Should You Be Writing a Blog? I have been writing blogs for our clients and for Fitness Professionals for quite some time now and I find it to be well worth the work. Many Fitness Professionals ask us if they should start writing a blog and the quick answer is YES, but….you have to be committed to it and you have to know what your goals are when writing the blog! We used to have a pretty simple blog, but in January of of 2011 I decided to upgrade the look, feel and functionality of our blog (which is what you see today). We did hire an outside company to design both of our blogs, but that isn’t necessary. You can get great templates with blogging services like WordPress and Blogger and with most of these services there is a free blogging option. I want tell you a bit about why we upgraded our blog, why we think it is important to write blogs and some tips we have picked up along the way! 
Here is why we upgraded the blogs: - We wanted them to have a customized feel
- We wanted to have an “optin” option (learn more about optin/email captures in this blog post) - This is where folks can sign up to receive something for free and in-turn they are signed up to receive my weekly eNewsletters and Blogs posts.
- We wanted to be able to feature specific products during a blog post and have the products available to purchase right there on the blog.
- We wanted to make it easier for our readers to find past blog posts
- We wanted to make it easier for readers to post messages about blog posts
Here is why blogs are so important: - If you follow some simple optimization principles and post a blog weekly…your search position on sites like google etc. will grow!
- All leads that come from a search like google are organic and natural
- It keeps you top of mind with potential clients & current clients!
- It gives you something to share on social networking sites and on emails with your clients and/or potential clients
- Keeps clients informed about what is going on in your business etc.
Here is a great blog post/article that walks you through even more reasons why blogging is a good idea for small businesses. Here are some simple search optimization tips that we have picked up along the way: - The title is most important part of blog post
- Use as many keywords as you can with keeping the integrity of the title
- Edit permalink to have simple keywords – meaning the link to your blog post should be simple but also have keywords
- Make sure to use the keywords from title at least once in the body of the blog, but not too many times
- Blog post should be at least 500 words or more otherwise google may not cache that page
- If using WordPress: Scroll to bottom of “Add Post” page to the “All in One SEO Pack” section – copy and paste title into title section, but shorten if really long
- Description – couple sentences with keywords again and make sure each word is capitalized = easier to read in google search!
- Keywords – from title only or that was discussed in the blog post
Before you start your blog make sure you know what the goal is. Is it to gain more clients? Is it to help provide exercise and nutrition information to your current clients? Is it to help sell products or training? Maybe it is all of these things, but if you have a goal in mind it will help you direct the type of content you will post on your blog. Make your content interesting and easy to read. Highlight key sentences in the blog post and have fun with it! Writing a blog is a big commitment. You should write at least 1 blog post per week if you want to keep your readers coming back for more. Will you give it a try?  Hey did you know that I wrote the ONLY complete training business system designed to help you run a million dollar personal training business?! You can have this same business system that will help you work SMARTER and generate HUGE profits like we do here at Northwest Personal Training.
The fee to purchase the Business of Personal Training System can be made up within 1 month of increased PT sales and there are NO recurring franchise or licensing fees. A comparable business system in other industries would require an initial investment of tens of thousands of dollars. DON’T REINVENT THE WHEEL! Let us give YOU the systems that we know will work. Also, sign up right here on my blog to receive my FREE 20 min streaming video where I reveal my top 5 revenue generating secrets. This video WILL help you bring in more clients and more revenue. Don’t miss it! 
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 As fitness professionals we know that word of mouth referrals are going to be the source of most of our new clients. I am sure many of you have even read about different ways to verbally ask for referrals, but verbally asking for a referral is only 1 way to get referrals. There are lots of ways to ask for referrals and you should be doing them all! It is a numbers game. The more ways you ask for referrals the more likely you are to see those primed potential new clients walking through your doors!
Here are a couple creative ways we ask for and encourage referrals: High Profile Referral Funnels: If there are people in your community who know a lot of people, have charismatic personalities and would be great ambassadors for your business, consider offering them free and/or seriously discounted training rates. Perfect candidates for this type of program may be local politicians, TV and/or radio personalities, high-level athletes, high-profile business owners who have a lot of customers (salon or spa owners/managers, massage therapists, chiropractors, sporting good store managers/owners, restaurant owners etc). At our business, we offer these people complimentary group training classes offered six days per week ($130 monthly value) as well as VIP rates on all additional services (15-30% off). In return, we ask that these people display all of our marketing materials and promotional brochures and hand out our Gift Cards regularly. We also ask that they do not tell anyone that we are offering them Free services so that it does not upset any of our paying clients. In addition, a referral comes off much more genuinely if others aren’t aware of any type of arrangement. Written ‘Ask’: Include “request for referral” statements on your client feedback forms, client information packages, website and social media initiatives. Prepare stand alone “Give the Gift of Fitness” post cards. Learn a lesson from the real?estate or financial advisory industries and ask each new client for three referrals. Here’s an example of wording that may work for you. “Since you are such a valued client of XYZ Personal Training, we would like to give you the opportunity to offer one complimentary session and 2 week trial pass to your loved ones. You may be the inspiration for them to start moving and experiencing many of the results that you’ve achieved! Since it’s a busy time for us, we’d like you to please limit the gift to three of your closest friends or family members.” Thank You Gift: If you want to keep Word of Mouth referrals coming in strong, you will want to heavily celebrate the client who refers to you and ideally offer them a gift to thank them for bragging about you and helping to build your business. At our business, our clients receive a Free Personal Training or Massage for any new client they refer to us. The small investment in the gift is worth it to show our clients our gratitude and ensure they continue to regularly refer new clients to us. Remember to follow up and send a personal thank?you note and inform your client of the results that the new client has achieved since starting working with you and acknowledge that he/she was the catalyst for helping the new client take action towards their fitness goals. They will feel really good about the fact that they were the one that got the client started and will be more likely to want to inspire others too! Promote Your Referral Campaigns: Post fliers and posters throughout your facility highlighting your campaign, what a new client gets and what a referring client receives as a Thank you. We definitely want our clients to be aware at all times and keep NWPT at the forefront of their mind when someone expresses an interest in fitness and training. “A great product is of no use if no one knows about it!” Mark Twain Give these ideas a try and let us know what you think! Hey did you know that I wrote the ONLY complete training business system designed to help you run a million dollar personal training business?! You can have this same business system that will help you work SMARTER and generate HUGE profits like we do here at Northwest Personal Training. The fee to purchase the Business of Personal Training System can be made up within 1 month of increased PT sales and there are NO recurring franchise or licensing fees. A comparable business system in other industries would require an initial investment of tens of thousands of dollars. DON’T REINVENT THE WHEEL! Let us give YOU the systems that we know will work. Also, sign up right here on my blog to receive my FREE 20 min streaming video where I reveal my top 5 revenue generating secrets. This video WILL help you bring in more clients and more revenue. Don’t miss it!
 I talk to lots of fitness professionals that know they need to gather email leads on their websites, facebook pages and blogs, but just don’t know where to start. There is A LOT of information out there on this topic and it can be overwhelming….but gathering qualified email addresses online should be an interracial part of your marketing plan. The good news? It isn’t as hard as you might think!
3 different ways we gather email leads online: Website: - Check out our website and you will see that we have an “opt-in” box at the top of the page. We offer to give away Free Personal Training and Free access to a portion of Sherri’s book.
- Go ahead and click the “sign me up” button and enter your info to see how it works.
Blog - We have done the same thing on my blog
- You can test that one out too if you would like….
Facebook The key to these email opt-in boxes is to give something away for free that the “captured” client will have instant access to. They understand that in exchange for their email address…you will give them something. Sounds fair right? You may have even started receiving my blog notifications and our eNewsletters because you filled out your information in one of our “Opt-in” boxes??  Use a Mass Email Service like Constant Contact: All of these opt-ins tell people that they will be signed up for our eNewsletter and get automatic notifications when I post a new blog. We do this through the mass email service we use called Constant Contact. Constant Contact has apps that allow you to link up your opt-ins from your website and facebook directly to the preferred email lists in Constant Contact. That way….when you receive an opt-in email it goes directly to your email list and will be added to the next mass email you send out. Most mass email services will have options like this. Our website developers added the opt-in boxes on our website and blog and we added the tab on our facebook page and we created the squeeze page on our fit pro facebook page. As you can tell….we have lots of different places where we are “capturing” leads online and it really works. Auto Responder Emails Once you have all this down, it is a good idea to set up auto responder emails to go to the folks that sign up. We send out 6 auto responder emails within 12 days after receiving a new fit pro email address. HERE is a good article on autoresponders. This is also something you set up through services like Constant Contact. You write them once and set the time frame you want them to go out and that is it! There is a good amount of work that goes into building email opt-in options for your online places, but it will be well worth it in the end! Hey did you know that I wrote the ONLY complete training business system designed to help you run a million dollar personal training business?! You can have this same business system that will help you work SMARTER and generate HUGE profits like we do here at Northwest Personal Training. The fee to purchase the Business of Personal Training System can be made up within 1 month of increased PT sales and there are NO recurring franchise or licensing fees. A comparable business system in other industries would require an initial investment of tens of thousands of dollars. DON’T REINVENT THE WHEEL! Let us give YOU the systems that we know will work. Also, sign up right here on my blog to receive my FREE 20 min streaming video where I reveal my top 5 revenue generating secrets. This video WILL help you bring in more clients and more revenue. Don’t miss it!
One of the biggest struggles fitness businesses have is getting and keeping good personal trainers. Here are some of the most popular questions I answer on this topic. Remember, having solid systems in place that support your staff can make all the difference in the world! 
How do I get and keep good personal trainers? Keeping your trainers – you’ve got to have all pieces to the puzzle in place and include a fair compensation structure with some good perks, lots of genuine praise and recognition, responsibility and authority, gifts, team meetings, outings/get-togethers and a buy-in to your vision and what you’re trying to create….sometimes it’s easier to create this with new blood so even if you’ve lost some people, don’t stress out about it. They’ve left for a reason and your business will be better because of it. How you prevent trainers from resenting the amount of money the gym makes on their services? One of the best ways to help a team of trainers understand the business side of things including the expenses associated with running a business is to create a circle graph (pie chart)…show them the % and where all the money goes….ie They’d see probably 50% going to payroll, 15% going to lease/mortgage, 5% going to marketing etc….Then they fully understand that even though the client is paying $60 and they’re only getting $20, it’s not like you’re just pocketing the other $40. This type of transparency gives your trainers are full understanding of the business side, creates less resentment and decreases the chances they will leave and try to do it on their own because they will see the money involved in doing so and often realize they’ve got it pretty good! Check out this quick video clip from my Business of Personal Training DVD Series where I talk about this: Click here to view the embedded video. How do you decide how much to pay each trainer? Regarding my trainers pay, I look at it over the whole year vs. just an hourly basis and I consider our whole pay structure. So for example, if one of my trainers brings in $100,000 per year for me, I know I can pay them a total of $40,000-$50,000 per year including perks such as Health Allowance, Paid Time off, Bonuses etc. (stay tuned next week for more details on this topic!) These approaches really work. We have virtually no turn over at our studio! We have multiple trainers that have been with us 6, 8….10 years. We are a family that nobody wants to leave! Like this type of guidance and want more? Good news! I recorded 10 hours of DVD quality video where I walk you through tons of internal & external marketing plans and ideas and show you what you really need to know about opening or running a personal training business. 
- How to and when to open a Personal Training Studio
- Important information about financing a Personal Training Studio
- Developing Leadership Skills
- Creating and maintaining Marketing Plans
- Ready to use Sales Systems
- How we Retain Clients
- Building an exceptional Customer Service team
- The value of multiple Profit Centers
- All the handouts to go along with the video!
AND…throughout the month of April you can get an automatic 25% off his DVD Series! That is almost $100 off!
AND…if you love the DVD Series so much that you want to purchase the full Business of Personal Training System….we will put the full price of the DVD Series toward your purchase of the Business of Personal Training System. Go HERE for more info and to purchase. Have questions before purchasing? Email kari@nwpersonaltraining.com Hey did you know that I wrote the ONLY complete training business system designed to help you run a million dollar personal training business?! You can have this same business system that will help you work SMARTER and generate HUGE profits like we do here at Northwest Personal Training. The fee to purchase the Business of Personal Training System can be made up within 1 month of increased PT sales and there are NO recurring franchise or licensing fees. A comparable business system in other industries would require an initial investment of tens of thousands of dollars. DON’T REINVENT THE WHEEL! Let us give YOU the systems that we know will work. Also, sign up right here on my blog to receive my FREE 20 min streaming video where I reveal my top 5 revenue generating secrets. This video WILL help you bring in more clients and more revenue. Don’t miss it!
There are ways to get free advertising, but you will have to work for it. Are you willing to do that?  The truth is that most fitness businesses don’t have money to take out ads in magazines or newspapers or create a commercial for the radio or television. But, there are ways to get free advertising if you are willing to work for it!
We are willing to put in the work and here are a few ways we make free advertising happen: - Develop a list of key local media contacts in your area including print, radio and TV
- Complete regular mail-outs, emails and fax-outs to develop relationships. Tease them with some health and fitness information. For example, state “I was just at IDEA, The International Health and Fitness Conference in Las Vegas and I learned some of the most incredible exercises for the abdominals. It’s stuff you’ve never seen before. Call me if you’d like to hear more about it” or “I was just at the IHRSA show in San Francisco and I’ve got to tell you about some of the hottest and craziest equipment new on the market” or offer a human interest story about one of your clients and their success- with their approval of course. Just wet their taste buds and you can expect at least one or two call backs from each of your efforts. Of course each time they run your idea, you are mentioned as the Health and Fitness expert and you can also ask for your business and your number/website to be listed so people can contact you if they have further questions.
- Offer to write a free weekly/monthly fitness column. The time spent writing the article will be well worth the advertising value.
- Offer key media contacts a couple complimentary sessions so they can try out your services and see what it’s all about. Perhaps propose a “Media Fitness Challenge” or “Getting into shape” challenge and rival reporters and producers of various networks against each other. The press you get will be huge.
Here are a few of recent media exposure for our studio. All FREE ADVERTISING! Persistence really does pay off! Vancouver Business Journal Video: Click here to view the embedded video. Business Spotlight in the Vancouver Business Journal – click HERE to read the article. We were just Voted BEST Fitness Facility in our county! 
All of these initiatives take time, patience and a commitment to keep at it, but if you continue to reach out to the media in your community….you will start to see the results. Give it a try and let me know how it works for you! Like this type of guidance and want more? Good news! I recorded 10 hours of DVD quality video where I walk you through tons of internal & external marketing plans and ideas and show you what you really need to know about opening or running a personal training business. - How to and when to open a Personal Training Studio
- Important information about financing a Personal Training Studio
- Developing Leadership Skills
- Creating and maintaining Marketing Plans
- Ready to use Sales Systems
- How we Retain Clients
- Building an exceptional Customer Service team
- The value of multiple Profit Centers
- All the handouts to go along with the video!
AND…throughout the month of April you can get an automatic 25% off his DVD Series! That is almost $100 off!
AND…if you love the DVD Series so much that you want to purchase the full Business of Personal Training System….we will put the full price of the DVD Series toward your purchase of the Business of Personal Training System. Go HERE for more info and to purchase. Have questions before purchasing? Email kari@nwpersonaltraining.com Hey did you know that I wrote the ONLY complete training business system designed to help you run a million dollar personal training business?! You can have this same business system that will help you work SMARTER and generate HUGE profits like we do here at Northwest Personal Training. The fee to purchase the Business of Personal Training System can be made up within 1 month of increased PT sales and there are NO recurring franchise or licensing fees. A comparable business system in other industries would require an initial investment of tens of thousands of dollars. DON’T REINVENT THE WHEEL! Let us give YOU the systems that we know will work. Also, sign up right here on my blog to receive my FREE 20 min streaming video where I reveal my top 5 revenue generating secrets. This video WILL help you bring in more clients and more revenue. Don’t miss it!
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