Communication
Blogging for Financial Success
Blogging can provide a host of benefits for personal trainers and athletic coaches. It is a simple way to position yourself as an expert, and it’s an inexpensive means to boost your brand identity. You can also boost your income by using your blog to generate saleable content for booklets, minibooks, articles, manuals, eBooks and printed books. Apply these 15 simple recommendations, and build a blog that leads to business and financial success.
Do Fitness Pros Understand Clients With Obesity?
??In 1988, Joan Darragh tipped the scales at 288 pounds. During a trip to Japan, she had a defining moment. “I was in a bar, and I sat on a stool built for the slighter Asian frame,” says the New York City resident. “Suddenly, the bolts on my metal stool started to pop.” She tried to pretend it wasn’t her stool making that noise, but she still kept one foot on the floor.
Help Your Clients to Achieve Greatness
?You have been recruited to change a life. A young man is out of shape and headed toward a life of obesity and health complications. But he desperately wants to change. Perhaps you saw him on television during the 2012 Summer Olympics. He appeared on a Nike® commercial shot in a rural area near London, Ohio.
Mobilize Your Personal Training Staff
The fiscal year is coming to a close, and you have a chance not only for a successful final push but also to connect with your personal trainers in a way that inspires them. Use the following tips to build a cohesive team, empower your trainers and, ultimately, sell sessions.
How to Create Outstanding Outcomes
Part of your role as a group fitness instructor is to help students reach their fitness goals. This is not always an easy task. Each person has different objectives, as well as unique obstacles to overcome. If you can understand some of these factors, you’ll be in a better position to meet participants’ needs, and you’ll be a more effective teacher, coach, motivator and leader.
Managing Multiple Locations
Have you ever noticed that the most successful facilities are full of enthusiastic employees who radiate happiness? How does that happen? It starts from the top down, with leadership.
5 Tips for Successful Online Communication
Amanda Vogel Interview.m4v
First-Session Success
“I’m terrified of change, even if it will improve my life.”
“I hate asking for help or admitting that I do not know something.”
“I avoid environments that are unfamiliar or that make me feel out of place.”
“I don’t believe that my own personal shortcomings are a source of my problems.”
“I will defend what I believe, even though it may not be right.”
For many people, those statements are true.
Tricks of the Trade
Letting a client go is always difficult. As a professional, you have the highest expectations for every client—even if they are somewhat unrealistic. However, not everyone seeking professional help in reaching health and fitness goals is prepared to make the sacrifice or take the steps necessary to change. Change is tough!
Cycling Up
You know your next client, Doug, really well. He’s been working with you for 2 years, he’s committed to his fitness program, and while his body is already well-conditioned, he is determined to keep improving. His session will focus mainly on intense weightlifting, and Doug is used to “psyching himself up” before each set—he finds it helps—but you’ve both observed that it’s getting harder for him to make real gains. How can you help?
Direct Mail: Now Fitter Than Ever
During my decade of experience in marketing, I’ve seen a lot of failures—and many more successes. With the Internet, the art of fitness marketing is more complex than it once was. However, many of the basic principles still apply.
Saving a Sinking Ship, Part 3: Achieving Excellence in Customer Service
With the recent fluctuation in the economy, businesses have become acutely aware of the need to provide a high level of customer service. Businesses that can create a competitive advantage through the service they provide will find themselves one step closer to success. Those that ignore the value of service will find themselves falling toward failure. In this article, I will share sound principles for creating a culture of excellence in customer service.
Overheard in the Locker Room
You just finished teaching what felt like a seamless kickboxing class. The stereo system cooperated, the music was right on, your cuing flowed, and so did your sequences. Everyone seemed…
Increasing Professionalism: Building Relationships
As a fitness professional, you are in the relationship business. Just as the food you eat fuels your body for exercise, relationships are the fuel that feeds your business. But growing your business requires more than having strong interpersonal skills with your clients. Your business success is also influenced by your relationships with your colleagues and competitors. For example, cooperative marketing efforts and co-promotion can help your business grow. Also, solid business relationships can help you work through personal and professional challenges.
[subhead] Prioritize
Increasing Her Visibility
Certified personal trainer Kimberly Linton. , MBA, loves helping people improve their fitness levels—and their lives. As owner and manager of Fitness 4 Life Studio in Springfield, Virginia, a suburb…
“What is the biggest communication challenge you have with clients? What have you done to improve it?”
The biggest communication challenge that I’ve had with clients is trying to figure out their personalities. Working with a variety of personalities can be challenging. In the past it was…
Effective Verbal Feedback for Older Clients
Senior exercisers learn differently than younger ones do. They also process information differently from younger exercisers, and they react differently to the same information. This means trainers need to know
whether to give feedback, and how to give it;
when to give feedback—whether during a movement or once it’s completed; and
what exactly to focus on and what to say.
Giving effective verbal feedback during exercise—knowing what to say and when to say it—is essential to the fitness success of older clients.
Client Challenges on IDEA FitnessConnect
You are excited about helping your clients adopt healthy behaviors and achieve new goals. However, as you know, making changes can be really difficult! The more you do to set…
Measure Social Media Efforts
Wise fitness professionals take advantage of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter™ to increase Internet presence and enhance revenue potential. But how do you know if your efforts are hitting the mark? These social media measurement tools, courtesy of IDEA author Melissa Spraul, will help you gauge whether your message is being heard:
Radian6 (www.radian6.com). This paid social media listening, tracking, monitoring and engagement tool allows you to understand how social media and social customer relationship management can impact your success.
Facebook and Negative Body Image
Facebook. You log on to connect with friends and colleagues, post pictures and market your wares. But could that daily networking session be hurting your self-esteem?
According to the Center for Eating Disorders at Sheppard Pratt, in Baltimore, the answer is yes. Researchers reached this conclusion after surveying 600 Facebook users, aged 16–40.
Here are some insights: