“God gives every bird its food, but does not
always drop it into the nest.”
Right
now, as you sit there reading this “FitBits,” someone living or working
within 10 minutes of your training location has decided to start a
fitness program and find a good trainer to help teach them how to do it
right. What are you doing to help them – find you!
You
may be the best trainer in your gym, or your city, maybe even your
state, but if you are not constantly trying to get the word out there
(it’s called “marketing”) or trying to motivate people to train with you
(it’s called “sales”), you are probably losing clients to the trainers
that do know how to market and sell.
If you
are going to be truly great in our industry you must do it all. You
must constantly strive for excellence in your craft, and simultaneously
develop your marketing, sales and business skills to help you compete in
a very competitive marketplace. If you are going to be truly great you
must learn that marketing, sales and business are not “dirty words” and
that competition is not only healthy, but essential for your growth as a
human being.
Abraham Lincoln once said “All things come to those who wait, but only
those things left-over by those who hustle.” Those words are as true
today as they were 140 years ago. For those of you who have not yet
learned how to hustle, I will teach you. I purposely chose 3 topics at
the IFPA “Fitness-By-the-Bay” Conference in Tampa, FL (August 26 thru
28): The Business of Fitness: Getting Started (T2); The Business of
Fitness: Marketing (T-9); The Business of Fitness: Sales (T-16) to provide
you with the skills you need to achieve success
- New Research
on Exercise:
- This will put another
weapon in your arsenal on our war against inactivity. According to Dr.
Arne Dietrich of American University of Beirut, who has been
researching post-exercise euphoria, now believes that cannabinoids
(basically the same class of chemicals that gives marijuana smokers
their high) may be the cause of post-exercise euphoria.
Dr.
Dietrich’s experiment had 24 men either run, ride a bike or sit for
approximately 50 minutes and then took blood samples. The result was
high levels of anandamide (a cannabinoid) in the exercisers, but not in
the sedentary subjects. The body releases cannobinoids to cope with the
stress of exercise. You can use this on a client who “just doesn’t feel
like exercising today” by explaining this process and telling them that
if they just give you 20 minutes of cardio (a slightly longer warm-up),
that they will feel much better, not only now, but throughout the day.
Focus on the fact that they need to exercise in order to feel better and
why.
In
order to give you in-depth knowledge on this subject I suggest you
register for Dr. Tom Krueger's presentation on Exercise Endocrinology
(S-1) at the Conference. I spoke with Dr. Tom yesterday and he will be
going into far greater depth about how exercise stimulates the endocrine
system to make all of us feel better and live longer, healthier lives.
Sincerely,
- Jim Bell
- President
