Hey Fitness Pros.
It's Monday - the start of a new week. It's a great opportunity to inspire those who you influence.
So if you manage a group of trainers or instructors, send out a Marvelous Monday Morning Memo (MMMM). Direct them towards the focus of the week. Provide some praise and thanks to your team. Be sure they have all the information they need to perform at their best. Set the intention for the week. Remember, you are the head cheerleader, the leader from where all inspiration trickles down from.
If you a trainer or group fitness instructor, then you manage a group of clients and participants. Do the same for them. Send out an inspirational email, text or facebook post. Help to provide focus and intention for the week.
Yours in health, fitness and business,
Sherri McMillan
Showing posts with label leadership. Show all posts
Showing posts with label leadership. Show all posts
Monday, September 21, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Leadership - What's more important, Skill or Character?
Hey Fitness Pros,
At the recent IDEA conference, I worked with a group of Fitness Directors and we discussed the Top 10 most important traits for strong leadership.
Check out this clip that provides you insight into what I believe is the #1 Quality of Strong Leadership.
If you can't view the videoclip above, here is the direct link on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8Z90kjXALc
Yours in health, fitness and business,
Sherri McMillan
At the recent IDEA conference, I worked with a group of Fitness Directors and we discussed the Top 10 most important traits for strong leadership.
Check out this clip that provides you insight into what I believe is the #1 Quality of Strong Leadership.
If you can't view the videoclip above, here is the direct link on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8Z90kjXALc
Yours in health, fitness and business,
Sherri McMillan
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Secret Shop your Business to create an incredible and consistent experience for your clients!
I worked at McDonalds for 5 years. I know, I know... that's a story for a different blog! Anyways, when I worked there we would get Secret Shopped all the time and of course, you always wanted to get a high score. So you ended up just practicing the correct protocol all the time because you just never knew whether you were being shopped or not. So you became very good at always greeting with "Hi, may I take you order please" and always asking "Would you like some fries with that?" and finishing with "Thank you and have a great day!" We always knew we had to keep busy because "if there was time to lean, there was time to clean!" All large corporations utilize Secret Shops because they know it works to help create the kind of wonderful and consistent experience for their customers.
At Northwest Personal Training and Northwest Women's Fitness Club, we also use a Secret Client Evaluation process which evaluates our team on whether we are delivering the type of service that we all envision. By keeping it 'secret', it ensures that our team doesn’t just shine when they know they are being evaluated but instead, they follow protocol and procedures all the time because they just never know when they are being evaluated. But it's important to note that our team does know they are getting evaluated, they just don't know when. Plus we give them the check-list of what they will be evaluated on so there are no surprises and the expectations are very clear.
We have a Secret Evaluation process for all important aspects of our business including an evaluation for the Initial Complimentary Training session, Initial Phone Call, Initial Tour, Ongoing Training appointments, Group Fitness classes and more. We have created a check-list of everything that should happen in each of these scenarios as the ideal vision for the client experience.
When we assign a ‘client’ to perform these evaluations, we have used:
• Actual Clients
• Friends
• Prospective Clients
• Business Associates
We provide them with a Free Personal Training session ($70 value) as a gift to them for taking the time to go through the process and to complete the evaluation form.
At Northwest Personal Training, we strive for world-class consistency and excellence in everything we do and have found this program to be invaluable for us. We hope it helps you too.
Yours in health, fitness and business,
Sherri McMillan
ps. If you don't want to have to spend the time to create your own evaluations and check-lists, we sell the license to utilize our systems. It will definitely save you a lot of time and be ready to implement immediately. If you're interested, you can email our Fitness Education Director Kari Schunk at kari@nwpersonaltraining.com
At Northwest Personal Training and Northwest Women's Fitness Club, we also use a Secret Client Evaluation process which evaluates our team on whether we are delivering the type of service that we all envision. By keeping it 'secret', it ensures that our team doesn’t just shine when they know they are being evaluated but instead, they follow protocol and procedures all the time because they just never know when they are being evaluated. But it's important to note that our team does know they are getting evaluated, they just don't know when. Plus we give them the check-list of what they will be evaluated on so there are no surprises and the expectations are very clear.
We have a Secret Evaluation process for all important aspects of our business including an evaluation for the Initial Complimentary Training session, Initial Phone Call, Initial Tour, Ongoing Training appointments, Group Fitness classes and more. We have created a check-list of everything that should happen in each of these scenarios as the ideal vision for the client experience.
When we assign a ‘client’ to perform these evaluations, we have used:
• Actual Clients
• Friends
• Prospective Clients
• Business Associates
We provide them with a Free Personal Training session ($70 value) as a gift to them for taking the time to go through the process and to complete the evaluation form.
At Northwest Personal Training, we strive for world-class consistency and excellence in everything we do and have found this program to be invaluable for us. We hope it helps you too.
Yours in health, fitness and business,
Sherri McMillan
ps. If you don't want to have to spend the time to create your own evaluations and check-lists, we sell the license to utilize our systems. It will definitely save you a lot of time and be ready to implement immediately. If you're interested, you can email our Fitness Education Director Kari Schunk at kari@nwpersonaltraining.com
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Team Meetings that People Want to Attend
Most people dread meetings because they perceive them to be a waste of time and extremely boring. However, a carefully planned and orchestrated meeting can be one that staff look forward to, that creates a culture for success, that offers some excellent team building opportunities and is productive at teaching your team the skills they need to excel in their position.
So if you manage or work with a team, read the info below. Bottom line though - you've got to figure out how to make your meetings somewhat enjoyable and fun or else no one will come. So check out this video clip from our team meeting yesterday and see how I took an otherwise boring review of our company mission, vision and competitive advantage and made it silly and fun by splitting our team into groups that each had to come up with a company commercial. After you're done watching, review all the info below and start planning your next team gathering.
If you can't view the clip above, click on the link below to watch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0teUUELYgpA
Getting them There: First, we schedule our meetings one year in advance and distribute this list to our team so they can schedule the meetings into their dayplanners. This way, if they are planning a vacation and are flexible with dates, they can work around our team meetings. Our company meetings are once per month for two hours. Second, our meetings are mandatory for all team members. It’s important to note however, that in order to make meetings mandatory we have to pay our team for their time. So we have instituted a meeting wage which is just minimum wage and it enables us to at least compensate our team for their time. If someone can’t make it to the meeting, they are still responsible for meeting with us or their direct supervisor. This ensures they are up-to-date with all the meeting information and since everyone knows they are going to have to meet anyways, they might as well come to the team meeting and have more fun. Last, offer food and they will at least come to eat!
Agenda: In order to ensure you make the best use out of a meeting, it is important to be organized, plan ahead and know how you will spend the allocated time. Then create an agenda to help everyone stay focused and to ensure the meeting stays on track. At each meeting, we try to ensure we include the following topics:
Social Time: The first 5-10 minutes of each meeting, we allow our team to mingle, chat and share anything with the rest of the team. You would think when people work 30 plus hours per week together they would know everything about each other. But that’s not the case. During work hours, our team is focused on clients and often don’t get enough quality time to spend with the rest of the team. So during meetings we allow our team to share what’s going on in their life (ie. I’m training for a marathon, I’m graduating next week, We’re pregnant, It’s my 12th Anniversary etc.). This helps to create team camaraderie and to develop great friendships. When your team likes each other, if they ever leave, they're not just leaving a job but multiple friendships. This can help reduce turnover.
Passion & Purpose: We also allocate a few minutes to read any cards, emails, or letters that clients have recently sent us bragging about one of our team members, listing all the results they’ve achieved since working with us and how we’ve helped to change their life. We find it extremely valuable to regularly remind our team why we’re here and why we do what we do. It’s important to remind them that it’s more than just an exercise program but in fact, we really are dramatically improving people’s lives. When we are all reminded of this vision, it makes it easier to come to work and give it everything you’ve got.
Customer Service: The Personal Training industry is a customer-service based industry and any business who grasps this and practices it regularly will succeed. So we ensure our team understands that the customer is the boss and they must have a ‘drop everything for the client’ attitude. So at meetings we spend time to discuss how we can all pay attention to the little details that set us apart from others. We brainstorm on customer service initiatives we can implement. We may have someone read an article or book on customer service and then summarize it for the group.
Sales: As business owners, we know how important it is to be financially viable and successful. So we ensure we allocate time to role play phone calls, tours and how to help our staff overcome objections that clients have that are hindering them from getting started with us and achieving their goals. Most people don’t enjoy role playing but recognize how valuable it is. If you can get good in this kind of awkward, unnatural environment, imagine how good you’ll be in person. We may also have someone read a book or article on sales or listen to a Sales DVD and then give a report at the staff meeting.
“In the Know”: Many employees at various companies complain that they feel they are out of the loop. They don’t know what’s going on and are often blind-sided by client questions. The worst response you don’t want a staff using is “I don’t know, I just work here”. So we always spend time making sure everyone on our team knows what’s going on and what’s coming up. We’ll review upcoming promotions, staff and client incentives, upcoming seminars, client events, staff events, travel schedules etc. This open communication is critical to ensure you have a team who takes full ownership of the day-to-day operations and success of events, incentives and your business in general.
Break Off
The above meeting components are critical for all members of our team. Once we’ve covered these general areas, we’ll often split into various departments and cover issues specific to that department. For example, the trainers and group fitness instructors might split up and someone might present some new exercises using a new, innovative fitness product. They might discuss a special population or medical concern and review exercise and program modifications that need to be made. The CSRs might split off and discuss some scheduling or computer issues. Or they might role play how to deal with an upset client.
We’ll often finish the meeting maybe watching a fun, inspirational video or just thanking people for their time and their willingness to make it to the meetings to help us solidify as a team.
Meetings are a time and financial investment that we feel are worth it to the success of our business and to our fabulous team environment that we believe is second to none. It costs us about $16/person totaling $640 in payroll costs per meeting (we have 40 team members between our two locations) and about $150 in food, not to mention our own personal time. But believe us, if we weren’t convinced it worked, we wouldn’t do it.
Yours in health, fitness and business,
Sherri McMillan
So if you manage or work with a team, read the info below. Bottom line though - you've got to figure out how to make your meetings somewhat enjoyable and fun or else no one will come. So check out this video clip from our team meeting yesterday and see how I took an otherwise boring review of our company mission, vision and competitive advantage and made it silly and fun by splitting our team into groups that each had to come up with a company commercial. After you're done watching, review all the info below and start planning your next team gathering.
If you can't view the clip above, click on the link below to watch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0teUUELYgpA
Getting them There: First, we schedule our meetings one year in advance and distribute this list to our team so they can schedule the meetings into their dayplanners. This way, if they are planning a vacation and are flexible with dates, they can work around our team meetings. Our company meetings are once per month for two hours. Second, our meetings are mandatory for all team members. It’s important to note however, that in order to make meetings mandatory we have to pay our team for their time. So we have instituted a meeting wage which is just minimum wage and it enables us to at least compensate our team for their time. If someone can’t make it to the meeting, they are still responsible for meeting with us or their direct supervisor. This ensures they are up-to-date with all the meeting information and since everyone knows they are going to have to meet anyways, they might as well come to the team meeting and have more fun. Last, offer food and they will at least come to eat!
Agenda: In order to ensure you make the best use out of a meeting, it is important to be organized, plan ahead and know how you will spend the allocated time. Then create an agenda to help everyone stay focused and to ensure the meeting stays on track. At each meeting, we try to ensure we include the following topics:
Social Time: The first 5-10 minutes of each meeting, we allow our team to mingle, chat and share anything with the rest of the team. You would think when people work 30 plus hours per week together they would know everything about each other. But that’s not the case. During work hours, our team is focused on clients and often don’t get enough quality time to spend with the rest of the team. So during meetings we allow our team to share what’s going on in their life (ie. I’m training for a marathon, I’m graduating next week, We’re pregnant, It’s my 12th Anniversary etc.). This helps to create team camaraderie and to develop great friendships. When your team likes each other, if they ever leave, they're not just leaving a job but multiple friendships. This can help reduce turnover.
Passion & Purpose: We also allocate a few minutes to read any cards, emails, or letters that clients have recently sent us bragging about one of our team members, listing all the results they’ve achieved since working with us and how we’ve helped to change their life. We find it extremely valuable to regularly remind our team why we’re here and why we do what we do. It’s important to remind them that it’s more than just an exercise program but in fact, we really are dramatically improving people’s lives. When we are all reminded of this vision, it makes it easier to come to work and give it everything you’ve got.
Customer Service: The Personal Training industry is a customer-service based industry and any business who grasps this and practices it regularly will succeed. So we ensure our team understands that the customer is the boss and they must have a ‘drop everything for the client’ attitude. So at meetings we spend time to discuss how we can all pay attention to the little details that set us apart from others. We brainstorm on customer service initiatives we can implement. We may have someone read an article or book on customer service and then summarize it for the group.
Sales: As business owners, we know how important it is to be financially viable and successful. So we ensure we allocate time to role play phone calls, tours and how to help our staff overcome objections that clients have that are hindering them from getting started with us and achieving their goals. Most people don’t enjoy role playing but recognize how valuable it is. If you can get good in this kind of awkward, unnatural environment, imagine how good you’ll be in person. We may also have someone read a book or article on sales or listen to a Sales DVD and then give a report at the staff meeting.
“In the Know”: Many employees at various companies complain that they feel they are out of the loop. They don’t know what’s going on and are often blind-sided by client questions. The worst response you don’t want a staff using is “I don’t know, I just work here”. So we always spend time making sure everyone on our team knows what’s going on and what’s coming up. We’ll review upcoming promotions, staff and client incentives, upcoming seminars, client events, staff events, travel schedules etc. This open communication is critical to ensure you have a team who takes full ownership of the day-to-day operations and success of events, incentives and your business in general.
Break Off
The above meeting components are critical for all members of our team. Once we’ve covered these general areas, we’ll often split into various departments and cover issues specific to that department. For example, the trainers and group fitness instructors might split up and someone might present some new exercises using a new, innovative fitness product. They might discuss a special population or medical concern and review exercise and program modifications that need to be made. The CSRs might split off and discuss some scheduling or computer issues. Or they might role play how to deal with an upset client.
We’ll often finish the meeting maybe watching a fun, inspirational video or just thanking people for their time and their willingness to make it to the meetings to help us solidify as a team.
Meetings are a time and financial investment that we feel are worth it to the success of our business and to our fabulous team environment that we believe is second to none. It costs us about $16/person totaling $640 in payroll costs per meeting (we have 40 team members between our two locations) and about $150 in food, not to mention our own personal time. But believe us, if we weren’t convinced it worked, we wouldn’t do it.
Yours in health, fitness and business,
Sherri McMillan
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