Personal Fitness Professional - June 2008 - (Page 14)

Five Crucial Insights I’d like to share and brieﬂy discuss ﬁve distinctive insights that have served to better my own ability to get clients, train clients, get paid and thrill in the hope that they may reinforce my point and serve you: Insight #1: If I’m not paid for my time, I sacriﬁce my ability to deliver results or my ability to eat. I made the mistake for years. The free consultations, the free assessments and the “it’s okay if you pay me next week” permissiveness all contributed to hunger. I ate the Subway subs before Jared made it fashionable. They had a six-inch tuna sub for about two dollars. Dinner was at the local pub happy hour. You could nurse a one-dollar beer and eat the ziti and wings. As my friends were establishing careers and enjoying steak and champagne, I knew I had to change or starve. I opted to change. I called myself a ﬁtness professional, yet the other “professionals” I knew were being paid for all of their consultations and their services. I also felt frustrated, in that the time I was paid for was limited to workouts. If I were to promise results, I needed to ﬁnd a way to tie in an ability to just talk about lifestyle shifts that I knew were vital for results, and I knew this too would require compensation if this was going to really lead to a career. I put a pen to paper and calculated, at $35 per hour, how much money I sacriﬁced by giving away my time. It was staggering. I instantly gave myself a $10,000 raise by simply deciding I would never again conduct the service I hoped to charge for without compensation. I then kicked things up another $10,000 by charging for my time, whether it was time spent in discussion, using calipers or directing an exercise session. Insight #2: If I fail to control my calendar, my entrepreneurial spirit has led me to have 20 bosses who abuse my time. When I started my personal training business, I believed I was in business for myself. Prior to the entrepreneurial leap, I had one boss. In a stressed-out moment of overwhelm, on the brink of burnout, trying to keep up with 20 clients’ ever-changing schedules, I had the realization: I’m more of an employee than ever before. Rather than being at the beck and call of a single boss, I allowed every client to own my time. The overwhelming experience led me to an escape, a couple of days isolated 14 JUNE-JULY2008 · WWW.FIT-PRO.COM http://WWW.FIT-PRO.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Personal Fitness Professional - June 2008

Personal Fitness Professional - June 2008 Contents Letter From the Editor, Writers To Franchise Or Not To Franchise? Current Controversies Insuring Success Case Study Exercise Spotlights Raising Rates Through Better Session Design Mark Your Calendar The Perfect Ad The Movement Triad Exercise Spotlights Product Profile New on the Market Spotlight: Brian Boyle

Personal Fitness Professional - June 2008

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