Fitness Related Topics for Social Media Broadcasts and Videos.

Your next client is on social media right now.

Are you one of many Personal Trainers wanting to be active on social media or get into Blogging more often? Just think how many more clients you could be reaching if you had some quality stuff on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Flickr, Instagram...

Often the two biggest hurdles that get in your way will be:

1) Not having a simple, relevant list of topics to keep clients interested, and:
2) Because we don't have enough topics to cover, we lose interest in broadcasting and momentum is lost.

I recently came across this neat list of topics that you could easily cover in a quick Facebook status, illustrate in a photo (images have high impact) or even better a quick video (quick videos tend to give the best reach on social media).

So feel free to browse this list and start planning your broadcasts - one per week for the next 30 weeks!

TOPICS FOR DAILY VIDEOS, IMAGES OR BLOGS. Depending on your client "avatar" some of these topics may be more suitable than others.

1. How to not eat all the food at Christmas

2. Coping with family & friends saying 'you look scrawny' 'don't go to far'

3. How to not be a killjoy in a restaurant &/or pub.

4. The cake trolley at work.

5. What real hunger feels like

6. What is emotional eating

7. Tactics to overcome eating when you know you are not hungry

8. Do we really need to drink 2 litres of water a day? - I hate water

9. Is having endless cups of coffee affecting my weight loss?

10. What is a portion of veg? How much is it?

11. Not picking off kids plates...how do I as it seems a waste of food

12. I don't like salad & vegetables what can I do

13. I am too tied to cook, getting takeaway for everyone is cheap & easy.

14. I have no idea about gluten. Is it really that bad.

15. When I'm tired & stressed, I have to have chocolate, what do I do?

16. The best exercise for building a booty

17. Toning thighs.

18. Bingo wings be gone.

19. I have a toddler, I can't do a quick walk.

20. I am a single parent, I can't get to a gym.

21. Why do personal trainer charge £40 a hour when my kids maths tutor is £25

22. I don't care about running for a bus o playing footie with my kids stop telling me to do it for them.

23. I'm not worried about my husband preferring me slimmer.

24. My mum is dying of cancer, my weight is shooting up, my life is a disaster (I have had this one btw)

25. If I had a PT & Chef live with me I could do it. You don't live in the real world.

26. I am going to look muscley & masculine if I lift weights..those fitness models do.

27. I am too old for all this. My right knee is dodgy.

28. I'm just tired of starting a diet every year & eventually I binge. It's me, I'm weak willed.

29. Its easy for you to say all this, look at you bet you were always skinny.

30. I don't get a buzz out of exercising..ever. I hate it.

31. Add your own topics - what are your clients likely to need or care about?

Acknowledgements:

Images sourced from Flickr creative commons attributions: https://www.flickr.com/photos/smemon/5209796269 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/smemon/5892139808

Keep your Clients Working out During the Holidays

With Christmas around the corner, a number of Personal Training clients will take a break from their regular training as they perhaps go on a vacation or just choose to have some down time at home with family & friends.

For the PT, this spells a potential double disaster. Firstly the unavoidable excesses of eating and drinking over this period can often derail some excellent work in the gym and put the brakes on our successful body fat loss.

Secondly - and more importantly in terms of your business - a large percentage of clients who take an extended break simply don't come back, and that means you are losing a paying client and will have to again pound the streets for new revenue. Christmas and Easter tend to be the worst times for putting a dent in your business.

So, get proactive with your clients and talk to them about how you can support them during the festive season. Invest some time now to find out what your client needs to help keep them on track and (more importantly) remain focussed on their goals so that the holiday does not result in them deleting you from the contacts list in their mobile phone!!

Most clients are very similar and will have needs centring around food & drink, or exercise. A few things that you could produce in order to support your clients and keep them thinking about PT during the holidays are:

• List foods & drinks to avoid over Christmas - keep it simple, clients can stick it on the fridge.
• A few strategies to avoid over-indulging. E.g. drink more water, low carb beers etc.
• A simple exercise plan that clients can perform at home in minimal time without equipment.

Today I'm uploading an example of a simple exercise program I produced for a client. It's simple, quick, requires no equipment and could be done in a lounge, hotel room or outdoors by the pool. There are no excuses for not doing exercise when someone puts it down on paper like this, you could even consider asking your clients to keep a diary of what they do over the holiday so you can yell & scream at them when they return. Oh the joy.

It's designed as a beginner program, and could easily be beefed up to include more exercises, or maybe even add a group of core exercises to the program. Use your imagination.

You can see the full program at this link.  Check it out & tell me what you think.

Click here to see full program

How to Sell PT - Value vs Cost

With lots of budding PT's graduating from out Certificate 4 in Fitness course right now, it's a good time to talk about selling yourself as a PT and in particular justifying a higher hourly rate. As a PT you are going to spend time planning & preparing for workouts, travelling to the session, lost time in between bookings... It all adds up and for every hr you spend training a client you will probably spend about 30 minutes on this "other" stuff so your rate needs to high (as opposed to low) if you are ever going to make it in this game.

So... The typical client is thinking (or maybe even asking) why not just join the gym rather than pay you $40 for a half hour session?

Answer: I'll lay this out in sections so we can work through the logic of our value proposition:

Part 1 - True value per session - The average gym membership is around $650 per annum. Most people (in fact around 70%) join a gym and will use it regularly only for a few weeks - how many sessions are they actually getting for their $650?

Part 2 - Cost versus actual benefit & personal attention - What sort of results did you get last time you forked out $650 to your local gym and what sort of personal attention did you get? If you pay me $650 up front I'll apply a 20% discount and give you 20 half-hour sessions. Train with me twice a week for 10 weeks and you will see more results than one full year training in the gym.

Part 3 - No contracts - Your gym will lock you into some sort of contract where you will continue to pay even if you are not using the gym and not getting results. Train with me and I'll commit 100% to getting you in shape. If you're not happy at any time with what we are achieving, walk away and I'll even refund any remaining sessions (because I'm confident that I can get you there).

Part 4 - Highlight services that the gym just can't offer - When was the last time your gym instructor took an interest in your nutrition? How often do they push you as hard as you need to be pushed? How often are they updating your program? Taking your measurements? Offer you personalised motivation?

Part 5 - Back it up with other awesome stuff - Visit my blog, join my community and get support on my Facebook page, receive SMS prompts to train when you are not with me, access my great nutritional tips which I will email you... Use technology to value add for clients and suddenly the $650 up front is getting much more than a few training sessions.