Make a choice - To take a dip in income or not!

Hey Fitness Pros,

As we enter summer, personal trainers start to brace for the slower season with clients away on holidays.

You can choose to either take the dip in income and enjoy a few extra hours of rest and relaxation...Not a bad idea actually! Or if reducing your income is not exactly what you want to do, be proactive and take some action steps to get an influx of new clients into your system. Here's some ideas:

1. Host a 28 day "Beach Body Quick Fat Loss program"

2. Host a Summer Outdoor Bootcamp program or other outdoor program

3. Make a list of some high-profile community members (politicians, business owners, athletes, TV/Media personalities etc) and send them a card thanking them for everything they do in your community. Include a Gift Certificate for 3 Private Training sessions. Wanna bet that many of them will continue once they complete their 3 sessions?!

4. Call all your clients you haven't seen in a while and suggest they come in for a program update or a vacation program that they can do on holidays or at the cottage.

5. Organize a dance party, seminar, community exercise class, fitness trade show etc. Charge a small fee and have proceeds go to a local charity. Give all attendees a trial session/pass to your facility. Be sure to collect contact info so you can follow up.

Get rolling on some of these ideas and your business should be thriving this summer.

Yours in health, fitness and business,

Sherri McMillan

Host a party!

Dear Fitness Pros,

When was the last time you hosted a party in honor of your clients? It doesn't need to cost much or take a ton of time to pull together. It can be as simple as arranging a group rate at a Bowling Center, a Paint Ball Location, a Salsa club, a Go-Kart venue, Karaoke night...

Get to know your clients and let them get to know you. Foster the development of friendships between clients. If your clients are friends with other clients and staff, they will be much less likely to leave and go elsewhere!

It's one of the pieces to our Million Dollar Training Studio puzzle!

Yours in health, fitness and business,

Sherri McMillan

Ideas to generate revenues this summer...

Hey Fitness Pros,

The summer months are upon us. Yahoo baby! Can you tell I'm a summer girl?!

Anyways, I wanted to suggest that if you're not offering any type of outdoor programming, you should seriously consider it. It's so nice to get out of the four walls of a gym, a great way to add variety to your clients' programming, increase your summer-month revenues and it's super fun!

Here's some ideas...

*Start an Outdoor Bootcamp
*Host a Learn to Run program
*Host a 5km, 10km, Half Marathon or Marathon training program
*Organize a Triathlon Training clinic
*Organize a Hiking Trek
*Organize an adventure

We are offering all of these services this spring/summer including a hiking, biking and kayaking trek through the San Juan Islands. This is the BEST part of my job!

Create a summer that you and your clients will never forget!

Yours in health, fitness and business,

Sherri McMillan

ps. If you're looking for an easy way to implement these types of initiatives, join our Personal Training MasterMind Group. Your 1st month is FREE. Contact kari@nwpersonaltraining.com if you're interesting in learning how we do $1,000,000 per year at our 5,000 square foot training facility in Vancouver WA - population of 150,000 people.

What are you doing for Mother's Day?

Dear Fitness Pros,

Mother's Day is just around the corner. Plan special activities, events, classes etc to celebrate women! Here are some ideas for you:

*Host a Mother/Daughter class ie Dance, Yoga, Kickboxing...
*Organize a Mother's Day Bootcamp
*Organize a fundraiser with the beneficiary being an important woman's cause
*Hold a Woman's Health seminar
*Bring in a massage therapist for the day to give your female clients free mini-massage sessions
*Give each gal at your studio a flower or inspirational poem
*Offer Gift Certificates, specials, promotional offers etc.

These events don't have to require a lot of planning time, energy or money. Just do something special to show your female clients how much you love and appreciate them.

Yours in health, fitness and business,

Sherri McMillan

ps. Speak to Kari Schunk, our Fitness Education Director, about our Personal Training Mastermind group. If you were part of this program, you would have access to all the templates and materials to make your life a lot easier! Email her at kari@nwpersonaltrainin.com

'Bring your Child to Work-out Day!"

Hey Fitness Pros,

Next Thursday April 22nd is Bring your Child to Work day. In order to encourage a healthy lifestyle in our kids, take a spin on this national holiday and host a "Bring your Child to Work-out Day!" Encourage your clients to bring their kids to a class or to their personal training appointment. We've got to start them young in order to ensure they learn to love to move their bodies!

Yours in health, fitness and business,

Sherri McMillan

Photos from my Fitness Professional Resort Trip...

Hey Fitness Pros,

My teaching vacation at the resort in Mexico was absolutely fabulous. I wanted to make sure I let you know whether it was a positive or negative experience and it was all amazing! It was such a fabulous way to meet people from all over the world and since I'd be working out anyways, it didn't feel like work. And my accommodations, food and alcohol were all free. It was a great dig! I'll probably never travel any other way again!

Here's a photo of me Arm Wresting. I won the Arm Wrestling champion of the whole resort. I would have made you all proud!



Bootcamp on the Beach...




There is no better way to teach Yoga than on the Beach!



Did I tell you that you get to bring a friend for free too?




Anyways, I hope you can take advantage of this type of opportunity. Definitely an industry perk!

Typically, you just have to fill out an application and prove that you are a certified professional. Then you get to search the various resorts and availability. Options are available throughout Mexico and the Caribbean including Cuba, Costa Rica and more.

There are two companies that I know of that facilitate this process. Here are their websites:

http://www.fitnessprotravel.com/

http://www.nrg2go.net/index.shtml

Happy and fit travels,

Sherri McMillan

The key to staying on top!

Dear Fitness Pros,

Stop learning and then start dying! The key to staying on top and on the cutting edge is an ongoing commitment to MCI (Measurable Constant Improvement). Read trade journals, invest in business leadership and success books, listen to webinars, watch and learn from other colleagues and attend conferences and workshops.

At NWPT, this is key to our success. We're always working hard to advance each others' skills. Our team is amazing because we all understand and embrace the importance of this!

If you're looking for a fun educational event to attend and want to hang with some really awesome people, attend our Fitness & Training Forum on Saturday April 10th with Guest Speaker Petra Kolber in Portland Oregon. It is jam packed with practical information that you can implement right away.

And if you're looking for a weekend event that will dramatically change the way you do business and significantly increase your business revenues, attend my Business of Personal Training course in May. We'll have 17 hours together over 2 days and I will teach you everything I know about running a million dollar Personal Training business.

Email Kari Schunk, our Fitness Education Director, at kari@nwpersonaltraining.com for more details and to register for either of these events.

Here's to striving to be your absolute best!

Yours in health, fitness and business,

Sherri McMillan

Plan a healthy and fun St. Patty's Day celebration

Hey Fitness Pros,

Next week is St. Patty's Day. Plan something fun for clients. Encourage everyone to wear green, play some fun Irish music, give out some door prizes, plan some fitness challenges or Exercise Trivia with an Ireland flare so people can test their Irish luck, serve green healthy drinks...

Same old, same old is the sign of a dying business. Doing little things like this that don't take a ton of time or money to organize is a great way to add some excitement and fun to your normal way of doing things.

Yours in health, fitness and business,

Sherri McMillan

ps. Contact kari@nwpersonaltraining.com for 1 month FREE Personal Training Mastermind membership.

Fitness Pros can vacation for Free!

Hey Fitness Pros,

Sorry it's been a few weeks since I've posted. I'm celebrating my 40th Birthday next week and have been enjoying a fun 40 for 40 day celebration. It's been a blast!

Anyways, today I wanted to let you know about an opportunity that exists for Fitness Professionals that I don't think enough of us take advantage of.

Put it this way - you should never have to pay for accommodations and food at a high class resort again. There are plenty of resorts that will give you free accommodations and food in return for teaching a couple classes like Yoga, Pilates, Aqua, Dance, Bootcamp etc per day. Plus, what a great way to meet people. So if you're like me and would workout and take classes anyways, why not teach them yourself and be guaranteed a fabulous workout and get to go for free. Plus you get to bring a guest and often up to 2 kids for free also. If you have more in your party, they often provide a very discounted rate for add-ons. It's a really great deal.

Typically, you just have to fill out an application and prove that you are a certified professional. Then you get to search the various resorts and availability. Options are available throughout Mexico and the Caribbean including Cuba, Costa Rica and more.

There are two companies that I know of that facilitate this process. Here are their websites:

http://www.fitnessprotravel.com/

http://www.nrg2go.net/index.shtml

Happy and fit travels,

Sherri McMillan

ps. Contact Kari Schunk at kari@nwpersonaltraining.com to sign up for 1 month of FREE Personal Training MasterMind group with me - guaranteed to increase your business revenues!

Add an Olympic theme to your training...

Hey Fitness Pros,

The Olympics are well on there way and the world is inspired and captivated by the athleticism, determination, and focus of these athletes.

So use this as an opportunity to incorporate some fun Winter Olympic challenges or workouts.

For example, maybe each day during the Olympics set a new drill, challenge or exercise with an Olympic theme. Here's some ideas. Adjust times based on the client.

* Alpine Skier Wall Squat - How long can you hold the position?

* BOSU Snowboard 180 Jumps - Perform for 30 seconds

* BOSU Luge - Hold Luge position for 45 seconds.

* X-Country Ski Race - How fast can you do 1 mile on an Indoor X-Country Ski machine?

* Apolo Ohno Exercuff Speed Skate - Set up a course around the studio and have clients 'skate' for 2 minutes

* Curling Lunges - Had to add that one in for Canada ;)

Hope this gives you some ideas. Part of being a world-class trainer is always mixing it up and keeping it fun for clients.

Yours in health, fitness and business,

Sherri McMillan

ps. We are offering your first month FREE with our Personal Training MasterMind group. Contact Kari Schunk, our Fitness Education director, at kari@nwpersonaltraining.com and she'll get you all set-up. You'll be well on your way to a million dollar training business.

The #1 Key to Success is...

Dear Fitness Pros,

I've found that success has nothing to do with money or intelligence. Instead success seems to follow those who know exactly what they want and are willing to do whatever it takes to get there!

So I want to ask you...

Do you clearly see what you want for your life and for your career? Can you paint the picture of who you want to be, what you want to do, which adventures you want to experience? I challenge you to dream big for all aspects of your life!

Secondly, do you know what you need to start doing, stop doing and keep doing to point you in the direction of your best life? Bottom line - you actually have to do something. So I challenge you to do one little thing today to prove to yourself that you've got your compass pointed where you want your life to go.

Yours in health, fitness and business,

Sherri McMillan

ps. And if you need someone to keep you accountable to achieving the best in your career, email Kari@nwpersonaltraining.com and ask about our Personal Training MasterMind group.

Why a trainer needs to schedule a workout with a trainer...

Hey Fitness Pros,

This month all of our trainers are taking me through a workout. I would suggest other trainers, owners and managers to do the same for a variety of reasons:

1. Quality control - I will evaluate our team based on a set criteria of what we believe a great session looks like from start to finish. Although every workout is different because every client is different, there are certain principles and protocol that have to be adhered to to make it a great NWPT session.

2. Ideas - Working out with another trainer is an awesome way to give you ideas for your programs, sessions and classes.

3. Great workout - I'm turning 40 in 1 month and it's time to ramp it up! I'm going to be in great shape for my Birthday!

Yours in health, fitness and business,

Sherri McMillan

Fitness Pros for Haiti

Hey Fitness Pros:

Have you organized some form of workout, exercise-a-thon etc to help the people in Haiti. It's a wonderful way to give back, get your clients together doing something amazing for themselves and those in need and just make a difference.

Some ideas:

Exercise-a-thon - 15 minute samples of various types of fitness (ie 15 minutes of kickboxing, 15 minutes of cycling, 15 minutes of Zumba, 15 minutes of Yoga etc)
A 5km Run/Walk from your club
A Hike for Haiti
Muscle-up for Haiti - a Strength training workout, challenge or contest
Dance for Haiti - a few hours of various dance formats
Yoga & Meditation for Haiti - various forms of Yoga and Meditation

We're doing a Bike n' Row event. We'll raise a minimum of $2000 in 5 hours. We're offering 5 times slots with a minimum donation of $20 per person.

Hope this gives you some good ideas.

Yours in health, fitness and business,

Sherri McMillan

The first sign of a dying business...

Hey Fitness Pros:

Stay current or die!

That's an important message.

So what are you doing differently? Are you launching a new class? Have you purchased some new equipment? Are you offering a seminar on a Hot Topic? Are you hosting a really fun adventure for your clients? Are you initiating a new Corporate Wellness program or maybe a Kids Fitness program? Are you planning a Girls Night Out or a Client Get-together?

Mediocrity, coasting, same-old, same-old - are the first signs of a dying business!

Yours in health, fitness and business,

Sherri McMillan

ps. If you are part of our Personal Training MasterMind Group, I will never let that happen to your business. I will always challenge you to think outside of the box and make it easy because I provide you the resources and tools to make it all happen. Contact our Fitness Education Director at Kari@nwpersonaltraining.com

What do you have planned for February for your PT business?

Hey Fitness Pros.

I hope you're enjoying the January rush! Although you're probably swamped with everything right now, as a leader, you need to always be looking ahead!

So my question to you is 'What do you have planned for February'?

To give you some ideas from our business...

*We're hosting a SuperBowl Flag Football game - NWPT Trainers vs Clients. It will be a fun customer service, bonding event.

*We're hosting a Couple's Bootcamp and Couple's Yoga on Valentine's Day weekend

*We're offering an Educational seminar for our clients - Education + Action = Results!

*We're hosting a Girls Night Out party

*We've offering various Valentine's Day specials and promoting Gift Certificates for the holiday

Hope that gives you some ideas.

Yours in health, fitness and business,

Sherri McMillan

ps. FYI - if you are part of our PT MasterMind group you would already have all of these templates ready to go and use. Your first month is FREE so you can see what it's all about and how we generate $1,000,000 per year in our 5000 square foot facility. Contact kari@nwpersonaltraining.com if you're ready to take your PT business to levels of success you've only dreamed of!