Instructor newsletter 3rd January 2013

It’s here. 2013 is right on top of us faster than we would ever believe and suddenly the pressure is on to build your business, improve on everything we did last year and do more, more,more. I’m sitting at my desk surrounded by projects and papers and notes and books to read and phone calls to make and my iphone’s to do list is growing longer by the second. It’s so easy to get swamped and carried away, so my priority is to focus and only do the daily things that really need to get done and delegate the rest AND decide on a time I’m stopping for the day! I’ve always struggled with delegation, but not this year. Number 1 on my New Year’s resolutions or my goals list is to pass it on and delegate and get more done in the day and stop at a designated time. So, make sure I do this will you?

Have you made a new 12 months goals list?

Make a list of 10 BIG BIG Goals for 2013. 10 Goals that will push you so that when you hit them you will feel FANTASTIC. I can feel it in my bones that Health and Fitness will really be massive in 2013. It’s taken us a long time to get here. In my 25 years of teaching I’ve never felt so many people getting interested in health and fitness. You can see the buzz on social media, people want to get fit, they are interested in going to a class and trying something new. We need to ensure that what we offer is marketed at the right people. Think about launching some new sessions, new titles, new content, new music. Even if you are revamping classes that you have taught before, give your timetable a new lease of life and make it exciting for people to come out of doors on cold nights.

Kick Start Fat Loss New Digital Magazine

I launched the new digital magazine on 1st January and 15,000 people downloaded it…..Which is staggering.
It’s been in the planning a while and it’s been a huge project, but I’m happy to say it’s out and I’m so pleased with it. If you haven’t seen it as yet, please download it here.

http://kickstartfatlossmagazine.uberflip.com/i/101312

You can view it on your phone, ipad, laptop or desktop and I’d love to know what you think.

It’s free and will be out monthly.
Feel free to share it with your friends, family and colleagues and if you have any ideas for articles, features or advertising drop me an email.

New Downloads

Ive uploaded videos ideal to kick 2013 of with:

Super Simple Low Impact Choreography, Freestyle Step and Freestyle Aerobics 2 click here to view

Super Simple Basic Low Impact with Rachel Holmes

Code: Super
	This is the most simple and basic choreography I have put on the site. Due to the demand from Instructors asking me to create very simple blocks that can be used for beginners, old adults, people with injuries and of course those who enjoy very basic combinations. The music is 125bpm and every block is low impact, you can use each block as I have created it or add on variations depending on your class needs.
	2 Tokens	Length: 8 mins
	£ 2.99	Size: 54.0 MB

Don’t forget to book World Fitness Pilates Day Guildford
20th January 2013 & Bristol 23rd February 2013 Click here to book

KSFL Franchisee

I’ve opened the door for the next intake of Kick Start Fat Loss Franchisees and if you are interested in getting involved in the KSFL Business which is now growing at a fast pace. Please email me Rachel@Choreographytogo.com for all of the details.

Facebook Fitness Marketing by Rachel

Facebook is an amazing way to get your message out but you have to be consistent and have a strategy. The news feed moves so fast you need to be updating your status a minimum of twice a day.

I’m also a huge iphone fan as you can take pics, make quick videos of your classes, interview your class members in seconds and upload these all to your Facebook. It takes zero effort and will certainly make your page stand out so much more. Always remember fitness is about people and personalities. People come to your classes because they like YOU. They click with YOU so film that, take funky pictures and get it up on your Facebook every day.

Here are my top Facebook Fitness Marketing Tips

1.Make your status updates fun, interesting and informative. Have a laugh and you will get tons more feedback.

2.You are not just “SELLING” your classes you are engaging with and getting to know the people who follow you. Ask questions, talk to people, that is why it’s called SOCIAL media.

3.Post pictures with funky slogans. There are loads of wicked apps where you can take your pictures and add text. I use phonto but I also love using photoshop and make most of my slogan pics in Photoshop.

4.Film snippets of your classes and interview your most verbal class members. Get some one to hold your phone while you do a quick 2 minute interview and get it up online. You are giving your Facebook some real personality then.

5.Film 1 minute meal ideas, 1minute workouts to do at home, 1 minute fit tips. The more you do and upload the easier it becomes, but do it regularly not just once a blue moon. You will get more confident in front of the camera the more you do. Film in one take on your smart phone and upload in minutes.

6.Facebook Events – Make sure you update your events with your classes, courses, workshops and invite your friends. People need to see things at least 7 times before they decide to book or come along. I can’t stress enough consistency is the key

Marketers use the Rule of Seven. Prospects must see or hear your message seven times before they consider buying.

The Instructors who are most successful with Social Media are the ones who post consistently good content that is interesting and fun and endears me to that person. You feel like you know them, they have fun on social media and you always think “I’ll just have a quick look at what *********** is up to” Because you know it will be inspiring and imformative.

Facebook Notes

Use Facebook notes to blog and write about health and fitness related information. You essentially get a high-profile platform to demonstrate your knowledge on Health and Fitness, which is a subject EVERYONE is interested in.

That’s ten times better than regular paid advertising, and it costs nothing, only your time and, of course, you need to do this consistently.
Developing a regular blog on Facebook notes is like having your own column for a newspaper, magazine, or tabloid. Create a series of related subjects that interest lots of your readers. Everyone seems to want their own regular column in a magazine but you will be 95% there if you develop your own on Facebook first.

If you blog regularly and get a great following a national mag or paper is going to take you much more seriously than a Fitpro who doesn’t blog on Facebook notes.

So come on and create some great content for your Facebook Audience.

Jayne Nicholls

Happy New Year everyone, hope you had a great break. When I look back over a career spanning many years of change, it seems that last year was pivotal for many instructors. At this time of year we all used to go back to class but now we are back to business. Business building was massive last year and so many of us started to employ systems and strategies that might make class timetables perform in a more professional manner and hopefully more productive way. This proved to be both positive and negative in that the very things that were devised to increase profit ended up turning our target clients away over time and this is not good business practice. The good news is that this is a natural right of passage for any business, mistakes are made and anyone who made it through both a recession and a new business builder last year is doing brilliantly well.

So moving forward, here are my top 3 tips to help you grow steadily through 2013 in what looks to be a great year for health and fitness.

1.Build progressively, try not to rush in order to get to the end product. If you lay down firm roots to any project, you will be able to build higher and higher allowing you to change direction at any time to suit on-the-spot changes.

2.Be flexible – anyone who saw that ridiculous programme on Channel 5 on New Years Day re fitness facts and myths must realise that to the general public, the stuff that we hold dear is like white noise and they love, love, love 1 liners and easy to handle snippets. Last year we saw 1 track visions for fitness and weight loss that were so important to us but not so relevant to our clients. The more we move, the more we offer and the more we say yes to helping them achieve goals in ways that suit their lives and lifestyles, we will gather larger groups and cultivate lon term relationships that work.

3.Keep track! For all our planning we must always ask the question. is the outcome profitable? is it paying? is it working? Even if it works for other people it may not be the way forward for us. Similarly, set a target of what you want to earn and find more than one route to realising your goal. If we are now doing business, the ”love” must go on the back burner and not be the sole reason for us getting up in the morning.

Business builders are a new breed of instructor and should prove highly successful as the months go by.

Good luck with your business.

Jayne Nicholls www.groupxtraining.com
Happy New Year!

By Claire Mockridge
Ante/Postnatal Fitness Expert

Hi there C2Goers and Happy New Year to you!

I do hope you’ve had some time off over the festive season, no doubt you’ve met up with some friends and family over the past fortnight or so, Santa brought you all that you asked for and more, and right about now you’re either feeling: a) excited to be getting back into the fitness swing of things, or b) you’d like another week off before you have to face the ETM music again.

I’ve had this week off actually, and don’t start back till Monday 7th January 2013, so I’ve treated myself to a good 3 and a half week’s off. I get some classes covered over the Christmas/New Year period, but on a whole, because I operate on a pay upfront/flexible attendance basis, clients simply don’t mind if I take extended leave at any time of the year, to be honest.

My brother from Australia has come over to visit us for the festive season and it’s been brilliant fun catching up, playing Tour Guide and generally just spending some quality time together. As I’ve mentioned before, I come from a long line of hard-grafters, and my brother owns his own successful internet-based company back in Australia which he built up from scratch. He works hard too, as you’d expect, and because he had someone cover his Inbox/orders whilst he was away (namely our Dad!), his business has ran rather smoothly in his absence.

If you’re returning to classes this week or next, or you’re taking a new class, or changing the format of an existing session, here are some top tips to ensure your sessions run smoothly:

1 – Be organised – Get your PAR-Qs in order, any loyalty cards pre-written and stamped, and make sure your registers are up-to-date with everyone’s name and email address so you can contact them all after their first class for 2013 saying “Welcome back to class!”.

2 – Lesson plans – I used to think New Year, New Lesson Plan, but to be honest, just grab an “oldie but a goodie” out from amongst your piles of Lesson Plans (or scrap paper or whatever it is you store your previous lesson plans on!), and just re-hash a previous one. This saves the stress of writing something new, and therefore teaching it.

3 – Music – If you’re an ETM instructor like me, it’s ok to feel nervous teaching your first warm up and/or choreography for the New Year. I always feel a bit rusty after a few weeks off, and I never put on new CD or introduce anything too fancy choreography-wise. This instantly releases the pressure of a bit of annual leave.

4 – Instructing – If you’re a Pilates Instructor and you feel as though you’ve lost the knack of instructing, visualisation and/or just want some “new” phrases to say, check out YouTube for some inspiration, or friend and/or follow some of your favourite Pilates teachers on Social Media. They’re always sources of new expressions for the same things, different ways of sequencing and exercise ideas.

And there you have it! Have fun back teaching, and don’t despair – it’s only about 13 weeks until Easter…

Bye for now.

Twitter – @ClaireMockridge
Facebook – /ClaireMockridge1
Closed Facebook Group for Pre/Postnatal Instructors: www.facebook.com/groups/ClaireMockridge

Happy New Year by Sally Ghafoor

Here we are 2013, judging by Facebook comments, some people are heaving a sigh of relief to say goodbye to 2012 and are hoping for a great year this year.

Set your goals, write them down and have some direction, if you’re looking to have a great year, what do you have to do to get there? Why not do a personal and professional goal? How can you fast track your way there?

Here at Fitness Business Hub we are helping fitness instructors to take their business forward by helping them with their social media. Social media can be like a newborn baby, you spend ages staring at the screen, and how is that like a baby? Well I don’t know about you but how many of you have achieved nothing all day because you can’t stop staring at your newborn’s face?

Set yourself a time limit and do not stray from it, before you go on social media write down exactly why you are logging on and what you are going to put on there, then get off. If you want to use it as personal social time, that’s fine, just do it out of working hours!

Social media can help your fitness business and classes’ rock. Fitness business hub provides a virtual service to help you, from free advice and help to running your social media platforms to free you up to do what you do best.

For the month of January to all C2Go readers we have an offer, we will do all of your social media for half price for the whole month. This will enable you to get a taster of how social media can really drive your business forward, we normally charge £150 a month to run businesses social media but for January it will be £75. Then after the trial you can either stick with us, or we will talk you through going forward on your own.

For more details go to www.facebook.com/fitnessbusinesshub and leave us a message quoting C2Go J

New Year – New You??? Cori Withell

So, the New Year is almost upon us. How many marketing posts will there be that include the above quote? It is the same every year isn’t it? Whilst I don’t disagree I do wonder how people interpret it, I mean, surely there is the possibility of people seeing it like the old them is not good enough somehow? I really believe in empowering people to find their own destiny and in that vein, I don’t think I have the right to imply they need a ‘new’ them. So, how about ‘Better Year – Better You’?

There have been many negative factors over the last year, redundancies, fewer jobs available, pay cuts, rising mortgage costs, more people than ever on mental health medication. So, why not look at treating the whole person in their whole life instead of just the physical part? Showing people that they have the opportunity of having a better year and in so doing making themselves feel better, act better, look better, BE better – is that not what the public want?

I don’t know the answers and don’t pretend to but I do know that more and more people are becoming more and more interested in the holistic approach to well being and health and fitness and we, as fitness instructors, have a huge potential to be part of that empowerment.

As I always say, we all need to stop living in a world of entitlement and live in a world of empowerment.

You have the potential to show people just how to do that, for me, life does not get more awesome than that!

PS: this also applies to us all, stop working every waking hour, take time out for you, systemise everything and free up time for you to spend as you please!

Wishing you all a healthy and happy 2013.

www.facebook.com/cori.withell
www.twitter.com/CWFitness
www.cwfitness.co.uk/blog/

Cori x

To Be Or Not To Be……An Employee

By Andrew Crawford

Seasons Greetings and a prosperous 2013 to you all. It is going to be an exciting year…!!

Just a few questions…Have you started detoxing yet? Too much alcohol consumed in one week…. Did you overspend on a credit card? Or did you use cash from your ‘Commercial Bank’ savings? Remember, you should have been putting away a small amount each month in your ‘own’ savings club..!!

Just a few observations…. We’re in a recession right? So how come over the period of only one week we spent billions of pounds in shops, on the net and home shopping? Record sales were made…….but recession still looms…!!

Lastly…..didn’t this year just ‘fly by’…??

You Fitpros better move over and make room for cream. It’s called Nip+Fab Upper Arm Fix and costs only £12.95 a tube ……less than a PT …!!
All your client needs to do is to rub on the lotion twice a day for six weeks, after that time, their ‘bingo wings’ would go. Imagine that. No more press ups, dips, burpees, weights, tricep dips…..
Imma gonna get me some and rub it all over my body….tee hee….!!
Any ways…this week’s article is short as some of you are still on holiday.

When I started out in the Fitness Industry, I was employed, self- employed and a Director of a company. As time moved along, I employed and took on staff. Some were freelancers, other paid through the PAYE system.

Right now, if I was to start again, everyone would be a freelancer…..here’s just a few things you should know…to be or not to be an employee.

Employee

If you can answer ‘yes’ to all of the following questions, you are probably an employee.

Do you have to do the work yourself?
Can someone tell you at any time what to do, where to carry out the work, or when and how to do it?
Do you work a set amount of hours?
Can someone move you from task to task?
Are you paid by the hour, week or month?
Can you get overtime pay or bonus payment?
Do you get holiday pay, sick pay, time off in lieu?
Do you have office parties?

Self-employed

If you can answer ‘yes’ to all of the following questions, it will usually mean you are self-employed.

Can you hire someone to do the work for you or engage helpers at your own expense?
Do you risk your own money?
Do you provide the main items of equipment you need to do the job, not just the small tools employees provide for themselves?
Do you agree to do a job for a fixed price regardless of how long the job may take?
Can you decide what work to do, how and when to do the work and where to provide the services?
Do you regularly work for a number of different people?
Do you have to correct unsatisfactory work in your own time and at your own expense?

Casual, or part-time working

The same considerations to determine employment status will apply even if you work part-time or on a casual basis. Unless you can answer ‘yes’ to the self-employed questions above, you will normally be an employee.

More than one job

If –
You have more than one job, or
You work for a number of different people for a few days or weeks at a time you will need to answer the questions [above] for each job.

If you provide services to many people and do not work regularly for one person to the exclusion of others, this may effect whether your work for each is as an employee, or as a self-employed person.

*Remember, just because you are employed or self-employed in one job, it doesn’t necessarily mean you will be in another job.

You could even be an employee and self-employed at the same time. For example, you could –

be employed as a part-time shop assistant and spend the rest of your time running your own business from home, or
work full-time in a factory as an employee, and run a part-time business in the evening or weekends.

You may have a number of casual or part-time activities, and in some way be an employee and in others self-employed.

It all depends on the facts.

Finally

It is Tax Return season and a lot of questions are asked around this time. If you have any burning questions you can fire them to me at advice@andrewjamesconsulting.com (Not too long please…) I usually answer them late at night. Oh…..and put ‘Tax Return’ in the subject line or else they will be deleted along with all the Viagra and your long lost cousin died and left you $30,000,000 ones …..ha ha ha……!!

See ya…!!