20 Minutes of Quiet Time

From the moment the alarm goes off and until our head hits the pillow at night our days can be full of noise. We get into the gym the phone rings, a client needs something, email needs answered, workouts need planned and so our day continues until we leave for the day. But it doesn't end there, on our way home we need to stop at the store and pick up a few things, figure out what's for dinner, pick up the kids and drop them off somewhere else.

Our days are noisy and busy and we need to learn to take a 20 minute breather once a day to stay fresh. This 20 minute period can be a nap, meditation session, a walk through the woods or park, or even just sitting outside on the patio enjoying the day. It really doesn't matter how you get your 20 quiet minutes in it just needs to be something where you can get away from everything and everyone for a short period of time. This means no iPhone, iPad, computer, TV, radio, etc. Just you and your thoughts.

This 20 minute period while help clear your head and keep you performing at a high level of productivity.

Make Thanksgiving Thankful

I remember the days when Thanksgiving meant enjoying time spent with family and friends, watching football and a few movies, enjoying food, and just kicking back relaxing because we were "thankful" for the great lives that we have. The key word in that sentence being "remember", it doesn't seem to be that way anymore.

Instead it is gorge ourselves with food and then run off the malls to get the deals on Thanksgiving night. That is if you are one of the lucky ones who is fortunate enough to being running off to shop and not running off to work. Black Friday madness is ruining Thanksgiving and changing it from a day of enjoyment to a day of stress, whether is fighting to get that last stupid gadget or because you need to cook a meal for your family and then head off to your job that provides for them.

It doesn't have to be this way. All we have to do is refuse to go shopping until 9 or 10 a.m. on Friday and showing respect for people and their families who have don't have the luxury of being off from work. Do you really need that deal? Are you really saving money? Because you probably impulse buy at least 10 other things that you don't need and would not have bought otherwise.

So stay home this Thanksgiving, enjoy the holiday, and reflect on all that you are thankful for having in your life. The "deals" can wait. BTW they are also online so you can still get that door-buster deal, but never leave your house and online shopping doesn't affect anyone else's lives who might rather be with their family.

If you need some ideas to get your juices flowing on what you are thankful for read this article

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/60-things-thankful-for-life.html

Tip Sheets

Tip Sheets are a great way to educate your members and provide extra value. Post these on your social media, on your blog, and hand them out in your club. We like to create them based around the time of the year - Holiday Survival Tips, New Year New You, Summer Shape Up, Back to School Back Fitness are just a few examples. You can also use topics, such as - Nutrition, Benefits of Kettlebell Training, Progress Made Through Recovery, etc.

Provide 5-10+ tips for each topic and then get them in front of your members and prospective members. If you provide value and advice free of charge people become more willing to pay for your services.

Here is a sample of our "Holiday Survival Tips" that we are currently using at PNF:

We are approaching the holiday season once again, for many this time of year is full of enjoyment, family get togethers, Christmas Parties, and holiday shopping. But, this is also known as the official "Weight Gaining" season. It's common for many people to say they are going to lose weight in the New Year, maybe you've even said this, but unfortunately they gain 5-10 pounds in this 2 month period before even starting. So now when January 2nd rolls around, because let's be honest you really aren't going to start on January 1st, you have 5-10 pounds worth of more work to do. But, this is different and this won't happen to you because you'll have these "Holiday Survival" tips to keep you on track. 
1 Start Now. Even though you are busy, starting a weight loss program now a couple times a week will prevent that extra weight gain. It only takes exercising 2x per week for 45 minutes per week to maintain you weight when paired with good eating.
2 Go Easy On The Booze. With 2 or 3 Christmas parties a week it is very easy to pack on a few additional pounds from alcohol alone in a month. Not to mention all the junk food you will crave next day due to your hangover. This doesn't mean you have to be a "Tea Totaller" because after all that's not fun. But, there are a few things you can do to cut down your consumption
◦ Eat before you have your first drink. (Salad does not count as eating before you drink BTW.) Protein and something a little higher in fat content are the best choices.
◦ Drink one glass of water between each drink. This will slow you down.
◦ Order your drinks straight up on the rocks. This will prevent you from consuming the extra sugar calories from the mixers.
◦ Get a goodnights sleep. This means 7-8 hours, not 4-5 because you where out to 3 in the morning trying to pick-up that new hottie from the office. She/He now thinks you're an obnoxious loser and you also have a massive hangover that is going to cause you to skip your workout, sleep all day and eat a bunch of junk because that is what you are craving. Nothing good came out of that night.
◦ Drink what you enjoy. The difference between beer, hard liquor, and wine is minimal and if you're going to drink, drink what you enjoy.
◦ Pick which parties you really want to indulge in and which ones you just are going to attend. Party it up at the indulgence parties, but the rest keep it a drink or two.
◦ Offer to be the DD, or just make the new guy in the office do this while you enjoy yourself.
3 Eat Before You Hit The Party. If your stomach is full when you get to the party you will be less tempted to eat all of the junk food that is there.  
4 Eat Smart. There’s nothing like Thanksgiving dinner, except maybe Christmas dinner. While we all love turkey, gravy, pumpkin pie, and mom’s sweet potato pie, we don’t need to eat it like we are never going to see food again. Having a little of everything is ok, but don’t stuff yourself so full that you end up feeling like one of the balloons in a Macy’s parade.

5 Workout Effectively. Time is an issue more than ever during the holidays so you need to get the most bang for your buck when working out. Research has shown that over a 12-week period weight training resulted in 6 pounds more fat loss that aerobic training. So hit the weights for 30-45 minutes 2-3 times a week and you'll be leaner buy New Year's.

One Skill Needed To Be A Great Fitness Coach

There is one skill that will ultimately determine how great of a coach your are. You can read all the books, attend all the workshops, and attain the highest levels of education, but without this one skill you will never be a great coach.

This skill is: The ability to focus on your client.

This means that when you walk onto the training floor you are 100% focused on the clients in your session. Not what you are doing later, not what is going one at home, nothing about your life matters when you are on that floor with the clients. It's all about them and your focus needs to be completely on them.

This means being prepared before your session starts, starting on time, and knowing what you are going to have each client do in that session. Nothing is random, everything is planned.

This may sound easy, but it's a huge area of struggle for many coaches. They are too focused on themselves and sharing their lives that they aren't giving the client what they are paying for. Yes, the clients will ask about your life, this is fine. You should share what is going on in your life WHEN THEY ASK, not because you think that they might be interested. If they don't ask they aren't interested - they are only acting interested because they are too nice to tell you to shut up and focus on them. And when they do ask answer, but then get the conversation back to being about them. Most people ask to be nice, not because they really care. And even if they do truly care no one wants to hear you going on and on about your life when they are paying you to help them.

Body language goes along with this. Even if you are focused on them, poor body language can make you seem disengaged. Do you smile and greet them each by name when they come in? Do you look bored when working with them? Do you stand with your arms crossed and lean on the equipment? I don't care how focused you may be on them your body language suggests that you aren't and that you are just going through the motions.

Learn to focus on your client and put your life on the shelf and you will become a great coach.

Sitting Is Killing Your Members

Your clients live a sedentary lifestyle, even your most active members are less active than the average person was 100 years ago. It's a result of modernization. We are a society of sitters. In fact, it has recently been said that sitting is going to be the health crisis of this generation and is as detrimental to our health as smoking.

All this sitting each day leads to poor posture and muscular imbalances, which leads to pain and injuries, and extremely deconditioned individuals. Our society has now developed what is know as the "sitters posture" - rounded, hunched shoulders, tight pecs, weak backs, tight hamstrings, weak core, and weak glutes. Or the reverse Darwin as shown below.

Even if you go back 10-15 years ago, we were more active than today. Take the average desk job. Fifteen years ago if you needed a file you had to get up from your desk, walk to the end of the hall retrieve the file, walk back to you desk, and then return the file. This was repeated over and over all day. Today, with file sharing and the cloud you never have to move from your desk.

Even travel has changed. Recently, I was in the Cleveland Airport. It used to be that you had to park your car, carry your bag, and walk to ticketing and then your terminal. Not in Cleveland, you park you car, walk maybe 50 feet (100 if you didn't get a good spot) and then it's people movers and escalators the rest of the way, with may 100 more steps total taken between people movers. Now, you do have the faster option of walking, but hardly anybody does this.

Those are just two examples of decreased activity and may seem like small stuff, but it has drastically cut our daily activity down, which is why we are required us to train our members differently in our gyms.

We used to be able to get away with using machines to train our members and it worked. Not because the machines were good, but because the client was more active and by adding some strength training it was enough to stimulate the metabolism and get them results. Today however, the only movement most people get is in the gym. So sitting them down on a machine to push and pull weight is no longer effective. They are already expert sitters and more sitting, even if they are lifting isn't enough to stimulate their metabolism and improve posture. We need to get them on their feet and moving. Focusing on total body exercises like the KB Swing, Turkish Get Up, and Farmers Walks will do more to improve their fitness level, posture, and provide more metabolic stimulation than anything done on a machine.

Prioritize Your Spending

Sadly we are all more willing to spend on things that provide little to no value to our lives. Some of the these same things are even detrimental to our longer-term goals and health. But, yet we spend willingly for the short-term pleasure.

In my early 20s I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to buy into a fitness club. This provided me with a nice income, benefits, and a pretty good life. However, I was young and dumb and spent money as fast as it came in. And thought nothing of it. I thought nothing of dropping a few hundred dollars at the bar or club each weekend and/or buying more clothes that I didn't need. I was young and very materialistic. The more stuff and the more spent the better. Somehow I did manage to save some money in a retirement account, which was later used to fund the next gym.

This all came to a halt by my mid-20s when I left the current fitness club to start my own gym. Suddenly I looked at money in a whole new light, the materialism vanished and I began to value stuff more. Simply put, my priorities changed. It was food or going out. Food won.

Do I regret the habits of my early 20's? No, because it taught me a very valuable life lesson: material stuff is just stuff. Why did I want it? Because I felt that I needed it to keep up with and stay ahead of everyone around me. Now I would much rather save money than blow it on stuff that doesn't add value to my life. Does this mean I don't still enjoy certain frivolous things? No, but I enjoy them because I enjoy them - not because of the status that comes from them or anything else. Am I cheap? No, I will spend on things that I enjoy and am willing to do so because it makes MY life more enjoyable - not because my neighbors have it.

Why am I sharing this story? Because for some people the spending habits of their 20's never change. The objects may, but the habits doesn't. Instead, of blowing money in clubs, it's now blown on purses, watches, TVs, cars, houses, and clothes. All just for the materialistic pleasure of keeping up with the Jones's. Then when it comes to the important stuff like good quality food, a gym membership, taking a memorable once-in-a-lifetime vacation they claim it costs too much. This stuff will provide you with health and vitality allowing you to get more enjoyment out of the years ahead. The vacation will provide you with memories for life. It doesn't cost too much! The spending priority is the reason. The quick fix materialistic things that help you keep up with your neighbors are taking money away from the things that really matter.

Learn to prioritize your spending by spending on experiences, things YOU enjoy, and things that improve you and keep you healthy. There are no wrong answers to what these things are, as long as they are truly what YOU value and find important. Not just purchases to keep up with you neighbors. Spend like and adult, not a 20 year old.

PNF Spartan Race

This past weekend I ran my first Spartan Sprint Race, in fact it was my first obstacle race of any type. I will admit I was a little nervous and wondering if I was in over my head. One of our younger coaches at PNF had talked me into to doing this with him and making it a gym event for members to train for and run. With that being said it was one of the funnest things I have ever done and I'm already looking forward to doing more. Yes, I'm hooked.

So here's a quick run down of how the day went. I got up around 5:30 a.m. ate breakfast (eggs, bacon, banana, Gatorade, and of course coffee.) I met the other PNF coaches and members at the gym around 6:45 a.m. and we left for Boswell, PA where the event was being held.

Our start time was 9:30 a.m. Upon arriving we were informed of what obstacles layed ahead of us for the day. The course was 4.5 miles, and that the water was just above freezing - which we had to swim and crawl through, not to mention that it was only about 45 degrees out when we started.

After registering and walking to the starting line I was starting to feel pumped and excited for the challenge ahead. And that is when the fun began. The next two and half hours where awesome. We crawled through creeks under logs and brush, climbed walls, jumped in and out of mud pits, crossed a pond, trudging through mud, crawled 70 yards uphill under barbed wire, carried buckets of stone, sandbags, and tires, along with numerous climbing obstacles and ending with a photo finish jumping over fire.

Once you crossed the finish line they handed you your medal, some energy bars and recovering drinks, and took a team pic. Then if was off to pick up our t-shirt and free beer. 

It was a great day and I highly recommend getting a group from your gym members and coaches together and doing one. Hold a 4-6 week training program to help them prepare and then go and compete as a group. It will help build the positive, supportive community environment that is so important in your gym and makes your gym standout from others.

Aroo! Aroo! We Are Spartan!

Do You Charge What You're Worth?

Believe in yourself and your value.

The belief in your value and what you believe you are worth are reflected in the price you charge. If you and your team are the best, how can you also be the cheapest?

When you are the cheapest, or cheaper option, you send the message that your service is not the best. For example, who is cheaper Nordstrom's or Kohl's? Who offers the better quality item and service?

If you find yourself scared to charge more it's the result of not believing you are worth more. Why don't you? Do you need to learn more? That's easy. Do you think people won't pay more? Read One Hundred Thirteen Million Markets of One - this will disprove that belief.

You've spent countless hours learning to master what you do and there is a price that comes to get access to that knowledge. What we do in this business makes a difference each day in peoples lives, believe that you are worth it!

What's Your Story?

People connect with stories, everyone has a story and every business has a story of how it came to be. But, not many use it or share it with their fans. Telling your story or specific parts of your story can give you an advantage. It shows you are transparent and allows people to feel more connected to you and your business. Along with creating a greater sense of personality for your business and brand.

So here's my story...

From an early age I knew that I wanted own a business. Why?  I don't like being told what to do or having to report to someone. I'm just naturally entrepreneurial. While I learned this early I didn't always know that I would end up in the fitness business.

That being said, I've always been drawn to fitness. Growing up as the "skinny kid" gave me a greater than normal interest in exercise. I started "lifting" (that was the term when you were 12) at age 12. It was at this point that I began to fall in love with fitness. I saw results fast and by the time I was 14 I was stronger than most of the other kids my age and began to see my athletic performance improve. This motivated me more and continued through high school and into adulthood, which has lead to my professional career.

When it came time to look at colleges I decided I wanted to major in Exercise Science and own my own gym, I mean "health club" or "athletic club" that would be the correct 90s term - if you want to date yourself open a gym with words in it.  Oh and I also needed a school were I could play football. So that was how I went about picking a college. This lead me to Mount Union College where I played, I mean majored, in football until transferring to Slippery Rock University in my sophomore year and graduating two years later with a degree in Exercise Science.

So now what? My plan was to attend graduate school, which was narrowed down to Northeastern University, Central Florida University, and Slippery Rock University. However, getting my master's in Exercise Science didn't make much sense to me. I was going to be putting in a lot of money and time into writing papers and doing research on theories and other stuff that I had already studied during my 4 years of undergrad. This didn't make sense to me. I didn't want to spend my career doing research and writing papers. I wanted to own a gym and help people get into shape. I briefly entertained the idea of getting my MBA, because that seemed somewhat useful. But, again I didn't want to work for a company, I wanted to build one and at the time very few schools were offering entrepreneurial programs.

So instead, I took myself to school through reading, watching, and attending everything I could about business and fitness. This also including spent time learning from experts in the fitness industry who owned successful gyms. This was my master's degree and if you add up the total cost of everything spent to learn and mistakes made it's probably is enough to pay for two MBA's. Probably more so from mistakes, but those would have been made most likely anyhow. This also built a passion for continuing education that has stayed with me.

So let's get back to how I came about owning my first fitness business.

Not having much money at the age of 22, I decided to continue working at the gym that I began working at as a personal trainer in my junior year of college. It paid decent and I had a decent size clientele built up of 1-on-1 personal training clients (yep - that was how you trained clients back in the day) which allowed me study and learn what I needed to own a business in the fitness industry.  However, after a few months I began to notice that the owner needed help. The business had grown too large for him to handle himself and he needed a partner. So with some financial backing from my Dad I bought 49% of the company. Never buy only 49%, but that was a lesson learned and mistake made by an over zealous 23 year old.

This gym, that I was now 49% owner of, was your typical 90's health club model. If featured a ton of fancy, shiny fixed equipment, treadmills, ellipticals, and bikes. We also had a free weight area, but it consisted of a bench press, incline and decline press, Smith machines, dumbbells, and of course the leg press. Kettlebells, bands, foam rollers? No there was not much functional equipment. And that is were things began to go down hill. At least one of the reasons.

As I began to attend more conferences and workshops in the industry I was seeing a shift away from the traditional gym model because of how it was failing the member. At the time the only training we offered was high priced 1-on-1. If you didn't do this, you didn't get help. In our gym people were buying a membership looking for a solution to their problem, but if they couldn't afford 1-on-1 all they got has a workout card that took them through the circuit of machines over and over forever. That didn't work and we knew it, but that's what everybody was selling back then and the way things had always been done.

I wanted to change this and start providing training on some level for every member. Completely remove most of the fixed equipment and bring in more functional equipment. However, my business partner didn't have the same thoughts. The way he saw it everything was working well and didn't need changed. While I was able to convince the purchase of a squat rack, he frowned upon the use of it and deemed it too dangerous for the clients.

Things went this way for about two years. We were butting heads hard, money was beginning to go missing, and some questionable business practices were beginning to take place by my partner. I knew it was time to get out, things were only going to get worse and I didn't want to be associated with this type of person. But, at the same time I was scared to go out on my own.

It was at this point that Tammy and I (my future fiance and business partner) attended our first Perform Better Summit. I remember sitting in the first lecture of the weekend listening to Bill Parisi and that was when I decided I'm done. I finally realized that if I wanted to do things the way I believed in, I had to get out on my own and Tammy felt the same way.

It only took about three months from that weekend at Perform Better to when we opened the doors of Defined Fitness, now called Pittsburgh North Fitness. Fortunately for us the majority of our clients followed us and gave us nice client base to start with out of the gate. However, we made some mistakes.

1. We opened in a bad market. The average household income was about $30,000 in our five mile radius and a good portion of that was unemployed and government assisted. The location was not bad, but the town was a dying steel town. This made it very hard to be successful for the type of business we dreamed of having.
2. We didn't invest in flooring, instead we used the carpet that was already in the space. Flooring makes your gym look like a gym, without it your space just looks off.
3. We didn't have our own HVAC unit and had to share the thermostat with the space beside us, which was an office, which had a different definition of a comfortable temperature than us. And our landlord was not willing to fix the problem, or anything in the building for that matter.

So after two years of struggling we decided that it was time to move our business to a better location. This better location was 30 miles south and is were we are currently located. Surprisingly enough we had about five clients follow us.

With our new location we had the right market, but still made a few mistakes that almost cost us our business. In fact, we were about one month away from bankruptcy. We didn't dream big enough. In fact, our original goal was to get 65 members and gross $10,000 per month. So with that goal we leased a space that was too small at only 2,100 square feet. This caused us some bigger problems when we finally started to dream big. We also, didn't invest enough money into the facility. This was primarily because we could not find a bank to loan us the start up money needed. So doing what most start-ups do we used credit cards, cashed in our IRA's and got a loan from family. Needless to say in opening our business and funding it for the first two years we racked up a lot of debt. Most of which was credit cards. After the two year mark, and with the help of Thomas Plummer, we had finally got our business to support itself and provide us both with a paycheck. However, we now found ourselves in another predicament. We needed to expand. We needed more space, more staff, and more equipment. So we went back to banks to be told yet again that they could not help us. We showed them how refinancing our debt and taking on the additional debt would allow us to grow and that we were able to make our payments. They didn't care and we were told that revenue didn't matter they wanted cash assets. So we were resourceful and added slowly over the next year.

Things were beginning to look good. We had had a full year under us of making a profit each month, added one coach to our team, and added more equipment. Our schedules were full, Tammy and I were still working twelve plus hour days, (we did this for the first 5 years BTW) and it was evident that we needed a larger space. Growth was slowing and we were becoming limited as to what we could offer. We still had two years left on our lease, but all this meant was that we would have to either sublet our current space or buy it out. Neither ideal, but it would work. When we began looking at other available spaces we soon found out that there was really nothing available that would fit us. Everything was either too small, over priced, or both.

We hung in there and with less than a year left on our current lease and nothing looking promising a landlord who was building a new complex contacted us. It would be new construction and built to our specifications.

Which brings us to where we are now. On December 1st of this year, 2015 we will move into our new 6,400 square foot dream facility. But this isn't the end of our story only the closing of a chapter. The next one looks better and I can't wait to start writing it. Will it be easy? No, but nothing worthwhile ever is.  Will their be challenges? Absolutely, that's part of life. Am I living my dream? Yes, and that is all that matters!

What's your story? Go tell it...

Know Your Market, Own Your Market

You can't be all things to all people. Yes, it may sound cliche, but I see too many gym owners making this mistake. If you were to ask the average gym owner if they train fat loss clients, they'd say yes. Do they train high school athletes? Yes. Do they train bodybuilders? Yes. How about marathon runners? Yep they do that too. They would probably put your dog on a treadmill if it means you are going to pay them.

What's their gym's specialty? Who is their market?

It's anyone who will pay them. And that's their problem.

Who gets paid more the doctor who is a general practitioner, or the one who specializes in a certain area? The specialist.

In the gym business it's no different. If your market is athletes be the expert in that area. If it's lifestyle enhancement own that market.

When you own your market it makes it much harder for competition to come in and hurt your business. You've established yourself as the expert. You know who your ideal client is and everything you do is targeted to attract that client. You market exclusively to them. Your gym is built for them. And your message is geared towards them. As a result people will seek your gym out and pay more to be a member because you are the expert.

Most gyms don't know who their market and ideal client is. So they brand themselves to try to appeal to everyone, they market to everyone, and never become known as the go too gym for a specific solution. Instead they slowly kill themselves by trying to be all things to everyone.

If you try to be the gym for everybody you become a "Jack of all trades, but master of none." Therefore, you will never master one area and become the local expert and the gym known for a specialty.

Why? Well, how can you market the gym to both athletes and adults without sending a conflicting message. In one ad you're claiming you're the area's weight loss expert, and in another you're claiming to be the area's speed and strength guy. Not only does this never allow your marketing to build any traction and create top of mind awareness. The overweight female doesn't want to workout with athletes because she is self conscious and intimidated by the athletes. And the athlete doesn't want to workout with his mom.

You can build your business to serve any market you choose, but you can't be all things to everyone. Pick one, master it and then own it!

Feed Your Mind

If you want to be a business owner you have to start thinking like a business owner, not a trainer. Here is list of some of the best books I've read to help you think more like a business owner.

- Anything written by Thomas Plummer
- Starbucks Effect
- 113 Million Markets of One
- The E-Myth - by Michael E. Gerber
- Think and Grow Rich - by Napoleon Hill
- It's Called Work For A Reason - by Larry Winget
- Screw It, Let's Do It - by Richard Branson
- Switch - by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
- Delivery Happiness - by Tony Hsieh
- Brewing Up A Business - by Sam Calamine
- The Power Of Positive Thinking - Norman Vincent Peele
- 212 Degrees - by Sam Parker and Mac Anderson
- Jonathan Livingston Seagull - by Richard Bach
- How To Win Friends And Influence People - Dale Carnegie
- Kout Matters - Gina Carr and Terry Brock
- Your Money or Your Life - Vicki Brown and Joe Dominguez
- Overcoming Underearning - by Barbara Stanny
- Just Listen - by Mark Goulston
- If You Want It Done Right, You Don't Have To Do It Yourself - Donna M. Gennett

In addition to books you should be reading magazines such as, Entrepreneur and Inc. Along with listening to podcasts and watching educational DVD's.

 If you want to run a successful business you need to spend at least 30-60 minutes everyday improving yourself through reading, listening to podcasts, and watching videos. In a year that is 365 hours of learning you've done. Considering that most of your competitors aren't willing to dedicate that much time to improving themselves this gives you a huge advantage.

Learning is only the beginning. If you don't take action on what you are learning it is all worthless. Take action even if you don't fully understand what you are getting into and figure it out as you go.

The Gym Business Is About Service

Many gym owners think they are in the fitness business, but really they are in the service business. You can have the best fitness programs, killer workouts, and all the latest tools and gadgets,  but if you service is poor. Your business will be too.

In fact, most business are in the service business, they may be in a certain industry, but in the end it all comes down to the service they deliver.

Recently, I needed to buy a suit. Have not owned a suit in about 10 years, or ever needed one for that matter. I didn't have loyalty to any company or brand in particular. So the first place that came to mind was Men's Warehouse and where I went. The service and experience was phenomenal. As soon as I walked in I was greeted by a well dressed, groomed, and spoken employee. Not your typical young dumb, punk kid. It was an adult, not a kid playing an adult. They ask me what I was looking for and took some time to get know me, what I liked, my style, measurements, and why I needed a suit. From there they showed me a variety of options in different colors, fits, and price ranges. After finding the perfect suit they offered me a special 40% discount on my entire purchase today since I was a new customer. And finally, while I was trying on and finding the perfect suit someone else on their team was putting together a few casual clothing options for me. Nice touch. I didn't buy any of them, however I did like some and will probably be back in the near future.

Lessons Learned:
#1. Top of Mind Awareness. You must market and promote your brand 365 days per year, no exceptions. I've made this mistake numerous times and it has always ended up hurting future business. You never know when someone will need your service or product, but when they do you want to be the first one they think of. In order, to do this you must engage with your target market in social media daily, run referral promotions along with portal programs, and hold events. The key to this is to consistently push the same message over and over. That is how you create brand awareness.

#2. Hire To Fit Your Demographic. This one is not always easy for us in the fitness business, as most of our target markets are 35-60 years and the available coaches are younger. You best coaches will be in or close to that same age bracket because they can relate to and understand the clients better. This doesn't mean that younger or older trainers won't do well they will just have to learn to understand the clients needs and wants better. In many cases your perfect trainer is one that is already a current client or member. They are in your target demographic, have been through your program, liked it and seen results. This person will be able to relate extremely well to the other members.

#3. Build Rapport.  The first time a new member walks into your gym take the time to get to know them. Why did they decide to come in today? What are they looking for help with? What are their concerns? Etc. Too often, we want to start showing them all the cool stuff we have, telling them why we are better than the gym down the street, and talking about how awesome we are. But, we never listen to them and what they want. If you do this it will WOW them, very few other gyms in town will actually take the time to do this. And if they do they will just more or less go through the motions. Be genuinely interested in them and you'll increase your chances of gaining them as a client.

#4. Give Options and Explain The Differences. I didn't know the difference between one suit and the other but it didn't matter because they explained how each suit was different and gave me a variety of price points. Selling a gym membership is the same. The potential member doesn't know the difference between Team Training, Small Group Training, and 1-On-1. This needs to be explained and they need to be shown what will fit them best. Without this they will just take the cheapest price. Or worse yet the cheapest gym, which will never be us.

#5. Make Me Feel Special. Mary Kay Ash had a famous saying, "Make them feel special and they will buy." (Or something like that.) When it came to deciding which suit I wanted I was going back and forth in my head between two. One was a couple hundred dollars more than the other one and I liked it more, but wasn't sure if I should buy it since I'll probably only wear it once or twice a year at most. But knowing that you get what you pay for, I chose the higher priced one. After I had picked it out the lady helping me offered me 40% off my entire purchase that day because I was a new customer. Yes, I know that everyone that day probably got the same deal, but it made me feel even better about my decision.  And by offering it after I had made my choice was key because it made my purchase feel smart and like I really got a great deal. Where if I had known that going in it wouldn't have felt the same.

Now in your gym I'm not saying that you should offer a discount on your service. In fact, you never should do that under any circumstances, unless you want to devalue your service. Some people just won't be able to afford what you offer and that is OK. What you can do is incentivize the sale with things like adding a free month if they sign-up for a year, giving them a gym bag, t-shirt, supplements, free shakes, etc. This will make them feel good about their decision to join your gym and not have guilt about joining yet another gym and fitness program. Plus, they will tell their friends about all the cool stuff they got at THEIR new gym. And now their friend is thinking, "Wait you got what for joining, I didn't get crap from Discount Gym and they don't even know my name."

#6. Offer An Up Sale. You don't have to push extra stuff down their throat, but you should offer them an up sale. Some will take you up on it, the majority probably won't. But, for those who do it will mean increased revenue for you and more profitability. You could offer an 8-week nutrition program, additional sessions for a month, supplements, etc. I didn't take my up sale offer, but it peaked my interest for the future and the same will happen for your new member.

The gym business is all about service and the one with the best service will win by making more money and having higher profits. Look around at other service businesses you interact with and see what things they do that you can incorporate into your business.

9 Tips To Transition From Trainer To Gym Owner

Are you are trainer? Or, are you a gym owner? Both you say? When you are first starting out it is OK to be doing all the training in your gym, but is this what you want to be doing the rest of your life? How are you going to grow your business if you are always working in it and never on it? What happens when you do finally hire some one to help with the training, the clients are always going to prefer you and view the other trainer(s) at second rate as long as their is the opportunity to have you.

At some point you need to begin to look at your gym differently and start viewing it as a business. The following are 9 tips, in no particular order, to help you make this change. It won't happen overnight and may not even happen in a year. That's OK. What matters is how you view it and how you run it.

#1 - Stop Selling Packages. 

What do you charge for an hour with you? $100, $75, $50 per hour? Most likely, it depends on how many sessions they buy. Right?

There at three major problems with this. First, you need to begin charging for a session, not a period of time. Second, if you are selling packages, like most trainers, you are decreasing the cost to train with you (your value) with the larger the package they buy. And third, you are selling a short-term solution to a long-term problem. So let's look at each of these:

Charging for a session, not a block of time. When you charge for a block of time, say an hour, the client expects to receive and hour of workout time. This isn't bad, but it's also not what is best for the client. For example, if you client comes in and has had a long day, didn't sleep well, and hasn't eaten since breakfast. Is it in his/her best interest to push them through an hour long session? No, all that is going to do is run them into the ground more. Or, say you're on the other end of the spectrum in sports performance and your client comes into to get warmed up and work on some corrective rehab stuff they may need before competition. Depending on the client they may need 10-15 minutes or they may need 30+ minutes. It's what is best for the client, so charge per session.

When you charge per session the client doesn't expect to have a certain amount of time filled. So when you have a recovery day or lighter workout they don't feel ripped off when the session ends in 35 minutes, rather than 60. That is what is best for them today. In our gym we run all sessions on a 45 minute window, give or take five minutes. Some get done sooner, some take longer and that is fine. It allows everyone to work at their pace.

Selling packages. Are you a great trainer? Or even a good trainer? Yes? That's not the message you're sending to your client if you are selling packages. By selling a package you are decreasing the cost of each session with the more sessions that are purchased. So if you charge $75 for 1 session and $450 for 10 sessions, you are not a $75 per session trainer, you are a middle of the road $45 dollar per session trainer. If they buy 20 sessions you charge $750, now you're a $37 per session bargain trainer. If they wanted to buy 100 sessions you'd probably selling those to them at the discounted rate of $10 per session. Do you see the problem? In Point #7, I'll address how to make yourself at $125+ per session trainer, by using a group model. As you charge less and less with each larger package you are telling the client that you time and value is worth less and less.

In our gym we sell 12-month memberships and month-to-month recurring memberships, which are 25% higher than the 12-month rate. Our memberships have three levels: Unlimited Small Group Personal Training, 1x/week Small Group Personal Training, and Large Group Training. Small Group Personal Training is individualized to the client and the client to coach ratio is no more than 6 to 1. Large Group Training is a metabolic circuit that is led by one coach and the group can be 20+ clients. If the client is on a Small Group Membership they also have unlimited access to Large Group Training. So instead of having a package of sessions, they client can come an unlimited number of times in the month on which ever membership level they are on.

Short-term solution vs. a long-term problem. How far can a client go with you in 10 sessions? I don't know it depends on how good of a coach you are, how well the client adheres to the program, and what the clients' goal is. But, fitness isn't about buying 10 sessions and moving on. It's about fixing a problem for that client, which is usually the result of years of bad habits. You're not going to take 30 pounds off of a client or make lasting improvements to their golf game in 10 sessions. Most clients have not done anything for 15+ years when they come into our gyms and we are going to sell them a 10 pack of sessions as their solution? This is absurd...any progress that they do make will be lost after they stop, which they usually do - at least for a while anyhow. To create life changes the client needs to be consistent. This is why we like the 12-month membership. This forces them to make a commitment to their fitness for a year. Does every client like this? No, but it is what they need. Our profession exists to change people lives and we can't do that in 10 sessions, but we can over 12-months.

#2 - Hire A Dedicated Third Party Billing Company.
Collecting your own payments is one of the biggest mistakes and wastes of time you can make. Most trainers are notoriously bad at asking for money, which means they will not collect as much as they should or could. By using a third party billing company, like Mindbody, ASF, or ABC Financial you delegate the collection of money to an expert company who will collect more than you can and on time. As the gym owner you only have to sign the client up once every 12-months and the billing company takes care of the rest. Freeing you from the responsibility of tracking and collecting membership fees when they are due.

#3 - Use Social Media Correctly.

You may have had a great time at that party last night, but it shouldn't be on your Facebook page. Or any other form of social media for that matter. This also means no shirtless, booty short photos of yourself or your workout. No one cares about that stuff and it doesn't help build your brand or create professionalism for you. Instead, use your social media pages to connect with your target audience and to provide them with relevant, useful information. Become the go to professional and post great content regularly. For example, you should be updating your Facebook page once per day, Tweeting 1-2 times per day, and blogging 1-2 times per week. These are just of a few of the platforms you can use. Find what works best to connect with your audience and then provide them with great content regularly.   

#4 - Stop Training Clients In Your Gym.
You can still work in the gym and train a few clients, but you need to run your business like a business. If you are training anymore than 10-15 hours per week, you're not driving your business and pushing it to its fullest potential.

This transition will not happen overnight and can take a year or so before you are fully out of the training side of your business. But, you need to begin building a staff of coaches who can carry out and deliver your programs to your gym's clients. As Peter Drucker says, "You should only be doing the things that only you can do." Other people can train clients, but not many people can build a successful business.

By pulling yourself out of training you allow yourself to focus on the things that drive more business into your gym. Resulting in helping more people and making a larger impact on peoples lives, which is why you got into this business in the first place.

Additionally, if you are doing all of the training. What happens when you go on vacation or get sick? What happens if you need to take some time away from your business to care for family needs? If you're the whole show you can't without your business suffering greatly. So build a staff, then train and develop that staff to eventually take over the training load. On a side note, I've also found that if you, the owner, are still training clients all the clients will want you and not your staff as long as you are available. Even if your staff is better than you.

#5 - Develop Systems.
Everything in your gym should be written down step-by-step explaining how to do it. Yes, everyone has jobs that they are responsible for and that they do best. But, if some one on the team goes down or steps away a system needs to be in place so that someone else can step in and fill the role.

Start today by writing down how you open and close your gym. Then each day write out another system in your business. How do you greet members? How do you assess new members? How does your sales process work? How do you develop programs? How are staff meetings run? And so on. Do this everyday writing one system at a time and within 6-months you will have an entire operation manual for your gym.

#6 - Use A Scheduling Software.
Hey Meat Head! This is the year 2015 and we don't use appointment books anymore, just like we don't curl in the squat rack and yell "It's all you bro!" That stuff went out in the nineties. So throw that beat up old appointment book out and get with the times.

By using a scheduling software, like Mindbody, you clean up your schedule, can view it from anywhere, and allow your clients to schedule sessions for themselves - saving you time and energy.

#7 - Switch To A Group Model.
If you are still training clients 1-on-1 stop now! Yes, it's nice to get paid $100 and hour, but how many people can afford that long-term? And what happens when you are booked full?

So switch to a group training model. You still can provide the service of a 1-on-1 session, but you are now coaching four to six clients at a time. This allows you to help more people and make more money. If each client is paying somewhere in the neighborhood of $25 per session and you have six clients in a session, you are now earning $150 per session. Nice $50 raise huh? And as an added bonus the client is ecstatic because they are getting the same service and having more fun because of the group environment and paying less per session because they are sharing the cost of the trainer with other members.

In the same eight hours that you normally would train eight clients and earn $800, you now have the potential to train 48 clients and earn $1,200, Not bad.

Yes, training four to six people is harder than training one, but it is much more enjoyable.

#8 - Track Your Numbers. 
Not tracking your numbers is a huge rookie mistake and one that I made for a few years. If you don't track your numbers, you have no idea how well or bad your business is performing. This becomes especially true when your business is failing and you've finally put your ego aside and reached out for help. Yes, I'm talking from experience. If you can't tell me what some basic numbers are in your business it is very hard for me to help you. The numbers help you to identify the problems and weak areas of your business as well as let you know what is running smoothly.

Some basic numbers to begin to start tracking are: Daily cash goal, lead - trials - new members, retention rate, average EFT, monthly EFT growth, and a year-to-year comparison. These are just a few of the basic numbers, but most gym owners only track income and expense each month and maybe make a budget.

#9 - Plan For The Future.
You are young today, but you will be old soon and you need to be planning for your retirement. This is one of those 'the sooner the better' things. You're going to work you butt off building your business wouldn't you like to have something to show for it? Having to pick up a job in the later years of your life when you should be enjoying the fruits of your labors is a real possibility if you don't plan for it now. Yes, I know money is tight. But, save whatever you can. Even if it's only $10 a week for now - that's cutting out two Starbucks. That $10 will add up over time and as your business grows that $10 a week will grow to $25, $50, $100, $200, $500 or more saved each week. Start now and create the habit.