Following is a recent VLOG from Suzelle and if you are member of the community and/or ever enjoy the benefits of one of her teaching vacations, you’ll want to stay up to date on these weekly vlogs titled “Everything Fit Bodies”.

Login at Fitness Pro Travel, upgrade your account, and take full advantage of the many community features and ALL the travel opportunities.

*The discount is over, but the Premium Account Fees go up soon.  Act before the 1st for getting the best pricing.

**Do you direct a Gym, Bootcamp, Church or community organization that would benefit from a community based online platform?  <<MORE>>

When sorting out how to display a new feature (basic accounts can now view all available dates, even for those products they are not allowed to book) that was just put in this weekend I realized it is valuable enough to require mention here so that it reaches beyond only those going through the tutorial.

As FPT members have always known, you cannot access certain products if you do not qualify for them based upone your certified specialty skills.

As of this most recent upgrade to the social commerce platform you have likely noticed the access for those maintaining a “BASIC” or free account is a bit limited.

Hundreds of fitness professional immediately recognized the value of community membership and the expenses that go into not only Fit Bodies travel program, but also the building and maintaining of this high function site.

As expected, there are many who were not quite as  confident about immmediately upgrading their account to any of the three premium options.  This also created several questions that these most recent changes will help answer.

Previous to this weekend BASIC account holders could only access the short description and details pages of resorts that were considering traveling to…. That was unless those members were clicking directly on the 15 opportunities that are available to that group.

What this created was an issue where BASIC account members were not sure they wanted to upgrade just yet, until they knew that dates were available for the locations (which were not in the basic category) were available.

No More…

Now ALL ACCOUNTS can manuever all the way to the “Add To Cart” page for positions they qualify for.  The red pop up notice to BASCIC accounts will now come up only when they click the “Add To Cart” button.

This now gives the BASIC accounts, similar to all of the Premium Accounts access to the drop down menu so you can see what is remaining available for you to book whether you need to go upgrade first or not.

Sorry for the long winded explination, but mucho better now. 
Helpful???

Bad Things Happen

Happy to say that most are getting around well and the many accounts (not bad out of 12,000 though) for whom we had to adjust their login to help them access are back in and active.

Surprising to me though is a use issue with the new vacation search tool that so many people use.  It is slightly different than in the past but provides many great benefits to scheduling the teaching vacations than the previous tool did.

Now, instead of searching week by week as in the old, you simply select a day from within the week that you would like to travel….. A list of resorts that have a week with that date available pull up with their short descriptions.

Since there is generally a Sunday overlap there are essentially two individual week blocks that share the same date.  One may end on a particular date and the next will begin on that same date.

From those search results a person would then click on the individual resort and on the add to cart page they would see specifically which week is available for booking.  Can be a pain for the searcher if you were looking for the week that isn’t actually available.  (SO – we are adding an element that will show you the available week dates in the first results screen rather than going all the way to the product page)

As is it should be nothing more than an inconvenience (again, which we are working on).  And, it should be only an inconvenience because we all know to NOT BOOK FLIGHTS until confirmation comes (within 48 hours usually sooner) on your booking……… And even more prominent than that is to certainly not book flights before you’ve even tried to book the dates at Fitness Pro Travel.

There is no guarantee that the dates will be available from one minute to the next as there are a lot of fitness professions utilizing this Fit Bodies program.

This information is splattered through out the site and is in the terms that you had to mark that you read when you created your account.  It’s also common sense.

* This is why many subscribe to the Enterprise Level Account so that they have access before the rest of the community on dates.

You likely can imagine I am not ranting on this subject without reason.

Yes, it has happened in the past that fitness professionals have bypassed the rules and booked flights before notice and even before actually booking the dates in the system…. and Suzelle has always worked when this caused a conflict to find a way to make it work (she’s got stories).

She, Denise, Erica, Lisa, and Alison all have to use the oops cleaners from time to time, but an oops that includes paying for air travel can be expensive.

It may not always be the case that they can fix your oops.  And, since we are starting fresh in our new site digs i thought I’d share this very important topic and hopefully head off one or more potential future “Oopsies”.

Make it a Great Day!

Related articles

• Sorting Hat of Fit Pro Vacations (fitprobiz.com)
• Booking A Resort Fitness Teaching Vacation (fitprobiz.com)

When 10,000+ fitness professionals come through and check it out, I am certain there will be other “challenges” that arise. We fully intend to lose the next couple of weekends chasing those items down, but hope that all the major functionalities will continue to prove themselves solid.

We appreciate your patience, feedback, and notification for challenges you may run into.

Keep an eye out for our mailing system check on Monday.  Rumor has it that Suzelle will be offering a bribe for your patients with any issues and assistance with getting this greater functioning website rolling. 

The Fitness Pro Travel site will be down starting at 6pm Pacific tonight until sometime Monday morning.

Similar but Different

While we’ve been talking about these changes for the past two months, I am certain there will be some that will be caught by surprise.  That will likely make next week a busy week of answering questions.

For those of you who have taken the time to read through some of these recent blog posts, I hope that the transition is relatively simple…. I’ve added several links to the bottom of this post for you to reference if you want to look back at all of those sneak peak statements while the site is shut down for a couple days.

Final Site Update:

If you looked close enough to the above image you might have noticed the slight change in the look of the Fitness Pro Travel site.  This image change reflects a slight change in agreement on the areas that Fit Bodies and Fit Launch work together for various elements of the community. To you, the end user, functional procedures for your community and travel experience will be very similar.

Fit Bodies, Inc. will become the domain owner of fitnessprotravel.com and therefore we are updating the site to better reflect their presence and program within the site.

The community will run on FIT Launch’s Community Commerce Cart and Fit Bodies and FIT Launch will work together to service the many aspects and benefits that come with being part of this community.

I’ve covered quite a bit over the past two months.  I hope you’re excited for the slight yet significant functional improvements in coming this next week.  Your patience as we work out any kinks is appreciated.

Checkout these posts for various aspects of the changes to the Fitness Pro Travel website.

• A New Fitness Platform
• Fit Pro Details
• Booking A Resort Fitness Teaching Vacation
• Sorting Hat of Fit Pro Vacations
• Red Warning Pop Ups
• Updating Fit Travel Tutorials
• Sharing Your Fitness Content

Still here and reading?  I just talked with Suzelle a few minutes ago. We wanted to come up with something to assist in easing the growing pains with operating a brand new system/website… Because their will likely be hiccups that you the user will find and ideally pass on to us to fix (in a friendly manor), she want to provide a small discount code you may use if you like to thank you for your patience and your assistance.

Watch for Monday’s email for details.

Simple links to various informational pages that have been built over the years or updating contact templates or automatic order responders… each require much attention to detail so that no major items are missed.

With just over a week before our currently scheduled website move I want to remind all 12,000+ members that it might not be a bad idea to do your own house cleaning with your account.

Make a copy of past or future trips scheduled

Note you bio, experience, and education descriptions, what groups you are in, and which other pros you have already connected with.  While I don’t expect any major issues in any of these areas from the move, it is likely best to be safe all the way around (yes, we are making an entire backup of the existing site, but not all that easy to grab so we’ll be trying not to need it).

I do expect that some links, directions, even potentially some content will be askew and I hope that all community members will take the time to inform us of any issues you run into.  There are bound to be some that we will not find or notice.

See Ya on Moving Day!

We’ve covered the methods for updating your fitness professional profile at Fit Pro Travel.  We then covered the various ways to search and select the location for your teaching vacation at a tropical Caribbean resort that best fits you and your guests preferences.

Today, lets cover your booking process…

First, know that when you utilize the Fit Bodies teaching vacation programs, don’t wait for them to call you.  You’re account has been reviewed and its up to you to review the travel opportunity options and follow that up with adding specific dates to your cart for your own fitness teaching vacation.

Second, recall that if you can navigate to the booking page (the one with “add to cart”) your account is approved to book any available dates from the drop down date menu.

Within the new Fitness Pro Travel platform the booking process is very much the same as it is currently.  There are two significant differences:

1. As mentioned in a previous post, Basic Accounts (free accounts) will only be able to access 15 potential teaching vacation locations.  All good, but you will be limited beyond what your specific specialty qualifications allow you to access.
2. You will now designate from a second drop down menu on each travel product which specialty you will be traveling as.  Several resorts provide “either/or” options for the types of skills the pro must posses to utilize the program at their location.

As an example – you may have both ‘group fitness instructor’ and ‘yoga instructor’ as qualified positions for your account.  You may come to a product that offers the travel opportunity to group fitness OR yoga OR personal trainer.  You would be able to designate any of those three as the specialty you would be traveling under.

• group fitness would be fine, and you would have just designated this as your primary specialty to be utilized on your exchange trip
• yoga instructor would be fine, and you would have just designated this as your primary specialty to be utilized on your exchange trip
• But – it would be wrong to designate personal trainer as you do not have that specialty approved in this example.  in the end fit bodies would catch that error as would the resort eventually on arrival, but all in all it will be much easier if you carefully and appropriately select the specialty type you will be traveling under. (you do have to designate at booking).

You’ll pretty much be able to do as you’ve always done in the actual booking process with only those few tweaks…. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Making it as easy as possible for you to find, select, and book the perfect setting for your Fit Bodies teaching vacation has always been a high priority at Fitness Pro Travel.
Improving this sorting & finding functionality has continued to be a prime goal in the current site changes as well.

Highlighting Some of the Options You’ll Have:

Search Box – similar to current and in the same left hand border available for you to utilize from the moment you log in.

Shop Travel Spots – is a section just below the search box that gives you a quick link to several new categories for searching by directory.

Travel Categories – the primary or root categories at FPT are the Pro Shop and the Travel Spots.  The categories under travel spots allow you to specifically pull up all resorts that meet that specific criteria.  They include:

• By Country
• By Specialty
• By Family Resorts
• By Adult Only Resorts
• By Locations on Sale
• By Resorts Accepting Multiple FitPros Each Week
• By Available only to Premium Account Holders
• By Locations Available to Basic Account Holders

Travel Spots Tab – (My Favorite) – From this top level tab of all pages you can access a directory of all resort options.  You also have access to each of the categories mentioned above. AND here you will find an alphabetical listing of each resort.  By clicking on any location on that list you are brought to a information or details page for that location.  You’ll get many details here and near the top you can click on “book now” to go to the booking page.  (there is also an email link to your resort consierge, a link to an resort group at FPT for this location, and a link to their facebook fan page).

Index Quick Search – The first time you come to the new Fitness Pro Travel site you will notice “Book A Trip” and “My Trips” links.  Book a trip allows you to quickly select a country and a date and then search.  Logged in or not you will see a list of any availabilities in the system that meet your selected criteria (to book you’ll need to login)

Sort Your Results – after you have followed any of the methods above you may come up with one result or up to 60 results depending upon how narrow of a search you do.  From however big that list may be you can now sort your results. You can do this by:

1. Relevance
2. Price (low to high OR high to low)
3. Name (A to Z OR Z to A)
4. Brand (A to Z OR Z to A)
5. Average Rating

The bottom line is that you have many options in searching for a teaching vacation.  By trying a couple different methods out you will find the most efficient method to match your interests and personality up with the right location.

This will make for an ideal get a way for you and your guest!

Anyone have favorite methods in finding locations as it is now?  What else would help you best match up your ideal setting?

Until next time…..

(search the for the tag “NEW FPT” for all posts specific to the upcoming new fitnessprotravel.com website release)

Related articles

• Red Warning Pop Ups (fitprobiz.com)
• Your Fitness Specialty at FPT (fitprobiz.com)
• Sharing Your Fitness Content (fitprobiz.com)
• Updating Fit Travel Tutorials (fitprobiz.com)

A Fitness Community

When you do log into your Fit Pro Travel account within the new fitness pro travel community website you may notice your first red warning pop up right off the bat.

There are several reasons you might run into one of these, credit card info entered incorrectly or failure to fill in all fields that are required in a form are common ones you might expect.  But, within the FPT community and the Fit Bodies teaching vacation program there are a few unique and new ones you may notice…

A FEW EXAMPLES

“You need to add a profile photo“.  This message comes in a red box and lands at the top of your “my account” page until you add at least one image of yourself for your profile.  You may change the photo as often as you like, but if you remove it the red box message will be back to advise you once again…. A profile photo is required of all accounts prior to utilizing the travel program.        

“Your specialties do not allow you access to this product“.  This message may appear if your approved specialties do not match the requested specialty options of the resort you are trying to access.  From your “edit profile” link in the Account drop down menu yo can scroll down to see all the specialties you are qualified for.  You can also follow the link there to see how to add other specialties.

“Your account type does not allow you access to this product“.  As part of the new system the account types (basic, travel, medallion, & enterprise) have a few new accessibility differences. One of those new differences is that the free basic accounts can only access 15 teaching vacation options.  That means there is still room for a person to have a free account and use the travel program, but to have potential access to all 60 (btw- soon to be many more) teaching vacation opportunities you will have to invest in the community as any one of the premium accounts.

This was a tough compromise as the expenses of building and maintaining the teaching vacation program and the robust information & communication based website has been an expensive venture, but Suzelle really wanted to keep some options open for those who feel they cannot incur the added expense.

Each red warning pop up in the fitness industry community carries an explanation and most contain a link should you want further information.  Hopefully that will keep things clear for all.

Happy Travels.

Related articles

• Sharing Your Fitness Content (fitprobiz.com)

Image via Wikipedia

I was thinking today of adding another topic for those of you following along to keep you in the know for upcoming Fitness Pro Travel site.  There are many small changes you will see right away, several others you won’t notice at all, and still more to follow up shortly thereafter.

What sent a small chill down my neck was the fact that I need to update the entire fit travel tutorial series.

It’s not a huge deal, but will take some time.  I will send out another link for all who went through it the first time so that you have an opportunity to run through it once again and catch all the fine details of the site changes.

Separate of that and more an issue of appearance than function is the change to the top logo branding of the site.  Really, the prime advertising spot.  We, FIT Launch built this

community for the many benefits of the fitness professional, but we also built it with the concept of fitting perfectly with the offering of the

Fit Bodies, Inc. travel program.

Picture of the Month - Oct 2011

The majority of fitness professionals utilizing the site do so with the primary or a very near secondary intent of taking advantage of that program…. To better reflect that we simply are branding the site better reflecting our respective roles.

Instead of FIT Launch’s Fitness Pro Travel Community consigning the Fit Bodies Inc travel program; We are putting Fit Bodies front and center in the logo spot and simply noting to the side and bottom border that their opportunities are being offered within a FIT Launch Community.

No service changes to the user accept that we believe it may be a bit less confusing to new members.  Ultimately, we intend for it to be a part of providing the fitness professional outstanding service.

Are you one of those who had confusion over the travel program in the past? Do you think this might keep it a bit more clear when traveling that you are utilizing the Fit Bodies program?

….. Now, off to Fit Beach and we’ll talk more about what the new system will do to the Free vs. Premium accounts in the near future….

Related articles

• Your Fitness Specialty at FPT (fitprobiz.com)
• Sharing Your Fitness Content (fitprobiz.com)
• Search-Research-Book: How to (fitprobiz.com)