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In a post last week I mentioned that fitness industry superhero Alwyn Cosgrove was going to be putting on a webinar called The Death of Personal Training.  Well…on Monday night that seminar took place and, as many who signed up probably already know, there were so many people trying to log in that the webinar service actually crashed!  I think there was such a rush of people trying to log in that Alwyn was single handedly responsible for the following afternoon in Virginia.

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In case you missed out and weren’t able to see it, here is the link to the replay (no sign up needed):  The Death of Personal Training

However, the fact that there was such an influx of people trying to login for this webinar tells me that there are a heck of a lot of fitness professionals who want to improve their business.  The good news (in case you haven’t heard it yet) is that after the seminar Alwyn introduced a special offer in the form of a new program called From Counting Reps to Counting Revenue.  Frankly, I probably couldn’t do the program justice if I tried to describe it so go check it out for yourself.

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From Counting Reps to Counting Revenue  <– Get the deets here!

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For those who aren’t in the know, one thing that happens when you offer to help someone promote a product in the online world is that they typically send you something called “swipe copy” that you can use to help them sell the product.  In short, it is usually in the form or pre-written emails or blog posts that you can use to provide your readers content.  Quite often, this is why a lot of emails from those promoting products look pretty much the same and seem as though they aren’t very authentic.  It is because they aren’t.

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I’ve never really liked swipe copy and don’t use it.  I prefer to write my own reviews.  In this particular case, this is especially true for 2 reasons.

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1.  Alwyn’s Product is Legit and I want this review to be authentic!

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Alwyn has not only been there and done that, but he’s helped others transform their businesses too.  To me, this is more important than just doing it.  He and his wife Rachel have shown repeatedly with their mentorship groups that they can produce results not just with themselves, but with others.  THIS give the program credibility in my eyes.  I’ve already seen the first week of videos and they are fantastic!

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2.  I know what it is like to struggle.

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A lot of other people reviewing this product have wildly successful fitness facilities.  Many of them have done it right from the beginning and have never known what it is really like to worry about making lease every month, whether they’ll be able to make their car payment, or even feed themselves.  I, on the other hand, know this.

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When my wife and I launched our facility several years back we did it all wrong.  We didn’t have a business plan.  We funded it with a line of credit and some credit cards.  We didn’t know which numbers to track and if you’d asked me at any given time what we had made that day (or that month) I probably couldn’t have told you.

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What I did know was that some months paying the bills was easy and there was a few extra dollars in our pockets.  When times were tough it was hard to pay the bills.  When times were tough, we’d send out the occasional flyer that never seemed to have the response rate that people talked about on the internet.  We tried running bootcamps (which were okay), but we didn’t know enough to have upsells in place to really make these profitable.

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What we did have was passion!!!  (If you’re a fitness professional I KNOW you do too!)

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We loved helping people and we figured that by simply becoming the best at what we did our business would thrive and we’d make tons of money.  So we leased a place, slapped a sign above the door, bought some equipment, and went to work.  And work we did.  Most weeks we worked up to 60 hours.  We’d work mornings…and nights.  We lost touch with family and friends as we worked ourselves to the bone.  And when we tried to hire staff, the process was a nightmare and we either had to fire them or they quit and swiped the clients they had from us.  Basically, we hadn’t bought ourselves a business.  We’d bought ourselves a job.  And it was a crappy job with no vacation, little pay (after expenses), and no benefits.

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In the end, it came down to a point where my wife and I decided we wanted to have a family.  And we both knew we couldn’t do it with both of us working 60 hours per week with very little money…or at least that wasn’t the life we wanted for our family.  So we opted to close our doors, sell everything off, and walk away.  And since we didn’t have an exit strategy (as Alwyn discusses in his product) we literally lost tens of thousands of dollars and we’re still paying for that until today.

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Now I don’t want you to take this to mean we weren’t good.

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At the risk of sounding arrogant, we were not only good, but we were DAMN GOOD.  Darn near excellent actually!  Almost every single one of our clients lost fat, gained muscle, reduced pain, and improved their health while in our facility.  I have testimonials to prove it.  And our client retention was excellent!  But there weren’t enough new people coming through the door every day and we certainly weren’t maximizing the amounts we couldn’t been making from each client with upsells, other services, and so on.

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In short, when it comes to running a fitness business, being good simply is NOT good enough.  You can be the best in the freaking world, but if you don’t have good business practices, you’ll end up with your doors closed.

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Now for me, this actually ended up to be a blessing in disguise as I ended up with consulting gigs, doing work for a government funded bariatric medical program, and I’m still able to train clients out of a friend’s facility.  In fact, it wasn’t until we closed up shop and I was able to spend less time in my business that I became able to share my thoughts through my blog with the world.  And we had a beautiful daughter.

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But not everyone is so fortunate.  And to this day I regret not having done it right from the beginning.  Had we had the systems in place we could’ve run the facility, made money, and stepped away to grow our family at the same time.

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So let me conclude with this…

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I consider myself to be a good person to take exercise and nutrition advice from.  I know these areas like I created them myself.  I can get results with almost any client you put in front of me.  But I am probably the worst person to take business advice from.  As a business owner you MUST know both of these areas if you are to succeed.  And since I don’t know business (although I’ve learned a TON about it after the fact) I can’t really tell you how to run a facility.

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What I do know is that Alwyn knows fitness business.  If you currently own a fitness business you owe it to yourself to pick up his product and turn your business around so that you never have to struggle.  I say this sincerely because I’ve been there and I know how you feel.  I know some of you might balk at the price (it is $297) I can’t say enough times how much money and heartache you’ll be able to save yourself if you just get your business on the right path.  Please do yourself a favor and pick this up.

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Counting Reps to Counting Revenue  <– Get it Here!

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I should also note that there is a 100% guarantee on this product and if you don’t feel it is worth the money you’ve paid (I KNOW it will be), just ask and your money back and it will be returned with no questions.

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And finally, this product is ONLY on sale until Friday September 2nd and then it will be pulled off the market.  Yep…pulled.  As in gone.

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Counting Reps to Counting Revenue  <– Get it While You Can!

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If you are a fitness professional, you will not regret it.

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In the recent past I’ve had the incredible opportunity to communicate a few time via email with fitness industry superstar Alwyn Cosgrove.

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*Side note:  How freakin’ awesome is that???*

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In any case, during the process I discovered that he has a webinar coming up called The Death of Personal Training.  If you’re a fitness professional looking to establish yourself in this industry or you’ve already got your foot in the door and you’re hoping to make this your career I’d highly suggest that you listen to what Alwyn has to say.

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The underlying component of this seminar is the concept fitness industry has completely changed and over the past few years, the best ways to market, operate and train has been changing and that most fitness professionals are NOT changing to keep up.

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The statistics for fitness based small businesses are alarming!

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Within the first 5 years of business 80% of small fitness businesses are out of business!  And by 8 years 16 out of 17 of them have closed their doors.  In other words, just 94% of small fitness businesses are out of business in under 10 years!!!  Many will lose a lot of money.  Some will go bankrupt.  But almost all of them will close and if you’re not prepared for what is coming in the fitness industry you could very well be one of them.

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As the seminar title suggests, personal training as we know it is dying.

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The good news is that Alywn Cosgrove (one of the owners of the most profitable gym per square foot in the United States) knows what it takes to build a great business and he’s ready to share the blueprint for his business so you don’t have to become one of those statistics.

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In the Death of Personal Training webinar here’s what Alwyn is going to share with you:
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- why it’s the scariest and greatest time in the fitness industry to open and run a gym
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- how the fitness business model has drastically changed throughout the years and if you are not changing with it, you will be out of it soon

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- 5 steps to not only survive but dominate your marketplace
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- the turning point in his career that will help you take your business to the next level
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Interested yet?  Yeah…me too.  Here are the rest of the deets.

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Title of the webinar: The Death of Personal Training

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Presenter of the webinar: Alwyn Cosgrove

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Date of the webinar: Monday, August 22nd

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Time of the webinar: 8pm Eastern

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Alwyn assures me that this webinar is full of business building information, and could be the most important hour of your business’s life, so reserve your spot now:

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The Death of Personal Training Webinar <– Register Here for FREE

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Admittedly, I am not sure how many people Alwyn will be letting on the webinar, but I know a lot of people will be trying to get on (Alwyn is kinda big time you know?), so reserve your spot as soon as possible.  Oh…and if you can’t make yourself available for the webinar at 8PM on Monday don’t worry.  You’ll be able to download the webinar after that fact, but only if you register in advance.

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The Death of Personal Training Webinar <– Register Here for FREE

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So that’s it for today.  If you’re a fitness professional I can’t recommend this webinar strongly enough and I won’t belabor the point any longer.  I’m going to watch this webinar.  If you are a personal trainer, I’d suggest you do the same.

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Okay…so I wasn’t going to post anything today, but this week I stumbled across two things that I think are ”must reads” for the week.

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The Truth About Bodybuilding Genetics

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This is an absolutely stellar review research on the effects of genetics on muscle building, fat loss, and athletic performance by my friend Bret Contreras.  I absolutely think that this article sets the bar for all future articles to be written in 2011.

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2011 – Your Best Year Yet

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Let me preface this article by saying that I pretty much HATE rah-rah motivational articles.  Generally speaking, I think they make people feel good for about 5 minutes and then the feeling wears off leaving the person in about the same state they were before reading it (and having wasted 5 minutes reading).

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This post, on the other hand, is a great guest post by Todd Durkin on Alwyn Cosgrove’s blog listing 83 ways to make 2011 your best year yet.  I love this list because it isn’t just theory and each item is an actionable.

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I’ve personally printed this list and posted it above my computer.  I figured you might want to do the same.

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If you could recommend an article to someone who could only read ONE article this week…what would it be?

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This week there was a great discussion on StrengthCoach.com on pre and post workout nutrition between myself and some other very bright minds (note that I’m suggesting they’re bright and I’m just…well…me).  This just highlighted for me, as I’ve mentioned before, that if you’re not on the StrengthCoach.com forums you’re truly missing out.  Here are my top 5 reasons why I love SC.com.

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1 – The forums are top notch

You’ll get to interact with people who are veterans and the brightest young minds in this industry including Mike Boyle, Alwyn Cosgrove, Mike Robertson, Nick Tumminello, Bret Contreras, Patrick Ward, Carson Boddicker, Jeff Cubos, and so many more that they’ll probably kick my ass for leaving them out (sorry guys and gals).  In many cases, these guys and gals have been there and done that and they’re more than happy to take the time out to help young coaches and trainers.  This alone is worth the cost (which is small by the way).

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2 – Charlie Weingroff.

If you don’t know.  You will.  The guy is seriously a brain with legs…really strong ass legs.

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3 – Web traffic

If you’re struggling to get traffic to your site, go here, join in the discussion, and if you’re not a total tool your site will get hits because people will want to hear more of what you have to say.  That is not to say that you should go here and spam with your blog info (you’d probably be deleted anyway), but if you network with the best you’re bound to get traffic as a side benefit.

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4 – Smart people know who you are.

I can’t say how cool it is to have one thread with my videos as a “sticky” in the “Best of the Forums” section.  When Mike Boyle knows who you are, then you’re a badass.  That is an official rule.   (Note: It is my blog so I make the rules)

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5 – If you don’t belong to SC.com then you will be forever stuck in mediocracy.

Just kidding…sorta.

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(In the interest of full disclosure, the link to the StrengthCoach.com above IS an affiliate link.  I will get a couple quarters if you sign up through me that I’ll put into my daughter’s college fund.  If you’d prefer to sign up directly through the site you can do that too.  Whether I make a dime or not I still think it is worth it.)

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If you’re a member of SC.com and want to add to the list feel free to do so in the comments section below.  If you’re not a member…get ‘er done.  Hope to see you there.

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As many of you know, I’m a huge advocate of reading (or learning) for at least an hour per day.  Since my beautiful daughter was born almost 8 weeks ago she and I have been putting in our time reading and watching some great stuff.

Outliers – By Malcolm Gladwell

This book provides a very insightful look at what makes people successful in their respective fields.  Despite what you might think about working hard, Gladwell suggests that this is only part of the equation.  Although I’m not 100% sold on every single assertion that was made, it certainly was enough to open my eyes to the possibility that there are other factors at play.

More importantly, Gladwell’s writing style is interesting and easy to read which is refreshing if you’re looking for something thought provoking, but not overly intense.  If this isn’t enough to convince you, consider that I’m now reading another Gladwell book called The Tipping Point and have his other books Blink and What the Dog Saw on my bookshelf already.

Fast Food Nation – By Eric Schlosser

Honestly, I could probably tell you all about this book and how it explains the production, flavoring, and marketing of your food, but it really wouldn’t do justice to the vast amount of information that is covered about the effects of corporate power on our food supply.

Consider that companies like Nestle make baby formula (Gerber), food (Cheerios, Lean Cuisine, Stouffer’s), coffee (Nescafe), chocolate (Kit Kat, Smarties), and then when you get good and overweight they can sell you food replacements like Boost, Powerbar, Jenny Craig, and even the medically managed weight loss product called Optifast.  Need some water for that shake?  No worries, they sell that too.  Pure Life, Perrier, Vittel, and S.Pelligrino are all Nestle products.  And by the way, they are also feeding your pets.  Nestle makes Alpo, Friskies, and Fancy Feast.   Once they start making caskets they’ll have us covered from cradle to grave.

Imagine what would happen if the goverment tried to mandate changes to the foods we eat to make them healthier.  Imagine the power of corporations to resist.  Although the observations about Nestle are my own, I’m sure you get the idea.  Fast Food Nation is well worth the read.

Note that this book led me to investigate further the treatment of animals during the commercial production of the food we eat.  Check out the galleries on THIS SITE if you’re interested.  Consider this fair warning that the images there are graphic and disturbing.  They also are not intended to convey that I think all industry operates like this…but it certainly opens your eyes.

StrengthCoach.com

Recently I’ve spent a fair bit of time on Strength Coach.com and I really enjoy the content.  The weekly articles are great, but I have to admit that the forum is really where it is at.  

Unlike many other web forums that are chock-full of nonsense by written by any idiot with a keyboard, here you can often read and participate in discussions bright folks like Mike Boyle, Bret Contreras, Mike Robertson, Alwyn Cosgrove,  Nick Tumminello, Charlie Weingroff, and many others that I’m probably forgetting to name.

Personally, I’ve read some people’s responses in the advanced forum and had to look stuff up or ask questions just so I could understand what they’re talking about.  As a result I’ve learned a ton of new stuff in a short period of time.

I think this is an incredible resource and totally worth checking out.  It’ll cost you a buck to try it for 14 days and if you don’t like it you can bail.

Oh yeah…while I’m on the Mike Boyle front I should also mention that I just watched Functional Strength Coach Volume 3 and think this is a great resource for any up and coming coach.

Fat Is Not Your Fault

After interviewing Dr. Bryan Walsh a few weeks back I decided to check out his Fat is not Your Fault Program.  Frankly, I’ve grown a little tired of the overhyped rapid fat loss programs that are basically just some variation of a low carb diet which is why I think this program is so interesting.  Dr. Walsh not only emphasizes the importance of diet, exercise, and mindset, but he also identifies several other possible roadblocks to fat loss success that you’re not going to see in your typical fat loss program.

I’ve already read the manual and am currently about half way through watching the videos and am loving the information so far.  Never have I really given as much thought to adrenal health and gastrointestinal function as I have since seeing this product.  If you’re successfully navigating the fat loss world, I’m not sure you’re absolutely in need of this program, but if you or a client have ever had difficulty losing fat despite being totally on plan, this would be a worthwhile investment.  Personally, I’m thinking of making Dr. Walsh’s screening questionaire (which is included) as part of my battery of forms for my clients.

Z-Health R Phase Manual

At the persistent enouragement of Mike T Nelson I’m checking out the Z-Health system.  To be honest, I have yet to start reading/watching this, but it is next on my list so hopefully I’ll steal a few pearls of wisdom from this as well.

What great stuff are you reading right now?  What’s next on your reading list?  Drop me a comment and let me know.