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Best Practices

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Career Path for Mind-Body Professionals

Prepaid Packages or Personal Training Memberships?

When it comes to selling personal training services, a common practice is to require payment for a series of sessions at the start of training. According to data from the 2010 IDEA Fitness Programs & Equipment Trends report (IDEA Fitness Manager, July–August 2010), 69% of respondents “ask clients to pay for individual sessions/classes or packages of sessions/classes.” Troy Fontana, CEO of Freedom Fitness Unlimited in Sparks, Nevada, believes this method may soon be history.

Risk Management

We all understand that accidents happen. Unfortunately, in the fitness industry, lawsuits happen as well. And it takes only one small incident to put you out of business.

Optimizing Amenities

Look around your facility. All fitness center operators want to keep pace with advances in our industry and, in doing so, operate a diverse facility that appeals to a broad demographic. Establish your facility as a unique place to work out by making available the newest amenities—specifically in the areas of equipment, flooring and the locker room.

Systems for Customer Service Success

Think about the customer service provided by top companies like the Ritz-Carlton and Disney. Now think about your personal training business. Does your brand evoke the same image of exceptional assistance? Or is it time for you to borrow proven customer service systems from these top-notch names?

Fitness Facilities Lack Adherence to Health Screenings

According to ACSM’s Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription, “potential [exercise] participants should be screened for the presence, signs, symptoms, and/or risk factors of various cardiovascular, pulmonary, and metabolic diseases as well as other conditions that require special attention.” Yet despite these recommendations, a recent study has found that many fitness
facilities do not require new members to complete pre-exercise screenings.

Manage Multigenerational Staff Successfully

Fitness facilities worldwide are filled with employees and contractors whose ages span multiple generations. With each generation comes a different work ethic and sense of how responsibilities are handled. For a fitness facility owner or manager, an understanding of generational differences can help foster a sense of community and success among staff. Here are tips for managing a multigenerational staff, courtesy of Chicago-based Lakeshore Staffing:

Do you have a cancellation policy? Why or why not?

My time is valuable. When clients cancel and I don’t charge them, I lose income. My rent and bills don’t change because of these cancellations. I inform my clients of my cancellation policy right away and ask them to sign a form saying they understand the policy. I have a 24-hour cancellation policy, but if I see that someone has several cancellations, I schedule him on a week-to-week basis. With all this being said, I use common sense.

Promoting a Fitness Bucket List

In the 2007 movie The Bucket List, Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson play terminally ill patients who escape the hospital ward to complete adventures on their “bucket list.” Most people can connect with the concept of a bucket list—the things you want to do before you “kick the bucket”—because no one wants to die with any regrets. We all want to live our fullest lives.

Tricks of the trade

When we introduce a new service, we spread our promotional efforts over a variety of media. If we want a big push, we take out a print ad in targeted local publications. It’s important to note that a print ad has to run for a while before it gains attention. You can’t just run an ad once and think that it’s going to produce anything. An ad has to run for at least a couple of issues before the event you’re promoting, and has to continue to run for several months before people actually start to take notice and inquire about your offering.

Creating a Successful Internship Program

Internship programs provide supervised practical experience for people wanting to gain hands-on knowledge in a specific area of the health and fitness industry. Designing and running your own internship program can be a rewarding experience for both you and your students. It can also become an additional revenue stream for your business and increase awareness of your name as a leader in the personal training industry.

Identifying and Managing Risk Among Trainers

 9  Business Basics:
Pricing Your Services
13  Technology:
From Mobile to Mobility
17  Training for Growth:
The Struggle for Significance
21  Best Practices:
Build Your Team

By nature, personal trainers are passionate, driven, organized and excellent at communicating, or so we would like to believe. In reality, within any team there are radical differences in terms of trainer competencies.

Build Your Team

It is said that if you want to be successful, you must surround yourself with great people. One of the most challenging aspects of running your own business is finding great people and then keeping them.

emergency kit
In Case of Emergency

Whether you call it a disaster plan, an emergency response plan, a crisis management plan or something entirely different, you must put in place a contingency plan for your business—with the hope that you’ll never have to use it.

Setting the Foundation
Start by taking care of some simple foundational elements….

Are Your Interview Practices Sound?

When
interviewing job applicants, do you use standardized practices, or are your
interview protocols as varied as the candidates? A study in the Canadian Journal of Administrative
Sciences (2007; 24 [1], 30–44) has discovered that many human
resources (HR) professionals may not be offering applicants interview equality.
As your personal training business or g…

Keep It Green

Environmental awareness and ecological
responsibility are at the forefront of today’s
news. Fitness industry professionals
can follow the examples of the rapidly
growing number of green spas, green
buildings and companies practicing sustainable management policies. You may
be surprised to learn that it does not necessarily
cost more to"keep it green!"

Discover …

Oh, Man!

Years ago when I was teaching group exercise classes, I re…

Getting Your Equipment Needs Met

Q:My director knows our studio microphone is broken and agrees we need to fix it right away. She says she has requested a repair. Yet 3 weeks have elapsed, and nothing
has been resolved. Meanwhile, my voice
is shot. If I refuse to teach until the mike is repaired, I will be considered a problem instructor. But if I continue to teach without a mike, my voice will suffer even more. What should I do?