1. Work ON your business, not just IN your business.  If it is a fitness business you operate then treat it like a business and not a job.  There is much behind the client interaction scenes that MUST receive attention.
   
2. Have a plan. Goals with no plan to accomplish or measuring sticks along the path will simply become unfulfilled goals.
3. Surround yourself with great people.  You will reflect the qualities of those you associate with.  Choose your friends and mentors wisely.
4. Specialize your fitness service.  Work to your strengths to fulfill specific needs.  This becomes your niche and you become the expert of that niche.
5. Work on the things that deliver.  The return on your investment is key both financially and maybe even more so for your time.  Outsource and delegate the small stuff and concentrate where the business has the greatest return potentials.
6. Purposeful use of time and tools.  Distractions are everywhere including some of the greatest social media tools available to you.  Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Email and more can be huge time sinks, yet they are excellent tools for spreading your message.  Schedule your time in these areas to keep control of your time.
7. Tap into hidden opportunities.  These are only hidden if you do not utilize them.  Up sell, cross sell, and down sell are traditional marketing practices that help you appropriate place offers in front of customers who are already at a purchase level with you.
8. Ask for the referral.  Obvious, but often missed.  Let customers and co workers know what you are looking for.  Referrals are powerful as you start from a more trusted position when their friend gives you the thumbs up to start.
9. Work from a list.  Again, cutting out distractions makes you efficient.  Create a daily task list and check them off.  Only after should the distracters be given your valuable time.
10. Master your craft.  There are many snake oils salesmen out there in the fitness industry.  They are not just the goofy ab machines either.  Whether you have developed a silver tongue or not, you should always be able to back up your exercise prescriptions based on current research and standards.  Keep learning and participate in industry education, follow blogs of respected fitness professionals and participate in mastermind programs.
11. Improve the experience.  Deliver extraordinary experience to your clients and students. Set yourself apart by focusing on enhancing customer experiences.
12. Don’t wait for perfect.  More than anything I have witnessed outstanding programs that could have truly changed lives never get off the ground.  They went to the wayside as one thing or another was never quite good enough.  Do as FaceBook does and get the program to a  reasonably acceptable level and let it roll.  Improve and tweak as you go.

Now these are some great items of advice from six awesome fitness professionals.  To read the full list from Kelli Calabrese, Stephen Cabral, Todd Durkin, Shelby Murphy, Bedros Keuilian or Pat Rigsby, go to PFP Magazine.

—–My 2 additional Success Strategies would include Goal creation and achievement strategies and the framing of the situation with scripted planning.

Goals- specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and possibly most important, time sensative.  Most have heard of these “S.M.A.R.T.” goals, but do you have a plan specific for attaining the goal? Are you being held accountable by other trusted peers?  Do you write down your goals and post them in often seen locations?
Targeted goals are powerful.  Use them appropriately and hold yourself accountable to attain them.

Practiced Scripts – Not that every word is planned out, but being prepared with leading topics as you tour a facility or run a potential client through an assessment.  ie when you show the treadmill you should be practiced at asking leading questions that help the potential client understand that they do not know all protocols for cardiovascular training, that there are ways to use it most efficiently, and an educated fitness professional would be an excellent choice in learning to optimally use that equipment.  Lot’s of areas of the gym to do similar.

What might you add to this list?

We’ve been talking about some of the changes to the new Fitness Pro Travel that will be released in the next few weeks.  Sharing your content is one of the areas that just got more valuable.

With the new website your content will still remain an easily accessible information tool for the entire community.  What is changing and bringing you much greater value is the viewablity of many of your content items directly to the internet at large.  The hundreds of millions of internet users will be able to access your content without being required to have an account at fitness pro travel.

This means you information, your author bio, and your links back to your own website just got free display and marketing punch from Fitness Pro Travel.

Do you currently utilize content marketing to drive traffic to your website?  There are many online opportunities available for you to do that and we are glad to make our resource to the fitness professional even more beneficial.

This time I hope to talk a bit more specifically on a few simple ways for you to share your affiliate code with other fitness industry people.

The following video on affiliate marketing covers:

• Adding a link to FaceBook
• Adding a link to your Outlook Signature Area
• Utilizing the “Tell-A-Friend” feature @ Fitness Pro Travel
• And, Utilizing your affiliate number in printed material and in presentations.

More on Affiliate Marketing?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-pzEPacVFQ

Be The Fit Pro For Celeb Retreat

It reminded me of a new feature we offer our member fitness professionals.

The new feature hasn’t been highlighted much as our collaborating partners are still working out final details with the all-inclusive resorts they contract with.  But, ultimately it will be an opportunity to participate as part of a rock star celebrity entourage when they do one of these travel based marketing events or even more often when they seek a celebrity retreat get away for themselves and family or friends.

Playing the role of celebrity can be difficult to turn off and get away from.  This is the reason some of the higher end Caribbean hospitality settings we send our fitness professionals to are requesting we work with them to provide private celebrity group fit pros while they enjoy their time out of the spot light. A bit of a celebrity retreat.

This will be very exciting and prestigious for the Fit Pro…. So how do we sort to the right Fit Pro?

With thousands of fitness professionals in our fitness industry network it could be quite a task in sorting through and selecting the celebrity retreat Fit Pro. We do have several methods of sorting through based on experience and education.

From there we will sort based upon  the account type of the Fitness Pro.  I believe when those opportunities arise to travel with the Rock Star and join in on a “celebrity retreat” it is important that we support those who most support the community first. (as a matter of fact, many decisions will follow that pecking order).

This does not mean that just because you have selected a “Travel” level account that you have no chance to occupy the coveted celebrity retreat fit pro spot, but if all else is equal you may fall behind another fit pro.

I pass on this information to highlight this very cool new travel based marketing and celebrity retreat program that has begun recently with the other changes to our network, primarily for your information and secondarily to highlight one more instance where your consideration of a premium account at Fitness Pro Travel can bring you any one of many benefits.

Adding these new benefits to the other premium account privileges and the Fit Pro Partner benefits – well you get the idea.  Looking forward to see you inside.

BTW – I’m putting my name in for when Bret Michaels and the Rock of Love contestants need to break away for a little rock star get-a-way time. - Which celeb would you most want to be the celebrity retreat fit pro for?