Instructor Newslettr 2nd February 2012

We are rocking into February, which is usually better even than January, so if you are expanding your community classes or have decided to try something new fingers crossed you will get a great response this month. It’s a big weekend on the cards as I’ll be hitting a full house in London and Derby and Mrs Reed- Banks will be rocking the Super Seniors in Manchester and Birmingham. Then Kelly will be trekking north of the border to bonny Scotland for Level 3 Pilates.

Rachel Holmes Workout TV

The Kick Start Fat Loss Program is now running its 3rd group and if you look on my facebook you can see some of the outstanding testimonials and before and after pictures but the big hit has been my workouts and daily pep talks.

I filmed a different daily 10 minute workout to be completed at home, these have proved to be a massive hit and so I will be launching Rachel Holmes Workout TV for Fitpros who want to get ideas for their classe and do a workout with me every day.

I will be trialling RHW TV next week for 2 weeks. The show will run for 5 days a week with a workout you can do with me. Featuring on the show will be info on Fat Loss, Fitness Industry, Motivation, News and Updates for 10 – 15minutes.

If you are interested in subscribing Tweet, Email or Facebook me your interest. I will also be sharing loads of business tips and ideas to help you, your classes and your business.

http://www.Twitter.com/RachelHolmes http://www.Facebook.com/Choreographytogo

Please keep your feedback coming in via email, Twitter, Facebook and I look forward to connecting with you

Miss Holmes on Passion!

Let’s talk about passion for a few minutes, shall we?

I’m passionate about seeing people move forward and accomplishing their goals.

I’m passionate about helping Fitpros earn the money they should through Fitness Business ideas. Provide them with the tools (class content, choreography business ideas) so they in turn can teach and lead their clients. I’m Passionate about Inspiring Fitness Instructors to become amazing role models both physically and mentally. Working with FitPros is my absolute passion.

What’s your passion?

What makes you jump up at 5am in morning to bash out an idea you have had?

It’s important to know what your passion is because you’ll never make the money you really want or have the lifestyle you desire or the clients you crave in something you can’t believe in. For example, if you don’t like Bootcamps or Pilates or dare I say it Zumba, you shouldn’t build your fitness business involving any of those topics. Even if those models are super fashionable and potentially could make you a lot of revenue.

Your passion, what you’ve been wanting to do forever, will actually lead you to not only your ideal client and niche, but it will also lead you to your destiny in many unique ways.

If you have got a burning desire to create your own Fitness Brand, Class, Workout or Program or have a burning passion to empower people to lose weight, or enjoy a healthier lifestyle then don’t spend any more time procrastinating and get a plan together and do it. What on earth is stopping you?

This week’s newsletter is all about helping build your confidence, arming you with fatloss information, which you can use to help your clients, building your community classes, helping you run your business so you can schedule in holidays and taking time out to enjoy life and as always I hope you find it inspiring, uplifting and motivating.

The good thing is we are in a fantastic industry that is still in its infancy, therefore, identify your passion within fitness and run with it and create your dreams and goals

How do you know what your Fitness Health and Wellness Passion is?

Here’s my little test?

So are you ready?

Here are the questions. Please get out your pen-

#1- What do you always find yourself daydreaming about in relation to your fitness career or business?

#2- Where do you really want to be in 6 months time – (anything goes here – Be bold and wild here )where do you want to be and have achieved?

#3- What makes you excited, motivated, encourages you and inspires you within the fitness industry?

Once you really work out what your Fitness Passion is you can then plan out a pathway to get there.

The one person you need to work on the most is yourself so you are ABLE to speak to your ideal client. To find them, ‘read their mind’ and speak their language, you’ll need to work more on yourself than anyone else.

Your ideal client or market needs you to find your passion! Fire is what people follow and passion is what will help you achieve the fitness business and the life of your dreams.

I’d really love you to tweet me with what you are Passionate about in Fitness – Who do you want to help and serve and create exciting programs for?

And if you feel daring, share with me some of your answers from above as well!

I am passionate about helping you succeed in your Fitness Business! Let’s do this together!

Fitness Entrepreneur Initiativeby Rachel Holmes

Many Fitness Instructors, Bootcamp Owners and Personal Trainers have designs on creating an Online Fitness Business.

We read about creating that illusive passive income stream, especially on long days of teaching back to back classes and clients.

Days when lugging the sound system out of the car for the fourth time that day and setting up in the local school and village hall and waiting to see how many people show up are starting to drain and irritate us..

When thinking about booking a family holiday and realising it’s not worth it as you have no one reliable to cover your classes and you have worked so hard at marketing and PR that if you aren’t there for 2 weeks your clients may find another class.

So how do you make that leap?

When IS the right time to start building a passive income stream and an online arm to your business?

There is only one right time. You have to make the decision and act TODAY.

Not tomorrow. Not this weekend. Not next month. Not after Easter.

Today.

Make the decision and go for it.

Today.

Here are my 9 Imperative Rules in setting up an Online Fitness Business.

1.You must be prepared to go beyond anything you have done before.
2.You and only you can make this happen.
3.You have to be totally aware of the Health, Fitness, Wellness and Weightloss Online Movement and who exactly is doing what, what products and programs are being offered.
4.You have to be connected to your audience, your client base, your audience, your customers and your tribe. With an active list, newsletter and social media.
5.You must be consistent with your message, your brand, your online persona.
6.You have to build quality assets and products.
7.You must be seriously productive everyday.
8.You must start and finish your project before you start more. Multitasking products/programs is overrated.
9.You must have the GUTS, CONFIDENCE, WORK ETHIC AND PASSION to survive online.

It’s easy to keep filling your time with more classes, more clients and more physical work. To survive online you must be completely self motivated and willing to update your technical skills and knowledge.

Stop being busy, being busy and start being productive.

Are You ready?

Too much stress WILL make you fat! by The Fat Controller Jill Gardner

Whilst stress doesn’t exactly contain calories it’s the compensatory reactions caused by the hormonal response that leads to cravings, hunger and low energy that eventually leads to poor food choices and stored extra fat!

When we want to focus on weight loss, what’s the first thing people think about? Doing more exercise and eating less!

What’s wrong with this model? Well apart from the fact it sucks! It doesn’t work and it actually works against your body. The hormonal impact means you are likely to get fatter in the long term no matter how hard you try!

So why is this? When we are stressed the body releases the hormone Adrenaline, which is like the accelerator pedal for the body and it can begin a fat burning chain reaction, when it includes the hormones Cortisol, Testosterone and HGH.

Examples of chronic stress for the body: Long duration aerobic exercise, overtraining, lack of sleep, calorie restriction, money, skipped meals, overuse of stimulants such as coffee or sugary foods, no down time, negative thinking and bad relationships etc.

With high carbohydrate diets and constant stress, elevated levels of Insulin results in more fat being stored and locked into its fat cells! The body then stops using fat as fuel and starts using circulating blood sugar! Even worse, if there are low levels of Testosterone and HGH (through poor sleep, over training, too much cardio etc) then it will not only stop burning fat but it will store fat and burn muscle too! A metabolic disaster!

Most peoples metabolisms are not well tuned enough to cope with these massive fluctuations in hormones – they are on the perpetual blood sugar roller coaster – swinging from low moods to crashing energy, strong cravings and storing fat like crazy!

It’s almost impossible to resist junk food when you are chronically stressed. So what’s the solution? Stress hormones have evolved to allow for fast intense movement away from the stressful trigger! What didn’t kill us made us stronger! This rarely happens now. BUT by carefully selecting methods to help deal with stress and adopting better diets and exercise modes you can use stress hormones in a beneficial way.
Without stress in an exercise program we can’t adapt and grow. But for most people it would be better to eat more of the right food, more frequently with less refined carbohydrates – this will prevent a stress response from hunger hormones. You could start to incorporate high intensity interval training and metabolic resistance training, which will encourage the release of the fat burning hormones Testosterone and HGH together with Cortisol! You could aim to get more sleep and rest, be more positive and reduce the amount of cardio you do!

So you see – you really do need to exercise less AND eat more to help you burn fat and keep muscle!

I’d love to hear your thoughts or have your questions on this.

Jill Gardner – The Fat Controller, Hate it? Change it!

Accountants Are Not Created Equally by Andrew Crawford

Who extended the deadline for Tax Returns???

Well they can b**ll**x cause I finish on 31^st…!!

For all those fellow Accountants out there..well done…we have done a 31 day straight, staying up late, dealing with questions, queries, opening packages, signing for letters, emailing, faxing, totalling, multiplying, black coffeeing, adding, subtracting, high fiving, hardly eating, stressing, sitting, meeting, no time to play with the crewing, greeting, no TV watching, bloating, red eyeing, bubble bathing and submitting the yearly Tax Returns.

I even had a client come at 5.30pm and leave at 6.30am in the morning!!!

Needless to say…the fee has paid for my holidays…..WITH spending money!

In between all of this, I decided to run a………….

‘Last Minute Tax Return Completion Workshop’

It was very interesting because what I discovered was that not all Accountants are created equally.

Now this goes for many professions be it Personal Trainers, Instructors, Solicitors and many other advisory roles. ….

I believe that the quality in the advice stems from a solid foundation knowledge, application and experience of the principals.

Before I spew forth with any advice of my own, I would have learnt it and have experience in it because… otherwise my little ‘spherical objects’ would be on the line for all to stamp and crush if I gave less than quality advice.

During this Tax Return period there were many emails relating to what people can claim…..and what to do in certain situations…??

….now, those emails put me back into the workshop and what I was told.

What were you told Andrew?

Well…I was told, by an Accountant who came to my workshop, that there is another Accountant who is spreading their message within the industry and is disputing some areas of interest by using and quoting tax law….!!

(Now if you can count….that is 3 of us already…!!)

There I was..sitting..listening and digging. Digging??

Yes…digging into my onboard resource library…my brain…..wondering what I was going to tell this Accountant about the other Accountant’s comment.

You feeling me??

Now..I just lurve tax law….so I had no problems about what this other Accountant was preaching…

What I did have an issue about…..was interpretation. (thinking about it, I’m sure I wrote about that last week…!!??)

The advice I gave that Accountant, (the one in my workshop) who interestingly enough also works within the Fitness Industry, and I give to you now is this………….

Where there’s an issue as to whether something is allowable or disallowable AND you have bought this item ‘wholly and exclusively‘ for the purpose of your business… then take 50%

Why is this?

Well, if you was to take 100% of this particular item, then the Inland Revenue will have the power to disallow ALL of the expenditure. By claiming only half you have demonstrated that you understand there would be an issue if you were to take the full amount.

Let me say here and now that this will depend on each particular case, as not everyone is the same..

If I remember clearly, amongst other things, we were discussing medical, massage, physio and other expenses like that.

Why was this so important at a Tax Return Completion Workshop?

Well….They had had an injury last year and was still recovering as well as myself who was unavailable for 8 months last year because of my accident ..!! In his time and to the current day expenses had to be paid to aid recovery…

Was / Is / Are these expenses allowable?

According to this Accountant (the one spreading their message) using tax law…they are not claimable.

The other Accountant (the one in my workshop) wanted my opinion..

I told them that tax law is not black or white but ….there are grey areas which is left to the tax payer to decide…that is why it is called ‘Self Assessment’…..!!

I am going to add to that advice and use a Bus scenario…..

Why a bus?

Why not?

Bus Scenario

A bus, more or less does the job what you do for your client

‘Take people to their destination’……….From A to B

The client or passenger PAYS for this service. .

(I am not likening you to a bus….just doing a comparison….phew….got that in…!)

Everyday, month, year the bus comes along and does its job. It gets paid for this. It’s a service.

For the bus to run properly throughout winter, summer, spring and autumn it needs regular servicing, repairs and MOT.

Without this, it would breakdown. If it breaks down, income would stop and a larger expense incurred to get it back into a position to earn money…in addition the clients/passengers would/could go elsewhere…

Had it not been for the regular servicing (easy tiger) the bus could break down and lose income any time.

Do you get regular MOT’s for yourself…massage, physio..etc to keep yourself free from injury and in condition to teach and to earn?

Then ask yourself…….are these costs claimable?

Speak soon

Andrew Crawford

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Andrew Crawford can be contacted on twitter @tax4fitness or info@fitnessindustryaccountants.com

Setting up classes and surviving in the community, part 1! By Alice Ramcharran

Well it’s nearly the end of January already – how has 2012 been for everyone so far? Personally, this has been the busiest January I’ve seen in a long time – maybe because there is no snow, or maybe people are sick of hearing about ‘credit crunch’ and ‘debt’ and want a relatively cheap way to treat themselves. I usually find that February is busier than January so it will be interesting to see how things pan out this year.

I’m also very proud, that next month is the 6 year mark for 2 of my community classes, and they are still going strong – sure they’ve had their ups and downs, but have remained steady over the years, and 2011 and the start of this year has seen some of the biggest numbers I’ve ever had at the classes. In that time I have seen plenty of other classes come and go (including some of my own) so I’m really thrilled that these 2 Body Blitz classes still remain – I love teaching them and I love the people that come, and many have been with me from the start. I started off part time teaching these 2 classes, while I still worked at a gym, and have gradually set up more over the years and went fully self-employed in July 2009. I now teach 7 community classes myself (it was 13, but I’ve handed some over due to being pregnant) and 6 bootcamp sessions each week. I also have other instructors teaching for me, and have a total of 20 other classes running too.

Although things are going well, I do know how hard it can be to firstly get going and secondly survive in the community, so here are my top 10 tips for doing so (there are plenty more, so do drop me a line if you need any more ideas) I’m starting with 5 tips today and 5 will come next week so you can start working on them right away! Most of these I have learnt the hard way, so hopefully these tips can help you to build up a community business more quickly and smoothly.

1. If you can, set up some community classes while you still have another source of income as that way you can test the water and see what might work and what won’t.

2. Never stop marketing – this includes both online, offline and in your classes – you need to do as much as you can, paid for and free, but know your target market and making sure you are talking to them. In classes, use your existing customers to market for you, word of mouth, and referral schemes – and reward them for referring people to you e.g. free class when they bring a friend.

3. Create a sense of community within your community classes – I think this is one of the reasons some of my classes have lasted so long – especially my Monday night Body Blitz. Everyone knows each other to chat to, and I arrange regular social events and encourage people to get to know each other in class and via Facebook groups and private forums. Many have made great friends through the classes, as I have myself.

4. Don’t do too much all at once – build up slowly and then add on other classes. It always amazes me when people try and set up 5 classes all in one go, from scratch – in my opinion that is just doomed to failure. If they are all in one place or area, then you may just be giving people too much choice and will end up watering classes down. If they are in many areas, you may be giving yourself too much work in terms of advertising. Better to set up 1 or 2 classes to start with to test the water and then gradually build from there.

5 Don’t just be a sheep – there are certain types of classes that are the ‘in thing’ at the moment, but trends in the fitness industry do come and go (I’ve seen quite a few over the last 13 years!) so don’t just follow one type of class, or what will happen when that starts to dry up? Doing a mixture of classes, and teaching some of you own style classes means that when things start to dry up with certain classes you still have others to fall back on and teach, and creating your own classes means that you aren’t just following what’s ‘in’ at the time

Hope this helps you a little, 5 more tips coming next week!

How to take 12 weeks off a year when working with a niche client group and NOT feel guilty

By Claire Mockridge, Ante/Postnatal Fitness Expert

So, how’s everyone feeling at the moment? It’s my 4^th week of teaching for 2012 (after a 3 week break over Christmas/New Year) and it’s generally around about now that I start to plan my holidays and breaks for the year. Sad, I know, but I just love travelling and getting away.

I posted two questions on Facebook recently, as follows:

1. How many weeks off did you guys take in 2011?, and

2. Where did you go on holiday?

The feedback I got back was rather alarming. I received responses from 20 or so of you, and after tallying up the results, I could determine how many weeks off us FitPros have per year. Are you interested to know the answer? Well, the average was 3.7 weeks per year.

Now to me, that seems awfully low. Some of you indicated you took just 1 week off at Christmas and that’s it. Are you crazy?! Seriously now, you need to take time off to re-charge the batteries, step away from your own work environment, and enjoy just get away and enjoy time with yourself, your partner and/or your family.

I personally, take between 10-12 weeks off a year. This figure might astound and shock you, but, one of the main reasons I became self-employed was so that I could take time off when I like and go wherever I want. Is this one of the reasons you work for yourself too? I’d be interested to know.

My partner works shifts, so it enables us to take 20 days off together in certain blocks throughout the year. Now, I appreciate that 20 days is unusually high, yes, but he loves his job, I love mine, and we love spending time together away from work, and both of our jobs enables us to do this. It’s a great partnership.

How can I possibly take 12 weeks off a year and still make money, I hear you ask? Well, it’s down to working with a niche client group to start with. As you know, I’m Ante/Postnatal trained, and the majority of my classes are for pregnant and postnatal women. I run just 9 classes a week, from Monday-Wednesday. And, I’ve managed to squash my timetable so that the first part of the week is work, and Thursday-Sunday is spent doing other things. It’s a good work-life balance, I think you’d agree.

Are you running a toxic class on a Friday evening or a Saturday morning that, if you cancelled it, would enable you to have two days off together? Have a look at the numbers from some of your classes on past registers. Are you making money on these classes? Are you really making the profit you deserve?

Because I work with a niche client group, none of my classes are pay as you go. Clients pay upfront for 6 weeks or 10 weeks at a time, and therefore I very rarely worry about who is going to turn up this week, because it really doesn’t matter. Occasionally, I don’t get quite enough postnatal clients to run a course, so what do I do? I offer another class as an alternative, or cancel it off the timetable and re-launch it again in another 6 weeks. It’s as simple as that.

Because all of my pre/postnatal classes are pay upfront, guess what? So are all of my mainstream classes too. This is because, the vast majority of my clients in a mainstream setting, came to my from my pre/postnatal classes, and they’re already trained into paying upfront for my services, so there’s really no difference.

My Little Black Dress Workout for example is £18 paid monthly via Paypal subscription. My Improvers Pilates classes are also paid monthly and cost £25. These payments generate me £1,000+ per month, without any problems whatsoever. Postnatal clients feed into my Little Black Dress Workout classes once they go back to work, and my Beginners Pilates clients eventually merge into my Improvers Pilates classes, so I have a nice trickle of continuity.

What happens when I go on leave? Well, firstly, I obtain cover for certain classes eg my Pregnancy, Beginners and Improvers Pilates classes (that’s 4 out of the 9 classes I teach per week, by the way). My Little Black Dress Workout ladies get home workout sheets, DVDs and nutrition plans as part of their monthly payment (we’re up to 5 of the 9 classes, I teach now).

The remainder of my pregnancy and postnatal fitness classes (that’s 4 on my timetable), just don’t run. It’s as simple as that. I’m very well qualified, and find it difficult to get a cover instructor to teach my style of class to my pregnant and postnatal clients. I provide flexible attendance for my pre and postnatal fitness clients, and they accept that I take time off when I need to.

I can honestly say, I’ve never had this bounce back in my face. Ok, so there’s been the odd moan or groan here and there, but, because clients can switch and change sessions eg attend the Monday and/or Wednesday pregnancy fitness class, and I allow them to miss a session here and there if they’re not well, or their baby’s not well, they’ve just sort of accepted it.

Who does my admin whilst I’m away? My wonderful VA, that’s who. She’s brilliant. As long as I’ve done the marketing and advertising to get the clients in the door, generally speaking, when I return from leave, any dormant spaces that need filling in the new 6-week courses that start the week I get back have been filled, thanks to a bit of planning, and my VA.

What is it you’re afraid of when you take time off? Is it that your customers will go somewhere else? Could you change some of your classes to a monthly payment system, like mine, and offer clients more value? It’s certainly worth thinking about, isn’t it?

If you’re only taking one week off per year, when exactly do you relax? It takes me a good 5 days to completely switch off, unless I’m completely drained and then it’s like, 2 days! January to Easter last year was 14 weeks for me and by that stage, I was well and truly running on empty.

We work hard, so why can’t we reward ourselves with more time off?

If you’d like to know more about working with pregnant and postnatal women, why not connect with me here:

Private Facebook Group for FitPros who either a) want to get qualified to teach pre/postnatal or, b) are already qualified, but want hints and tips on making their business more successful:

https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/clairemockridge/

Facebook: www.facebook.com/clairemockridge1

Twitter: www.twitter.com/clairemockridge

Blog: http://clairemockridge.wordpress.com/

Claire Mockridge

Jayne Nicholls Gym Tie Ins

With recent investigations into Gym chain tie-ins – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16815806, this week I am raising the question of #valueformoney. Is pay as you go fitness the best way forward in 2012? With new gym chains such as Pure Gym offering no contracts, no catch fees, they are reflecting the community set up that we have been championing for years. The second thing is that Group X is progressively becoming much more result driven with instructors now actually using their skills in specific situations to offer anything from a fun based session to a fat loss journey. Our target audience have learned that classes are not all the same and that instructors can vary the content and the results by using their knowledge and skills. Group X instructors are all set to give the average PT a run for their money in business, exercise prescription and nutrition advice. We are the ‘go to’ people for fitness. Why?

The alternative studio!! by Dani Evans

So, I had a vision of a spin studio, but with no collateral, no assets and no chance of investment… how did I create The Spin Box?

Thinking outside the box! A client had a Barn…still partially used for cattle and storage of hay bales but one side of it was clear, so we cleaned it up and starting using it for a couple of Bootcamp style sessions and a few hrs of PT.

From this I took a loan to purchase 9 spin bikes and had a shed made to store them in…the rest is history…classes are buzzing and now I’m building a reputation and a service to move on to the next level and one day have an even better facility

My top tips to getting your foot off the ground:

Think laterally… where could you use to teach, the bootcamp era has bought us a lot of outdoor sessions, people braving the elements – would your sessions be better suited outdoors? Or at least undercover in a warehouse or a barn like my sessions

Market with flyers, papers & social media and launch sessions like you would a brand new studio – let people know where you are…especially as it’s not likely to be a place people will think of finding you.

Check out business rates – where I use is still being used for agricultural purposes so no change of use has had to be done

Agree terms with the owner/company of area you will be using – I pay a flat rate monthly to cover cost of lighting in the winter, and it is adjusted for the summer.

How accessible is the area? A lot of commercial property to rent will be on easy to access business parks or similar but utilising other places such as I do, a small holding, you need to consider access from main roads at all times of year. The owners of the small holding I use had run a vets surgery from it previously so had the driveway adjusted to have passing places and a wide opening. It is also walking distance for many local residents.

Be clear to your insurers about where you are, the security and what you’ll be storing. I had to ensure I had a British standard 5 lever lock for the bike storage shed for example.

Abide by all health and safety requirements as you would for an indoor facility: fire extinguishers, fire exits, first aid & get a full fire risk assessment done.

Finally, always and repeatedly shout about the benefits of being at your environment…I talk about fresh air, no need for air conditioning so germs aren’t circulating, getting out in the sunshine for raising Vitamin D levels, cooler temperatures make us work harder so more energy used to burn fat!

And that is about it….Good luck! I’d love to hear about your alternative venues!

You can follow me on facebook: profile – Danni Evans and you can ‘like’ my fitness2improve business page and/or Tweet me @DanniBOOTCAMP