Cabel

Setting and Evaluating Business Goals

Published by Cabel on December 17, 2015 | 1 Response

Our present economy doesn’t lead to a graph like this without careful planning, are you prepared?

How did you do this year? Did your business live up to your expectations?

Do you know your margin?

Did your personal income grow?

Is it where you want it to be?

It’s my experience that when asked these kinds of questions most fitness professionals don’t know the answer, except for the part about personal income.

And that’s usually a no.

As we get set for the New Year it’s now a great time to look back at the year. (And again in January once your 4^th quarter financials are complete.)

Total Leads

Set(# of set sales appointments/month)

Show (Average % of sales appointments that show up)

Close (total long term program sales/month)

Average Sale Amount

Average Monthly/Quarterly total EFT Sales. (The sum of the monthly payments of the packages sold)

These are all metrics that give you the basic “today” health of your business.

How did this year compare to last?

When you’ve been in the fitness business as long as I have you know that each year is a little different, that our business is seasonal, but it’s never quite the same year to year.

I’ve found it really helpful to look at the averages of the above metrics and see how consistent you are/were from one year to the next. If it’s your first year in business it sets the stage for the next year.

If you’ve been following along with my philosophies for running a fitness business you can compare the above to you marketing calendar and draw some conclusions about what things worked best and should probably be repeated, and what areas can be improved in the coming year.

Most importantly these numbers give you a framework to set goals and make the “day to day” plan for activities to keep driving your fitness business forward.

Next if you compare the total transactions of your billing pool (EFT) at the end of each month or quarter to the total number of long term packages sold (closes) you can get a basic sense of what your client attrition looks like.

The longer you are in business the greater the likelihood you will have some steady amount of attrition, it’s just the way it goes. (And if you don’t you’re not charging enough for your services.)

Next is the Income Statement or Profit & Loss Statement.

Here you see the real bottom line, what was the gross margin for your business?

After expenses what was left?

Many fitness entrepreneurs can be a little surprised to see how low the percentage is when they first begin paying attention.

Have a look at what percentage of revenue was spent on payroll, marketing, and supplies. These can all be expense categories that if not monitored can quickly erode your margin and any real profit.

Though you may be able to drastically effect them one month at a time I’ve found that in most cases it take planning and commitment long term to have a lasting effect.

Also known as goals.

We all know January through March is one of the hottest times for fitness, are you ready to maximize it?

Set some goals for next year.

You no may have an idea of what your attrition looks like, how will you out pace it?

Can you market harder and get more leads and clients? (HINT: Divide total sales/quarter by total money spent on marketing to get your marketing cost per customer. Do the same with total leads to figure out your cost per lead, then use this to set your new marketing budget based on the number of new customers you’d like.)

Looking at these few pieces of data will raise other questions.

What are the reasons for cancellation for those that do cancel or not renew?

Why isn’t my closing % higher? (Build your sales language.)
Why isn’t my show % higher? (Not enough follow up prior to appointment.)

How can I keep payroll under 40% (for one-on-one businesses) or 25% for group training businesses?

A lot of people are intimidated by looking at the numbers of their business, but don’t be, it’s much like getting a report card back in grade school.

As you begin to gain an understanding of what they mean it gets easier to see them improve, and each time they do you are rewarded with a change in lifestyle!

I know these things can be intimidating, I hope this has given you food for thought.

Don’t let fear of something you’re not confident in stop you from building the business and lifestyle you deserve, this is one of the biggest areas I spend coaching other fitness professionals just like you. My shameless plug for coaching, if I can help you I’d like to, learn more at www.7figuremastermind.com

Posted in Business Management Tagged financials

How to market a fitness business in December and January

Published by Cabel on December 15, 2015 | Leave a response

December is a tricky month for fitness entrepreneurs.

Even though as fitness professionals we know that by beginning an exercise program now, even if you’re eating all the delicious treats and having the occasional alcoholic beverages, that metabolically you’re far less likely to gain weight through the holidays.

Even though we know that, it’s a tough sell for our would be customer.

They are worried about paying for something they won’t use. They’re worried about the cost with so much additional expense coming through the holidays, and usually some time off work meaning small or missing paychecks.

And that’s my point, whether it’s December or January or any month of the year, and whether it’s a fitness business or something else you have to, as they say, condition yourself to, “walk a mile in their shoes.”

Always consider what your audience is feeling in that moment.

How can you make it easy for them to begin working out in December?

Truth is the only way is to mitigate the cost for them.

They will sporadically make time the best they can as long as they feel no anxiety about losing money or wasting money on services they haven’t used effectively.

After all isn’t that how you would feel?

Now I’m not talking about your existing, well-conditioned clients with committed and good habits, but new prospects in the month of December.

I would suggest in December you use a long trial promotion (like a 30 day trial) for your most aggressive price point, one that makes it feel as though they are getting the month almost for nothing.

In fact it can be creative and work well to run a “2 Months for the price of one” to lock them in for January too.

Many people will logically see, that they may work out a little in December, and now they’re all set for their New Year’s Resolution start and that they won’t need you after that (you and I know otherwise but we have to help them get started to see that.)

Early January is tricky for us in boutique and premium fitness, because the consumer still feels the financial constrains of the holidays, and even worse they’re governed by the “clean slate” mentality.

They are so inspired to workout on their own, and price sensitive that the inexpensive gym membership is much more appealing.

You know this to be true, as you’ve undoubtedly been faced with the “February Rush” of new clients that are frustrated and struggling. And the objection of, “well I don’t know if I can afford it because I just committed to this 2-year gym membership.”

So what do I suggest?

I just create a spreadsheet with the months and 4 weeks and begin to pencil in promotions in different mediums. Then goto work create all the needed resources in advance.

Here’s the action plan I’d recommend for marketing your fitness business through Christmas and into the New Year:

Extremely low cost trial or 2 for 1 special in December using PPC and small but steady daily budget.
Use a “Membership Giveaway” as a big budget optin through the holidays. Because of their price sensitive nature everyone would love to win and will trade an email, it’s a great chance to grow your list.
Run a New Year’s 6-week challenge. This is my favourite time to run a 6-week challenge as it fits the discounted, aggressive, start and stop mentality of the consumer and gives me the time to show them the value and need to stay.
Toward the end of January get your regular marketing calendar back on track and run a big budget short term trial to capitalize on the 91% of resolutioners that are now frustrated and looking for help.

Like any industry the fitness industry has ebbs and flows by the season, and coupled with unpredictable local and global economic factors those ebbs and flows will vary which is why you need a long-term plan. By having a set plan you can more effectively react when the plan doesn’t meet your expectation.

Wishing you the happiest of holiday seasons and much prosperity in the coming year.

Posted in Personal Trainer Marketing

What’s your story?

Published by Cabel on November 12, 2015 | Leave a response

Want to know my secret to getting handfuls of prospects from my email campaigns and Facebook campaigns?

There’s lots we can all learn about copywriting, in fact I’d argue you and I will spend our whole life learning. Just to be so-so copywriter’s at best.

We’re trainers, coaches, we understand the body. But we also understand people.

“Business” often intimidates us, sales is scary, and we negatively reinforce ourselves with fear thinking, “I don’t know what to do to get more clients.”

The curse I find is most of us way over think things when it comes to business. We’re worried about the right sale, the best offer to run at this time of year, what offer to run after we’ve done, this, this and that.

The list goes one.

Unfortunately it seems we wind up not seeing the forest for the trees.

Ever feel like that?

Here’s a little secret.

And you’re experiencing it right now in this blog post. What, huh?

I’ve found my best and most consistent marketing results by considering the following before I ever start writing the promotion.

What is my prospect likely to be feeling right now?

What are they likely to be thinking about at this point in time?

Example. As I write this it’s November, two weeks before US Thanksgiving.

My American colleagues are likely thinking about the coming holiday, the food they’ll eat, the shopping and deals on Black Friday, and all the exciting times to come with Christmas.

In Canada we’re beginning to think about the coming Christmas holidays, those Christmas parties, the late nights, the great food, the “little black dress” and how out of shape we’re going to be come January.

So that’s what I’m going to write my promotion about.

The offer is the least important part, it’s more important to think about, “how will I connect with the reader?”

Can I get them nodding their head in agreement or thinking about how they relate?

Does this make sense to you?

Gotcha!

If I can connect with them, if I can give them the feeling that I understand them or the feeling that I can peer into their mind I can get them to the next line.

It’s through this relationship on the page that I only hope to keep reinforcing in their own mind the thoughts they’ve already had.

That it’s time to change, it’s time to take control.

That it would feel great to look great in that “little black dress,” that by taking action now the New Year’s Resolution will stick and be a success for once.

The offer is the least important, if all of these other things make sense to them then the offer only needs to “fit” and feel good too.

Adding the elements of social proof, schedule information, directions, and of course a money back guarantee will further the cause but none of that matters if they don’t read past the first line.

Posted in Personal Trainer Marketing, Selling Personal Training Tagged copywriting

i=EAS the “Better Life Equation”

Published by Cabel on August 26, 2015 | Leave a response

November 2014 I was honoured with the opportunity to speak at the local TEDx event. I was super excited to share this short equation which has been a big part of my life for more than 20 years (though I didn’t realize that until just a couple years ago.)

You see I kind of always had this philosophy with my training clients who always said they, “struggled to stay motivated.”

Imagine that, difficulty staying motivated dieting and working out?

I learned early in my career that my training success with clients was only partially (and the smaller part) due to my training and nutrition knowledge, my ability to “motivate” them was the true difference maker.

Years later as I grew as a trainer and ultimately became a fitness entrepreneur my reputation for some consistent success in the industry lead me to new clients, eager fitness professionals struggling to figure out how to connect with their clients.

So my equation was born, though it was just simply “EAS.”

This short acronym has since helped many fitness professionals use natural conversation strategies to create deeper connections with their clients, ultimately allowing them to help many more people.

As I explained it to many more people I began to realize that I had used this same strategy in my own life for many many years, and in fact I had begun to apply this principle to many relationships.

With this realization I became more aware, and that awareness has only made it more effective.

We’re human we can’t help they way we think, and our behaviours are in many ways pre-programmed, to understand the methodology of your own behaviour is empowering.

I just want you and all the people you care about to live the best life they can, whether that’s because the finally conquered the battle of the bulge or because the achieved all of their dreams.

If you are openminded to consider I know i=EAS can help you!

Please I’d love to hear your comments or experiences as a result of applying i=EAS.

Cabel

Posted in Personal Training Business Tips, Selling Personal Training, Success Mindset Tagged i=eas, ted talk, tedx

How to Turn Your Fitness Site into a Lead Generation Machine

Published by Cabel on August 18, 2015 | 2 Responses

Is your website design wrong? Is there something wrong with your copy? Is the color scheme wrong? Could you improve your website in anyway?

You’re probably making the same mistakes a lot of fit pros make…

It’s 2015! Every fitness business should have a website. Yes, even if it is local! People may hear about you from word of mouth or recommendations but more often than not, they’re going to Google you!

If you don’t have a website you’re losing out on so, so much potential business that you may not even know ever existed.

Unfortunately or maybe fortunately for you (so you have less competition), most fitness sites aren’t set up correctly.

A lot of fit pros have the wrong idea and mindset when it comes to their site.

Your website is a valuable business tool that should be used as a marketing avenue to collect leads for your email list.

It’s pretty simple.

So, before you go out and spend thousands of dollars on a website that has no real business value, learn about what a good website should contain first and then budget accordingly.

A good website should have the following things:

A Clean interface and Easy Navigation

Conducting some research on what people are typically looking for when they search for a fitness business and making sure that this info is easily found and accessed can put you miles ahead of your competition.

Your Story

Your story is a great way to let people know more about you. Personal training is a very, well, “personal” relationship between you and the client. So, explaining more about you, the type of person you are and your main values can allow the client to figure out whether you and they could be a good match. Personalities can often clash (as you’ll probably already know) and many clients are known to want to find out a lot about the trainer before contacting them.

Your Results and the problem you’re trying to solve

Showing proof of the transformations of people that you have already done is a great form of social proof and is a really important factor when clients are looking for a trainer. If they can’t see any proof then it’s just a stranger’s word telling them that they will get results (to them anyway).

You need to outline the problem and then talk about how you go about solving it. If you want to take on clients that want to lose weight, then try to connect with them and get them “nodding their head” as you explain their problem… them come out with the solution – you!

Lead Capture Forms

Lead capture forms are the next, extremely important asset to have on your site. If you can find a way to reconnect with a potential client (usually email) then you are well on your way to securing this person as a customer. If you don’t ask or provide a way 9 times out of 10, you’re not going to get.

Call to action

Following on from the previous note, a call to action is essential. Whether it is to sign up via that lead capture form or to go ahead and call you / get in contact with you or potentially go in for the hard sale (not generally recommended) if you, for example, offer online services.

Facebook Pages – Something to note

A business Facebook page is not a website.

Nor is a twitter page, an instagram page or a pinterest account… or just anything social-media related.

If you don’t own it, it’s not yours and it’s not your website.

You don’t own it. Facebook can shut it down at any time without warning… although it doesn’t happen too much, owning your website gives you a valuable piece of real estate online something that cannot be taken away from you without reason or warning.

This is why it’s important that own the actual site.

Another Important Note about Website Ownership

Did you know that you might not own your website (technically?)

If you have used a website builder (such as Wix, Webs or Weebly, you do not technically own that website design) if the company went bust, you would lose your website as well as all of the SEO that you may have spent developing that site on search engines.

Although they are appealing and easy to create yourself, if you have the funds, it’s definitely worth getting a WordPress websites designed by a pro.

Why should I collect leads?

First, let’s define what a lead is.

A lead is someone who is potentially interested in your business.

As a Fit Pro, your job is to “sell” fitness.

Getting new leads for your business is important for your growth and profitability.

Lead generation is the first step into your sales funnel. A sales funnel consists of three parts: leads, prospects, and clients/customers.

Your fitness business should aim to collect as many leads as possible so that you can qualify them and turn them into prospects and ultimately into clients. Sales is the lifeblood of any business and for fit pros this isn’t any different.

However, make sure that you do aim for quality over quantity in a lot of cases. Although fitness is very generic and almost anyone can be “sold” fitness, it’s important to choose people that you actually want to work with.

For example, don’t go onto Facebook ads and target everyone in the America for your local training business! You need to find people locally, at an age range, gender and financial situation that you want to work with.

By doing this, you have more chances of, once a lead turns into a prospect, wanting to work with them and soon converting them into paying clients.

A fitness website should be set up to collect a website visitor’s contact information. It can be email, phone number, and address.

How do we collect vital potential customer information?

There are many ways to collect a user’s information. The simplest is to use a lead capture form such as the one here:

A lead capture form is a form designed to capture a visitor’s attention and then, contact information.

By strategically placing this form on your website you can start gathering leads.

If you’re using wordpress (recommended) you can use several plugins to help increase sign-ups and get more people’s attention.

Here’s a few that work well.

Thrive – A simple to use plugin that is designed capture leads and grow your email list. It has popups, slide in forms, and optin-forms.

Bloom – Another plugin and the one I use on my site. It’s similar to thrive but it has more design options and includes features like popups, a/b testing and slide in forms.

OptinMonster– A popular lead generation capture software that can be used to build forms in minutes.

Every lead that comes in should be added to your email list.

In many cases, you will find that a prospect is not ready to buy from you yet, but if you get them to subscribe to your list you can get them to buy from you at a later time.

People need time.

They need to develop trust with you and emails are the best way to do this. Businesses, on average make a 400% ROI with email marketing. ON AVERAGE!

Your Story

What’s the most visited part of any fitness / personal training site?

It’s usually the about me / us section.

If you take advantage and use this page to tell a compelling story, then you’re well on your way to converting more prospects into clients.

Neil Patel wrote a great guide to your “about me” section here. Your about me/us section should firstly offer a big benefit/solution to the problem you’re trying to solve for the client.

For example, if you specialize in weight loss, you can use this section to tell a story of one of your clients and how they overcame this problem and back it up with testimonials and before/after pictures.

Next, you should tell your story and provide valuable information on your experience and background.

If you experienced this same problem yourself and relate a story on how you overcame this problem.

This will significantly help you connect with your leads and ultimately, give your more sales!

What’s your unique selling point?

What makes you stand out from all the other trainers in your city?

Why should a prospect buy from you?

What makes you different?

What makes you better?

Your website should include a section that answers these questions. This is typically included in the about me section, too.

Testimonials

The best testimonials follow the “star, story, solution” format.

Star – It should start with your client’s name and a background information on him/her. The idea here is for the client to be able to relate to this person (a previous client) on a 1-1 level. After all, they would have both been in the same situation.

Story – This part highlights their story and how they had a problem with their fitness. Each testimonial should be a different problem / story (if you generally work with clients with different problems) if you just specialize in weight-loss, make sure the problem is always, of course, weight-loss.

Solution – The final part should provide the solution and how the client used your training to overcome the problem they had.

Note: A good testimonial should always highlight the benefits they received by training with you. Make sure to add any extra bits and pieces that you did with them to make you stand out from the crowd.

Video testimonials work really well and can provide tremendous value to your site.

Before & After Pictures

A great example of before/after pictures is from Andy Morgan’s results page here. Before / after pictures provide proof of your training results. The best testimonials include before / after pictures and provide a story of your client. Selfies work really well due to the fact that your leads can often relate, once again, at the same level… it’s all about making these very down to earth and “normal” but at the same time, impressive.

Important Info

Locations – Easy to find address on your site… you can even add this into the banner of your site (at the top where your logo goes) and this means that it can be seen from any page.

Contact Us – This section should include your contact information. Emails, telephone numbers, Skype ID’s and Social Media accounts are all good examples of this.

Why Use WordPress?

WordPress is the best content management form in the world.

If you’re starting a site, WordPress is a robust but cheap solution that has many powerful features.

Due to the fact that anyone can create a plugin there are thousands of developers creating all types of innovative plug-ins for you to easily add to your site….Wordpress is based all on code so the possibilities are practically endless.

If you’re starting out its content management software is the one that I recommend.

There’s a reason the top marketers in the world use WordPress and specifically the genesis theme. It’s simple to use and powerful enough to satisfy all your needs.

Lead Magnets

In order to capture a website visitor’s information we have to “bribe” them.

We do this with a lead magnet. A lead magnet is a free gift that is given to them once they opt in and provide you with their contact information.

An example of a lead magnet could be one of the following:

Ebook
Cooking Recipes
Grocery Shopping Lists
Video workouts
Free Workout Report

It’s important that the free gift has meaning to your potential client and that it’s something they would want.

The free gift should capture the attention of the reader by providing a benefit rich headline.

How do I provide a benefit rich headline?
By finding out what your clients deepest problems and desires are.

You must ask yourself:

Why do clients train with you?
What problems are they trying to solve?
Emotionally what is the reason they want to train?
What myths do a lot of people have of trainers?

Once you know the answers, you can come up with a headline that addresses these types of questions.

A few good examples are below:

Personal Trainer Secrets Finally Exposed
3 Myths of Fat Loss Finally Shattered
Achieve Victory with these 5 Fat Loss Strategies

Call to Actions

Every lead-capture form must have a Call to Action button. A call to action button is used to provoke an action by the website visitor.

A call to action is absolutely vital if you want your leads to take action.

Online, people are very easily distracted and if what you want people to do is not crystal clear and easy with no technical bugs or issues, then the amount of people taking the action you want them to perform will decrease… simple.

Often, marketers will add more than one call to action on their website. You need to make sure that a call to action is visible, wherever the lead is on your site. And make sure this isn’t in just the one place.

Conclusion

I hope this gave you a good understanding of the most important elements of a good fitness website.

Most fit pros don’t have a clue of what makes a great site. Unfortunately, thousands of dollars are spent on unnecessary design elements that don’t have much value.

Now that you have the tools and knowledge to make sure you don’t make the same mistakes, go out there and create the best fitness website your city has seen.

Beat the competition, create an online presence and build your brand!

This guest post brought to you by Mauricio Cardenal; creator of The PT Advisor. He’s been helping fitness businesses grow online since 2014. He loves fitness and marketing and currently lives in Miami but is planning on taking a world tour in 2015.

Posted in Personal Trainer Marketing Tagged seo, Website, wordpress

How do I decide how much money I want to earn and how do I actually make it happen?

Published by Cabel on August 8, 2015 | Leave a response

Trying to figure out what i need to do each day to be able to reach my goal is harder than I thought…could I be overthinking it?

One of my readers wrote, “This is one that I just can’t grasp –how do I decide how much money I want to earn? It just feels like a guessing game – like I should pluck a number out of the air and stick with it? Writing down what I want is easy but putting that altogether to make a number just seems like a complete and utter guess! Especially when I wiggle that down to what I want to be earning THIS month.”

You have to reverse engineer it, so yes at first you pick the number out of thin air, what is the amount of monthly income you would be satisfied with earning?

$5000/mth? 10? 20? 100? It can be any; the next step is to determine the time frame in which to reach this that you will also be satisfied with. It goes without saying that the larger the number and the shorter the time frame combined the more daunting the daily tasks will be, and that’s ok; because once you understand what’s required daily it’s as simple as a yes or no answer to, “am I willing to or can I do what it takes to complete this daily?”

If the answer is no you must revisit the goal as it’s not realistic, so would you (at least for now) be comfortable with less money or it taking a longer period of time? This is exactly the same process you should be using with your fitness clients in regard to keeping them committed to their goals. If someone wants to lose 100lbs in 3 months, we can agree that’s not going to happen in a healthy manner to which they will be able to sustain it, but is there a chance that if the lose 30lbs ever 3 months for a year they may be willing to accept that? Can you?

We now work backwards to determine what are the 1-2 things you would need to do today and every day to reach this goal, but a little more info is needed along the way.

If I want to make an additional $10,000 per month I must…

1) Know the approximate margin of my services, meaning what’s left over after I pay trainers, cover rent etc. If I sell a $500/month program the margin might only be $250. If I want to make an additional $10,000 I will need an extra 40 clients than I have today by this standard.

2) Know my “close ratio” how many prospects I must see in order to generate clients, a common average would be a 60% close ratio or 6 out of every 10 people you meet with become clients. In this case to get 40 new clients you will need to meet with 70 new prospects.

3) Know my “set ratio” unfortunately you and I both know not all prospects are created equal, so how many new leads will you need to set 70 appointments? Well commonly I see a set ratio at about 50%, so to get those 40 additional clients, or to meet with 70 qualified prospects you will need 140 new leads.

Ok we’re ready, so if I wanted to achieve my goal of an additional $10,000/month in 2 months I need to create 140 more leads than I have now, which if we break that down to about 40 business days in 2 months I need about 3-4 new leads a day, leading to 1-2 sales appointments and to close one new client a day.

So now we can begin to evaluate our lead generation and marketing tactics, how many hours a day do you need to contribute to these efforts? Can you hire someone to help you, and so on.

Do you see how all of this works?

I know what you might be thinking, “seems complicated, I still don’t totally get it.”

At least that’s how I was for a long time, and well truth is that is where coaching comes in. It’s the same as it is with your fitness clients, it’s often as difficult for us as trainers to grasp these business concepts as it is for our clients to grasp the things we teach them about fitness and nutrition, but at the core of it it’s just understanding what your daily activities need to be and staying consistent with them and that’s what coaches help with.

Please check out www.7figuremastermind.com if you’d like to know more about what we do and how we help fitness pros like you.

I hope this has been helpful.

Cabel

Posted in Business Management, Personal Training Business Tips, Success Mindset Tagged business planning, Finances, goal setting

Draw your line in the sand and don’t cross it!

Published by Cabel on August 4, 2015 | Leave a response

What is the value of your time?

What is your time worth? This is a very serious question and one you need to answer for yourself. What’s more I’d suggest you re-evaluate it about every six months; that is if you want to grow your fitness business as fast as possible. Let me explain.

No matter whether you’re just starting out or have been operating for years chances are your business began as one man (or woman) show. In the early days, and maybe still, you were doing everything. You were the head trainer, chief salesman, sanitation engineer, accounts receivable clerk, lead marketing consultant, web developer, and well you get the picture.

Do you ever notice how difficult it is to switch between two very different tasks? You wouldn’t be weird if you have. Not only that you likely notice there are tasks that are on your “to-do” list that somehow never seem to gravitate to the top of the list, in fact it’s like gravity keep sucking them down to the bottom. We all have tasks that we detest so much that we just consciously or subconsciously avoid them.

You probably have other fears like I had. Thoughts like, “why pay someone to paint the studio when I can do it this weekend?” It seems logical, and seems to make good financial sense, but does it really?

Let me ask you if you decided to play handyman in your business this coming weekend and spent 8-10 hours on both Saturday and Sunday at your business do you think you might be less enthusiastic for your first clients come early Monday morning? What if instead you had a fun weekend with your family, would that leave you more refreshed and excited to see your clients come Monday morning?

Sometimes by doing a variety of tasks saves us money in the short-term. But long-term these tasks can catch up to us in a variety of ways:

Straying from our primary tasks serves as a distraction making it hard to stay focused and become increasingly proficient at our main task. (ie: client results through continual research or business growth with a full-time focus to marketing and growth.)
It takes time to mentally and emotionally “shift gears” to different tasks, this leads to longer days, procrastination and burnout.
Cutting corners on “me time” or family time leads to resentment toward “work” which will quickly stunt your business growth.
Narrowing your task list allows you to become a “pro” quickly and accelerate your business growth. It only stands to reason if you spend 8 hours a day on 1-2 tasks as opposed to 5-10 you’re going to quickly get better at doing those 1-2 things.

Draw your line in the sand!

Draw your line in the sand, what is your time worth? Now in this context this is a practical question, it might help to also think of it as “what can I afford to have others do?”

For instance if you have tasks like cleaning, filing, calling to confirm appointments, posting updates on your facebook fanpage, tweeting, or creating a new blog post on your website, these are all things you can hire someone else to do for likely minimum wage. Here in Alberta that’s about $10/hour, so I might start by saying my “line in the sand is $10/hour” any task I can hire someone else to do for $10/hour I should and will in an effort to keep me more focused on a narrower set of tasks.

You have to trust me on this, relief from these tasks will instantly pay for itself and as a result your more narrowly focused efforts will actually yield instant growth causing you to ask yourself again, “what is my line in the sand now?”

Posted in Business Management, Success Mindset

Sometimes the key to success ISN’T more revenue

Published by Cabel on July 28, 2015 | 1 Response

As trainers we’re still people and as people we have certain behaviours that are consistent no matter what. First we live in an instant gratification world. Our clients are looking for a near instant solution and without immediate success coaching them becomes a lot more difficult. That need for instant gratification becomes a huge factor for trust with our clients.

I’ve learned that as entrepreneurs we’re much the same, and unfortunately for many entrepreneurs acknowledging this in an effort to keep it in balance can be their undoing.

You see most fitness professionals I talk to or begin coaching are always looking for that next big marketing idea, the one that will produce massive sales overnight. Even though this may be possible that immediate success, much like your fitness clients, has little bearing on long term success other than a sense of trust from mentor to client or a smile of satisfied instant gratification.

Much like the success of your fitness clients your success as an entrepreneur is about long-term sustainable practices that yield consistent and measurable results.

I know when I was still training clients I insisted that they weigh and measure their food and keep a food journal. I used to joke that we could diet on chicken and Froot Loops if we had to; but they had to measure and keep a journal. The point is that as trainers we know that consistency of behaviour is a key element to long-term fitness success for our clients, yet often we don’t adhere to the same logic within our businesses.

Since most immediately think of fitness marketing when we think of growing our businesses let’s start there. Every month you should have a consistency of behaviour when it comes to marketing, an example would be an online offer and an offline offer each month.

Your online offer might be a facebook campaign designed to generate new leads. That doesn’t mean it has to be the same offer each month. Specifically we’re discussing one online channel in which we can present an offer, though I do suggest focus on that one channel for a few consecutive months to be able to better measure the results. What I mean by that is it’s not enough to just run an offer, you must also be able to measure the results (just like fitness clients measuring their food.) I want to be able to determine how many people seen it, how many people interacted with it and ultimately how many people inquired further and/or bought something from me as a result.

Each month we have a goal of an average of 45 new qualified leads (20 is a good place to start for smaller operations) and we try to attain those through our online and offline efforts. Now if our goal for the month is 45 we try to attain 70% of that by mid-month so that if we’re behind we can spring into action to make up the difference with an immediate campaign, this is a great use for email marketing, and much like a short-term program change to stimulate a burst of results with a fitness client.

Most trainers I talk to tend to just be using this last component, realization dawns on them that they need to grow so they throw out a haphazard email campaign to make up an immediate shortfall. But think about what happens with your fitness clients that follow their nutrition plans really well until the weekend, on a larger scale this is much the same thing.

Long-term success in business is much more about consistency of behaviour than it is the next big sale. I believe this is why anyone can succeed, if you keep doing the same thing and measuring the results allowing you to fine tune for better and better performance (just like training) success is only a matter of time!

Posted in Personal Trainer Marketing, Selling Personal Training Tagged Selling Personal Training

FEAR is Ruining Your Business, 9 Steps to Eradicate Fear!

Published by Cabel on April 16, 2015 | 6 Responses

When I was walking into security at the airport the other day the security person seen my shirt (HARD WORK BEATS TALENT) and asked, “do you really believe that?”

I said, “100%”, she said, “how do you know?”

I said, “I’m living proof!”

My morning routine is I listen to motivational speeches/programs and there’s one thing that stands out, successful people are ones that keep working at it, and when that’s not enough they make a new plan and try harder.

I know this is hard to believe, as I didn’t for a long time.

There’s only one thing that ever holds you back from greater success.

Your FEAR.

You get in your own way.

Even today I responded to multiple emails from clients that stated: the economy is affecting my business, the videos and images I was using are attracting the wrong clients, the word boot camp gives people an impression to expect it cheaper.

We’re logical people, trust me, I’m the worst in this fashion.

And all of those things are logical “validations” for the simple truth, your fear is holding you back.

You’re afraid that you may not be that good at sales and need to reinvent yourself.

You’re afraid to ask for more because you’re not sure you’re worth it.

You’re afraid that they may be disappointed.

You’re afraid that the fancy new place down the street might actually be better than you.

Be honest with yourself, you’re afraid of many things, so am I.

It’s a battle every single day, and how you fare will be the real indication of what you achieve.

Start each day off in the right mindset, do what makes you feel good. For me it’s motivational speakers, sometimes while I’m working out, other days it’s loud music, my favourite song or spending my first 15-30 min reading a book I love.
Surround yourself with role models. It’s true about hanging around with people more successful than you, consciously or subconsciously you will begin to emulate them. (Heck I hung around with my mentor for years until he finally hired an immigration lawyer to import me to give me the reigns of a company to build an international brand.)
Not your muscles, your vision, read big thinker books. I love reading about Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, and books like The Big Leap and Psycho Cybernetics.
Set big goals then work backwards down to the simple daily step.
Embrace simple math, with this and step 3 I’m convinced you can create plan for success no matter what.
Review your goals and metrics regularly.
End each day with the three most important things you will work on tomorrow.
Realize that anyone you look up to really is no smarter than you, then you’ll realize just how awesome you are.
Most importantly make someone else’s life better today, you can’t help but feel better about yourself.

You do these nine things and I promise you, you can’t fail!

Posted in Success Mindset

Teamwork

Published by Cabel on February 10, 2015 | Leave a response

Meet Brandon Schulmeister, my General Manager and Program Director at One-to-1 Fitness in Red Deer. Without him I could not do what I do. He’s grown from client, to trainer, to leader. I’m exceptionally proud of him and think his analogy on teamwork is one that can benefit us all as we strive to grow the productivity and efficiency of our organizations.

Take it away Brandon…

Brandon “on set” during production of the first episode of Changing Limits

Like many of us, I grew up playing team sports.

I was always taught that in order for a team to be successful everyone had to put in a full effort.

We have all heard the slogan catchphrase of athletes when asked why their team won that night…

“We went out and gave 110%” said the media savvy athlete (for those of us Canadians that watch the best sport on earth 🙂 this is why they say hockey players aren’t smart…)

Over the past couple years my mentality of a team has come full circle. Yes hard work is key to success but that hard work needs to be placed in the appropriate areas or performed by the right people.

When you look at a hockey team it is composed of 3 forwards, 2 defensemen, and 1 goalie on the ice at a time.

The main job of the forwards is to create and maintain pressure in the offensive zone in order to create scoring opportunities and inadvertently stop the opposition from gaining that same pressure in their zone.

The defense will aid in the above but their main goals are comprised of mitigating the pressure created by the other team’s forwards. Whether that is from stopping them from entering their defensive zone or gaining possession of the puck to exit the defensive area.

And, lastly the goalie is there as the last line of defense. When the 5 players in front of them aren’t successful in their positions it is the goalies job to mitigate the risk accumulated.

But here is the problem.

When a forward is more worried about defense than keeping pressure in the offensive zone, will they create opportunities to score?

Furthermore, when a defensemen is more worried about scoring and decides to pinch in the offensive zone to assist the forwards, does this lead to more risk of the other team taking advantage of this player out of position?

This is obviously overly generalized but I wanted to paint a clear picture of how taking on other tasks or worrying about other players responsibilities can over extend us and take us away from what we are good at.

Which take us away from being more successful as a team.

A team is a sum of all of its parts. When each part is performing their top 2-3 tasks at a high level they are actually helping others succeed in their positions. But the second a forward gets overly concerned about what the defenseman is doing it pulls them away from their responsibilities and leads to more issues for the team to deal with.

When a personal trainer is getting their clients success, it will make the person in the marketing roles job that much easier. It will create less stress on the support team because of customer service related issues and create more time for them to worry about cleanliness of the facility and overall client experience.

If a personal trainer is more worried about cleanliness, financial obligations, creating a new promotion, etc. it takes time away from them doing what they do best.

For our American friends, the quarterback (in the bigger picture the whole offense) is one of the most important members of the defense.

The guy that doesn’t touch the field when the other team’s offense is working…

Stay with me for a second. If the quarterback can stay on the field for an extended period of time it will allow for the defense to rest. Then, when they are called upon, the likelihood of them perform at a higher level goes up. The quarterback will also help put points on the board so the defense doesn’t have as much stress when on the field. Again leading to optimal performance.

Moral of the story…

Place yourself in the areas that you are skilled in.

Place your employees in the areas that they excel in.

And, if everyone focuses on those 2-3 tasks… success will increase, stress will decrease, and everyone will have more time to do what they like/excel at, etc.

It is a win-win.

Now go out there and give a 110% (in what you do best!)

Brandon Schulmeister

After graduating from the University of Alberta with a BComm Degree, Brandon decided he didn’t just want to be a paper pusher and went after his dream of working in hockey. Although limited in skill on the ice he was able to use his role in Sales and Marketing of the WHL’s Red Deer Rebels to build a bigger and better fan base to create an infectious environment to help his team succeed. During this time his desire to help people lead him to a career change and a new challenge… Personal Training. A few years into the game he was able to combine his love of fitness and his business IQ by taking on the Sales and Marketing responsibilities at a premier personal training and boot camp facility and now manages a dozen other top fitness professionals. He has been invited to a number of fitness/wellness speaking engagements with organizations of all sizes in an effort to spread his message to a greater audience. With his unique business background and his love for fitness he wants to use his knowledge to reach many more fitness professionals in an effort to help even more people!

Posted in Business Management

Cabel

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