Volo Innovations

The ripple effect is a term used to describe consequences of event that are beyond your control. These ripples are often far reaching and may have a blanket affect. The current economy has had this very affect on numerous businesses and several fitness centers have closed their doors and filed for bankruptcy from small mom and pop operations to larger fitness chains this ripple has hit businesses hard and consumer confidence even harder.

Some fitness members are being left with little to no recourse when a club closes hence the increase in popularity of surety bonds. Wise gym members or those whom have been stung once are now starting to ask before they sign if the club caries a surety bond and the amount.

What is a surety bond?
A surety bond is a contract among at least three people.

• The principal or primary party who will be performing the contractual obligation - the health club
• The oblige or the party that is the recipient of the obligation - the member of the health club
• The surety who ensures the principal's obligations will be performed - usually the states attorney general for health clubs

These bonds offer security to the gym member that should a facility close or not live up their obligation under the membership contract that the member will be able to seek restitution from the amount of the bond.

Who must be bonded? How much?
Health club bonds are not limited to just health clubs but instead reach multiple businesses that offer prepaid memberships with the amount to be determined by length and types of memberships. The fees and types of companies that must buy bonds depend on the state. Businesses must check with their attorney general to see if they are required to post a bond and how much this bound will cost for. Typical bonds requirements can range from $50,000 for 12 month memberships to a higher $150,000 for 2 and 3 year memberships.

Fitness industry business types that may require surety bonds:

• General health and fitness clubs
• Racquet and tennis clubs
• Gyms
• Weight loss centers
• Self-defense schools
• Personal or athletic trainers - currently only if they have a facility
• Body building clubs

Who could be next?

• Yoga studios
• Pilates studios
• Boot Camp operations - no facility needed
• Personal or athletic trainers - no facility

Should your business get bonded?

I believe that it is only a matter of time before this becomes a necessity in order for businesses to ensure the peace of mind of their members. Add to this the pressure on the government to rebuild consumer confidence and before you know it the current legislation will have a ripple effect that will soon include your business.

I would recommend that if you can afford it that you take initiative to be ahead of the curve and take out bond to provide your members and clients the security to buy from you. You may want to advertise the fact or just keep it on your contracts.

The second option is to switch your business model to post billing versus pre-paid memberships. Some businesses may charge an initiation fee to cover initial cost; this fee may be refunded at the end of term similar to the leasing of property. Remember don't spend these fees instead use place them in a separate account as you may be required to refund with interest depending on your state.

There several different options and successful business opportunities that may suit your business needs so do some research and make sure that you are properly covered for all circumstances that may face your business. This will also protect you from personal liability and possible criminal proceedings.

I do not normally like to comment on a news article but sometimes it just seems necessary. Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle has an article about the cost of obesity and the huge obstacle that Americans face in trying to reform health care. The big concern is funding the rising costs that an obese nation is creating, $147 billion last year and 100,000 deaths that can be linked directly to obesity.

The article adds some other amazing numbers like 33 percent of children born in 2000 and 30 percent of adults in America are obese. This is just sad. It may not be a shock to most of you but I think it is really sad that so many people allow their friends, family and neighbors to get this fat.

So what is the solution?

The article talks about junk food taxes and legislation to change food outlets but are these solutions? One point glossed over in this article is that around the same time that junk foods were added to schools for their lunch programs the school boards started to eliminate PE (physical education) as well. Instead of getting people active the solutions provided are to tax and limit access to foods and warn people about the effects of excess weight, like death (a pretty big negative effect). I personally don't think is going to be effective because as the saying goes "Nothing is certain but death and taxes". These 2 "facts of life" don't deter people most of them just shrug and say they are inevitable why bother fighting it.

I feel the solution will be need to be divided into two areas;

1. The future children
   
2. The current generations

For the first group the answer is in educating the youth (and their parents) and reinstating physical activity in schools along with changing the schools food offerings.

This solution is only for the upcoming generations and does not address the current obese generations. For them I do not have a quick solution because by this time most have developed some really bad habits and they need to want to change in order for any change to happen.

This posting should reach a few hundred fitness professionals so my challenge to all of you is to put forward your solution to this problem write a comment and send the challenge on to others I think we have a great opportunity to have a really useful discussion. It is up to everyone to find a way to instill health back into America because other nations look up to this great nation and if America cannot solve the problem then this epidemic will reach global proportions. Who know it might help you find a niche to work with as well!

Here is the challenge comment on this post about:

1. How you feel the future child obesity dilemma should be addressed
2. How to deal with the current obese population.
   

Remember to be constructive and sincere because whatever it is that needs to be done will need to be done by all of us.

If one in three Americans are obese then every single person has a family member or friend that is obese. So what are you going to do to help that person? As President Obama says; “Together we can!”

Quick definition for those of you who have never heard of an elevator pitch; this is a 10-30sec or 100-150 word overview of a product, idea, project or service that is primarily used to entice investment. Entrepreneurs will need to master this if they wish to receive capital investment for their ventures but these wonderful tools have become a way for anyone to quickly describe what they do or offer. Sales people, project managers, job seekers and even speed daters have taken up the elevator pitch to help them succeed. The basic principle is to say enough about your offering to make the person you are pitching want, no desire more information.

An example for a personal trainer maybe;
"Hi my name is Barry Duncan, I am in the business of transforming lives by giving the people I work with the tools and skills they need to succeed in health and fitness, this easily transfers to the rest of their life and ensures success in whatever they do. My ‘Quick Fit' workouts allow people to achieve phenomenal results in short periods and they use my simple tools to maintain a healthier and active life style. "

You get the idea you want a "Wow that is fantastic!" or "Can you tell me more?" type response.

Why do trainers and fitness instructors need an elevator pitch? You are the ambassadors of the industry, everywhere you go and every person you talk to look at you as the example of what to do to be healthy. If someone asks you what you do you need something that inspires that person to become healthier or even better to use your advice and service to do so. A fitness professional is always selling at every function, party restaurant and especially in the grocery store.

The key to a great pitch is to be able to summarize the product or service you offer in a way that it elicits emotion from the person you are talking to.

A person that does Mommy Boot Camps may want to say "I motivate and inspire mothers to achieve greatness so they in turn can motivate their children to achieve greatness. My Mommy Boot Camps make mothers fit, healthy and confident to tackle the never ending expectations that are thrust upon them on a daily basis." or "I have transformed the mommy image from slippers and bath robes to running shoes and athletic gear from holding an iron fry pan to wielding iron dumbbells. This makes every mommy I know a force to reckon with and an inspiration to their children, friend and family."

Your pitches will need:

• A message for your target demographic
• A message that make people talk about you to others
•  Needs to be positive
• Needs to inspire people
• Elicits questions about what you do
• Motivates people to take action

My final tip is that once you have the pitch you will need to create a series of answers to potential responses from people. My next posting will be covering how to create a Q & A list that will wow your customers this should help you with these. Now all you need is a pen a piece of paper and some people to bounce the pitch off of.

What is a Niche Market, there are several definitions that you will come across the one that I feel is relevant to the fitness industry as a whole is; the area of a target market where a company is particularly strong and this specialization results in a higher quality product or service. It is the latter part of this definition that I feel companies should truly focus on delivering in order to say they have a niche.

Anyone can say they are a specialist in golf training and even do a decent job at training people but have these trainers developed a  niche? What does it take to become a specialist or expert at something, approximately 10,000 hours, according to Malcolm Gladwell in his recent book Outliers.

The first thing is to find your passion and then embrace it, love it and learn everything there is about it. A great example of a person who I think has done this is Brian Grasso, if you have ever heard him speaking about the IYCA you will know what it is to have found your passion. Another passionate group, the founders of APPT they have embraced their chosen field and aspire to achieve excellence.

Four tips to develop your niche:

1. Play the sport and work with the people; this is a simple way to understand the nature of your potential market niche. A trainer cannot train kids or golfers or kids that golf if they do not have an understanding of how kids learn or how to play golf. You will need more than a degree in Kinesiology or understanding of body mechanics to master a niche. Work with kids as a volunteer at your local day care or school or even summer camp. Let them know why you are doing this and that you just want to help them as you gain knowledge of how kids interact with each other and how they move and learn. For the golf part just go out and play, you do not have to be good at it to be a great trainer you just need to get the basics and then..
2. Hire experts; this is probably the easiest and best way to get to know your niche, hire the people that are coaches or professionals in your chosen market. To follow the golf theme you will need to work with some golf pros even better exchange services and make them affiliates. For the kids try talking to teachers and parents they both love to share the pros and cons of children and youth. 
3. Attend every course, seminar and lecture; this is the time and research part of the equation. There are many experts and lectures on any sport so they are never in short supply. For the golf right now the hot ticket is Titleist Performance Training (TPI), they run a certification that any person wanting to make golf a niche should look into. For working with youth look no further than the IYCA and Brian Grasso he has become the expert that you will need to talk with to move into this niche. 
4. Identify the pain is really what a niche is about, take a group of people that do a specific thing and locate what drives them and where they are struggling and you can start to solve the problem. So in golf a great thing to focus on is how to harness rotational power and the muscles groups involved and then build exercises around them. For youth or kids they are a bit young to focus on such a thing as power but you can incorporate movements and activities both golf and non golf related that will do this without being so specific or instructional that you over load the youth.

Developing a niche takes time and patience, you have a lot to learn and need to immerse yourself with people that have been there and are working in the field that your are entering.

The best part is that once you have achieved the goal the rewards are endless, so are the opportunities so make sure you do it and do it right.

I look forward to your comments on this topic!

Almost all trainers, boot camp operators, Pilates and even yoga instructors use music to help motivate their clients. If you own a facility then the chances are you have music running all the time, am I right? Anyone with a fitness business uses music at 1 point or another.

Well what would you say if I told you that you would have to pay 5% of your GROSS revenue and $3/class. For some you would say go to h*** that is my profit margin. Well currently Australia and Canada are fighting against the music industry proposed tariff. If passed this would potentially cripple fitness businesses with taxes, tariffs and surcharges.

Now perhaps you are thinking well we are in the US so what does it matter? It matters a lot, once they have set precedence in 1 country they will use that to convince the powers that be to enforce rulings in other countries.

Join operation M.U.S.I.C, members unite to stop increasing copyright charges, by getting involved with the organizing bodies in your country that are working together to keep this tariff from moving forward:

• In Australia at http://www.operationmusic.org.au/
• In Canada at Fitness Industry Canada
• In the US at IHRSA

All of these bodies are working together to try and keep this from being implemented. At the IHRSA trade show last month there was a reception where Fitness Industry Canada (FIC) received a huge response to this issue and pledges of support from various bodies. check out the article in FitNet to learn more about what happened at IHRSA.

Please spread the word, get involved, post it on your blog, tweet it, FaceBook it do what ever you can to help raise awareness on this issue as it has the potential to severely cripple the fitness industry.

Do you own your fitness business? No matter how big or small you are your attention is needed to keep our industry from being overtaxed.  

Currently in the United States there are 25 states that don't tax fitness programs, if you are one of the states you need to be on your guard. The lawmakers are looking for more ways to increase their tax base and they are looking our way!

We all need to get involved with our local policy makers, sign up for newsletters and make sure that if they start talking about implementing new taxes on the fitness industry that you and all of your colleagues are involved before it has passed.

In 2007 Maryland proposed a 6% tax on all fitness programs, this would have had significant impact on the fitness clubs and trainers in the state. Either they would have had to roll that our to their clients or include it in their fees and lose 6% of their gross revenues. Not really a viable option for most companies no matter what the size. Read more on this

We often talk with self employed trainers as well as studios and clubs and a lot of the time the trainers and small business owners don't feel like they need to be involved in these things. I would strongly disagree. It is just as critical for the small businesses to be involved in these situations as the big business.

Get involved with associations both in the fitness industry as well as your community, it is this connection that will keep you in the know about what is happening in your town, city, state or province as well as what is going on in the industry.

Be proactive, get involved and make a difference. We are all part of the solution whether that is helping our clients get fit or not letting the policy makers take more money out of our pockets and our members' pockets. Fitness saves the government money, let's not let them charge our clients even more for it!

The other side of the coin is there are several states and all of Canada that are trying to implement a fitness tax credit so that your members will be able to get a tax deduction for fitness expenses up to a certain amount. These also need your support so whether your state or province is trying to tax or give a credit get involved and make a difference!

Today I learned about a "Fitness Professionals Licensing Act" that has been proposed in New Jersey. I am all for improving the quality of people that call themselves trainers or fitness professionals having seen too many people that love working out so they think this means they have what it takes to teach other people how to safely and effectively workout.

Here are some of the points in the proposed bill, new trainers that don't have a degree in a related field would be required to do a 300 hour in class course, and do 50 hours of unpaid internship. Everyone will need to write a board certified exam and apply for a license that requires renewal ever 2 years. There will be minimum hours of practical experience and minimum hours of continuing education hours required every 2 years.

There are also provisions for existing trainers needing to complete a certification course and apply for a license within a certain time frame after the bill passes.

If you live in New Jersey you might want to check out the bill and see if it is going to affect your business. It might be a good thing by weeding out some of the non-professionals you might have new clients coming your way. Or it might be a bit of a red tape nightmare with governmental bodies creating new forms and requirements that you need to do fill in to maintain your standing in the community. Either way I wish you luck with your business!

Surge ahead!

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!

Recently I read 2 great articles, the first was on the top fitness trends from ACE and it said that basically any way that fitness professionals can deliver more for less the better response they were going to have from consumers in 2009.

Now, more than ever, people are feeling the stress of time and money.  In order for your business to be successful you need to be able to deliver a program that is going to allow you to generate good revenue so your business can grow and prosper but at a price per person that is more affordable than traditional personal training.

What did ACE say were going to be the hottest trends for 2009:

• Bootcamps
• Circuit classes
• Specialty group training classes from Kettlebells to Zumba

All of these have one thing in common they are group classes where the price can be a bit lower that a training session. This allows the consumer to get some personalized attention without the full price of 1 - 1 training, it also adds a totally different motivation factor that can be really effective.

So how can this help your business help others? The second article I read was about how a training company in the States was offering a "Free" by donation to the local homeless shelter, bootcamp class. They were holding it in a public space and all of their regular clients were welcome and anyone else that wanted to join was welcome they just needed to come a few minutes early to fill in health forms.

Now I think this is great on 3 levels:

1. You get great publicity
2. The charity gets publicity and much needed food or supplies
3. You get the names and contact information on people that actually want to do boot camps. Which you should be able to leverage into new clients.

All in all I think that there are lots of great opportunities to have a successful business in 2009 you just need to keep moving, help others and know that that the good will and word of mouth is going to drive your business to the next level.