Volo Innovations

No matter what your current situation is if you are reading this I guarantee there are millions of people worse off then you today. For a few simple reasons; first you can read, second you are on a computer and third you must have a roof over your head in order to be on a computer.

This time of year makes us all think about family, friends and great times. It is also a time of giving to these same people as well as to charity. I have mentioned several times that Nikki and I also own a training studio, Momentum Fitness, and we have been actively involved in charity fund raising events and donations for over 10 years. To date our gym has raised over $40,000 and donated over $50,000 in services to charitable auctions, charities from the local SPCA to larger cancer and heart and stroke organizations.

Every year in December we put on a Train the Trainer event. The work and effort that we have to put forward is minimal compared to the amount of good and assistance it provides.

Our clients and friends that contribute have a great time watching all of us get tortured! It is fun, enjoyable as well as healthy so it is win win for all people involved. 

How do you do it?

Here is an example of Momentum's annual charity event that we run this time of year.
Event: Train the Trainer
Charity: Room to Read
Date of event: December 19th 2009
How it works:
Clients buy:

• 5 minute time blocks for $50
• Single exercises for one trainer for $10
  
• Group exercises for all the trainers for $100.00.

The clients that have made a donation get to put their trainer of choice through any exercise(s) of their choice. For the group exercise all the trainers get together and do whatever is asked, some popular group choices have been group pushups, rowing completion and bench press competitions. Usually the clients choose the exercises they despise the most or ones they didn't think could be done and even a few that can't.

Some clients have a hard time and do not want to come across as mean to their much loved trainer, no problem, we can have another trainer decide the exercises that would be most suited to that trainer. Nothing like a trainer picking on a trainer to get some competition going!

We then have an open house style event where we put out drinks and snacks and invite all of our clients and their families down to see us get put through the paces. Whole families show up and watch the fun, have sushi and talk with other clients and trainers.

We like to add a group challenge like Sumo Suit wresting or a team obstacle course where we pit the trainers against each other. The best part is kicking back, raising money for a great cause and sharing a few laughs with clients. 

All proceeds that we raise are going to Room to Read, we can choose which country and even how the money is used. Another reason that we chose Room to Read is that it is non denominational, this is good for our business as we have a wide variety of clients from many different faiths. We also looked at what is the money used for, Room to Read builds libraries, stock them with books in local languages and provide educational scholarships for locals to gain an education. The final thing that made us go with them is that they have a very low percentage of the donations being used to run the charity. That means that every dollar we raise is making more of a difference.

Here are some tips for you to use:

1) Choose a charity, make sure you take into consideration your clientele and staff to find a charity that the majority will resonate with
2) Determine the event this will include the date and time as well as the format
3) Determine the denominations for the donations eg $50 for 5 minutes
4) If you have time contact local businesses for donations and hold a silent auction to boost revenues.
5) Contact the charity and find out how you can collect the donations. Each charity will have different rules for donations as well as the amount for clients to receive tax receipts. Make sure you follow these guidelines.
6) Arrange any fun activities for the day of the event and if children are invited have something for them to do or a person to keep them busy.

All of these tips will get you started on your next big fund raiser as well increase your profile in your community, great for marketing and building your business not to mention that you are helping a great cause. Your staff can get involved without having to donate money, a hard thing for some part timers but this is a way for them to give and have fun.

Thanks for your time now get out there and start to raise money and awareness by getting involved. Any suggestions or examples of what you are currently doing will help other in developing events so please make a comment.

Let's start with the definition of ‘Market' as it applies to your business the most common mistake I see here is when people refer to the industry as their market. The majority of the people I speak to are in the Health and Fitness industry therefore they say they're in the fitness market or health market. This is too broad of a definition for most businesses, a yoga studio can't advertise to all the potential clients in the world. Their market is smaller and needs to reflect whom they want to come to their studio. 

A good definition to use for companies and individuals in the fitness industry is; actual or potential buyers of services or products that you offer.

If we use this as a base then we can now start to narrow it down for our yoga studio example their service is yoga so their market is actual or potential buyers of yoga services. From this you can shrink it down to your city or even a few block radius around where you hold the classes. For most fitness companies this is about a 20 minute radius by whatever mode of transportation the potential client uses; the more specialised your service the larger the radius can be, maxing out at around 45min.

Take an even bigger step and achieve greater results. Now we are all speaking the same language when we say market, but those of you that are looking to truly excel and become a leader in your market you will need to take your business a step further. You will need to find your ‘Market Niche' to achieve it we will need to break down the services and offerings of your business. We will use Yoga Studio X as our example but you can sub in your business at any point and start to find your market niche.

Here is what Yoga Studio X needs to do:

• Start by breaking down their services and style of yoga that they do Flow, Ashtanga or Hot as an example.
• If they are a new company list out what type of clientele that they want or desire
• If an existing company look at your clientele to determine what your market niche is. Be very specific about who they are.
• Yoga Studio X is a start up and the owners have an extensive athletic background they specialise in Ashtanga and Flow yoga. After much discussion they decided to work with athletes in their early 20s to 40s. If you are a trainer you can take this right down to a sport, for yoga or Pilate's or other service providers I recommend staying with athlete and age groupings.

Answer the following questions to try to help determine your market and market niche.

1. Who are you? This is the hardest question and you may need to ask friends and family and be brutally honest; likes, dislikes, activities, patience level, mannerisms, education, speaking ability and the hardest what is your approach to life are you positive or negative.
2. What do you do? List all services and offerings from your business
3. Profile your ideal customer? Do not limit to age and sex, instead broaden the scope to include their interests, activities, type of work they do and what makes them who they are. Example; our training studio went after medical professionals so their profile was 40-60 year old M/F that are driven, A type personalities, quick decision makers, high stress jobs, long work hours, highly educated, above average income, sporadic recreational habits and some knowledge of the human anatomy and physiology. Note you can do more than one profile.
4. Does your profile(s) of your ideal customer (#3) want the services you offer (#2)? Take a minute to actually think about it before answering.
5. Now the Jeopardy question this will make sure you were honest when answering #4 "Why does your ideal customer want the services that you offer? It is very important that you know the answer, if you don't then there is a good chance that they might not actually want your services and you are going to spend all your time trying to convince them. It is best to know this now because you can go back and redo these questions but it is way harder to redo your business.

Good luck and I hope this exercise will help you capture your market niche and surge ahead of your competition.

We all know that motivation is a challenge for our clients, for us as exercisers as well as business people. There are always "reasons" why we can't do something at a certain time or why we didn't do what we said we were going to.

Recently I learned about a great book called "101 Ways to Motivate Your Clients and Increase Retention" by Nicki Anderson this is a book that every fitness professional should read and keep with them to help keep their clients (and maybe even themselves) going all the time!

I decided to interview Nicki to give you a little background information on what motivates her!

Name: Nicki Anderson

Education: 27 years in fitness industry, NASM certified

Bio: Started working in a fitness center in 1979, with the original Nautilus equipment after losing 50 pounds.
During my time there, I realize that customer service was not something health clubs emphasized so I left promising one day to open my facility.
I took a break to raise my family and got back in to the industry in 1991 after years of study and research on my own.
My passion was and still is working with obese and deconditioned populations. As a once overweight/inactive individual, I understand what motivates these clients or what can derail them.
I started an in-home personal training business in 1992 and in 1998, I took the concept of privacy from my in-home training and opened up a one-of-a-kind studio in that it offers private training rooms. We have had great success in our studio and now serve a wide variety of clients and trainers. 
In 2003, I started lecturing to fitness professionals about business as I felt that was a missing piece. There were plenty of people that could lecture the business side of health clubs, but no one for the "little guy" and that is why I started those lectures. I lecture on marketing, customer service, management, working with deconditioned populations.  I find that talking to a group of independent trainers or small studio owners is very different from large clubs.

Company name: Reality Fitness, Inc.

Favorite exercise: ½ foam roll lunges

Favorite fitness moment:After I lost my weight and I discovered the joy of activity and realized it's a series of progressions. That is what I teach my clients.

Athlete you feel you are most similar to either in personality or physique:  I'm not really like any athlete, since I'm not one nor have I ever been. But if I had my ideal I'd like to have the body of a gymnast, strong yet feminine. I wouldn't want their injury history however.

Favorite Dr Seuss book: Oh the Places You Will go!

Books you have written:

1. Reality Fitness; Inspiration for Your Health and Well-being
2. 8 Steps to Create a Successful Personal Training Studio
3. Contributor to ACSM's 2^nd Edition - Resources for the Personal Trainer
4. Success Journal (for clients)
5. Lifestyle and Recipe Book (for clients)
6. 52 Days of Extraordinary Living (for clients)

New book name: 101 Ways to Motivate Your Clients and Increase Retention

Where do we buy it: My website under trainer resources or click here

Web address: http://www.realityfitness.com/

Business philosophy:  I'm of the belief that doing what you love, working hard and always striving for better will bring you success. On the other hand, settling for less, cutting corners when you shouldn't and not putting your clients first is the quickest way to run yourself out of business.

Here's to motivating our clients in any 1 of 101 ways!