G+ provides the feature of messaging only to the specific circles alleviate this issue… If we only had a fan page there and 250M folks were hanging out, it would become very worthwhile to utilize the Google Social Network… I have an account there now and am excited for the fruition of both.

I’m sure Google is working on allowing business pages.  Actually I hear there is beta testing with some going on.  At the same time, I know FaceBook is working on some of the cool features currently only found in G+. (group chat, group video, deletion of messages, and of course the messaging circles)

Google may still display a heavy geek factor as it has thus far been primarily inhabited by the techno savvy.  But if any other company has the potential to turn the corner, provide mass appeal and actually compete with that other social media behemoth, it’s likely Google who can make it happen.

If nothing else, they are already forcing some positive additions and changes at FaceBook.  Hopefully the “circles” concept will follow as well.

Ever been to a fitness workshop or wandered a conference expo and been amazed by some of the toys and movements that have become so popular in our industry?

How about this, have you ever been humbled by said toys or movements? Meaning, you try, you look like an absolute idiot because you don’t know what your doing?

I have! Better yet, I’ve gone in thinking I was strong and centered but come out feeling foolish and ridiculous because I can’t figure out how to engage this or that, while I swing from the apparatus or stand on the toy.

Of course, if you are a like-minded fitness pro you will keep practicing the activity because you bought the damn thing that made a fool out of you, and will have it down within a week to 10 days. It’s that learning curve that gets us at first, but once we understand the technical side of things we can usually master the skill. Well, most of the time anyways.

Yes, I’ve been humbled, embarrassed, shocked and amazed by some of the things my body does and does not do when it is called upon. Let’s just think for a moment how our clients and class participants feel when we introduce things to them for the first time. Put yourself in the shoes of a beginning exerciser who comes to a unstable core training class for the first time- poor dears! They are still wondering how to stand or sit on the object and now you want them to engage their core and perform a one-legged push-up. Are we crazy?

I think at times we can be a little crazy. We are creative and we love a challenge because that’s what we encourage others to do, but we often forget that not everybody is up for the circus fitness trick that we are trying to teach or train. I see this a lot more in group exercise classes than I do in personal training sessions, unless it is a boot camp session taught by a trainer.

It often frustrates me because these participants feel defeated and lost in the activity. “I can’t keep up with that!” “How do you expect me to do that?” are comments I hear.

They want to perform and they should be able to do something, but the fit pro is lost in excitement of their super, cool one-legged balance drill. Personally, sometimes it seems like they are showing off (showcasing) their skills rather than teaching their group properly, which is one of the reasons participants may feel lost in translation. Professionally speaking this is not acceptable behavior for a certified fitness pro!

As a fellow fitness presenter I understand the need to show progressions and cool tricks on toys. Reason being is we want to show the versatility and level of difficulty of exercise progression.

I don’t expect everyone to walk out of my sessions with the idea they are doing to teach every challenging thing the next day, rather I want them to see where it can go and hopefully open up their minds to the vast challenge and creative pulse that feeds their individual style.

We need to remember first and foremost we are professionals. We educate, train, motivate and model exercises that fit into our group or individual training sessions. We are not performers who encourage a “keep up with me” attitude or try to showcase our ability to do the most amazing human tricks on earth. Save that for your advanced clients, classes or for your You Tube videos.

Be enthusiastic, compassionate and show modifications and/or break-down complex movements into smaller bits people can handle.

Who knows, maybe with good teaching and training tactics they will be performing those humbling circus tricks with gusto. Then you can stand proud and bang on your chest in response to their super human strength and ability.

Amy

They provide a great blog and I encourage you to take a look at some great ideas for utilizing inbound marketing.

Mile Run Fitness Event

As a fitness professional nearly everything we do can be broken down into a fitness event of some type. It may be large or small, recurring or a single occurrence. Even if you wouldn’t think of a particular activity as a “fitness event”, if you can find a way to position it as such, you will find added power in your promotional efforts.

The below 8 points will assist you in promoting your next fitness event.

I would like to point out how the HubSpot promotion ideas relate specifically to the majority of you who follow this blog and participate in the Fitness Pro Travel community.

1. Event website or event page either way it is important to have a location to point to as you begin promotions.
   Especially if it is a new website for the event get it up and establish a link or two pointing to it.  This is important for your natural search potential in allowing the search engines to find you.  This item alone can go on for optimization, but essentially, anything is much better than nothing.
2. Utilizing your network to spread event news is relatively simple. Hopefully you have an established presence with a blog or social media connections, but for the fitness professional you should be leveraging to the offline world as well. Think clients, students, athletes, coaches, running groups, etc. that you work with. They are part of your network and you should ensure they are aware.
   You don’t have any of that, start with family and friends.
3. Each of those mentioned in item 2 above has a network of their own.  Do not miss the opportunity to encourage them to share your event with their networks.
   Take it a step further and find ideal champions for your cause.  People with influence or huge networks warrant greater effort and possibly even partnering compensation. The same is true for persons of stature within your industry. With their assistance to your event you can gain a great deal of authority to the cause.
4. Looking to related groups who may find interest in your event can be very beneficial.  HubSport offers some great on-line suggestions as groups are easy to find, but offline this same philosophy holds true. Seek out these community groups in both locations to continue to build event interest.
5. Everything about creating a community feeling around your event is a good thing, offline and online.  You have fans that have interest and will attend your event. Providing a community around the event may just be what is needed to turn them into Raving Fans.  Get a few of these and you will find your event being promoted far and wide for you.
6. Creating content is an awesome natural manner to generate interest in your event.  Getting others who are involved in the event to do the same compounds the effect. Search engines love it and potential interested parties may be coming to you pre-sold after they witnessed a good piece of content.
   Use multiple formats (articles, video, audio, blog, bulletins, forums, etc.) to reach folks in different places.
   In the offline world this could be articles to publications, speaking engagements, or healthy tidbits added to a company newsletter.
7. HubSpot suggests adding event tags to all online content created. This is becoming more common with the advent of Twitter. There is merritt in it, but you’ll want to educate yourself up on how these are best utilized.
8. Finally, one of the most simple not mentioned is the simple use of event calendars.  There are thousands on various topics you can find online. Many are related to health and fitness. Some do and some do not require payment to be listed.  Ultimately you want to look at those who utilize the calendar. Is that community related and interested in your event. You then may want to evaluate the traffic to that page or the size of the community. Alexa.com is probably the easiest way to get a rough estimate on internet activity.
   Offline you will find community event sections in local news publications, your event may also be allowed in local group newsletters, as well as some event calendars exist in community meeting spots. If your event is specific to a locality, don’t miss these options.

The above points are excellent and I hope you will utilize them with your next event promotion. To tie this to the Fitness Pro Travel community and how this community you are involved in assists with these principles, let me do a quick line by line tie in.

1. Once your event page is created, utilize the FPT blog, articles, bulletins to point people back to it.
2. Be active at FPT and build a network (friendships) with other members of the community.
3. Because of the ‘live web’ platform at FPT, those you network with are also building networks. Ask for their help in spreading word of event.
4. Search through groups at FPT to find communities that are established who may be interested in event.
5. Create your own group around the event. Use your network to drive other FPT members to it and grow an internal community within the larger community.
6. Write blog posts, bulletin updates, articles, and talk in forums at FPT to generate knowledge and enthusiasm for your event.  Very powerful options for spreading the message inside and outside FPT
7. And finally, do what you probably could have or should have done first and post your event to the events calendar. Simple to do and directed to the appropriate audience. The calendar is search-able and is viewed by hundreds of community members daily.

As you’ve read through this post you have seen obvious and not so obvious means to promoting your event.  These principles hold true for your business as well.

Promotion of anytype will be enhanced when it can be wrapped around or tied to an event. The event doesn’t have to be your own creation, it may be a simple sale event that is tied to a national holiday. Promoting around that larger event can provide you added bang for your buck and extend your reach.

The following table contains the heading points for the three articles. Column one is the list from Todd Durkin’s article “Top 10 Ways to Drive Revenue in a Downtrodden Economy”.  Column two is from Tom Terwilliger’s article “Your Business and the Economic Slowdown”. The third and
final column “The Scary Times Success Manual” is the list by Dan Sullivan.

Each offer some great advice for the fitness professional, not just the personal trainer. Below the table I’ve taken the opportunity in
combining these principles row by row.

This is a very important time to be positive and proactive in your fitness business. There are many things you can do to not only maintain, but also expand your training business, even during tough economic times.

Row 1 – Don’t devalue yourself. During tough economic times you will see many reduce the service or product fees they charge. This ultimately reduces the perceived value of your product or service. Instead provide add on services as bonuses. These do not have to take extremes in added time or expense, but can easily increase the value of your offering.

Row 2 – It’s all about amp-ing up your message. Marketing is simply building relationships and your job during times like these is to strengthen existing bonds and to actively pursue new ones. Writing new health & fitness articles is a great example of providing more to your existing relationships inexpensively and functions greatly for marketing when published to the public via the internet or print.

Row 3 – Establishing services that are economical for the participant can also be lucrative for you. Take the growing “bootcamp” model as an example. Providing training to groups will lower the cost to the participant/client and also allow you an opportunity to make even more revenue for your time invested. These are nothing more than session camps and can be provided under any format. Take a look into bootcamp training and adapt it to fit your expertise. These programs are in demand and growing for very good reason.

Row 4 – This row seems to echo row 3. Look to group opportunities, related offerings, add on products,  membership (continuity) options, inside and outside the club setting, etc.  Now is not the time to sit back and hunker down like so many are. It is a great time for looking outside the box for new solutions and opportunities.

Row 5 – This time we look more internally. Take the time t0 review your marketing plan. Is it efficient and effective? Does it take advantage of on-line and off-line options? Are the terms for whatever setting you use the best you can find? Are there other billing options you could provide such as credit cards, automatic recurring billing, or paypal that would benefit your customers? When is the last time you looked to optimize your website or mailing materials?

Row 6 – Retaining your current customers is key at this time. How else can you improve upon their experience? Daily look at what you can do beyond what your client would expect. Your genuine interest in their health should shine through and will direct your actions. One idea we have ran before is offering a wellness class for all our personal training, bootcamp, and yoga program clients to attend. We simply offered it for free, as a bonus, and as a surprise to say thank you and let the law of reciprocity handle the rest.

Row 7 – Lets see… follow-up = customer service essential. Start small group training = already mentioned and still a great option to be investigated for any fitness pro. “Who you can be”… Here it is suggested that you concentrate on what you can control – YOU. Become self-directed, self-managed, and self-motivated. Today’s example is the economy. You cannot directly control it or how it effects your clients. What you can control are your actions/re-actions, customer service, product and service offering mix,
your specialty skills, and marketing avenues.

Row 8 – This mix is looking a bit tough to combine, but each are important elements suggested by the authors.
Networking - This investment of your time is worth far more than you can imagine. Todd suggested the partnership with local professionals, but I want to suggest you also take advantage of online  fitness industry networks and utilizing partners and JV. Many opportunities present themselves through networking as well as chances to learn from each other.
Passive Income – When times are economically a bit tougher you’ll have a huge advantage if you have passive income options available to you. These can be small or large financial quantities that add to your bottom line without taking up significant time on your part. Think a paid newsletter, or adding product sales to your services.  Having an online presence can open a world of affiliate opportunities or without you can affiliate through a “tell a friend” program. Your Fitness Pro Travel program offers you one easy affiliate option, but there are many more (ie. commission junction and click bank)
Your Responses – This is one item you can control. Things happen, good and bad that you rarely have direct control of. You can control how you respond though. Focusing on controllable items rather than the uncontrollable will reduce your stress and anxiety and allow you to progressively develop your response plan.

Row 9 – This is all about keeping your motivation during difficult times. It is important that you take steps to keep your engines fired up.  Look at the resources immediately available to you that allow you to make daily progress.  Simple small steps will build your confidence and momentum as you lay the ground work for larger program achievements. Learning new things will similarly build confidence, encourage networking, and offer momentum when the general business climate is struggling. There are many fitness workshop event calendars available to you online that present many learning options including our at Fitness Pro Travel.

Row 10 – Give back. Make a positive difference to others, without expectation, and it will come back to you. The internet marketing folks I have followed speak of “raising the free line”. Giving as much as they can before ever asking for a sale or action from the prospect.  They are relying on the law of reciprocity. When you give, people tend to like you more. When they like you more, they are more likely participate in your offerings. Stated another way, “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

The economy is not being overly helpful in keeping your business running strong, but multiple fitness industry evaluators continue to forecast growth for 2009 and 2010. You want to be active and progressive in how you view your fitness business to take advantage of the industry growth rather than fearful and stagnant during the economic slowdown.

Visit sites like Fit Pro Biz and sign up for fitness professional networks like Fitness Pro Travel. And, do sign in for the fitness business news and notice mailing list found in the right column to stay on the front edge.

I hope this summary of these three articles offers at least one item that resonates for you.  What do you think of the ideas provided by these industry leaders? What are you doing that’s not mentioned that’s making a difference for you?

Another location where you can take advantage of social networking is…

at LinkedIn.com. This site has powerful features, many of which you may notice are strangely similar to what is appearing in the enhanced FPT site (only enriched and more specific to the Fit Pro networking). There are several levels to their membership, starting with free, but moving up the financial scale quickly based on the users access levels. I invite you to check it out, connect accounts with mine, and join the fitness professional “Group” when there.

Here is a link to my LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/fitpro

Once you create an account you can join the Fit Pro group at: http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/84079/3428F336F255

LinkedIn is just one of many social media sites and it is only one of the sites that we “borrowed” ideas for in putting together FPT with it’s own Fit Pro networking tools.  LinkedIn like Fitness Pro Travel are both primarily “professional” social networking sites. You will also want to join the social media game where your prospects play.

It is important to become active in more than one, so be sure to at least hit the biggies: FaceBook, YouTube, and Twitter. If you are not there now you should be, so put down your preconceived notions and get started.  Your customers are there NOW and they are looking for you… or maybe your competitor.