Instructor Newsletter 1st August 2014

It’s holiday time & judging by all of the out of office emails

I’m getting looks like so many of us are taking some time out.

 

So, here is a short newsletter to keep you all in the mix.

 

I begin my Fee Pop Up Workouts in August in various parks

Around Nottingham & Derbyshire. 

 

These are just 45 minutes workouts I advertise on social media

& teach for free & are open to all.

 

They are wonderful for PR & I always sell DVDS, Books & courses

making the whole experience really worthwhile.

 

If you want to do POP UP’s then contact your local park services, who will be happy to give you all of the information on usage.

 

 

New 5 Day ONLINE KSFL

 

I start a new online detox on Monday if you would like to

Join click here

 

 

Do you want nutrition, fatloss, home workouts

& recipe information?

 

Add your email to my KSFL newsletter list

 

Do you want to grow your Fitness Business?

 

More indepth social media info?

How to create passive income streams,

Coaching/mentoring, PR/Marketing etc 

 

Add your email to my Fitness Business Academy

newsletter click here

 

 

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Consumers Shop with their Eyes by Rachel

 

I have no idea where I picked this up or heard it but the statement is so amazingly true and even more so when marketing yourself, brand and sessions on social media. When you are cruising down your Facebook and Twitter feeds the items that often get your attention are pictures, so make sure you are using great images and pictures on your Facebook Pages.

 

There are some perfect apps which you can add your text onto your photos and create your own quotes and advertisements in seconds. I love Phonto and I use Picstich and Instacollage to put all my photos together, add text and create interesting pics for my Facebook and Instagram.

 

They ALWAYs get a lot of attention as people do get bored with just seeing the same old status updates. Why don’t you put some fun pics and quotes together today for your social media.

 

Photos on Facebook generate 53% more likes than the average post, and posts with more likes increase your engagement. This is important because as your engagement increases, Facebook puts you into the News Feed more often so that more of your fans see you, which ultimately leads to more people reading your posts.

 

 

 

How to Get More Likes on Your Facebook Page

 

Why are Facebook fans important? 

 

Well there are a few reasons.  First, when you grow a big community of loyal fans on Facebook, your chances of getting seen and heard inside Facebook increase.  It’s really just a numbers game.

 

 

The more fans you have talking about you, liking your posts and sharing your content, the more often people on Facebook will see your content. You want an army of raving fans talking about you – and Facebook can do just that!

 

Also, your Facebook fan count acts as social proof. 

 

That means when someone comes to your Facebook page and sees you have a few thousand fans (or more!) they think, “Ok, this Instructor is legit, popular, professional, etc etc.”  Crazy, I know.  But true!  We want to become fans of pages our friends and peers like.  The more fans you have, the more new fans you can get.

 

 

Tip#1:If you have a website then get a Facebook “like” Box

 

A Like Box helps you attract Facebook fans that are genuinely interested in you and your business. You will have seen these on just about every website you visit.  It’s where you can see the little Facebook box where you can like the page from your own website.

 

It’s easy to implement and is one of the more effective ways to grow a quality fan community.

If you are struggling with how to do it then ask your website developer

 

Tip#2: Use Facebook adverts to grow your email list

 

I use FB ads daily to grow my email list & promote my

products & services. If you are interested in FB ads

make sure you add your email to my Fitness Business

academy Newsletter.

 

 

 

Tip #3: Increase Your Engagement and Interact on the page regularly

 

Here’s how engagement will help you attract more fans:

One of the most common reasons why people on Facebook struggle to get more fans is that they don’t have any engagement on their Facebook page. When you don’t have engagement you won’t be seen in the news feed and the news feed is where all the action is on Facebook.

 

When you get people talking about you on Facebook (liking your posts, commenting and sharing your content) your exposure organically increases (meaning you don’t have to pay for the engagement, it just happens naturally).  When your exposure increases, your fan base increases.

 

The more great content your post and share, the more people comment then the more people will see it in the newsfeed.

So there you have my top 3 tips to getting more fans on your Facebook pages.

 

 

 

 

Instructor’s Tool Kit

 

As progressive Instructors, expanding your business empire, no matter how large or small,  is important to ensure you are earning a healthy living from your fitness business. Unless you want to teach 30 classes and PT 30 clients it is quite hard to earn a substantial income from teaching alone, so what are the next steps to creating that illusive passive income steam we all yearn for.

 

This is the first in my series of Creating additional upsells for your fitness business and the email I get so often is how to create a DVD.

 

Create a DVD to Sell to your Class members – Action Steps

 

Find a camera man – You HAVE to film a DVD that your class members can buy. This is A NO brainer and it has never been easier to do. Find a cheap camera person and it’s as easy as asking your friends on Facebook – I guarantee one of your friend’s sons/husbands/mates will be a budding amateur or bonafide professional. Ask to see examples of their work and go from there. At the beginning of the year I tweeted I needed someone to film my fitness videos and I got local responses. I interviewed each candidate and found a brilliant film student who now takes care of all my DVD filming.

 

What do you want it to look like – Show them copies of DVD’s you have so they can see exactly what you want and explain you only need 1 camera and very little editing as you will film it all in one take! (Hopefully!) It doesn’t have to be an MTV production! 1 Camera is totally adequate as all the viewers need to see is YOU demonstrating and teaching.

 

Payment – Expect to pay about £250 for a day’s filming and editing, then agree a price per copy for duplication. It shouldn’t be any more costly than that, as it is a very simple shoot for someone.

 

Location – Choose a location that has a nice, well lit back drop. It could be a studio, outdoors, anywhere that would make a nice situation, and do a quick test with your camera man. He will be able to advise you and supply a mic and you will probably need to sort out a sound system. Some producers will have the music feeding straight into the camera others will dub the music over the top, it depends on their equipment.

 

Music – You have to use license free music that you will need to purchase. Contact Pure Energy who will be able to sell you the correct legal music for the project. You can’t use any music, it has to be special license and royalty free music. Don’t expect the music to be full on chart music.  If you notice, music for DVDS is always a bit on the pedestrian side but that’s just how it is to stay legal. Don’t let this be a barrier to your project.

 

Rehearse – Know your material inside out. Rehearse an intro and outro and rehearse the different sections. For example, your video will need chapters. So, my DVDs have an Intro, Warm Up,  followed by the different workout sections, Cool down and Outro. Your DVD needs to be in chapters so viewers can skip to the sections they want to view without having to watch from the total beginning. Again this is a no brainer for an experienced producer.

 

Cover and Graphics – I use one graphic designer who designs everything for me, including all of my logos, flyers, website, headings, magazines.  He designs my DVD covers and I send them to my DVD producer who prints them and adds them to the cases. I encourage you to spend time on creating cool branding and covers for the DVDs as when you take them into class that’s what will sell them. Make sure you have good quality promotional photos of yourself that can be used for your cover.

 

DVD Trailer – Get your producer to create 60 second clips of the DVD that you can share on your social media channels. Create a launch date and then do build promotion 7 days up to launch day.

 

Purchasing – Get your DVD up on your website with payment links so you can sell mail order.

 

Pricing – Around £15 is a good retail price and will give you a good return on your investment. A good DVD will sell for years, so plan your content and look to filming a series of DVDS regularly to keep your selection updated.

 

DVDS sales make a massive % of my own business and although many people love online workouts, your class members will LOVE to purchase your DVD to do at home and this trend just looks set to continue. So don’t miss out on this lucrative income stream.

 

Your first DVD will be the hardest, but once you have done one the follow ups will be so much easier and you can sell them to all of your class members and online.

 

Good luck and Happy Filming Tweet me @RachelHolmes

 

 

Ready For Transformation?

by Jo De Rosa

 

I was teaching meditation to our hotel guests this morning and I had an epiphany moment.

 

We were doing a ‘sound’ meditation.

 

I was saying, “Allow the sounds to be there: don’t fight them; let them pass along with your thoughts; there are going to be sounds WHEREVER you are meditating and you cannot change that, so give up the fight with them and accept them…”

 

 

I continued, “We meditate not to be good at it but because it affects our whole lives…and when the 30 minute (or however long it is) ‘formal’ practice ends the ‘informal’ practice begins –which is the rest of our lives: our relationships; work; wellness; health etc… and when we can accept sounds in our meditation, we are actually learning to accept what life throws at us. We are equipped for the lows as well as the highs, just as we can allow the birds to sing and the cars to pass as we sit with eyes closed for a few minutes…..”

 

 

Before me were 10 people with very limited (if any) meditation experience. I thought about what I had just said to them, and how they could interpret it. And I tried to take my mind back to when I began my own practice so many years ago. It was difficult to keep my mind still back then and I wondered if it would ever become easier, if I would ever be able to ‘let go’ of the constant chatter.

 

 

Back then life was a struggle, and it felt that the world was against me. I remember very clearly when my washing machine broke back in 1994 and I shouted out loud, “Why does everything happen to me?”

 

And I really believed it did 20 years ago.

 

I was in a verbally/emotionally abusive relationship, partying and drugging every weekend, and working in a job that didn’t inspire me in any way.

 

Life was hard.

 

But that was how society told me life had to be, and I felt the same as everyone else. We all complained about how hard we worked for rubbish money, we all complained about our unsatisfactory relationships, and we all struggled.

 

It was normal.

 

Transformation

 

Then everything changed 17 years ago when yoga and meditation came into my life. Suddenly I was shown the space and peace that was constantly within me (but had been covered up by the negative stuff). I entered a world where I took responsibility for BEING in the abusive relationship rather than a victim of it, took responsibility for BEING in a job that didn’t stimulate me in any way, and also started to work on my highly addictive behaviour.

 

Perception

 

I began to see things in a new way and stopped blaming everyone else for my problems. I realised that the only person that could change them was ME.

 

Tolerance

 

The ‘sound’ meditation that we did this morning is about tolerance. We ALLOW the sounds to be there rather than fighting and pushing them away.

 

We realise that there is NO POINT in getting fraught with what ‘may’ or ‘may not’ happen in life, or things that we cannot change (like other peoples attitudes/opinions).

 

We have so much judgement. We say “the cars are too noisy” during meditation, or “why can’t they keep their voices down, we’re meditating!”

 

Earlier I was playing my Tibetan singing bowl which has a gorgeous and soothing sound when a helicopter approached. And this was the perfect opportunity to show my students that ALL sound is good when meditating! It doesn’t matter if we class is as ‘good’ or ‘bad’.

Accept it. Because you can’t change it…that helicopter is there whether you like it or not!

 

Can you see how the ‘formal’ practice affects our everyday lives?

 

The Epiphany:

 

In that moment of teaching earlier I suddenly saw how having tolerance was playing out in my life. How my meditation practice was having a DIRECT IMPACT on my day to day living!

Now as a life drama plays out in front of me, it’s like it’s happening at arms length. I don’t get het up any longer whilst others around me do –and in the past I certainly would have been stressed!

Now I have this underlying sense that EVERYTHING is playing out as it needs to, for me to learn what I need to, to move on down my path. And the more I resist, the more difficult I make it. So if I just ALLOW it in like the sounds around me in my ‘formal’ meditation practice, deal with it as best I can, then I can move on.

 

What is the point of running yourself ragged?

 

What is the point of worrying about something in the future that may not even happen?

 

What is the point of going over something from the past that cannot be changed over and over again?

 

Stop driving yourself mad!

 

LET GO!

 

Life is so sweet once you do.

Now instead of struggle there is flow.

And it’s beautiful.

I appreciate all that is in my life, because I want it to be there. And everything that I don’t want has gone, because I’ve chosen it to be that way.

 

Results

 

We are a hugely results driven society and our meditation practice is actually no different. When I look back on my life I can absolutely see the MASSIVE positive change that it has made. Without it I would still be stuck in the boring job, inadequate relationship, and addicted to the eyeballs to everything in sight.

 

It’s been so worth taking 5 or 10 minutes out of each day to connect with myself and check in to how I feel. “Am I being true to myself?” is what I ask constantly to stay on track, and daily meditation continues that connection to self xx

 

Are You Ready?

 

I want the world to meditate! Because it has changed my life for the better!

 

And if you are ready for transformation then my 10 Week Online Meditation Course means your first 30 minute meditation is just a click away. The link is below and I can’t wait for word to get out that life can be all that you dreamt it could be, by just putting aside a few minutes each day.

And for those that are already onboard….how are you getting on? I’d love to hear from you xx

 

Web:  www.innerguidance.co.uk/shop

Email:  jo@innerguidance.co.uk

Facebook:  InnerGuidance

Twitter:  @Inner_Guidance

Copyright: Jo De Rosa 2014

 

Have a wonderful Day

Rachel x