Instructor Newsletter 8 December 2011

Note from Rachel

I am writing this newsletter this week from Playitas in Fuetueventra YIPPEEE! and it’s hot, warm and very sunny. I love being away at this time of year as it gives me  time to recharge and rethink my plans for 2012. There have been so many new developments this year. The Fitness Business Coaching and Mentoring has exploded beyond anything I could ever have dreamed of and it’s something that I am so happy doing and passionate about.  Helping other Fitness Professionals work on their businesses and help bring their ideas to market is just brilliant. I’m developing new mentoring programs and systems so I can help as many people as possible who are on different rungs of the fitness ladder.

This week sees more info from the Fitness Industry’s Tax Advisor and Accountant – Andrew Crawford.  Andrew’s articles are proving immensely popular and useful and look out for a podcast very soon.

Monthly Mentoring

After the huge success of the 90 Day Coaching I have been approached by so many C2Go’ers who want to get involved in mentoring but not sure if the 90 Day is for them. You may not have a fitness business as yet, or you may be working part/full time and wondering whether to make the jump into the Fitness Industry, or not quite got the hang of Social Media and aren’t getting the most of out of Facebook/Twitter and Youtube.  Perhaps you want to get a website sorted out and potentially film downloads and have a membership site??? Then the Monthly Mentoring which is my Silver Tier could be for you. If you are interested here are all of the details. Click here for details

2 Day Fitness Pilates in Derby – 3 places here 31st March & 1st April in Derby Click here to book online

PPL Free Bootcamp Music is back on Choreographytogo – You can now purchase all of the Bootcamp music right here on Choreographytogo

Fitness Pilates – The Next Level with Rachel Holmes  Fitness Pilates continues its growth  as there is  more  demand for training and certification courses. As regular readers know ,I tour a new Fitness Pilates Updates Workshop annually from Jan to April and 2012 is going to be bigger and better than ever. I am so excited to be launching the brand new workshop for 2012The Tour is 11 dates running through most UK regions. If you would like to grab a spot you can book on Click here to book online Some venues are now sold out.

Super Seniors2012 with Kelly Reed – Kelly has been brainstorming exciting new ideas for your Seniors classes including a whole seated session as we know so many of you teach seated classes and are dying for new material. Check out Kelly’s  workshop information click here
Sunday Evening Webinar – Hot Fitness Trends for 2012 Ill be holding a webinar on Sunday evening thre are only 100 seats  so do jump in quick https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/868015414

Ways to improve your Health and Fitness Writing, Newsletter and Blogs by Rachel Holmes
Last week I identified which mail delivery system was best and looked at how you can write great newsletters, which generated A LOT of correspondence about writing.

Many of you would love to write more compelling newsletter, blog, posts, articles and web copy.

I’ve got a couple of fast ways you can improve your writing immediately.

1.Be concise and be clear

You’ve heard this one a million times. Tight, concise, easy-to-read pieces are heaven for readers. Long, complex, convoluted ones are just confusing and boring.

Very often, the longer you write, the less you hold a reader’s interest.

If you can’t say it simply in just a few words, then you’ve lost readers. Write short and write lean.

2.Keep it short

Not your writing (although that’s a good idea), but your line length.

Interestingly, people actually read longer lines faster. But fast reading isn’t necessarily what you want them to be doing. You want readers to be absorbing what you wrote, understanding your message, and reading comfortably as well.

So go for short. Set your page layout so that it’s not full width, or if you need that full width, keep sentences short and use plenty of paragraph breaks.

100 characters per line is optimal for speed — but about 45 characters is best for reader comfort.

3.Stick to three

3 is the magic number

It’s said that people can process 7 bits of information (more or less) at a time. But the number that’s most compelling is the one we like the best: 3.

So have 3 bullet points, 3 steps, 3 strategies. Use the number 3 as often as you can.

Not only will you capture better reader interest by doing so, but you’ll improve your readers’ ability to remember what you’ve written. We tend to chunk information into groups of three, and recall those triads more easily.

4. Break it up

Make it easy for people to read your work. The easier it is, the more they’ll get your point and enjoy reading — and that’s what you want.

Reading online is tiring  So you need to do everything you can to make it less of a strain.

No more than three sentences to a paragraph, please, and keep those sentences short.
Add bullet points and sub headings to guide people along.
Use a larger font size as tiny means squint, and that’s no good.
5.Stay on topic

Decide on the main point of your piece and create three (!) sub-points that support it. Make sure each one ties back to the message you want to get across to readers, and make sure each sub-point is supportive and relevant.

So there are your quick guides to becoming a better writer today.

|Hope that helps you with your next newsletter, article or blog post.

 

5  Ways to Open Your Newsletter or Blog Post With a Bang

What’s the second most important part of your blog post after the title?
It’s the  opening paragraph.

So, here are 5 ways to kick off your newsletter that will capture the reader’s imagination and pull them deeper into your content.

1. Ask a Question

Opening your post with a question that creates curiosity and gets the reader thinking. Thinking equals active engagement with your newsletter, and that’s a very good thing.

2. Share an Anecdote or Quote

Anecdotes are quick stories that can make people laugh or immediately establish the main point of your post. A nice quote from a recognisable authority or famous person can also work wonders when holding attention in those crucial opening seconds.

3. The Mind’s Eye

Producing a mental image in a reader’s mind is one of the most powerful things you can ever do as a writer, try engaging the imagination in the first paragraph, this a powerful opening technique. Activate the mind’s eye of the reader by using words like “imagine,” “picture this,” “do you remember when,” etc.

4. Use an Analogy, Metaphor or Simile

Analogies, metaphors and similes are some of the most powerful devices available when it comes to telling a story in a single sentence. This is a great way to capture a reader’s attention and also acts to provoke mental imagery that allows readers to tell a story to themselves.

5. Cite a Shocking Statistic

Starting off with an interesting factoid is also a great technique. People love being provided with interesting data, but only if it is unique, startling, or even shocking. The statistic should also be directly relevant to the point of your post as well.

5  Hot tips to make more income in 2012 by Rachel

The new year is almost upon us and looking ahead to the coming year it’s always good to plan a little on how you are going to improve on things from 2011.  As a good way as any of measuring this is money, and how you are going to earn more in 2012, than you did in 2011.  So here come my 5 top tips for earning more in 2010 than 2011.

1. Begin locking your class participants or training clients down to recurring billing cycles, this not only stabilises cash flow and improves retention, but will ensure around 20% increase in revenues generated.  Not bad for one slight tactical change in the way you get your clients to pay.  The best way is to agree a monthly schedule and get them to pay accordingly, you can give people a week’s grace to catch up missed sessions or classes, but it helps keep focused on coming back to see you.

2.  Start taking online programmes such as webinars or setting up membership sites.  Being in front of people all week you can put together a highly informative and education based programme for your clients, rather than just provide exercise sessions or classes.  People want great cutting edge content from trusted sources, this trusted source is you. So seeing you have the rapport of your class participants why not use your position to sell from the platform, and feed them into your webinars.  You can use any of the webinar software providers  which allows participants to view what is on your screen, so simply put together a series of power point presentations and lead people through them across a series of say 6 or 12 educating on a certain topic.

3. Outsource your life – start to find ways you can begin to outsource certain things in your life, activities such as book keeping, research online, certain online marketing activities can all be out sourced quite cheaply.  You can find people willing to do all sorts of activities for you, try going to Elance.com and posting your job required there, people will bid for it and do the work.  Outsourcing your life is one of the fastest ways of getting leverage so you can become massively productive.

4. Embrace Nutrition and Supplement Products – Nutrition and Supplementation is a big trend, so research and look for products that you are comfortable putting your name to. Start researching and make the jump, the sooner you lock clients down on autoship programmes for the vitamins and minerals and fish oils, the sooner your commissions begin to add up.

5. Look to improve your data base –  make sure you are doing things to improve your data base all the time, your list is your life!  Make sure you have signed up with a database management company such as MailChimp ( I discussed this last week) who can manage your lists, then look to grow your list steadily each week.  Set yourself a goal of improving your subscribers, your subscribers are the ones that will be following you, reading your updates and ultimately buying from you, so do everything you can to grow your list!

 

The UK have the highest number of obese women in Europe by Sally Ghafoor

Saddening isn’t it and if we aren’t changing how our children eat and exercise this will become worse. Over a quarter of women in England are obese, not just overweight but morbidly obese.
What can we as fit pro’s do to stump this growth – as that at the end of the day is our job right? As no one else seems to be happy to do it, classing Pizza as vegetables, telling people to go on certain low calorie diets – aren’t cutting it as they aren’t getting it. They don’t understand  obesity, they don’t understand the mechanisms of nutrition.  The need to medicate instead of educate is not helping the quest to reduce this problem. Just make sure you know what you’re talking about and aren’t just following someone else’s lead.

1. Educate yourself and follow it yourself. Healthy is the way forward, find health – find the right bodyweight. If you think you know it all you will fail – you never know it all. Once you realise it’s not just about fat loss it’s about health you’re onto a winner
2. Look at Zumba… look at the formula why people want to do it – it’s fun. Produce your exercise classes, whatever they are, to be fun, get people who wouldn’t normally get off the sofa to exercise into your classes then move them on from there to harder exercise – we all know people get the whole “exercise bug” but you have to get them off the sofa first.
3. Set up a community – as much as I dislike certain slimming clubs, they have got the right idea – they have a community of people helping each other – you can do this too an online one coupled with a meeting, people are much more likely to succeed if there is a community feel to your programme.
4. Help for FREE, get writing articles, and get passionate, help who you can – be the go to person for health and fitness in your area.
5. Most importantly show your results – show people who you have helped, get pictures get testimonials – show people you can help them break down their barriers to exercise.

To learn more about health and nutrition sign up for my online workshops www.gethealthsavvy.co.uk www.facebook.com/sallyghafoor or tweet me @sallyghafoor

 

Self Employed Car Expenses

BY

Andrew Crawford ACMA

There are 2 ways in which to claim car expenses as a self employed Freelance Fitness Instructor or PT.

These methods are applicable whether you are full time self- employed or not.

Please note that the following scenario may not be typical of a Freelancer but it gives you an idea.

The 2 methods are compared below via an example.

Example

Susan is a Sports Massage Therapist an Aerobics Teacher and works full time. She travels 48,000 miles a year, half on business. She is just about to buy a car costing £11,000 with a loan at 10%.

She expects her running costs to be £1,800 per year and petrol to be £4,200 per year.

She estimates that her car is used 50% of the time for business and 50% private use.

Actual Method – Method 1

Car expenses                                     Cost                            Tax Claim

£                                  £ (50%)

Petrol                                                  4,200                           2,100

Running costs (servicing etc)            1,800                             900

Interest on car loan                             1,100                             550

Capital Allowances                            2,750                           1,375

Total tax claim                                                                       4,925

In this example we see Susan claim £4,925 against her income.

We will now look at method 2 the Alternative method.

Authorised tax-free mileage Method – Mmethod 2

Mileage Rates                                                                        Tax Claim (£)

10,000 miles @ 45p per mile                                                 4,500

14,000 miles @ 25p per mile                                                 3,500

Business proportion of interest to buy the car                          550

|Total tax claim                                                                       8,550

Susan’s claim has increased by £3,625. This is a tax saving of £1,450 for a higher rate taxpayer £3,625 x 40%) or £725.00 for a basic rate taxpayer (£3,625 x 20%).

Considerations

·       The Alternative method is only available to taxpayers with a turnover below the VAT registration threshold (currently £73,000) at the time when the vehicle was first acquired. Therefore, it is only possible to change methods when you change your vehicle.

·       You do not need the Taxman’s permission to do the Alternative Method.

·       The Alternative Method is much easier for most people.

Tip: Use the statutory tax-free mileage rate to calculate your car expenses. If this is higher than the actual cost method use it from the time you started teaching or when you next change your car.

Tip: Keep a note pad in your car and keep details of each business trip, date, to & from, purpose and mileage.

NB

If you use a bicycle you can charge 20p a mile

If you use a motorcycle you can charge 24p per mile

If you receive less than the statutory rate, tax relief can be claimed on the difference.

More resources and FREE downloads available at our site

www.fitnessindustryaccountants.com

Add Andrew on Twitter @Tax4fitness

Have a fantastic week as ever

Love Rachel xx