26 May 2011 Instructor Newsletter

Note from Rachel

It’s been an amazing week. Probably one of the best ever. Why? Several reasons. Firstly, it was the super duper Fitness Entrepreneur’s Bootcamp over the weekend, and if you have been following my Blog and my Twitter posts you’ll know how much I have been raving about it. It has changed my whole life and business outlook; the speakers and calibre of information was outstanding, so much resonated with me like never before. I really felt I took a big leap this weekend, I’m so inspired and enthused by the possibilities that lie in front of us all in the fitness industry it really is an exciting time, you can read more about FEB below.

The 2nd amazing thing is our Marvin Burton completed his first Ironman in Texas in the early hours of Sunday morning in a fabulous time of 11 hours and 40mins, to quote Marv

“I had NEVER run a marathon, NEVER rode 112 miles, NEVER swam 2.4 miles. All done, in 1 day, as fast as I could, in extreme heat, wind and humidity, in Texas, no wetsuit on the swim.. think big, dream big, aim high. Success follows. NEVER GIVE UP!”

Marv pretty much has put his life on hold for the last 6 month. We finished our final tour date together in December and since Marv has trained and trained all winter in the freezing cold, in the snow and rain. It’s an amazing achievement and I am so very, very proud of him. You can still donate to Marv’s Charity Justgiving.com/marvinburton

And, of course, the new Choreographytogo.com is now up and running and it’s going like a steam train! The hits and visitors have dramatically improved and I’m loving blogging. The forum has returned to its feisty self with loads of great comment, debate and help. So come along and join us and get interactive. You can connect a million ways with me but probably you get me fastest on Twitter as it’s so easy to respond. Anything officey is best to go direct to Lesley@Choreographytogo.com

This week’s newsletter contains 2 brilliant articles from Sally Gharfoor, Jen Mercer, Jayne and Katie Bulmer. It’s a super inspiring read full of great personal articles and experiences.

New Fitness Business Builders List

I am starting a new section of Choreographytogo for Instructors and small fitness business owners who are looking for more specific business, marketing, coaching and PR information. If you would like to get involved please add your email address to https://www.choreographytogo.com/news/business-builder/#

Fitness Entrepreneurs Bootcamp – Event round up

This weekend has been a life changer in so many ways. I was actually only planning on going Friday and turning up just in time to do my talk at FEB and leave, but after the first session that was never going to happen. I was a bit conference jaded to be honest, since Jan I’ve toured all over the UK PLUS it’s been IFS, followed by Fitpro. Conferences inspire you like nothing else but the stress of presenting and preparing sets me on an emotional roller coaster. You are excited, nervous, frightened, then when it’s all over ,hyper (if it’s gone well) and then you come down. BUT, F E B was such a unique experience for everyone.

The event has really found its feet. The whole industry is sick and tired of the “Make More Money in 30 days” and “Follow me I’ll show you what to do” from people with no business and no track record, so this event HAS to be different, or it can’t survive and boy did it deliver.

The event kicked of f with Andy Wake – Let’s face it there is NO UK fitness brand that is as successful as Boxercise. Period. Boxercise is a proper household name. A nintell survey was done and 82% of people surveyed have heard of Boxercise. If you are going to listen to anyone that has such a proven track record who is clearly doing exceptionally well then this man is the man of the match. Quiet and unassuming with no big ego Andy talked of the challenges of running a huge business, about the problems he faced personally as his wife battled cancer and his baby daughter nearly died, PLUS a huge tax investigation to boot, he was able to deal with this because of the business systems he had set up from the outset. Boxercise the brand is bigger than Andy Wake the person and that’s exactly how he set it up from the get go. Truly inspiring and a lesson for us all. It ain’t easy! Plan for the future, plan for problems and brick walls and get it right from the word go.

This talk set the tone of the weekend. Every session contained SOUND and PROPER business advice, mind set information and how to look at your business with different eyes – there was no fly by night get rich quick schemes – we all know this is rubbish and doesn’t work.

I can put my hand on my heart and say I got something from every speaker. Dax Moy, The Cosgroves, Nick Nanton, Ken Ady, Paul Mort, Jon Le Tocq, Charlotte Ord, Tim Goodwin. I have written a note book full of ideas, quotes and plans and feel I have now crystallised where I want to go. In the end, I stayed for every session, loving every minute and now it’s time to see if I can step up to the mark and put all of my dreams and plans into action.

Here are my Top 6 take home tips from the event and hope it inspires you too:

1. Crystallise your TARGET market, Identify your avatar client. It’s so hard to market yourself and your product unless you have your client profile crystal clear. The more specific you are the easier it will be talk to your customers.

2. Have a laser beam focus. Once you have your goals in place, every time you begin to do something think “Is this going to take me closer to my goals” Basically, stop messing about doing the small stuff and get the big stuff finished and out there like NOW!

3. Social Media is ALL noise. Opening Facebook is like walking into Battersea dogs home every one’s barking the same message. Be different, Write unique status updates and Tweets, Blog about new stuff. Once you have your client avatar sorted this will be easier as you can focus on your target customer.

4.Use Public Speaking and Presentations to become an expert. As soon as you step onto a speaking stage you are perceived as an expert. Organise seminars and talks in your niche to connect with your customers and prospects.

5. Construct your presentation – Start with your credentials, tell your story, resonant with your audience, include personal hooks, offer a step by step solution, offer transparency about who you are and what you are.

6. Identify your USP and turn UP THE VOLUME. Don’t be something or someone you are not. Be yourself and do YOUR thing!

It was a thrilling and exciting room to be in with everyone buzzing with ideas and plans and loving the whole vibe. I am chuffed to bits with the potential that now lies in front of me. You can read more information on my Blog https://www.choreographytogo.com/news/blog/

Jayne Nicholls

Business and fitness aside, I increasingly find myself looking for things to believe in. Like everyone else, I look for inspiration and warnings in the most absurd traditions from seeing magpies in denominations of 7 to my daily Google horoscope. One of my most indulgent peccadilloes is my subscription to the Secret and to day I got this:

You are receiving thousands of messages from the Universe every single day. Learn to become aware of this communication from the Universe, who is speaking to you and guiding you in every moment. There are no accidents and no coincidences. Every sign you notice, every word you hear spoken, every color, every scent, every sound, every event and situation is the Universe speaking to you, and you are the only one who knows their relevance to you, and what the communication is saying.

Use your eyes to see! Use your ears to listen! Use all of your senses, because you are receiving communication through them all!

The bizarre thing is that I believe it. I always look forward to it and it really cheers me up when it comes into my inbox. I receive this information in the same way that my class participants welcome me walking into the room before class. Have you ever considered the effect that we have on the people we see on a regular basis. You could literally set your clock by my weekly timetable. I am always there, always on time and always happy to be there as I am sure are you.

With this in mind I have to question the amount of importance that we are given in the grand scale of things. Apparently 80 percent of new fitness members want to exercise in groups – THIS IS HUGE.

Here’s the thing without us there is no group exercise. You are the key to these people getting what they want, now don’t you think this deserves a better rate of pay, full studio timetables and a hierachy of classes designed to suit these peoples needs?

jayne nicholls – www.groupxtraining.com

j a y n e

jayne nicholls
Group X Training
07989433969

Bootcamp Nutrition Sally Gharfoor

Bit of a minefield? Maybe you don’t feel confident enough to give nutrition information to people? I am hoping these weekly articles will help.

Nutrition and food really interests me, and weirdly enough it started not because I had become overweight (which by the way I had by around 5 stone) but because of the swine flu outbreak. We have all read what people like to call old wives tales about how Garlic and onions protect against colds and flu, and after doing a bit of research I decided that what we eat must contribute to how we feel and the illnesses we go on to have, so this led me on to doing an internship with the remarkable Phil Richards and it seems well selfish not to share the knowledge I have gained, not just from Phil but my own research as well.

Each week I am going to take apart each section of the plan that I give to my bootcampers, as well as discuss food and disease, which you are more than welcome to use for yourself or on your bootcamps. I would love feedback, maybe you don’t agree with it or want to know more, then pop over to Rachel’s forum on C2GO and add your comments and we can have a great debate!

This week I just wanted to explain how it’s not just a case of telling people what they can and can’t eat and expecting them to comply.

We are a nation of overweight fast food, convenience food addicts. Processed foods have replaced healthy home cooked meals, so this means our bodies are full of toxins, which in turn make you feel like absolute rubbish. People are taken in by the clever marketing of giant food companies that claim eating a processed lasagne which has tomatoes in means you gain “at least one of your five a day”, not that it’s been so heavily processed that there are no nutrients left in the lasagne you’re eating.

Kids are growing up eating food full of monosodium glutamate and other nasty man made toxins. My middle son, Taylor, plays football to a high level. Last year we were sat on a coach on the way to play an under 10 academy match against Tottenham. The parents on the coach filled their kids up with chocolate bars, energy drinks, crisps, sweets, ham sandwiches, pasta and then wondered why they were so tired and unable to perform when we got off the coach. My son, well he had a huge pilchard salad with legumes, nuts and hydrated on water. Guess who got man of the match and scored the goals –yep my boy! The parents on the coach thought I was mad, and that Taylor would never have enough energy eating a salad and legumes, surely he needed some pasta and an aspartame filled energy drink to get him going and ready for the match, some starburst to hype him up for the game. These parents have been completely taken in by clever marketing to make you think what you are eating is healthy and will give you amazing energy, however the opposite is true. They are sadly misinformed.

When it comes to changing people’s attitudes on the food they eat it can be a hard task. This is what they have grown up eating, telling them that actually they shouldn’t be eating bread and pasta etc, seems alien to them. You need to know the reasons why certain foods are damaging to the human body, as when informed as to the reasons why, the ability to remove these food stuffs from their daily intake becomes easier and meaningful. If they still are not convinced then challenge them, get them to remove it for a week maybe two then tell them to eat it again, boy they will feel the difference, lethargy will kick in, stomach’s will bloat, diarrhoea or constipation will become apparent and just generally feeling down and yuk.

To me the biggest thing I have learnt is that although my bootcampers come to me to lose weight, what I am doing for them is giving them back their health. Sometimes you need to remember the reason we eat. We eat to fill our cells with the correct nutrients for growth and health, not for self-satisfaction. What we eat correlates to how we feel. If we fill our cells with toxins; neither our body nor mind can function correctly, we will become diseased in one form or another.

So if you get the old afternoon dip, if you’re tired and grouchy, feeling down, need coffee or an energy drink to get you through the day, grabbing a mars bar between classes to get a sugar rush, maybe it’s time to take a look at your nutrition and remember before you can start telling people how to become healthy and feel fantastic you have to be that way too, practice what you preach!

Next week I will look at the effects of monosodium glutamate and aspartame on your health which can be regularly found in many foods.

Sally Ghafoor

Why all the Zumba haters? By Sally GhafoorWow Zumba is really getting a slating from some fit pro’s, stating that it’s a waste of time and that Zumba is conning people into thinking they are exercising, how the classes are just too easy fitness wise, how as instructors we are succumbing to market pressure and delivering classes to the masses (and yes Zumba brings in the masses) instead of delivering effective exercise that will promote not only fitness and health but weight loss as well.

Well guess what guys – you’re getting it wrong.

Now, yes I am a Zumba instructor, but I also deliver hardcore Bootcamps and PT sessions. I take fitness extremely seriously, people come to me and I get them the results they want or as one lovely lady said to me I make their dreams come true, but I still think Zumba has a place and if you’re a fit pro that’s dismissing Zumba as a rubbish exercise fad then you my friend, are missing out.

The Feel good Factor – For me before people can begin to train effectively they have to be in the right mind space . How we feel about ourselves contributes to our health. There have been huge studies on how we think and feel about ourselves contributes to illness and disease. The music in Zumba is infectious, it makes you want to shake shimmy and gyrate, it’s fun, people come with their friends, they laugh they smile, they are HAPPY. So for me already as an instructor I am making a difference in someone’s life. For that 45 minutes/1 hour they are happy and having fun. Who knows what their life is like when they leave those hall doors. So one point to Zumba.

Can it help people achieve their goals?

I think it’s very naïve of fit pro’s to state that Zumba will not bring people closer to their goals. Do you know what their goals are? No you don’t. One lady came up to me after a class one day, she said” my goal was to do your whole class without stopping, guess what, tonight I did the whole class” Her next goal was to do 2 classes a week, then 3, guess what, now she is on my bootcamp. Zumba reaches out to people who would NEVER consider going to the gym, NEVER consider doing a bootcamp, would come to a LBT/Body conditioning class once and NEVER come back. It gives them the confidence to exercise and as they become fitter and lose weight, other harder fitness classes suddenly become achievable, because they ARE achieving their goals. So another point to Zumba.

So dear Fit pro’s Zumba is getting people off their arses and getting them sweaty, and that means they are exercising and potentially will want to take their fitness levels higher so that means they will look for harder classes/PT’s. So Zumba is good for us Fit Pro’s.

If you find the right Zumba class with the right instructor that is trained in not just Zumba but nutrition and fitness too, the results can be life changing for people. So I say stop slating Zumba, get out there, make friends with your local Zumba instructor, get to know the people in the class. A vast majority of my bootcamps are filled with people who first off came to a Zumba class.

I would love your comments on what your views are on Zumba. Hopefully I will be able to flip all of them to a positive

If I can do it..Anyone Can by Jenny Mercer

Well here I am a year on from attending Rachel’s and Lucy’s Slammin Social Media…..and so the story starts (please beware this is no Disney, but it’s worth a read)

My reasons for this article…..is really to show people YOU CAN DO IT. If I can anyone can……if you’re stuck in employment and dreaming of working for yourself….have a read of this

It’s May 2010 I am working full-time in a Gym as a Supervisor, working 40+ hours a week teaching over 8 classes a week whilst constantly day dreaming about the future, where I wanna be and what I wanna do….but hey that’s just a dream isn’t it?? Anyways I decided to bite the bullet and attend this 1 day event and took a day’s holiday…off. I trotted to Manchester with my peppermint tea in tow excited for what the day had to bring. Not only did I meet a bunch of amazing people (some of whom have become close friends now) but also something clicked in my brain……I want this, I want this life and I want to work for myself….I was so hyped up and excited….well that was until 7am Thurs morn (the next day) when my alarm went off for work…..oh well it was all just a Dream, but still I typed my notice up to work and pinned it on my notice board and just thought “maybe 1 day”

Fast Forward to July 2010. I decided to set up Bootcamps. I must have been a glutton for punishment because I was adding to my 40+ week and 8 classes, but I set up a 6am bootcamp running 3 times a week and I was buzzing. I was getting a taste of the dream and what I wanted, I thought yeh I will just do both.

I loved my Gym Job and I learnt so much whilst I was there. I did everything for them, but I also got a lot of valuable experience and this is something I will always be grateful for in my life…..but to say I was unhappy would kind of be an understatement. I would sit and dream about this life of running my own business and I would sit an dream about everything I could do, the way I would do it, how good I would feel and I actually somedays woke up thinking…was that true? But it never was! I bent over backwards for my job, I lost my 6 year relationship, friends, my health suffered and all I did was work and sleep. I was stressed, unhappy and my health was suffering

One day in August 2010 something just went “ping” and I thought, I cant do this anymore. So that lovely notice I got off the board, dated it, signed it and walked into the manager’s office and said “I am leaving”……since then I have NEVER looked back

Fast Forward Sept 2010.I set up a night time Zumba Class in the community. I looked forward to all these sessions and thought, I can do it, it started becoming more and more realistic.

Whilst doing all the work, classes, bootcamps etc I was also planning the future, setting up halls for classes, marketing, leaflets, websites, flyering, radio interviews, getting in peoples faces.

Fast Forward Oct 2010….I AM FREE!! I have left and I am alone (well with a small part time job doing activities with people with dementia in a care home which I do 4 days a week just while I’ll start out) All my classes, bootcamps and courses are set up and I am ready to rock n roll! The morning I woke up and knew I was free and I had done it, I honestly felt about 2 stone lighter…..I felt so alive, happy and relieved…I can’t even explain the feeling (as cheesy as it sounds) I never thought I could possibly feel this way….what I had been visualising all along was now here with me……and now it was not just a Dream.

Winter months were hard….but I kept plugging away……2011 hit and it has soared!

Fast Forward to now…May 2011 (1 year on)

It’s been an emotional rollercoaster of a year….but I can honestly hand on heart say that I have learnt more in this 1 year about Fitness, Business and Life itself that I had learnt in the past 26 years of my life (and the past 7 years in fitness). I have grown personally, professionally and feel like a completely different person…this has been 1 of the most amazing years of my life!! I have had the chance to meet some Amazing fellow Fitness Professionals, who without them I would not be the person I was today…..they have helped me, given me a kick up the ass when I needed it, been there to guide me….I know I am surrounded by the right people now and everyday I am grateful for this.

I also feel very, very lucky to have met some amazing women through my classes etc…..I have the pleasure of working with these women every week and I now jump out of bed and cannot wait to face the challenges of the day. This is the kind of feeling I love….the excitement and the joy of knowing that I can help people achieve their goals…so they can be happy. Lets be honest, the world would be a better place if everyone was happy!!

Sometimes I cannot believe I am where I am now….for anyone who knows me….come on admit it you never thought Id be here right? I am such a worrier and I used to have no belief in myself…I thought I would never ever be able to do this….but one day I just thought (in the words of Walt Disney) “if you can dream it, you can do it” and nothing is impossible…..we all have the ability to be successful and achieve our dreams….we just have to take the risk and go for it. Life is for living and we only get one (unless you are a cat meow) and I wanna make sure I have achieved everything during my life…..without being too morbid!!

I am truly grateful to Rachel Holmes and Lucy Johnson for inspiring me so much on that day….it planted the seed in my brain that one day grew to be a reality…..! Rachel you have been such an inspiration throughout the years but no more so than the past year

I take on a very positive outlook on life now….(if you are into stuff like this read The Secret by Rhonda Byrne) and I know I I probably annoy the hell out of a lot of people because I am always quoting stuff, happy, smiley and always in peoples faces with positive stuff…but c’mon I got a lot of time to make up.

So I want to say for all the people I met on the Slammin Social Media Event, to my Fabulous C2GO Friends, the “get organised” gang and the people who I am very very lucky now to be able to call “Friends” (you know who you are ) I thank you so much….you have made my life the most magical it can be and no words can explain it. I would be lost without you all, you have all been part of my journey and I am so glad 🙂

Anything is possible as long as you BELIEVE

What you THINK you BECOME…..so start today an think positive

If I can do it anyone can!! Jenny Mercer

Have a fantastic Bank Holiday Weekend

Love Rachel xxx

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