Instructor Newsletter 25th October 2012

Hi Everyone

Great response from last weeks newsletter it seems many of you took on board my idea to great all of your goals and your daily to do lists in your phone. It definitely keeps you more focussed and productive. Have you managed to free yourself up from note books and writing lists on the back on an envelope? I really hope you are powering through your to do lists and smashing your goals.

Today I would really love your feedback. You will notice that my section of the newsletter is a video VLOG. Ive done this in my quest to be more productive and time efficient so I can get more information over to you in a shorter space of time. Everyone these days has smartphones so you can “watch” the newsletter, get all of the relevant info in record time and hopefully it will inspire and motivate you for the rest of the day. You can still read all of your regular articles from Jayne, Jill, Cori, Vikki, Andrew and Katie so hopefully you will enjoy the mix.

Please feedback to me via Twitter or my Facebook channels.

If you are going to the Yoga Show on Saturday I’ll be presenting a talk on Social Media & Business Development and “assisting” on Jaynes stand to pop over in you are at Olympia this weekend.

World Fitness Pilates Day – 4th November

Kelly and I are so excited to be presenting this day to almost 60 Instructors. I’l be launching the new line of Fitness Pilates Clothing  and apparel as well as tons of new class ideas.

We have 5 spaces left now and to book https://www.choreographytogo.com/workshop-booking/world-fp/
New Downloads

I’ve uploaded 2 new Kettlebell Workouts

Functional Kettlebell Workout https://www.choreographytogo.com/video-detail/?vid=649

Full Body Kettlebell Mini Mix https://www.choreographytogo.com/video-detail/?vid=650

Jayne Nicholls

What we say, how we say it, our body language and our delivery are all so important in dealing with clients who may test us or push our buttons but the actual quality of our language is also really important.

Anyone who has taken the FFY course knows that one of our first rules, is that we use the language of fitness when communicating. This includes for example –  flexion, extension, rotation, contraction – a language that is relevant and precise allowing us to be specific with our instruction. We utilise a hierarchy of cues where again for example flexion stands at one end, in the middle is bend or fold and banished at the bottom is ”soft” when used in relation to joints like the knees, as this has no relation to what we want people to actually action.

Any resistance to this, usually takes the form of: ”our clients won’t understand us!”. So in order to flip this, we prioritise the following:
We take on the job of educating our clients with the language we use, this gives them a greater awareness of their own capabilities and it endorses that we know what we are talking about.
Using a language that relates to what we are physically doing makes us sound more professional and will earn us more respect.
Finally in my entire teaching history, I have never met an adult who I need to dumb down information for. Most people want more information and more value for money and the language that we use is the very first step to offering them a standard.
No matter how warm and friendly we are with the people who attend our sessions, even those closest to us will appreciate that when we are working, we are performing in the very best way possible. By up-skilling the language that we use, we can create a brand new persona, this does not have to be serious uncaring or sterile, it is simply a demonstration of our knowledge and experience.

If anyone is coming to the Yoga Show in Olympia this weekend – visit us at stand H18 for a chat and a snack.

jayne www.groupxtraining.com

Jayne Nicholls
Group X Training Ltd
www.groupxtraining.com
0208 488 1451

A seminal year….Jill Gardner

It’s been just over a year since I started mentoring with Rachel.  I can’t believe how much has happened and what opportunities have come my way.  To say that I am excited about the future and the industry is an understatement.

I shudder to think where I would be if I had of stayed put in my comfort zone.  Just over a year ago Lincoln Bryden persuaded me to deliver a free seminar to help fill my new Metabolic Effect Classes.  This was my first dabble in community classes and seminars and to say I was scared is an understatement!

But you know what, I stepped right out of my comfort zone, which was bland and going nowhere, into a new arena.  I have been lucky enough to work with Rachel Holmes, Katie Bulmer-Cooke, and Yvonne Radley.  I am raising my game higher and higher!

Here is a snapshot of what’s happened since that very first seminar in 2011:
I launched my first live 4-week Fat Loss Journey
I launched the first fat burning cookery course
I launched and branded my own 30 minute rest based class and called it Fitstop
I launched my Fat Loss Journey on-line and called it Ignite
I launched my own small group training programme called it The Mojo Club
I launched my own on-line Fitstop VIP monthly membership programme
I have appeared in the local press, radio and national press
On Monday of next week I record my first very own branded Fitstop DVD
In November I launch my first fat burning cookbook

Not only I am no longer confined to the local community, I now have global fans and clients!  This would not have happened if I had stayed comfortable teaching in my local gym.  But it wasn’t really comfortable.  Actually it was pretty uncomfortable.  Now as I sit preparing for my latest seminar I can’t believe how far I have come and how much more there is to achieve if I want to!

Next year I will be looking for instructors who want to work along side me as I grow my already successful concepts and ideas.  Hook up with me on twitter or Facebook and lets put the #comfortzone2bed!

Big love, small tummies!

Jill – The Fat Controller @itsjillgardner www.hateitchangeit.co.uk www.facebook.com/hateitchangeit

The Truth Hurts Katie Bulmer Cooke

Hey C2Goer’s,

Hope all is good in your fitness hood!

When was the last time you asked for customer feedback? Like real customer feedback…not just a quick ‘are you enjoying the class?’ at the end of your session.

The only way we can serve our customers better, aid retention and generate referrals is to make them happy by giving them positive experiences and value for money.

And while I know we can’t please everybody all of the time, there is always room for improvement.

I do this regularly and feedback not only shows me where I can improve in my business but also tells me what I am doing well, which of course is always good to hear, in what can be the very lonely world of a fitness professional.

So why not take less than ten minutes to find out what your clients love about your service and how you can build on your current systems, content and customer experience.

I use www.surveymonkey.com an online facility that allows you to create a survey quickly, easily and also free of charge. You then email out a link to your clients and they respond anonymously…meaning you get their true, honest feedback not a fluffy answer they think you want to hear.

I asked them 2 questions:

In 100% full honestly, how can I improve the service I give you?
What am I currently doing well?

Keeping it short and to the point ensures a greater response rate as it takes only a few minutes to complete.

Some of responses you receive may not be what you want to hear, or even hurt a little. But don’t take it personally, but at least you now know what your customers really think/want/love and you can use it do drive and motivate you to be the absolute best!

Then, once you have the feedback you can act on it, and create the best fitness business around that current clients, ex-clients, hot prospects and referrals will love!

Have a super-fabulous day,

KBC x

Here we go 🙂

Where did my mojo go? by Cori

Okay, you are working as usual, teaching, learning, studying, writing, marketing and everything is going great.  Then slowly but steadily, day by day the usual work day starts to become harder and harder.  You can’t really work it out so you battle on regardless.  Then it gets to the day when you notice that actually just doing the simplest thing is a real struggle.  You could quite happily stay in your dressing gown all day watching Jeremy Kyle (heaven help us!),  mooching around on Facebook and Twitter but not really doing anything proactive.  Well, that has been me over the last couple of weeks and it was driving me round the bend.  My get up and go had got up and gone!  So, how do you get it back?  Below is my plan of attack, I will keep you posted on how it goes!

1)  Do not change your routine.  Get up at the same time every single day regardless.
2)  Eat cleaner than clean!  Once your mojo starts to wander off, your mood may dip down, so eating super clean is more important than ever.
3)  Do not feel guilty.  This happens to everyone at some point, accept it and move on.
4)  If you are going to take time out then put a deadline on it, if you don’t it will just drift on and on.
5)  Get outside as much as you can, loss of mojo and/or low mood often lead us to isolate ourselves, not a good move!  Go and meet friends for coffee, lunch, go out walking, shopping, lose an afternoon in the cinema or having a massage.
6)  Write down what HAS to be done.  Temporarily shelve everything else.  Having a massive to do list is going to do nothing for your mojo.
7)  Break that list down into all the little jobs required to do to be on top of it.
8)  Pick ONE of those broken down items to do, do not look at doing anything else until you have done that.  Aim to get that done in one day.
9)  Be kind to yourself – berating yourself because you are not getting enough done is going to do nothing to get your mojo back!
10) It WILL pass 🙂

People seem to forget that being self employed is hard.  It is hard to get up every day and motivate yourself to get the work done, to consistently and continually come up with new class ideas, new products, choose new music, learn new choreography, write articles, blogs, film, audio – the list goes on and on.  It IS okay to have a few days out, do what you need to do for you.

Health and happiness x
Cori x

Whatever You Do…..
By Andrew Crawford
Whatever you do…don’t go walking around the streets with your gymsticks or flexi bars as the highly trained, highly skilled, Elite trained  ‘Murder Squad’….. Known as the Police might shoot the …. Out of you….don’t even‘think’ about wearing dark glasses and walking your highly visible guide dog,,….
Whatever you do …make sure you spend all your money. I was thinking this week that the multi-millionaire winners who spend ALL their winnings are onto a good thing…..why?
Because although you’re not taxed on your winnings or lottery downpours….the vultures…ooppps ..I meant the HMRC will ‘wait’ until you die to drag 40% tax from whatever you have left. So….’Live like a millionaire die like a Pauper’……40% of nothing is?? ………..!!!

Whatever you do…pay the least tax as is possible. Just another thought for you…………Ebay turned over £800m and paid tax of £1m….Brian Wiggins made £5m and paid tax of £1m…………go figure..!!
Whatever you do…make sure you thoroughly check the ‘small print’ of your insurance documentation. I was on the phone today with a lady who regularly paid large amounts of monthly premiums for her buildings insurance housing her fitness business.
When it came to claim she was told….’…..that is not covered, you will have to go elsewhere….’ Wtf…!!
The Insurance Industry is unregulated, so they can do what the ….they like.
A well known fitness instructor pays £2,000 for his son of 18 to be insured on this policy……they quoted £7,000!!
Whatever you do…change insurance companies every year to a cheaper one. Have you noticed that once you are in…that’s it?

They ‘automatically’ renew your policy….at a higher premium than previous year because of the ‘economy’ and inflationary fluctuations despite your 15 years plus of no claims discount. What a load of b*ll*x. I think that’s a con anyway…..!!
Whatever you do….live your life to the fullest extent. What do the ‘Boys’ in the Big House mean when they want you to pay into a pension most of your working life which you will NEVER fully benefit from.
Check this out…..they know full well why they have ‘risen’ the retirement age…it is a well-known fact that after paying into the ‘pension pot’ for numerous working years, once you retire at that late stage, you will only ‘dip’ into the pension pot for a few years until you leave this life.
What have they just proposed? Ah….”…retired Britons could be ‘forced’ to do community work or lose some state pension….”…..’Forced’..!!
Whatever you do….tell your mum and dad you love them (if they are still with us).
So Andrew…..
Whatever you do….Pray tell us what tf is going on …and how is this relevant to Accountancy and Tax?
Well…whatever you do ensure that you are familiar with what the HMRC classifies as tax avoidance because this is distinct from evasion. Me and you legitimately utilise all the available tax avoidance rules applicable to hard working UK tax payers.
The HMRC now want to target Tax Advisers’ little grey suited sqeamish number crunchers like me.  Why?  I ask myself, when directly under their noses even in their own offices ‘tax avoidance’ is rife.
Whatever you do…don’t listen to what they say about ‘Aggressive Tax Avoidance’…it is still tax avoidance, which may I remind you …is legal.
So yes…they have made my blood boil so much I am about to reveal to you a little ‘secret’ they don’t want you to know….Come closer….!!
It’s called Cyprus. Why do I love Cyprus…I’ll tell you in a minute but first let me remind you of some basics.
When you set up a company in the UK , you pay UK tax
When you set up a company overseas, you pay the tax relevant to that country
Once set up, YOU and the company are ‘separate’ legal entities
You can set up an IBC: International Business Company, especially one in Cyprus.
Can you have shares in companies such as BT or an IBC? Yes
As a ‘shareholder’ of BT or IBC shares, do YOU have to pay tax on it’s profits? No the companies pay.
Do YOU have to file accounts? No , BT and IBC does.
What is the Capital Gains Tax in Cyprus? 0%
What is the dividend tax in Cyprus? 0%
What is the Income tax in Cyprus? 10%
What is the Inheritance Tax in Cyprus? 0% IHT was abolished
Other facts
Cyprus is not an offshore country
It is internationally recognised
It is not blacklisted
Can conduct businesses with countries the world over
It has a Tax Treaty with the UK
Used by thousands of businesses and investors, especially the UK
So Andrew…show us an example.

Supposing your IBC bought a property in it’s name and held it for 10 years, then sold it. You would expect it to make a large profit, say £80,000?

Who made the profit? The company, IBC
Does the IBC have to pay CGT on its profit? Yes
At what percentage? 0%
As a shareholder of the company can you get dividends? Yes
Do you have to pay dividend tax? Yes
At what percentage? 0%
How much dividends from the sale would you take? All the mofo..!!
That’s worth a few grand………….#justsaying

Feel Angry!!
Finally
Whatever you do check out this vid…
.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxtlMqOSTSI
#whateveryoudo     See you in Larnaca

There are more FREE resources, downloads and tax advice at our site, visit
www.fitnessindustryaccountants.com  www.facebook.com/fitnessindustryaccountants    www.facebook.com/andrewjamescrawford
www.twitter.com/tax4fitness
www.fitnessindustrygossip.com     (launches 27th October)

Vikki Scovell

I have just been writing the acknowledgements for my forthcoming cookery book.  I HAD to mention my Grandmother Bronwen with whom I pootled round the kitchen as a nipper: cutting rounds of dough, pouring milk, measuring raisins into the mixing bowl.  She was from a Welsh mining family: from a world of football teams and playing in the hills, of chapel and endless songs and stories of family from Cornwall.  When she was small, her 28-year-old father Thomas was killed in a mining accident, leaving 5 young children to my Great -Grandmother Anne.  In the 1920’s there was no insurance pay-out or widows’ pension: times were tough, there wasn’t always much to eat, and one of the wee mites perished.  Anne showed her affection, as all mothers do with little morsels and treats for the dear ones.   They struggled: Bronwen went into service in London age 14 (with a smattering of English), eventually married, set up her own thriving business and bought up 3 boys.  Because of her background, Grandma showed how much she loved us, by providing food in quantities which would send a particularly greedy US Eating-Competition-Champ into cardiac arrest.  For her, food was love; she had all the love in the world to give us, she would not let us go hungry, she would not let us feel want.
The second you walked through the door, she would disappear, RUNNING on her tiny feet into the kitchen.  An electric knife would buzz into action, the Soda-Stream would PARP impolitely, and the fridge door would open and shut 20 times.  3 minutes later, whilst warming the griddle-pan for Welsh cakes, she would run back with a plate brimming with finely sliced bread, spread with butter, topped in thick cream and home-made raspberry jam.  That would be the warm-up for an assault of hot cakes, all manner of things dripping in butter, and usually home-fried chips in a butty, to be eaten by the fire.  We teased her about the way she ran from us to the kitchen, from the kitchen to us, for her constant singing, and her Valley accent- Ohh! There’s posh, Ohh! There’s luv’ly!  I won’t begin to describe her famous Lemon Cake, or Christmas, which would have you sensitive healthy types turning green around the gills.  One of my earliest memories is being snuggled with Grandma in bed with a boiled egg and soldiers on a green and white plate (which I have on my dresser).  To me, that is the essence of warmth and happiness and being loved to your very molecules.
What is love without nurturing, and nurturing without nourishment?  With young children, life revolves around sustenance; breast or bottle, weaning, snacking, meal times, drinks, enjoyment or rejection.  The babies’ understanding of life focuses on mother’s milk.  If you have heard a new-born crying, it is not just hunger; it is desperation not to be left to starve, not to be abandoned.  The terror is real and palpable, and then the magical parent comes with the food to soothe away the fear.  The relationship between mother and child develops through feeding, and the closeness, trust and comfort comes with that nourishing love.   Favorite uncles and Aunties bring bags of sweets, adult friendships form around the pub or dinner table, love affairs start with a drink or a meal, the family comes together for the Christmas dinner.  Our lives are constructed around food, love, eating and comfort.  We can barely contemplate the reality of lack, of hunger or inability to provide.
Is it any surprise that so many of us, and our clients, children and friends have fairly messy issues surrounding food?   Sadness, disappointment, anxiety or feelings of lack of control have us reaching for comfort-foods, treats to soothe our hurts.  The chocolate buttons for our grazed knees become a bottle of wine for our bruised hearts.  Food, alcohol, drugs; it is all the same thing really.  Life is full of strangeness or emptiness, stresses and strains, anxieties or insecurities.  We reach out for comfort, and solace.  These behavior patterns may run very deep, but our role for ourselves, our families and those we work for, is to make ‘nourishment’ align with comfort; to subdue the instant/infant need for immediate sweet gratification, to teach that real comfort comes when we know we are making the right choices.  To nurture wholesomely, showing our love by doing right by ourselves and those we care for personally and professionally.  I miss my Grandma in so many ways, and her food history has partly shaped mine.  Luckily I have changed the foods through which I show my love, but the gift of love still comes down the years from her, and her mother before her.
I send you my love, and wishes for a happy and wholesome week.  Vikki Scovell  @fitbite
(Feel free to check my FB/twitter, I will post some pictures of my Grandma in full Welsh Costume as a nipper!)

Have a wonderful Thursday
Love Rachel x