2009 September

Archive for September, 2009

How To Sell Tons Of Personal Training Even If You Hate Selling And Marketing …

Posted on 30. Sep, 2009 by Kaiser.

News flash: from the time you wake up to the time you fall asleep, you’re being sold to. If you live in America or anywhere else, almost every waking decision you make is a commercial one. Sad huh? But here’s one way to kind of get yourself out of “The Matrix” if you will – start doing the selling yourself. Once you start to understood why people buy, you learn a lot about yourself in the process. Want to know what’s even funnier? Personal Training isn’t a hard product – it’s completely intangible. That’s where things start getting freaky – because you’re learning to find out the emotional reasons that motivate people to buy something that doesn’t even exist. Before we start over-thinking things, there’s one way can cut to the front of the line and understand selling, without having to read a ton of books or even have much practice at it: Realizing selling Personal Training is all about THE RELATIONSHIP. With a service like Personal Training, where the customer KNOWS they will be spending more time with their trainer than almost anyone else in their entire lives, especially if they’re single, most of the decision about the sale [...]

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The New Online Personal Training Article In PFP Magazine: Here’s What You Didn’t See …

Posted on 26. Sep, 2009 by Kaiser.

My e-mail inbox got slammed all day yesterday with questions, comments, new blog sign-ups, and TOP-LEVEL TRAINER MANUAL orders, and it took me a little while to figure out what happened – PFP had finally released their TRENDS that had the piece they asked me to write as the feature article. Speaking of trends, it was all about ONLINE TRAINING. This is such a hot topic that you’ll remember we spent a very good bit of time focusing on it here on the blog. Well the article definitely struck a hot button with the audience and got a lot of interest. It’s kind of ironic that this was their first digital only issue and they’re featuring online fitness in it, but it looks like that’s where things are headed. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Let me steal their thunder a bit and re-post the article here – but be sure to check it the hi-tech digital version of this months issue here: personal training magazine. They did an excellent job editing and formatting the article. It starts on page 8 and goes all the way to page 12, and is really a beautiful piece. That magazine has really taken [...]

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How To Deal With Problem Training Clients – A Personal Training Lesson From BEYONCE …

Posted on 24. Sep, 2009 by Kaiser.

I remember a consultation I had with a trainer not too long ago, the gist of which I’m sure any trainer can relate to … He was asking me how to deal with his problem clients, because he had a bunch of them – clients complaining about price, showing up late to sessions, and canceling at the last minute – it was driving him nuts, and he wanted a way to find “better”, or more affluent clients. Bottom line was he was sick of how these clients were treating him and he wanted a way out. Well there’s an answer to this dilemma, but before I throw it out there, let me tell you what I told him first: More often than not, the way people treat us is because of how we perceive ourselves. Often times the treatment we get is because we allow it, don’t put an end to it, or don’t clearly set up our boundaries, and most common of all, don’t set the example first. If you don’t exude self-respect through what you do and say and an infinite number of non-verbal things besides that, then people will treat you likewise. If you don’t like how [...]

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How To Get Personal Training Clients With Facebook …

Posted on 22. Sep, 2009 by Kaiser.

Special guest post by my good bud and 9th degree evil genius Bedros Keuilian: Getting clients for your personal training or boot camp business from facebook is easy and cheap. Recently I’ve been doing a lot of testing… sometimes spending as much a thousand dollars a day on facebook just to figure things out. And here are three sneaky things I’ve figured out about getting clients using facebook. First off, if you’ve never done it before, running an ad in FB is easy… … just log into your FB account, scroll all the way down to the bottom and click the “advertising” button and walk through the steps. Now here’s what I’ve figured out to get the most clicks for the lowest price on facebook ads. SNEAKY LITTLE SECRET # 1: Facebook does NOT care about getting your money. What they care about is their customer experience. So, if your ad is not relevant to the market that you’re advertising to FB will show your ads less. On the other hand if FB decided that your ads are relevant to the market they will actually show your ads more – even if your competitors are willing to pay more per [...]

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Personal Training: When Is It The Right Time To DUMP THE GYM For Good?

Posted on 18. Sep, 2009 by Kaiser.

What’s always surprised me most about the success stories I hear coming in on the blog is how quickly and abruptly everyone takes action. These guys and gals all pick and burn the bridges once they find out about the world of Personal Training out there that doesn’t involve training in a big-box health-club. No sleazy bosses, negative co-workers, and crappy pay? Yes it’s a reality, and I guess once it becomes clear that it’s possible, there’s no going back. But the answer to “when’s the right time?” is different for everyone. Every situation is different, and even though action needs to be taken fast, it’s relative. For example, here’s an email I just got from a long time reader of the blog Jeff. Looking at his delicate situation will bring to light to anyone that’s also looking to plan their health-club exit and start their training business. Hi Kaiser I need the input of a professional with your knowledge. Here is my dilema. i consider today day 1 of my conquest to become a top level trainer with my purchase of your material. My cousin Sam and i just got off the phone. i train at 24 hr right [...]

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HOW TO GET YOUR BUSINESS DEGREE FOR FREE: Welcome To Personal Training …

Posted on 17. Sep, 2009 by Kaiser.

It’s hard to think of anyone that doesn’t want to start a small business – and the ones that say they don’t are just lying or are too scared. I think it’s a secret desire of every man, woman, and child in America (and these days pretty much any country out there). The appeal is undeniable; to control your own destiny; to write your own checks; to throw your hat in the ring and see what you’re made of. For the ones that don’t want to do it, they’ll tell you the reasons why – the risks, the downside, the lack of security – there are plenty of excuses. The reason why starting a business is so difficult is because there are no places to really learn how to do it. Business schools are anything but – they teach you the skills to be a role player in a company, not necessarily start your own business. There’s no school that teaches you the ropes of how to be an entrepreneur and to start your own business – you have to learn on the job. And there are a plenty of things to learn: – Products choice – what to sell [...]

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If Personal Training Isn’t Easy, You’re Doing Something Wrong: Introducing The SWEET SPOT

Posted on 12. Sep, 2009 by Kaiser.

Admit it, you’re lazy – that’s not a problem, because you’re in the right career. We all got into training to get paid doing something that comes naturally, and if that can turn into a great career – hey, even better. Keeping with the theme of “the path of least resistance”, the way you run your training business should be the same. Within the fitness profession, their are certain things that we’re all good at and like doing, and other things we’d rather pass on. This is something I like to call “finding your sweet spot”. It’s the way smart people look for work, the way smart companies assign work, and the way a smart trainer should look to apply themselves. I wrote a nice, short, and sweet article on this for PFP not too long ago, which I’ll re-post here. If you’re just getting started, or are still finding your way around this profession and looking for what you’re good at, I think you’ll get some value out of it: ——————————————————————————————————————- Here’s the number-one thing I love about being in the fitness industry: You can set up your fitness business any way you want, and no one will stop [...]

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Personal Training Clients – The Definitive Article (Talking All Things Clients: Pricing, Picking, Selling, and Service).

Posted on 10. Sep, 2009 by Kaiser.

As trainers we’re all fitness consultants, and in consulting, there’s something known as the consultant’s paradox … It’s how clients are often your biggest problem, but you need them for your survival. But it doesn’t have to be that way … because Personal Training is different … Unlike any other health service, you only need a handful of loyal, dependable clients to earn six figures as a personal trainer – And if you do it right, these will be clients you like to see and enjoy spending time with. How did I go from a totally over-worked studio owner to pulling in the highest rates in the business, working only part time, with a waiting list (what I like to call semi-retired)? It was from being picky about the clients I had and what I charged, but once I had them, treating them better than they could have expected. This resulted in them treating me the same way, and a great income and career was born. So let’s take a break from talking about ourselves and talk about clients for a bit – how to deal with them and how it relates to your training business. How did I climb [...]

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Does Anyone Even Read That Crap?!?! Long Copy Home Pages And Personal Training …

Posted on 07. Sep, 2009 by Kaiser.

I know that if you’re a reader of this blog, a lot of marketing info is progressively rubbing off on you … Soon you’re going to grow scales, have blue skin, a tail, and your transformation into a complete marketing scumbag will be complete – The bright side is you’ll probably be making a lot more money and make more progress in a few months than you have in years, so there’s a give and take to everything … Well, one of the first things we’re shocked by, and in turn, one of the first skills we have to learn when we first learn to market our training services are long copy sales letters. Those are those long sales letters full of big, bold text everywhere that will never win a style award, but have been shown over and over again to produce results – Why do you need a sales letter? Before I went into how to write one in THE TOP-LEVEL TRAINER MANUAL (making a comeback very soon), I first explained the reasoning behind them and why they work. If you’ve been hesitant on creating one on your site out of fear of turning off your visitors, this [...]

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FREE CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING a Third Grader Could Understand …

Posted on 06. Sep, 2009 by Kaiser.

I just submitted my monthly column to PFP Magazine a couple of days ago … Like I’ve mentioned before, I sugar coat those articles a bit – they’re different from my normal writing style, which you get to enjoy over here :-) This month, I had to sugar coat it a lot … It was in response to someone blasting the idea of getting clients off of the web on one of the forums (the one where a good number of the posters would make the Geico caveman look like a freaking rocket scientist). The guy was talking about how he’d been trying to post ads on Craigslist for months and not getting any results, so he definitively concluded that getting clients online was impossible and that anyone that suggested it was was an idiot. You see what I’m talking about now right? Yes, caveman. This type of thinking, where if it doesn’t work for you then it must not work at all, is probably one of the most negative out there. But truth be told, we are all probably guilty of it in at least one area in our lives. But when it comes to getting clients, I hope [...]

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Dave Parise Talks TOP-LEVEL TRAINING …

Posted on 04. Sep, 2009 by Kaiser.

For all you you other trainers out there that are old enough to remember 80′s television, we really had some action hits … There was the Incredible Hulk, The Amazing Spider-Man,the A-Team, and just too many more shows to count that probably shaped our addiction to action, speed, and muscle. Among these shows was one I loved in Particular, The Six Million Dollar Man, about a jet pilot horribly injured in a test run; they rebuilt him out of robotic parts into a super, prototype crime fighter with amazing strength, speed, and power. In Personal Training, there’s one guy that conjures up the same images, a prototype star with super powers, on a mission of his own, and that’s my buddy Dave Parise. Dave wasn’t born – he was assembled from the parts of past great trainers. He runs a high end training studio doing over a million a year in sales, so you could call him the million dollar man, but what’s even more impressive is how he does it … He does it without running a boiler room type sales organization – no pushy sales tactics, no aggressive marketing, no high priced info products. Simply high level service, [...]

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Growth Happens During Rest And Recovery, Not Training (we should know that!) …

Posted on 02. Sep, 2009 by Kaiser.

I’ve Been MIA for a long while – way MIA … A combination of factors have led to longest period of neglect on Super-Trainer in history … The fact that it’s Summer, I’ve got a ton of projects going on, and we’re in a period of transition on Super-Trainer, back to our DUMP THE GYM roots (you’ll see some changes on the blog soon). Super-Trainer is always a fun project for me, not my primary business, so if you’re not hearing from here, you know I’ve probably got my hands tied … But not this week, I’m down in Ft. Lauderdale getting some sun and just relaxing. Coming down to Florida was one of my favorite things to do back in my training days – I purposefully sought more freedom in my career so I could come down here even more frequently – that was one of my primary drivers … Although back then it was Miami I would hit – I purposefully stayed away from Miami this time, so I could actually get some rest, and not have my inner party freak woken up by accident. Getting R&R is one of the best things you can do for your [...]