Personal Trainers: Balancing Your Business = Freedom
Time management is something all business professionals deal with. In a personal trainer's business, you are also dealing with the schedules of your clients. Though most people have some idea how to plan their day, very few really utilize the power of leveraging time.
Many people are conditioned to work by a list. Some are obliged to do it. We know that at 8:15 a.m. we have a meeting, followed by clients at intervals from 8:30 until noon; an hour for lunch, then afternoon activities broken down until 5 pm.. When you're at home the to-do list has other duties for you.
That's a schedule. However, you can work smarter than that.
Leveraging means balancing. It's important to have a healthy balance of your time.
It's hard to create more balance if you don't know where you are in the first place. Discern which stage you are currently in.
Journal your time for several days, preferably a whole week. At the end of the time period, look to see how much time you spent with family.
Were you creative with a hobby or favorite sport (watching it on TV doesn't count)?
What kind of books or magazines did you read?
How much exercise were you able to do?
Within that particular time, did you have a good read?
If yes, were you in it for work or just for the fun of it?
Did you spend time in any personal goals or endeavors, and if so, how much?
If you are a traditional follower of a to do list, you will probably find several areas lacking when evaluating your trial period. Calculate how you spent your time. How many hours were for work, family, hobby, reading, exercise? Take note of the percentages. How much time did you allot for career compared to family and other important aspects? The results could surprise you!
The great part about this exercise is that once you see how little time you spend on personal development, you can devise a plan to change it. Figure out what kind of time you want to devote to each aspect of your life.
When you leverage your time and deliberately choose how to spend it, you're no longer a slave to the lists! Your "to do" list is a great way to remind you of duties, but it shouldn't take you away from the life you should be enjoying.
How to Create A Fitness Bootcamp
Want to grow your personal training client list? Is your personal training business in need of some extra cash? Consider creating a fitness bootcamp and buff up your business.
It's a way to bring both extra dollars and new long-term clients to your business.
Fitness bootcamps offer potential clients the opportunity to pay a set fee to workout with you and other participants for a set period of time. The idea is to get as many people as possible into your program. Yes, you'll make more money that way. But more to the point, it gives you a chance to show potential long-term clients why they want to continue to train with you. And that, of course, is the real goal.
Decide First, is a Fitness Bootcamp a Good Strategy for My Business?
Not all personal trainers will benefit from starting their own fitness bootcamp. It could be that you prefer one-on-one training, and have less interest or skills in large groups. Maybe you can only take on a limited number of clients at a time.
It might be that you don't have the space for a big bootcamp. Although, you can always do it outdoors and save a ton of cash.
At the same time, if you're even considering a bootcamp, it's a stellar way to boost your personal training business fast by creating huge opportunities for more clients and income.
What Will Your Bootcamp Offer?
When you figure out that, yes, you do want to get a bootcamp going, the next step is to know what your plan is. How long will your bootcamp be, and when will it happen? Will you limit the number of participants, or will you leave enrollment open? Will you concentrate on cardiovascular exercises, strength-training, flexibility drills or all three? Picture how you want your bootcamp to run and what people will be attracted to.
Is Your Fitness Bootcamp Permanent Or A One-Time Event?
Figure out if you want to run your bootcamp as an ongoing program or just a special offer. You've got options; some personal trainers only do one bootcamp a year, but some have them continuously.You can also rotate the bootcamp focuses, so one month a bootcamp will be devoted to strength training, and the next cardiovascular fitness. Once you've rotated through different bootcamp programs you can just start again.
Doing bootcamps all year long may be a great way to boost business. Yet remember it can also take a good deal of effort. You'll have to decide whether the potential financial rewards outweigh the work. Personally I think leveraging your time by training multiple clients at once outweigh the work involved.
Do You Need Help Running Your Bootcamp?
At first you may be able to run the bootcamp alone. After you've got good business coming into the bootcamp, though, you'll probably want a bit of support staff.
You may need front-office help to assist you with collecting payments, medical forms and waivers. Or maybe you need additional trainers to handle an overflow of participants. Remember, when you hire people to help you run your fitness business that they are representing you, so take care in who you choose and how you train them.
How you start and run your bootcamp is up to you, but just remember that marketing your bootcamp is as important as coming up with the perfect workout.
Strategies To Market Fitness Bootcamps
A growing number of personal trainers are hosting fitness bootcamps to make extra cash and, just as importantly, grow their client base.Unfortunately, this can't happen if potential clients don't know that your bootcamp exists. This is an excellent reason why it is so crucial that you know the fundamental strategies to market your personal training bootcamp.
Fitness Bootcamps can Grow your Business
More popular than ever, bootcamps are valued as people are on the look out for new options to shed pounds, get in shape, and become more healthy. These bootcamps are also wonderful ways for personal trainers to introduce themselves to a new set of potential clients, while earning some extra dollars in the process.
Problem is, even the best fitness bootcamps won't acheive these goals if potential attendees don't konw they exist. That's where marketing comes in. Keep in mind, you're running a business. And all businesses rely on sound marketing strategies to survive.
Word-of-Mouth is the Most Powerful Marketing
There are many ways to promote your fitness bootcamp. However, the most powerful way to bring in clients is by word-of-mouth. Potential clients are more likely to trust recommendations that they receive from their friends and famiy members than they are the words written on a brochure or in a newspaper ad.
Start advertising your fitness bootcamp by sharing the news with your own network of family members and friends. Also, tell all your existing customers that you're running a bootcamp. And kindly request each of them to tell the people in their own lives such as family, friends, and co-workers.
There are a lot of people hoping to lose weight or boost their fitness levels. The odds are good that your existing clients, friends and family members know some of them.
Let the Community Know
Effective marketing doesn't have to be expensive. You can publicize your fitness bootcamp by taping flyers to the windows of local coffee shops, bookstores, grocery stores or hair salons. Most of the time local businesses are very willing to help out a fellow entrepreneur with event promotion.
Of course, it's essential that you include all important info on your flier - this includes the place, time, dates, and contact info people can call if they're interested in the bootcamp.
Tap into the Local Press
As your fitness bootcamp draws closer, don't forget to tap into the network of community newspapers and magazines in your area. Most communities have several weekly newspapers, shoppers and magazines. The editors at these publications are constantly hunting for content to fill their pages. If you send quality content they'll be happy to publish a press release highlighting your upcoming bootcamp.
Again, be sure you include all important info about your bootcamp in the releases. Be sure, also, that you send your press releases to the right editor, and not to a general email account. Most newspaper Web sites have staff listings that allow you to easily find their health or community editors.
Profit from Google
Google can be a gold mine - if you do it right. First they love blogs, so create a wordpress blog for your bootcamp and add a ton of content. Potential clients searching the Internet will find your site and could become clients. Here are more reasons why you need a blog.
Second, use Google Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads. When PPC is mastered you can get some really inexpensive leads. Facebook is also another marketers dream. Running Facebook ads can bring you some very targeted leads.
Not Having a Plan is Planning to Fail
To be successful, you?ve got to have a plan. This is the case in most of life, and especially in your personal training business. After all, without a plan, how will your clients meet their goals?
One of the biggest and quickest ways to fail is to not have a plan. Can you imagine a play without a script, well, okay but even improve has structure and guidelines? Even kiddie birthday parties have to be carefully planned. Simply put, desired results can not be achieved until you work for it. Therefore, decide what you really want and make a plan for it.
How, though, do you make sure that your plan is more than a mere wish or daydream?
Foresight is first. What do you want and where do you want to go with it? Knowing where you want to go will make planning a lot easier.
Just like you need to know where you're going, you also need to know where you're starting from.
When you can clearly see your present situation and also have your eye on your goal, then it's easier to address what you may have to deal with in between. Ask yourself why you want to attain the goal you have set. At times, asking that yourself why may even change your vision of the goal. For instance, if someone has a goal of losing 20 pounds, but doesn?t have a workout or meal plan to make it happen, the goal is worthless. If that person targets a 50-pound loss in preparation for something in the future, you can guide him or her towards that goal because you know how to set up a plan for it.
Regardless of if you're planning for your fitness training business or a client's training routine, putting everything on paper is best. When you put your plan on paper, it makes it become something real, a tangible product.
Once you have your plan on paper, don?t stop there. Take a look at it and try to spot possible stumbling blocks or changes that might arise. Identify these critical points and prepare countermeasures in advance. In doing so, you are actually preparing Plan B.Not all plans go smoothly and accordingly so it goes without saying that having a good backup plan is a must.
Remember, not having a plan is basically planning to fail. Write it all down so you have tangible guidance as you strive toward your goal. Don?t be so stuck on your plan that you cannot change with unforeseen situations that might arise. Come up with a plan that is flexible by preparing backup plans.
Once you have your plan, define your fitness marketing strategy and work that plan.
Train Now, Earn More
Open the newspapers and you'll eventually see the real deal: we are all getting fatter and fatter each day. It's a common sight nowadays on TV news to see supersized people in the streets.
Obesity has become a major problem in North America, with a growing percentage of both young and old weighing too much. Why would the groceries sell so many "low-fat" or "fat-free" products anyway?
Unfortunately, these lower-fat foods aren't working. Waistlines are still expanding at an alarming rate.
But that's where you come in: You're looking for a new career. You want to earn a stable income in a growing field. It's time for you to become a personal trainer.
Talented personal trainers with a strong client base can make upwards of $50,000, $70,000 or more a year. While we continue to address this issue, it does not also mean that there will be less clients sooner or later.
But how do you become a personal trainer? Investing in a fitness training course is the best jumpstart to your career. That way, you can earn certification. It is way more important than you could possibly be thinking: Fitness professionals are very much recognized due to their certifications, helping them attract more clients.
A good place to start learning about certification is American Fitness Professionals & Associates. This organization put up courses specially made for trainers who want to be accredited.
Earning this certification should pay off. As reported by the fitness association, certified fitness trainers can be earning from 40 to 125 dollars per hour. Also, certified trainers can freely reap the fruits of their own businesses because they have total control over decision-making, recruitment, and income-generation.
The good news is that there aren't many hurdles for you to overcome if you want to take a certification course. American Fitness Professionals & Associates only asks that you be at least 18 years old and have a high school diploma or the equivalent of one.
During a personal trainer course, you'll learn how to best identify your clients' needs, and then how to develop exercise routines that help them achieve their goals. You'll learn how to recruit new clients and how to market your business most effectively. Primarily, you will be picking up all the tools of the trade to earn more money as a fitness professional.
So what are you waiting for? Start a little research on the internet and look for your nearest fitness professional. Courses offered by the American Fitness Professionals & Associates start as low as $370. That's not much of a financial investment if you consider the stable career you'll be getting in the long run.
3 Easy Marketing Strategies For Personal Trainers
You can find countless marketing tips dedicated for Personal Trainers, but check out these three essential points that will help you quickly build a great reputation for your Personal Trainer Business.
First, develop your testimonials.
Photos show results, so make sure you get a shot of each client when they first start working with you, and as they progress to really see the changes. Type up their brief story: their goal, how you helped them achieve it and how long it took. Create a wall of fame to show these success stories. If you are doing any newspaper advertising, testimonials like this make great ads. Of course, ask permission from your client before plastering their success story on your wall or in your local newspaper. Most clients will be flattered to be featured and will even write a testimony for you. In the process, you're not only building yourself a great business but also giving these people acknowledgement for their hard work!
Write a column
Speaking of newspapers, ask your hometown paper if you could write a weekly or monthly column for publication. Rather than be paid, you can approach the paper and ask instead for a small photo and byline with your article. This will get your name and face in front of the public for free. While the newspaper gains readership by offering service, you are building yourself as an expert in the field.
If you have a local radio station, ask if you can be a guest on the air to discuss personal training, typical issues clients face, or answer phoned in questions. This is a great free promotion and puts your business out there in the playing field.
You may apply the same principle to the Internet. As a world-wide medium, you will extend your knowledge around the globe!
Get In The Paper
The third gem of a marketing strategy is to create and write a newsletter. Make it monthly and distribute among your clients, and to potential clients as well. This doesn't have to be fancy, especially if you are sending it by email. Simply type up an email about upcoming events, any specials you are offering, information about supplements or health products you promote, and be sure to include any testimonials. Email it out to your customers and any potential customers. As you continue to gather leads, compile them to your newsletter recipient list. Keep in mind that when e-mailing a newsletter to multiple recepients, keep the recepients' names and addresses private. Your best option would be to use an email autoresponder.
One way to do this in most email programs is to put your contacts in a group or simply put all the addresses on the "bcc" line. (BCC means Blind Carbon Copy.)
You can pay someone to design a fancier email for you if you'd like, but a simple one as outlined above will serve its purpose. Almost all autoresponder services have templates you can use to make your newsletter look highly professional.
Follow these great fitness marketing tips and you will soon be reaping the rewards in your business!
Tips To Evolve Your Fitness Business
Forming a new fitness business? Want to grow your business but don't have a lot of money to invest? These ideas can get you started!
Options abound and you have lots of choices on how to nurture your fitness business without breaking the bank!
Set Up a Website
Websites are a great must do marketing strategy which also has the advantage of helping customers find you. If you know how to create one yourself that's GREAT, but if not, here are some alternative ideas to save you money.
- Know any young web gurus? Most kids nowadays know how to easily set up a basic website and would probably be willing to help you for 0 or less. Just make sure you proof their work before you give them the okay to go live with the site.
-You could make your own site using easy templates such as homestead.com or buildyoursite.com. These programs basically hold your hand and help you get a website going. Personally I think Wordpress is the easiest and most profitable way to build a website.
Be sure you list your services and promotions on your website, and keep in mind the type of people you want to attract to the site, catering your design and info to them. Remember to include contact info, prices, and hours.
Once your website is up and you're happy with it, submit it to the major search engines such as Yahoo! and Google. Use keywords that the people you want to find you would use when they search for you, including your location (city and surrounding area). Here's an example: LA fitness, LA personal training, LA weight loss, LA bootcamps, etc.
Low Cost Marketing Tips
One way to get free advertising is to post your fitness business services on Craigslist. You should post at least weekly to keep your ads fresh. Make sure you include searchable keywords (as in examples above) so your ad can be more easily found by search engines.
You can have business cards printed up quite inexpensively by using sites such as VistaPrint.com. Your business cards can have a similar design as your website for continuity, or you can use a template from the print company or elsewhere. Post these everywhere from grocery stores to the post office, and public park rest rooms to restaurants.
If there are large corporations in your area, talk to their HR department about offering a free demo class after work to their employees. Talk about how important fitness is to the health of employees and how it can help them work more efficiently and enjoy their jobs and lives more. If you get a good response from the employees when you do the free demo, offer an ongoing class or private sessions, whatever the company is interested in.
Look out for conferences, expos, and other health-related events happening locally. If you don't want to get a booth (these usually cost money) just take a stack of business cards, go be friendly and meet people!
Work for More Money Yet In Half The Time
Ever wonder how some trainers work minimal hours but still manage to live with all of the extras? The ones you see driving fancy cars, sporting new clothes and taking time off to head off to exotic destinations. What's their secret? These people achieve that lifestyle by harnessing different income sources that can sustain them wherever they may be.
If you don't l ook further than personal training, you're only getting paid for each hour you train. In this scenario, income is limited since people can only allot a certain amount of time each day for work. What makes this model worse is if you don't work, you don't get paid.
What about if you get hurt or sick? or you need a break?
The health and wellness sector is evolving into a trillion dollar a year industry. You can start breaking away from being a work slave by learning how to properly leverage your time and harnessing ways to secure residual income. Being a fitness trainer who possesses energy and great work ethics, building your own lifetime income source is only a matter of time and application of specific knowledge.
Being knowledgeable in the area of health and wellness, you can supplement your income by writing articles or books. More than likely you won't get paid while you are writing but once it is written you'll make money every time your article is printed or your book is sold. Take your favorite author for example. He/She dedicates time and effort to create a manuscript. However when the book gets published, they start raking in the money for each purchase. The author can be traveling, sleeping or even working on another business all together, and still be getting paid. Even long after they have passed away, their families still benefit from their work. Discovering residual income sources will enable you to make money for you and your loved ones in the future. Always think of extra ways to earn income for your personal trainer business.
An approach to leveraging your income is to employ other personal trainers. Working alone as a fitness instructor will mean that you're limited to hourly pay. Hiring other instructors can enable you to earn more money from their clients and classes. For example, let's say you employ five trainers on the floor, charging per session. If they give you a 50% cut on each session, you are looking at 200 hundred for an hour if all five are training at once. And that's above and beyond the earnings you already get from your own clients. The greatest thing about that is being paid whether you're there or not. A wider network will give you higher chances to succeed in other income-such as selling superior nutritional supplements or high quality workout gear.
These multiple streams of income will give you the freedom you've always wanted. You too can be that trainer with the flashy car and fly gear, sipping cocktails on the beach.
Simple Ways To Manage A Jam-Packed Schedule
Accomplished professionals manage their time with ease. We've all tossed around the phrase "Time is money," and since time is a precious resource, you want to be able to manage it well in order to rake in the cash and help your clients to success. As an element of my personal development training, I'm providing you with 3 top ways to target maximum results without a stressed out schedule.
Perhaps the most important tool for effective time management is knowing how to prioritize! So many personal trainers waste much of their time working on things that don't bear fruit for their fitness business, but you can save yourself that added stress by getting clear on your priorities. For example, do you spend a significant chunk of time cleaning your gym equipment, or organizing office files? If that's the case, you're tossing a whole lot of time out the window! Think about it this way: could you see a CEO of a major company cleaning office windows or filing bills? You know they don't. As a business owner, you need to focus on tasks that'll maximize profits and clientele loyalty, like endorsing health products or overseeing your killer website. If it's a job you can hire someone else to do in order to free up more of your time to work on tasks that will bring in more income, then do so.
Once you've got your priorities straight, you'll likely be looking at a few projects that are overwhelming in what they entail. To save yourself from the intimidation and stress of big projects, break them down into smaller ones. If you attack a large task as is, you're more likely to procrastinate and that can be the kiss of death to many small business owners. By breaking a project down into smaller bits, you'll complete your overall task in no time.
A good way to keep track of all your activities is to keep a log of your work. Just like when you ask your clients to keep track of their diet by writing down their food, or their workout by writing down reps, you can get a handle on your business by tracking your own work. Be consistent and you'll be amazed at how easy keeping a business log can be, and what a huge difference it makes in how well you spend your time.
Get The Clients: How To Win The Personal Trainer Marketing Game
If you want a successful personal trainer business, you will want to look into all your marketing options that are economically friendly and will generate profit.
Even if you are working with a shoestring marketing budget, you can use these simple ways to attract clients and see your business flourish. All you need is time and a good plan.
To start off, your own likable personality and positive outlook are your greatest attributes. These attributes will surely take you where you want to be. You want to come across as friendly and trustworthy.
If a person doesn?t like you, they are probably not going to choose you as a trainer. The best way to meet potential clients is to actually get out and meet people.
Spend time in the gym chatting with members; hit the tennis courts or even the golf courses.
Obviously, talk alone can only do so much for you. You always want to have business cards on you to hand out to people you meet. A well designed business card will create a very professional impression towards your potential clients. Printing out cards on your printer at home won?t cut it. Spend the couple extra dollars for quality cards.
Ever think about why many people (like Real Estate Agents) have their photo on their business card?
It?s because they know people are less likely to throw away a card that has a picture on it. So have you?re mug shot taken and place it on your card.
Marketing yourself as a fitness professional makes you stand out from the other trainers.
What do you do well?
Just announcing that you?re a personal trainer doesn?t necessarily tell people what you have to offer. Do you have an expertise in helping seniors? Are you looking for high level, competitive athletes? Do you favor training beginners? Identifying your own market will help you understand the suitable fitness marketing methods you should use and separates you from the other trainers.
These days people love free stuff. If you w ant to attract more people to your business, giving out free personal assessments or sessions to clients who make referrals is a good way to go. Personal assessments will help potential clients clearly see the need for a personal trainer like you. This is a great chance to exhibit your great people skills and use them to get the client.
New clients mean more money which you can then set aside some of it for marketing. There are a multitude of weekly community papers that offer very reasonable rates for business card size advertisements. This will give you exposure to a greater number of people and hopefully will fill up your remaining time slots.
By using these simple and affordable tools you will be booked to capacity in no time. A little leg work now equals a steady flow of clients and financial independence in the future.
A Surprising Secret That'll Generate Serious Income
It?s no secret that a major key to success as a Personal Trainer Business Owner is learning how to market yourself. But if you think that you need a bachelor?s degree in business in order to market your personal training business successfully, think again.
Believe it or not, lots of the most respected and prosperous leaders today know that the secret to success isn't a degree in marketing, but a level of authority that comes from confidence and knowledge. Not sure if you?ve got the stuff? These pointers will help you rise up tall and make your business shine:
Stand Up Straight.
No, your mother didn?t make me write that. You probably already know how much body language communicates without words, but make sure you notice what your posture is saying. If an aura of confidence emanates in your body your clients and business peers will pay attention.
Dress Appropriately.
Yes, how you look makes a difference, and the clothes you wear have a huge impact. Being a personal trainer doesn?t give you an excuse for wearing gym clothes when meeting with your accountant; make sure you dress appropriately, and pay attention to your grooming.
Pump Yourself Up.
If you?re still suffering from low self-confidence, try this exercise: every morning when you wake up, look at your reflection in the bathroom mirror and tell yourself why you?re so amazing. Maybe it?s because you?re such a good listener, or because you?re loyal to your clients. Speak out loud and repeat these reasons why you're so great again and again. Keep up with it and watch your self-confidence increase quickly.
You want to be seen as a leader with charisma.
Fake It ?Till You Make It.
Frazzled by a meeting in five minutes? Pause for a second, breathe deeply, and imagine that you are the President of the company or a super-successful businessman. The more you act confident, the more that it will become organic to you.
The confidence you have in yourself is essential for creating confidence in your fitness business. This is one of the most fundamental laws to success and wealth in any business.
Online Fitness Marketing Strategies for Fitness Professionals
As a personal trainer, you are well-versed with the best exercises for senior citizens who want to boost their flexibility. You know the steps that injured gymnasts or football players s hould take to return to the gym floor or football field. You can give expert suggestions, too, to that client trying to shed 50 pounds. But you need to do even more to operate a thriving personal-training business. You need to know the top online fitness marketing strategies, also.
All business people today, whether they're operating bakeries and landscaping services or operating their own financial or personal-fitness businesses, must know how to market themselves wisely. You might be the most knowledgeable personal fitness trainer in the area. But your personal training studio will falter if potential customers don't know where you are or what you offer.
Effective marketing is even more difficult today. Because of the Internet, you need to focus a significant percentage of your promotional efforts on Internet-based marketing strategies.
More of your potential clients than ever are finding the majority of their information from the Internet. They read the [country'snation's] best newspapers online each day. They pass information to and from social networking sites with names like Facebook and Twitter. Your potential clients are spending their mornings hanging out on Internet forums that cover their favorite topics. And they spend long hours studying blogs about current news, local matters and gossip.
If you want to market your personal-training enterprise to these potential clients, you have to become skilled at online marketing.
Start with running your own fitness blog. Blogs bring more attention from Internet search engines because they are so often updated with new content, something the biggest search engines appreciate. By operating a blog, you can also easily promote your personal training enterprise's biggest events, workshops and big promotions.
It's important, for personal trainers to consistently fill their blogs with fresh content. Visitors won't respect your business if they visit your blog only to find that it's been filled with new posts just three times this year. Remember, too, that you have to m arket your blog. The social networking sites are good for this.
It's possible to promote your fitness blog at message boards or forums frequented by the clients you are trying to attract. If you operate a personal-training business in LA, for example, you might decide to post information on the forums or message boards favored by the city's home-schooling moms and dads or supporters of the local sports team. Make sure to stop by these online forums frequently and post comments on them, being certain to include the URL of your blog or Web page.
Don't forget, that your posts need to be informative. If you instead post messages promoting your training skills, you will quickly be labeled as a spammer. You may even get locked out of the forum.
Another important online fitness marketing strategy should be to create a Facebook page and Twitter account for your fitness business. Make comments and posts on these social networking hubs as frequently as you can to gain friends and followers. Treat your posts on these sites like miniature blog posts: Write about your business' special fall prices or promote that new aerobics class you're running.
These online fitness marketing strategies may seem odd if you're never done a significant amount of promotion on the Web. But if you follow these tips, you'll find that they provide a profitable boost to your personal training studio.
Skillful Strategies For Handling Anxiety as a Personal Trainer
Professional Strategies For Managing High Business Anxiety
It?s only human nature to worry; but when you?re starting your own personal training business, it can be very easy to feel bogged down by anxiety. If you?re the one running the show, time can seem like a trickster that laughs as you struggle, seeming without any hope of getting everything done!
Every business owner has gone through the stresses of feeling like it?s all too much. But you have to be certain that your anxiety isn?t diminishing how you manage your business. Here are some proven ways to get back on track:
Figure Out Your Priorities.
If you?re just completing random tasks as they pop up, you?re not using your most important commodity effectively ? time. Next time you?re exhausted by a full plate, try this tip: list everything that you need to do, and then rank them from most important to least important. Concentrate on the more important jobs, then go on. Things down the list probably don?t need to get done.
Don?t Be A Slave To Technology.
Thanks to today?s technology, we can be in touch with our friends and family 24/7. Unfortunately, this can eat up your time like nothing else. Give yourself certain times each day to get through your email and check phone messages, and be true to that schedule! Otherwise, you can easily get sidetracked by emails and calls that can wait until later in the day.
Learn How To Say No.
Occasionally, a customer will ask for too much of your time, for very little gain. Save yourself the headache by learning how to say no to high-maintenance projects. Your stress levels will be grateful.
Map Out Your Day.
You can handle your customers and paperwork more efficiently - and with less worry - if you plan your day ahead of time. Do what you can to stick to the schedule as much as possible, and you?ll find your anxiety levels lowering nicely.
There?s no magic formula that will guarantee you a worry-free career, but these tips are great ways to get a handle on major stress that can pop up on the job. Remember, take a deep breath and get clear in what you want to do, then everything will look a lot more approachable.
Internet Marketing: Take It From Obama
Barack Obama displayed great internet marketing techniques during his bid for the presidency.
Obama looked better on the Web than John McCain, and that was enough to earn him the title of Mr. President.
Historian often credit John F. Kennedy's presidential win over Richard Nixon in 1960 to the fact that Kennedy simply looked more comfortable on television. Nixon was too stiff. Kennedy looked cool and calm. He looked like a president.
In the 2008 election, the Internet was television. Obama was more adaptive of the power of the internet compared to McCain.
McCain never did seem to understand just how important the online world was. Obama had reached out to the young voters of the United States through sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. He encouraged them to donate money, buy t-shirts, paste bumper stickers on their cars and pass out Obama buttons to their friends and neighbors.
Now that he's president, Obama is still relying on the Web and its social networking sites. Have you seen his moves for the new health insurance regulations. Obama tweets regularly via Twitter encouraging his constituents to send letters to the local dailies and attend pro-reform rallies.
An Internet-obsessed world
All this adds up in today's Internet-focused world. Obama reached internet celebrity status during the campaigns. McCain couldn't keep pace with him. But internet marketing is something not only Obama knows.
What does all this have to do with your personal training business?
Everything.
No matter our politics, we can all learn one thing from Barack Obama: If you want to be truly heard today, you need to focus more than ever on Internet marketing.
You want to attract new clients, right? You need a regular influx of new trainees to keep you business running, especially in these financially slumped times. Going the traditional way of marketing will still tap potential clients: newspaper ads, flyers on the go, and radio and TV spots.
But if you want to attract the attention of young people, the same people who helped push Obama over the top in his presidential bid, you'll need to become a pro at using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and YouTube. These are the sites that young people visit. And some of them visit these sites religiously.
Using the Internet to draw in clients
Post tweets on your Twitter account about any specials you'll be running this month. Announce new yoga sessions on Facebook. Have a friend who's good with a video camera create homemade advertisements for your personal training business that you can then post on YouTube. You can use your MySpace page to advertise a referral promotion where you give existing clients a coupon for free coffee for every new client they bring to your business. Your creativity is the only measure when it comes to harnessing the marketing power of social networking sites.
Best of all, advertising on these sites is free. If you're like most business owners today, you don't have a lot of spare cash to throw around. Free marketing is definitely a bonus of today's Internet-obsessed society.
Just don't forget to promote your blogs, Twitter pages and Facebook site. It won't work to your advantage if nobody knows about them.
So next time you find yourself complaining that an Obama press conference is pre-empting your favorite sitcom, remind yourself of one thing: This president, whether you like him or hate him, can teach you a lot about effective Internet marketing.
Grow Your Career By Improving Communication
Better Communication With Your Clients And Peers
Your career as a personal trainer is built on a solid foundation of being able to communicate well with your clients, for without your motivation and guidance they'd have a hard time getting such excellent results, right? However, when it comes to your own personal training business, the way you communicate can be the difference between spectacular success and mediocrity. But don't stress here's a few expert suggestions for increasing your verbal effectiveness that'll wow both your clients and your professional peers.
Eye Contact Is Key.
Maybe eye contact isn't stressed as a necessity in communicating with your clients after all, you can't exactly face them when they're doing a push up but when you're meeting with professionals, look them in the eye while you're speaking. If you're looking around while speaking to a nutritional product or equipment supplier, they're going to wonder how competent you are and your relationship will suffer.
Be Aware Of Body Language.
The way you look or stand or move while talking can be more important than the words you say. An easy example: can you think of how much better you yourself react when someone speaks with a smile rather than a frown? People can be very sensitive to body language make sure you're aware of it matching your message.
Use Appropriate Speech Volume.
It may sound amusing, but often fitness instructors who've been yelling encouragement in the gym forget that they're using the same volume of speech over to meetings with professionals. Sure, you've been in a gym all day but your associate has not, and will be disconcerted by an unnecessarily loud voice. Remember to check your tone of voice when you're communicating.
Lower Your Voice.
Unfortunately, female personal trainers are most vulnerable to this pitfall, as high-pitched voices often conjure up child-like images, which is off-putting to business peers. Make a conscious effort to lower the pitch of your voice when speaking, and you'll be seen by your peers and clients as more confident and competent.
It's no secret that effective communication can make or break you, both personally and professionally. Of course, as a instructor, you already have a established foundation for your strong interpersonal abilities! Once you start using these tips, youlll be able to better understand how to communicate effectively to both your clients and peers, helping you achieve wild success as a business owner.

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