Yesterday, a true fitness icon passed away at the age of 96. He will be missed dearly! Now, most of us know him as a fitness icon but he was also a philosopher and great motivator. The video below is from one of his TV shows. Take a look and his message applies just as much today as it did back then.
Jack Lalanne, thanks for paving the way and being a great role model for fitness professionals as well as all the people you inspired to become healthier.
Coach
Dave
I am always amazed at how many fitness clubs and personal trainers follow the herd. Out of the hundreds of clubs I have visited over the years maybe only a handful of clubs do not sell packages for their services (i.e personal training). When I ask owners or managers why they sell packages the response I always seem to get is, “well that is what such and such club does, so we have to offer that.” Let me ask you this, “do doctors offer packages for seeing them multiple times?” No, and you shouldn’t either. I just read an article on Club Industry’s web site that talks about consumers ready to spend more in 2011. Go read it when you have a chance and realize this, if you provide a service that people value then you should charge what you think it is worth and that will lead me to my final point today.
I want to leave you today asking yourself this question, “why is 10 sessions worth $50, but one session is worth $65?” Are you providing the same value during each service? Does over ten sessions the time you spent learning Anatomy and Physiology diminish? No, and that is why you need to stop following the herd and devaluing your services. If you don’t have the ability to set your rates I understand but if you do, then you should feel confident in what you are charging and stick to it. You service is worth what you believe it is worth. If you don’t have that confidence you will struggle long term in the fitness business.
For more info on sales and how to charge what you are worht check out my book www.anatomyofsales.com or join my coaching program here.
To your success,
Coach Dave
We are a couple of weeks into the New Year and I know some of you are still getting around to setting those resolutions. As I said in an earlier post, ” New Year’s Resolutions are a Wast of Time” I do not set resolutions I set up a plan for the year that has my top goals. Well, I guess I am not the only one that doesn’t set goals resolutions anymore. According to a recent survey by the Opinion Research Corp. only 45 percent of Americans now say they make New Year’s resolutions, which is down from 88 percent from the past. At first thought I was thinking maybe they read my post and have decided to turn over a new leaf and start setting up goals and a plan for the new year. Nope, the study goes on to say that people just don’t set them anymore because they are tired of hurting themselves and call the whole thing off. Pretty sad if you ask me but I am not really all that shocked about the finding. The survey had some other interesting findings but one in particular stood out to me. The one that stuck out in my mind was that 47 percent of those responded to the survey said, ” they will set a resolution related to their head” (i.e, a self improvement goal). Now maybe because I love self improvement but this was encouraging to me. So, today I want to ask you, do you fall into the 47 percent category?
I hope you answered yes to the question above, because if you want more out of life or career you have to become more. I learned that from the great Jim Rohn. What happens to most of us is, we get so caught up with all the daily nuances we neglect working on becoming a better person. I know for me I need to work on time management and finishing projects I start. I get so caught up with new ideas that I let projects go unfinished. I have made that a goal of mine this year and I hope by the end of the year I can look back and say I became better.
What is it that you need to get better at? Maybe it is time management or maybe organization skills. Whatever it is, make it one of your goals this year to get better at, because I can promise you this, if you work harder on yourself you can become more and be more!
Well, I am off to D.C. for the weekend to attend a good friend’s wedding. I just love going to our Nation’s Capitol, because it always reminds of how great it is to live in the best country in the world.I will be back next week with some more inspiring stuff, so until then, make it a great weekend!
Coach Dave
As a kid I loved the movie “Back to the Future”. I mean how cool would it be to have a DeLorean that could take you back in time or into the future! Unfortunately, the reality is we do not have a time machine to allow us to travel back to the past or into the future. However, we do have the ability to create the kind of future we want to have for ourselves. I know many people have been struggling and have all but given up on their dreams of a better life, but before you do that, let me tell you about an event I went to over the weekend that really gave me a boost of optimism for 2011.
Over the weekend I attended a Charles Schwab trading forum event. For me, I have always loved the stock market and investing. The conference was great and I am now going to start doing some different trading in my account. I know for most of you putting your money in a mutual fund and have someone manger is all you want to do but for me I like to do some of my own investing. Okay, I don’t want to get off to far from my main point here, so let me tell you about the best part of the event.
The best part of the event was the keynote speaker, Tyler Matheson. Tyler, is a CNBC journalist and anchor of the show “Power Lunch.” Tyler talks to some of the most respected CEO’s and government officials all over the world. So, when it comes to seeing what the future business climate might be like, Tyler is a great resource.
Matheson shared with us several things and here are some of his findings. According to Matheson, growth should pick up, consumers are finally starting to open their wallets again, and companies are starting to hire again. This is all great news but there was one last thing that he said that really hit a nerve with me and got me optimistic about the future.
As Matheson was closing his speech he wrapped it up by talking about some of the struggles this country has had during its existence. One of those periods was the years 1980-1982. Now, I realize some of us were to young to remember or maybe not even born, but for those that do remember he said, “back in the early 80’s people thought America was at its darkest, but looking back, we now know the biggest technological revolution began and we had the biggest expansion in capitalism.” At that moment I felt some goose bumps and a sense of optimism of what the future can be like. How true, in my life experiences just when I think to myself things are so bad something happens and my life bounces back into prosperity.
So, will 2011 be a great year? I believe it will but more than anything you have to believe. If you have had a negative attitude towards everything that has happened in the last two years you need to let it go. If you realize that everything goes in cycles and that when you seem to be at your last wit or darkest moment you are on your way back to prosperity.
To your success,
Coach Dave
Okay, the other day I talked about the process I use for setting my goals, so today to wrap things up I am going to be revealing my 2011 goals to you.
Here are my top ten goals for 2011 (in no particular order)
1.) Help 500 working and busy moms lose weight and create a healthy lifestyle through my Working Mom Workouts training program.
2.) Help 100 personal trainers get 100 clients into their business through my coaching program.
3.) Read 2 books a month (24 total) for the year.
4.) Train, fundraise, and complete the Dallas MS 150.
5.) Take several trips with my family.
6.) Create a Master Mind group of 10 like minded people that focuses on building passive income streams.
7.) Strengthen and create 4 relationships with previous friends and new ones.
8.) Spend 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the evening preparing and reflecting on what I need to accomplish.
9.) Create a new service that is geared around creating and building blogs for Fitness Professionals
10.) Continue to grow in my spirituality and become more involved in my church.
These are my top ten goals for the year. As you might notice if I was to label each one with the symbols that I described in the first part of the series, you will see I am pretty heavily skewed towards business goals. I recognize that and if I was to included all 32 goals I set for myself you will see I have a better overall balance. Balance is what you should strive for but in some cases, depending on where you are in life, your goals might be dominate in one or two areas. That is okay, but make sure you realize the imbalance and strive to focus on all 8 areas that I initially described.
To your success,
Coach Dave