and understands.
Whether you partner to host a podcast, or you partner in a full-fledged business, with your sister, your spouse, or friend, you want it in writing. Whether there’s two of you or 10 of you, how will you determine the role of the individuals involved?
These are things you don’t want to leave to chance.
In this episode I’ll open with ideas about how you may already be partnering and not even realize it, options you may consider having a business partner for first in your business and give you a few things to consider before you get legal advice and invest in making it official.
Think of this as your introduction into partnerships if you’re not doing them (but like I said, you may be and not realize it), or a great reminder to review what you have in place to keep partnerships running smoothly.
Considering a Business Partnership? One thing I would suggest is clear. It rang true for all the people I talked with whether they were in a business that was currently making money or that on the flip side, was hurting and not making money. Whenever there is money involved there is emotion. Someone can too easily feel taken advantage of. So, while you’re thinking about it, or in early stages and just beginning to look at how you monetize your podcast business partnership for example, it’s a very good time for all parties to consider “what if.”
Honestly, this could have been the name or this episode. What if… This is a very good place to start.
Business Partnerships and Collaborations | Amazing Health & Fitness Growth I’m going to throw out a couple scenarios for you to consider here: If you have investors, someone who helped you with a startup, do they have any decision-making power? If so, what? How much? Who has the bottom-line veto power?
Say someone approaches one of you and wants to do business with you but not your partner. They want you to do something on the side. Is there any agreement about partners ability to have a “side hustle” that is related to the same business? What if one of you feels strongly about hiring or firing someone? About the training methods and who is responsible for it?
How do you split revenue? Is it down the middle after expenses? Or is it split differently based on tasks and responsibilities?
Are you taking commission and paying yourselves a base salary commensurate with what you’d pay someone else doing the same tasks if you were to hire them? Or are you only taking distributions after expenses?
That already is a lot. But let’s look at a situation where you and a partner might start a business that includes fitness programs, nutrition programs and social media posting and podcasting. The day-to-day decisions alone are numerous! Who posts? How often and when? How do you determine the posts? That’s a time-consuming task right there, but if you not only do it, but you have to run it by a second party, there’s a lot of time involved times two. Or is one of you in charge? Or one of you in charge of overseeing your VA who is doing it for you and tracking and reporting the stats for partner decisions to be made at regular meetings.
Other Fitness & Health Business Partnership Decisions Then there are pricing decisions, branding decisions, cost of goods sold, services you hire for branding, photos, videography or editing. Or if one of you does this, is that paid hourly or on salary to do it, then again business profits are handled through distributions paid out to each of you in an even split? The platforms you use have a certain cost and as you grow there will be more of them. Who decides or does the research? Who monitors expenses like this?
Someone has to be responsible for accounting, bookkeeping, monitoring P & L statements to know if this is really working and what parts of the business are working and which are not.
Let’s look at one of the early business collabs you might do which is co-hosting a podcast. How fun, right? To host a podcast with a friend, what could be better? You get to have chats regularly and have twice the reach with your personal accounts plus your business account, and twice the people you meet and want to engage with.
And then say, you start having people want to sponsor your show or have you promote them and all of a sudden you’re monetizing that podcast. Or you might start promoting affiliate products or services you love to your audience and that starts generating revenue. Is there a business account where that’s going? Is that revenue equally split? Is there any reason one of you will feel like you deserve more because you enlisted them, suggested it and created more of the promotions?
What if one of you has a business that she monetizes – a weight loss coaching business. The other one doesn’t really have a coaching or fitness service but is the more journalistic and media personality behind you starting and getting in front of people.
What if one of you is a doctor and the other a fitness professional? One of you sees patients and builds a business based on medical services. The other a fitness professional may refer to the doc and doc may refer to the fitness programs, but it isn’t clear exactly the benefit to each of you. What if the relationship dissolves? Who “owns the podcast” and the listenership and ability to market via social to the established list?
Business Partnerships Next Steps: List all the partnerships you have now Consider ones you are thinking about Make a list of possible situations (responsibilities, exit strategy, decision-making, distributions) Ask your partner(s) to make a list too Have a meeting (or a series of them) Have an agreement made up about the partnership and legal rights of each and how decisions, or board meetings, and reporting are handled.
Other Episodes You May Like: Grow Your Fitness Business in 2023 | Personal Trainers and Health Coaches: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/fitness-business-in-2023/A New Fitness Business Model for Your Virtual Fitness Business: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/virtual-fitness-business/Resources: Health & Fitness Business Scorecard: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/scorecard Menopause Fitness Specialist Program:https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/menopause-fitness-specialist/ Marketing to Women Copywriting Course: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/copywriting-course | |||
| 12 Apr 2017 | Mapping Out Your Personal Training Marketing | 00:18:39 | |
Marketing without a plan feels out of control and keeps you busy without results. If you're not reverse engineering all your marketing to link directly to the action you want a customer to take, you'll attract fewer clients than if you're just sharing information. Create the why before you create the what. Identify the value of content and how it as a first step works only with the follow up to platforms. Second in a series of 3 short podcasts | |||
| 02 Dec 2018 | The Best Way to A Lucrative Fitness Career | 00:13:38 | |
A lucrative fitness career is not based on a degree (or another one) or a certification (or six more). It's not about luck. It’s about risk. About 35 years ago I told my parents I was changing my major from graphic design (they understood) to physical education (no one really understood yet). About 30 years ago my step dad asked me, “just what is it you’re majoring in?” while I was in grad school, studying exercise and sport psychology. Again, he hadn’t a clue about what I was doing in school or about how it was going to help me once out of school (and off the payroll)!
That’s a risk. It was then for sure! There weren’t fitness businesses on every block or hundreds of thousands online yet. It wasn’t common knowledge that we all need to exercise. Today if you’re a high school student who wants to be a personal trainer no one looks at you like you just said you want to work long hours and be broke. If you’re 50 or 60 and decide you want to switch careers and be a health coach or trainer people will think it’s cool not that you’ve lost it! Still it might feel risky. A lucrative fitness career doesn’t just come automatically with a degree or a certification or because you personally look fit. Creating every new project elevates the game so the nervous feelings or insecurities you feel are a part of your success not signs of failure. Random Conversations Someone just two days ago said hello to me in the women’s locker room at Rally sport where I personal train and train personally. She recognized me and asked me to remind her my name. We were literally 10 feet from the steam room where we met the very first Saturday I was at Rally. Exactly 16 hours after I drove into Boulder. She said, “you made it.” I said excuse me? She said, I wouldn’t want to be moving into Boulder in these times. It’s a tough town. It’s expensive. I was quiet. I didn’t know what to say. But I was thinking. There wasn’t a choice. I didn’t have a choice. I never thought it wasn’t going to work out. It hadn’t crossed my mind there was another option but to do it. Don’t think I didn’t consider other things, but for other reasons. There were other opportunities, not alternatives because of a dead end. Had I not HAD to take risks and make things happen I don’t know what would have happened. I think… less. Just less. I would have been comfortable. I would have been FINE. And by that I do mean the acronym. Fucked Up Insecure Neurotic and Emotionally disturbed. I would have gotten resentful and small instead of growing so much more. I would have missed moments that changed my life and others around me forever. There were hard things. Incredibly hard things. But nothing about my life will be the same because of them no small things will matter the way they once did. I see people better. Weasel words that get in the way of a lucrative fitness career If you’re giving yourself an out, a possibility that it won’t work here’s how that shows up: You say,“try it.” You’re going to try it. As opposed to you’re going to do it. You won’t come up with the best answer right away. You may have to try different things… different headlines, different images in your marketing, different sales scripts even different exercises in a session, but that should feel like a strategic testing process. That’s just part of the steps anyone goes through to define the right answer to a new problem. You don’t have to. You have a spouse who’s really the breadwinner. You are just doing this because you love it. You’d do it even if no one paid you. You may think these are good things, even be proud of them. Yet, they hold you back. Invest in something (yourself for one). Take a risk. You’re not really reaching potential until you create something. Be an answer to a problem. I didn’t have a choice. I sure didn’t imagine putting my house on the market, moving two states away, living in a relative’s lower level bedroom, and folding towels at the front desk as life goals for my 50th year on the planet. Do You Give Yourself an Out? You need to get there. If you’re not uncomfortable you’re not growing, not much. If you’re lying to anyone else you’re really lying to yourself. You can have a lucrative fitness career that isn’t just a “job” or a hobby you do when you’re not doing what’s really important, or safe, for you. You do have to take a risk to get there. I encourage you to ask some tough questions of yourself. How safe is your current fitness career status right now? How much risk are you taking? Ask the Hard Questions What are you going to do about it? If you’re just starting out, how willing are you to take a risk? Are you looking for that safe position working for someone else with insurance so you’re fed clients? But might be also tempted to complain that they’re taking all the profits? How ironic that the business willing to take the risks should also take the biggest profits? It’s not an accident. No one is really out to take advantage of you. Even you don’t believe that. Businesses that stay in business take care of everyone. There is opportunity for you to do well and have a lucrative fitness career. There’s never been a better time to be in fitness. But the competition is growing. You want to be better and heard above the noise. You don’t want to be another choice. You want to be the choice. Want to talk? P.S. If you're thinking, I don't want a lucrative fitness career, I just want to help people. That's noble. But nothing will enable you to help more people than having a lucrative fitness career. They're not mutually exclusive. They actually have to co-exist. Links to resources: | |||
| 19 Sep 2018 | How to Choose Your Next Fitness Conference | 00:43:49 | |
Deciding what your next fitness conference is going to be can be one of two things: incredibly overwhelming or random. There are so many educational opportunities available both online and offline that it’s mindboggling. Though you may decide online is it so you can skip logistics, travel and the additional time onsite education takes, there’s a missing component for personal trainers gathering information that way. The interaction and networking of an onsite even provides a motivation and energy that no online program can regardless of how good. If you agree with that, there’s still much to consider about the reason you’re going and the kind of conference you’re going to attend. Do you need marketing and sales training? Do you need a depth of information in a specific programming area to set you apart as a credible expert? This episode is all about a conference that is the latter. If medical fitness is your area your next fitness conference should be for and about medical fitness. We know the world is aging and the number of 50 and over clients is increasing. They’re educated, experienced, and they’re looking for trainers who are the same. In this episode I share highlights of the recent medical fitness tour – a special in depth fitness conference for those fitness professionals who want to serve those between medicine and standard fitness prescriptions that no longer fit. My guest Tony Berlant is a consultant, a published researcher, an author coach, and a veteran of the health and fitness industry with more than 20 years of leadership experience. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in Psychology, and his Master of Science degree in Exercise and Movement Science (focusing on Exercise and Sport Psychology) from University of Oregon. He has served as a certified personal trainer (NASM-CPT), a multi-club regional fitness manager, and a corporate-level Director for some of the most well-known companies in the industry. He is currently acting as the Director of Education and Programs for the Medical Fitness Education Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to developing and delivering education and practical application for fitness professionals and other allied healthcare practitioners in the areas of chronic disease and other medical conditions. He consults for the organization, assists in the production conferences called the Medical Fitness Tour, and is involved in all areas of operations. Questions we discussed in this episode: How did your career with the Medical Fitness Education Foundation begin? What is Medfit's mission? How is Medfit's mission important to you? New projects include Medfit TV, webinars, and the Tour- when was the tour "born?" What makes the MedFit Tour a different kind of fitness conferece? What cities are on the Tour?
What’s the presenter and topic selection process for Medfit events? Our virtual fitness conference recap Tony and I did a recount of the recent Medfit Tour in San Francisco and talk about highlights of topics and speakers offering medical fitness education during the 3-day event including: Phil Kaplan We have a broken, “I am…” ~Phil Kaplan Andrea Leonard Dr. Joel Fuhrman “Exercise is the only way to speed metabolism without accelerating aging.” ~Dr. Joel Fuhrman Dr. Tonya Butler, (Functional Biomechanics in Special Populations) TriggerPoint Performance Therapy Dr. Evan Osar, Co-founder, The Institute for Integrative Health and Fitness Education “Every single medication has side effects.” ~Dr. Evan Osar Dr. Kevin Steele, President PTonthenet, and PTAglobal Dr. Jessica Knurick, Toolbox Genomics (DNA Testing) Danielle Spangler, Founder of Coremoms Dr. Christian Thompson, Dept. of Kinesiology, U of SF Is this your next fitness conference? Learn more about the Medical Fitness Education Foundation and ways to access medical fitness education online or live: Your FIRST next step: MedFit Network | medfitnetwork.org MedFit Education Foundation | medfited.org ATTEND: Medical Fitness Tour | medfittour.org | |||
| 02 Feb 2022 | How to Build Your Personal Brand in 2022 | Fitness & Health Coaches | 00:16:35 | |
What is personal branding and how do you build your personal brand? It’s connecting to your customer with a personal story. You can talk about a mix of personal and professional
Building relationships in your own environment, showing your personality
You share in-the-moment, in-real-life, behind-the-scenes of you that lets people know you and love you in a way they want to do business… with YOU. Instead of Peloton or Planet Fitness. Some ideas to help you build your personal brand: Share behind the scenes with you on the weekend If your family is open to it, share pictures or videos of them. If not, try a from the back photo, in silhouette. Try a day in the life hour by hour on your stories. Give someone a tour of your home, home office, home gym or kitchen. Keep the personal touches in. Don’t let perfection trickle into everything unless that’s you sun-up to sun-down always behind make-up and home perfect. Why People Buy From One Brand vs Another The real reason to build your personal brand and not just a work brand is this: People buy from people. They have a clerk they look for at the grocery store. They return to the small hardware store for that personal touch even when there’s a huge store where they might get it for less. Likewise with any product. Yes, they’ve got access to the world, but if you’re local, they’ll like that fact and connect with you because of it. The real reason not to have you and your brand be the same is so that you can hire, and sell it someday easier than if it’s you and your name always and only in images. Thoughts on this one? Are you already building your personal brand? Do you have a separate business and personal brand? Tell me below the show notes at fitnessmarketingmastery/build your personal brand Resources for Health & Fitness Coaches: How to Build a Better Freebie (freebie, how meta is that!?)
Marketing to Women Copywriting course
Other episodes you may like: Pandemic Fitness Business Success Story: Family Busines18 Revenue Generating Strategies | Health & Fitness Professionals
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| 19 Jul 2020 | When You Should Wait to Create a Fitness Offer or Affiliate | 00:21:16 | |
There’s one piece of advice when you’re ready to create a fitness offer that you don’t want to ignore. If you haven’t done it, gotten results from it, yourself, you should not be teaching it. Similarly, if you want to make affiliate offers – either to sell other’s products, or to ask others to share your products and services, you want to have proof they work. What's an Affiliate? Let me back up and define affiliates if you’re new to them. An affiliate relationship means you’re set up in a way that you can invite others to share your products and services with a special code or URL that tracks sales they earn and pays them a percentage of the sale. If you are being an affiliate for someone else, likewise, you have the opportunity to earn a commission for sending traffic and creating sales for them. How Much Can You Make (or will you pay) Generally, commissions for online or digital products are 40-50%. If you are doing live coaching or purely coaching, or selling hard products, percentages are much lower. That makes them less attractive for affiliates. So, if you don’t have a digital product yet, that doesn’t mean you can’t create a fitness offer affiliate, it just means you can keep them small. You Can Keep It Small Go to your local business friends for instance, give them services or money back. When you know your customer lifetime value it’s easy to reward for referrals with a monetary gift. If you know that anyone who experiences your massage therapist will be a return customer, you might want to give a massage for a referral to a membership or certain size training package. Know your customers, and your business partners and you’ll create a fitness offer that will appeal to them. When You’re Ready to Go Big You’ll need to know your numbers. Affiliates who do this as their business model want to know what your conversion rate is and how much they can expect to make per lead. If you’re not yet tracking your numbers, you need to start. Other things too are things you’ll need to consider. You’ll want to know 6 months to a year in advance when you’re launching programs, when the promotional period is, and you want to provide materials for your affiliates to use. You can expect and ask for all of those things for anyone you want to support in their affiliate too. Do You Love It? I have a policy of only sharing things I know, love, and trust. That means I’ve literally used anything I promote or put in my resources list. (A resources list on your website is a very passive way to promote products). But if you’re still in the middle of fixing your own problem and you haven’t done something with good results – ideally haven’t gotten predictable results for at least a high percentage of clients you’ve used it for, you’re not really an expert anyone would want to follow. Wait on that fitness offer. Wanting to teach how to write a book for example isn’t something you should do if you haven’t written a book. But should you teach how to exercise for menopause if you haven’t been there yet? Or teach how to exercise for osteoporosis or Parkinson’s? Of course, that is different. But.. you do want to have something that establishes you as an expert. How to Establish Expertise Have you written articles published in scientific journals? Have you gotten results for a large number of clients? Have you served on an advisory board? Have you got anything that makes you the expert? If not, and this is something you really want to do, focus on getting some of those things under your belt. Try interviewing 100 experts in the area you want to be an expert in. Try offering a group training for the market you want so you can gather data on your system and document it. To be an expert, you have to be able to show a system or method that gets repeatable, reliable results. You’ve got to have more experience than only yourself – a study of 1. Having less than 5-years experience as a full time trainer (at least 32 hours a week) really isn’t enough. You’re on your way. The more you serve only a niche and not a wide variety of clients the faster you’ll get there. A Wise Fitness Offer I caution you not to become an expert in a mode of exercise. Be the expert in a problem a customer wants solved. Use the mode to serve them and justify why you think it’s best. There you have it, how to create a fitness offer or affiliate, and when you’re ready and when to wait. But it won’t be long until you have an offer that will convert. Resources: | |||
| 01 Apr 2021 | It’s Not, “Do More,” Not Even in 2021 | 00:10:13 | |
Think you need to do more? So, 27 certifications later, you could be tired, out of cash, and still not have anyone really paying you for all of those “credentials.” Have you gotten stuck in the certification, workshop hamster wheel? You just keep going around in circles. You’re taking training after training but then you don’t actually have the business model before you do? You don’t get that kind of training in most certifications. You get possibilities. All the Things? Here’s the thing: most successful 6 and higher figure fitness professionals do a few things really, really well. They don’t do all the things. You can’t make a business out of barre and yoga and boxing, and Pilates, and nutrition coaching. Why Do More Doesn’t Work You probably won’t make that 6 figures by serving everyone or even women of all ages. Sometime soon you won’t even be able to serve just women in menopause. You’ll need to serve women in menopause with arthritis or osteoporosis or who are endurance athletes. Find the few things you do and the best way to find them is find your people. Decide who you serve. It’s not what you do it’s who you serve and what they tell you they struggle with. Even in a small rural area, you want to pick a niche. The world is now your platform. We’ve seen it in the last year if you didn’t believe it before that. Narrow Your Niche Some people would say, I don’t have that luxury of narrowing my niche because I’m in a small town. Not any more. And I don’t think ever. You can train everyone… but you’ll really just train your friends if you’re doing that, and the people they tell about you. But if you want to be an expert, to create a system or method, and make it serve many more so you have a bigger influence, you choose your people. Narrow it down and serve then so well they don’t want anyone else. | |||
| 01 Jun 2018 | Why PTonthenet for Medical Exercise & Personal Trainers Continuing Education | 00:32:10 | |
PTonthenet is an online education portal for health and fitness industry professionals worldwide. Since it merged with PTA Global, the two are a powerhouse of education, business tools, and convenience for a busy personal trainer or business owner who regularly onboard staff members. Kevin Steele, PhD President of PTAglobal/Ptonthenet is my guest on this episode. I talked with Kevin about his career and the mission of both companies. We dive into specifically special populations and medical exercise growth. His unique perspective and ability to look at the need and the demand for education in specific areas provides clues to the growing needs for the aging population. We answer not only questions about Ptonthenet and PTA Global, we covered these questions in this episode:
We also discussed the new relationship between PTonthenet and the Medical Fitness Network. (Founder Lisa Dougherty will be an upcoming podcast series right here). The MedFit Education Foundation is working with PTA Global/PT on the Net to launch 12 medical fitness courses that include a donation to the foundation & a one-year membership to the MedFit Network registryfor course participants so the public can locate professionals like you who are qualified and ready to help them. Are you a medical exercise specialist or want to be? The Medfit tour includes a two-day conference in San Francisco September 8 and 9. Main conference registration (Saturday & Sunday) include: + Nine educational sessions (with CEUs for fitness professionals) + Two 90-minute lunch & learn discussion groups + Networking and Expo + Saturday evening mixer with drinks, appetizers, and music + Complimentary 1-year professional MedFit Network Membership ($169 value!). See details and Register here: https://medicalfitnesstour.org/event/sf/ Early Bird Registration through June 30th - save $100. This 3-day event will offer fitness & allied health professionals an opportunity to grow their knowledge in the field of medical fitness. Four optional half-day pre-conference workshops will be available on Friday, September 7 before the main conference. | |||
| 07 Dec 2022 | 7 Things Profitable Trainers Need to Know How to Do | 00:40:47 | |
This episode of things profitable trainers need to know may not be what you expect. There are other practical components of building funnels, writing emails, and creating copy that makes customers buy I could talk about. But not here. There are hundreds and thousands of trainers. Not all of them, not even many of them, are truly profitable. While you might think I’m going to talk about the need for a course, and a course before your course... and we definitely could. That is funnel talk. But there’s more. There’s this sixth sense kind of list that has to be there first. Do let me know if this is helpful. I’ll share a way to give yourself a grade on your business too. (check resources below) This episode of 7 things profitable trainers need to know is based on the foundation for tracking, communicating, and decision-making. Look objectively at the right numbers -the “books” P & L statement -subscribers in and out -source of traffic -ROAS for ads or marketing effort -where do I spend, where do I spend less or stop spending Train Holistically – it’s more than movement -foam rolling isn’t necessarily the best way to support fascia -assess and respond to hormone status of individuals Create Simple Messages from a Complex Set of Information -stop the teach & preach and move into raise & praise -lower the barrier to entry -be inclusive vs exclusive -make it step-by-step Breakdown the What, Why, and How of Information for Prospects -Share WHY far more than HOW -you can’t be a step ahead or new prospects won’t join you -demonstrate you doing… and explain WHY Be Willing to be Seen and Heard Imperfectly -all marketing is visual today -a brick-and-mortar business still needs individual trainers teaching digitally Spot Trends and Solve Problems -Trends and fads exist for a reason -How do you answer uniquely? Choose a NICHE, Stay In It -collaborate with others who know more about something than you -it takes a village, make sure you’re building one with collaborative partners -if you’re reluctant to interview someone because you think you know more, think about it -if you “do that too” it doesn’t mean they can’t be a partner -if you go deep in health coaching, and clients still need the very specific exercise -If you go deep in exercise, and clients still need the nutrition There you have it! 7 Things profitable trainers need to know! And there’s more of course! The tactile and practical creation of courses is a must for passive revenue. Resources Mentioned in this Episode: Your Business Scorecard podcast: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/business-scorecard/ Right to the Scorecard: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/scorecard Training women in midlife? The Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist directory is growing with trainers and health coaches who train in person and virtually all over the world. The Advanced Specialist is the only one that is included, and allows lifetime access to the Facebook group as long as you’re an active contributor, and license to use dozens of worksheets customizable with your contact information for two years. After that you can renew with proof of your continuing education and CEU-courses offered via Flipping 50. https://www.flippingfifty.com/specialist Which of the 7 things profitable trainers need to know was the most valuable?
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| 18 Nov 2023 | 5 New Clients in 7 Days: Here’s How She Did It | 00:25:13 | |
When you need clients, you need them now. How does 5 new clients in 7 days sound? What would 5 NEW CLIENTS in the next 7 days do for your business?
What if getting to those 5 sales, you connected with 12 leads that are interested but may need something lower priced or want to be on a waiting list (because your Beta Group is FILLED?) What if you also shared with your possible 141 commenters on a post and all followers that you’re “sorry, but closed for this session” but have a waitlist for the next program, and share how to get on a notifications list. And you nurtured that list with a few quick wins between now and having something ready? Would that be okay? Well, let me tell you about how our WellPro member did it. After Thursday's hotseat session last week she went into action. By Friday she'd booked 3 consultations and sold 1, and had a maybe for the other. But let me tell you the details so you don't miss a thing!! 1. "Z" was going to wait, until she was ready and had created a course, probably, she said, in January. >> No, I suggested that these warm leads who responded to a post that they needed the support of a Menopause Specialist that she was taking couldn't "wait" to cool off. She needed to reach out now. 2. "Z" was set to charge $497 for a small beta group. >>I said add $200 to that. It's going to be a small group, they're going to get a LOT of individual attention. They need to pay for that much time with you. 3. She reached out to these social-only acquaintances and DM'd them asking if they'd like to meet. She booked 3 sessions in a day. She sold 1, got a maybe and a no, not right now. 4. Over the next 6 days, she booked more consults, and filled all 5 slots, making $3400+ for a course she hasn't built yet. **She was limited by the platform she's testing for this size group. She'll have the opportunity to show proof of concept, have testimonials to use for the actual launch, AND... know that the price point is very reasonable since she'll be able to show transformation. 5. "Z" is lit up excited. She doesn’t just have 5 new clients in 7 days. She has momentum! How do you think that will boost her November and December sales? How Can You Too Get 5 New Clients in 7 Days (or BETTER!) I’ve been talking all month about the WELLPROs mastermind. In case you missed it, it’s not too late. In fact, it’s not too late to get in at the founder’s rate but it will be!!! Here’s how it works: Regularly the mastermind & mentorship is $79/month. The founder’s rate is $49/month There is NO contract. It’s month-to-month. I provide value, you stay, you pay monthly via subscription. If you find it doesn’t serve you, give you clarity on pricing, asking, presenting offers, or planning your next promotion… then you simply give us 3 business days' notice to cancel. You have access to the library for as long as you’re a member. So not only do you get opportunity to add a hot seat question (whether you’re in bed fast asleep in Australia at 12 noon AZ on Thursdays or live), you get to catch up or review any sessions you’ve missed. PLUS, you have a CEU course every six months as an added perk. This is a collaboration of others AND coaching from a 0-to-6-figures a month coach. You hear what’s working for others and ideas and get a team of women rooting for you. Priceless. You get the opportunity to declare out loud what you’ll do and to report the following week what worked and didn’t. You can see, if you take instant action, you will get to “yes.” Other success stories are coming. Some are Black Friday weekend based, others, about testing and research via social media. They’re coming … just stay tuned. Better yet, what if you had a big win.. What would that look like? Are You Connected? Fitness Marketing Mastery Website: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fitnessmarketingbiz Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/flipping50tv Resources: Your Business Scorecard: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/business-scorecard/ Marketing to Women Copywriting Course: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/copywriting-course/ Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist™ Course: https://www.flippingfifty.com/menopause-fitness-specialist-program-2022/ Other Episodes You Might Like: Pandemic Fitness Business Success Story: Family Business| Episode #281: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/fitness-business-success-story/ Fitness Marketing Secrets to Recession-Proof with Bedros Keuilian: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/fitness-marketing-secrets/ 6-Figure Months From 6 Mindset Shifts: Fitness Coaching Business: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/6-figure-months/ | |||
| 26 Aug 2023 | Becoming a Voice for Fitness: Your Videos & Podcasts | 00:53:56 | |
To be a real voice for fitness, an advocate for health and behavior change, your voice quality will matter. As AI-driven voice-overs may be able to make you sound better than you actually sound, this may be a podcast who’s time is past, yet I think if you can make your voice become something that conveys confidence, authority, and simultaneously inspires hope and action steps in your audience, I bet you’d say, yes please. And the truth is there are voice qualities that make it difficult for people to want to listen to you. If you want your voice to be music to someone’s ears, there are things you can do. One obstacle you’ll have to overcome is awareness of it. It’s nearly impossible to hear our own voices as someone else does. Definitely when we’re speaking we have a very different experience than anyone else might hearing us. The input is coming through a combination of the skull bones internally and through the air externally. A 2005 study showed our own reality of our voice tends to be much different than what other listeners hear. We are more harsh judges and tend not to like our voices. So do cut yourself a break. Do listen to your own video, audio but also realize we have a unique experience listening to ourselves compared to someone else’s experience. Be a Voice for Fitness : How to Fix Your Flaws Get feedback. If you’ve ever had someone say, it’s hard to hear you, speak up, or a mean-girl (it’s almost always a woman unfortunately, not everyone has gotten the message that we’re being nice to each other now) say something like, “I can’t stand to listen to a voice like that - like fingernails on a chalkboard” then listen.. A little. You don’t have to be the voice for everyone just for those who are going to love working with you. And sometimes sound quality can be fixed! With a combination of free, low cost or higher investments, even voice exercises. So, if you discover or know that your voice isn’t as smooth or as strong as you’d like it to be, what can you do? There are some ways to improve what you’re doing. A Better Mic Back in 2012 when I first started podcasting, someone said the best mic was the Blue Yeti. I got one. I hadn’t a clue about what I was doing or how I was doing it, but I knew if it was going to be listened to, it had to sound good. And that thing is way more reasonable today, and actually I retired mine, because even after careful packing it was not producing the kind of sound I needed. So, during the pandemic the entire podcast set up at Voice for Fitness changed. You may want and need a mixer, headphones and a high quality mic. But at the very least you want a high quality microphone and a room set up for acoustics - with carpet or rugs, things on the walls and ceilings, or I’ve known podcasters who record in a closet. If you want the list of items I use as a part of my setup from platform to tech, stay tuned til the end and I’ll share those. Improve Your Voice Quality Some of the same things that make the difference behind a richer more powerful voice are also going to support your pelvic floor muscles. Any hints? Breathing. Deeper breathing that comes from your diaphragm supports your voice too. You may be doing planks all day every day but if you’re not doing diaphragmatic breathing your core is missing the foundation it needs! And so is your voice. Singers sing and cheerleaders project from their diaphragm and you should too even when your mic is 2 inches from your mouth and you could whisper. Cheat Use the audio adjustments available to you in your movie editor and garage band (anyone using that anymore?). This isn't ideal because sooner or later you’re going to be asked to speak… or do a media appearance or keynote or lead a breakout session. Voice Tips for Health & Fitness Pros Before You Record:
Some good rules:
Other Episodes You Might Like: 4 Steps to Creating Video for Marketing: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/fitness-marketing-videos/ 4 Ways to Grow Your Email List with Fitness Videos: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/grow-your-email-list/ Resources: Business Scorecard: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/scorecard Marketing to Women: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/copywriting-course
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| 25 Feb 2021 | Personal Trainers: How to Boost Your Social Media Engagement | 00:17:36 | |
If you’re taking the time to post but need to more social media engagement, this is for you. Wondering how you stop getting a handful of comments on a post and start getting some traction? After observing hundreds of posts and giving feedback for consulting clients about why what they’re doing isn’t working and how to get better results, I realized the majority of mistakes are just unintentional glitches. What is this Post About? So, this post is all about how to make Intentional corrections to what you’re doing. You can boost your social media engagement. And it doesn’t just take throwing money at a post, in fact that easy, sleazy way of boosting a post with money? Will fail you every time while Facebook gets rich on it. There’s only one reason to boost a post, and that’s to test it. Then if it’s working you go into Business Manager and create a real campaign to get real results. That, is an entire other podcast, actually a master class and you do need to create ads, friends. If you’re serious about using Facebook and growing a business, you’ll need to. But first… what you post has to be worth it. Boost your social media engagement organically before you move on. Start Here No matter who you’re targeting, talk to them not at them. But first…
Okay, now that we’ve handled that, let’s move on. Ask a question every ideal customer (even a stranger) can answer easily These become easier to respond to when they become polls. In Instagram or on Facebook you can create a poll. Use stories to do it, or create a meme that does it for you.
Yes or no
Home or Gym And in those two questions I increased the level of engagement. In the Yes or No “poll” it’s an easy answer. In the home or gym question, someone could have to add an answer they type in. Be thoughtful about strangers. These are prospects. They haven’t even joined the ranks of your leads yet! They like to vote but they aren’t going to spend a lot of time doing so until you’re someone they already know and trust. You can try telling them, you’re taking a poll, and you’ll share the results. They’re going to want to benefit from taking the time. People do love to share their opinion, but they have to have some reason for doing it. Additional questions to boost your social media engagement
How to Stir Up Emotion I’d love to hear your experience. Did you work with a personal trainer?
Have you ever worked with an online trainer? Did 2020 make you do it? Follow up! If you’re forgetting that social media is a conversation, you could be missing the best way to increase your engagement. As soon as you post, you need to be available to engage. Go in and like and share your post from your business to your personal profile if you are your demographic. You can’t set it and forget it. If you’ve got posts scheduled, that’s fine, but be aware of them and add comments to them yourself! The more action the more traction. You can start it. If you have those few customers who follow you whatever you do, and engage with you, use that to your advantage. When they comment, respond back. Use more than 4 words to do it, and end with a follow up question. Each of those things matters to the algorithm. And be sure you don’t just have your 5 kids like your post… because if they’re boys and you’re targeting women in midlife for instance, you’re going to be shown to more people like those first responders. It’s not going to go very well for you is it? Try tagging a few friends who are in the demographic you want (who are okay with you doing that). Don’t Make This Mistake What You Do on Facebook is Not What You Do on Instagram. Or is it? I’m guessing if you’re simply automatically posting every Insta post to Facebook it’s not working very well. That’s because these are two different platforms. You’re going to say things like “link in bio” in your Instagram, and you’re going to use hashtags, that hurt your reach on Facebook. (Did you know? More than 4 on Facebook, maybe even any at this point, really decrease your reach there?) There you have it, literally some real questions you can ask, and answer, and follow up on to boost your social media engagement. Questions about how to boost your social media engagement? I’d love to hear them. But remember this… you should spend a very small amount of time on social media. It is not your content. Your content comes from your website. The social media is giving that wings and wheels so you get that message out and bring them back to your website. Do What Only You Can Do You and only you can do live video. But someone else, for a lot less $ than you should be earning per hour should be doing your social media graphics, and quotes from that content. I call that system Social 365 and I’ve taught it at 3 major fitness association conferences (ICAA, SCW, and FitnessFest). Most fitness pros start with social instead of ending there to bring people back to their site. Know your platform. I’ll link to my book Health & Fitness Professionals Guide to Social Media Marketing (Healthy Learning). Yes, any social media guide can easily be outdated by the time it reaches print. It’s why I wrote this one to be inclusive of the questions you need to ask of all your marketing and of all platforms now and in the future. (link to prior episode) Resources: Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist Build Your Business MasterMind
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| 01 May 2023 | 3 Steps to Evaluate Business Expenses | Health & Fitness COACHES | 00:36:36 | |
How do you evaluate business expenses to take thoughtful calculated risks? Everything that’s unpredictable is a risk, afterall. And spending money before you make money is a risk. If there are things you’ve never done before, it can be hard to decide when to say yes, when to say no, and when it’s just no, not right now. While we’re on this topic of investing, realize we’re not just talking about money. Time and energy are the other two things that you want to consider. How you spend your energy is due to where you place your attention. Business Expenses Related to Health & Fitness Coaching Are Inevitable They aren’t all as easy to spot as a credit card bill or check, unfortunately. If you’re putting attention on things that don’t really serve you, like: Conversations with people you can’t control Weight that you don’t want Regret or anger you aren’t letting go of Or, more related to business, a project that you create but haven’t tested whether anyone wants to buy it… That gets very expensive even if you haven’t spent money on it. For instance, you’ve got a phone so you shoot videos that you use to create a program using unlisted YouTube videos. It doesn’t cost you anything because the phone, the YouTube platform and the ability to send an email are all free. Have you considered how much time it takes to create video, edit video, polish and brand it, and upload it? If you know how much your time is worth (Between $100 and $500 an hour) then those things become something you don’t want to do unless you’ve tested and evaluated. Let’s start with a series of 5 questions you can use to evaluate your business expenses. [Step 1] Then I’ll take you through how to set up tasks within projects. (Those sometimes reveal expenses you hadn’t already planned on). [Step 2] 5 Questions that Evaluate Business Expenses: Will it make you money? Will it cost you money? How soon will it make you money? How soon will it cost you money? Is there anything you need to stop or start doing to see it through? Now that you’ve answered those questions, you may have already decided to keep going or to scrap the project. Next… What Tasks Will Help You Evaluate Good Business Investments? These will not only help you evaluate good vs poor business decisions, but they’ll get this project planned out! What are some of the tasks you need to do? How much will each cost? How long will each take? Who will be responsible for it? What are deadlines related to this project? If you can complete this evaluation, you’ll save yourself a lot of time… and a lot of money… and keep yourself organized. [Step 3] A project that you evaluate as “not right now” can still be one you return to and do later. But now you’ve got it, documented in draft form, ready to modify or run with. Resources: Health & Fitness Coaches Business Scorecard: https://www.flippingfifty.com/scorecard Marketing to Women Copywriting Course: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/copywriting-course Other Episodes You May Like: Your Fitness Business Annual Plan Step-by-Step: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/annual-plan/ Business Planning for Health & Fitness Coaches: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/business-planning/ | |||
| 25 Mar 2020 | 3 Steps to Productivity for Personal Trainers in Times of Uncertainty | 00:31:59 | |
3 Steps to Productivity for Personal Trainers in Times of Uncertainty I’m tackling the topic of productivity for personal trainers in this episode. The uncertainty can be stifling. You can easily lose a day by not giving yourself every opportunity to take control. One look at the news or social media can rob you of a productive day you feel good about. You may be wondering, productivity for personal trainers? Are you kidding?? I have no clients, no gym to train in, and no income. I get it. We’re all nervous. We’re not all ready for weeks or months without what was our income. What do we do? I’ve got three steps that are a must.
The biggest action you can take is work on your mindset. Do that throughout. Start first thing in the morning and finish last thing before your close your eyes. Mindset Shift If you’ve got limiting beliefs you’ve got to remember that you may be going down road that isn’t there. You’ve just imagined it. If you’re not careful with mindset, none of this productivity for personal trainers tip sheet is going to help you. You will create your reality based on the thoughts that you have. You’ve got to lose these:
That may be your limited thinking. In fact, the value of health, wellness, and fitness are higher at this moment. The value of community and connection are higher. Many people are more acutely aware of their health than ever. This will forever change the way people think about fitness and health. It will forever change the way they value their gyms or that they realize online fitness is convenient and just as valuable. Some people are investing in home exercise equipment. They’ve got a home gym and they need help optimizing it. They know what they’ve always done but they don’t know how to optimize it for immunity. Digitally Thoughtful You’re watching fitness professionals try to take their business online quickly. Maybe that’s you. You’re seeing to many randomly throw workouts up online (literally vomit, in my opinion). There’s no custom-designed, personal, training. It’s a trainer personality-based random exercise. Facebook right now has become a YouTube. There’s no progression, there’s no assessing where a client is, or focus on one “avatar.” (define your customer: it’s not everybody, or all women, or people with special conditions: get specific) There is evidence trainers are panicking and reverting to what they know best. They’ve gone into exercise mode. Let me do a workout with them. Let me show them how good they can look. Yet, trainers are not really there. Those who show up, who are with their clients and customers and help by listening by creating a sense of community will win. The regular and consistent, and right now frequent sense of stability that you bring to people is important right now. Be with them. You’ve been a staple in their lives through divorce, through children’s milestones, through family tragedy and celebrations. Be with them now. Yes, stay in your lane AND add value. Provide resources. If you understand parasympathetic stimulation, talk about it. If you understand gut health and the relationship to immunity, talk about it. If you don’t, talk about the resources you’re using to learn more and that you’ll be sharing and ask them to share. There is always something to say. It is not about what core exercise to do or how to throw a kettle bell around. Not right now. This is the time to tap into your own life. What have you loved and hated about it? What have you wished was different? How did you want it different? You have the opportunity right now to create it. Rather than wish it all back where it was a couple weeks ago, will a new opportunity into reality. You’ll be doing something right now. You’ll be thinking something right now. You’ll experience time passing right now. Will you be smarter, more prepared, have a changed business that you’re excited about when this is passed? Trainers who pivot, collaborate, connect, and communicate well during this will be the trainers who thrive, potentially during this and, after this. You can start that right now. Now is not time to pull back. Now is time to lead. Leaders lead. | |||
| 29 Oct 2020 | The Dirty World of Fitness Conference Content | 00:11:39 | |
Attending a fitness conference this year? Taking a continuing education course? How well do you consider your goals and what you want to accomplish from the content you consume? In the world of fitness conference content and fitness association award winners it can be hard to distinguish between smoke and mirrors. Fitness Conference Reflect Reality? Is all that glitters, or has boobs and botox, really substantiated success you’re seeing? Or are you in fact seeing the evidence of marketing. The package is the surface. What’s inside that matters right? Before I go on, I have to say this, I’m a presenter at fitness conferences too. And you should look at me with the same scrutiny that you look at anyone else. I’ve presented internationally since 2000 for associations including IDEA, NSCA, CAN-FIT-PRO, ICAA, SCW, ABC, and Fitness Fest and MEDFIT, multiple times in many cases. I’ve also published articles for several of them and serve as Subject Matter Expert or advisory board member for others. Fitness Conference Content Alarms Taking advice from a presenter at a fitness conference talking about making money and programming can be tricky. Consider two very different skill sets. One skill set is the science and its practical application broken down into a daily and weekly action set that will get your clients or customers results. The second is the ability to make business decisions based on profit and loss, on profitability, and scalability of a program. There's More And yet a third is the ability to look at the much bigger picture of how many lives have a positive influence from the pursuit. Maybe a decision is okay if it’s purely for enjoyment and hobby-sake. If it’s a business that must pay the bills, support individuals and their families, and ultimately build a legacy not just have a spotlight and have fun, then there are different sets to apply and evaluate. Your Fitness Conference & Experts As a business leader – if only for yourself: someone who pays bills and taxes based not just on what you make but on what you keep – you need to be sure that you separate these two very carefully. I recommend that you look closely at the “back end” of any of your beloved presenters and do your homework. Learn from them, they are some of the best, and they are using science to relay programming to you. However, they may have no idea of how to actually implement a profitable program. How do you know? Ask these questions:
Knowledge vs. Application Because although a university lecturer may be a wonderful teacher, that lecturer has a regular paycheck regardless of the job or effort they put in (until someone evaluates them of course!) And you, as an entrepreneur or someone working on commission, do not have that luxury. If you work as a manager of a department, the profitability of your program matters. This year more than ever, if the profit margin on your programs and services has not supported your business but has only been supported by it, you’re in a pickle right now. That just doesn’t work anymore. If you’ve created a department of personal training for instance that simply extends the life and success of a club’s members but really has no profit margin due to expenses and high commissions with too little revenue, without enough members continuing in, you have not created a sustainable model for this moment we’re in. We Don’t Celebrate Losses I’ll leave that touchy subject alone because it’s my educated guess that those trainers, managers, owners in that position right now are not listening to this episode. They’re in a place where survival, not up-leveling, is and has to be their focus. For you though, listener, it’s time to get real. For those sessions you’re choosing and those continuing education courses your taking, make sure to filter what you’re learning together with from whom you’re learning it. The Bottomline So, there you have it, a sneak peek into how presenters are evaluated or they’re not. Never once since 2000 when I began presenting did any conference organizer ask for my tax returns. My feeling is often that the greater the number of initials behind someone’s name, the greater the number of titles, the greater the need to make up for something or prove something. The OverKill on Certifications and Titles Why would someone need a handful of jobs if just one of them were sustaining their lifestyle? It’s a question you must ask. What is their business model? How do they earn money? How did they scale their business? How do they enjoy freedom in their life? Is this a model I want to use for my own? You don’t have to get all you need from one individual. I do think you want to choose carefully the individuals you follow to know they match your values, and the life you aspire to. Did I stir up any questions? Comments? Leave them below the show link at fitnessmarketingmastery-dot-com/fitness-conference
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| 22 Apr 2021 | Health Coaches & Trainers | Get Emails Delivered and Opened | 00:14:40 | |
You have to get emails delivered before they can be opened. They have to be opened before they can be read. And they have to be read before they’ll click to anything you’re selling or asking them to do next. So, I’m going to break down how to get better results at each step. You have to fight to keep your delivery rate high. So many marketers, scammers, and bulk email senders are making it harder and harder. But, never forget that email is still the number one way you’re going to nurture and then sell your customers. So what do you do in order to get emails delivered? Get your emails delivered:
Get your emails opened: Create better subject lines – May’s Newsletter, or Mondays Motivational Newsletter … are not it. Think front of the New York Times, cover of Cosmopolitan, for inspiration. Questions work well. Peak curiosity. Shock them. Use a statistic that involves them. Spend 80% of your time on the subject line and 20 on the content. Get your email click rate higher:
Email or CRM (Customer Relationship Managers):
Terms:
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