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Stronger Sundays

Dominate your fitness business with this weekly collection of strategies, tips, and tricks.
By trainers, for trainers.

03/28/2024

Quote of the week:

“Seven words that I wish were taught more often to everyone, perhaps especially to high achievers: Ask for help when you need it. There is such freedom in putting down the weight of needing to have your s*** together always.”
                                                     - Author and mental-performance coach Brad Stulberg on Twitter
Watch for this newsletter from the Personal Trainer Development Center each Sunday.

In this issue:

  1. The best way to invest your time
  2. Why people always want the newest thing
  3. This week on the Online Trainer Show
1. The best way to invest your time – Jonathan Goodman

A reader once asked me how, with all the things I have going on in my business and life, I choose which thing to focus on.

He was really asking two questions:

  • How do I know what to do at any given time?
  • How do I give myself permission to ignore all other opportunities so I can focus on that thing?

As it happens, I’ve recently been focused on one thing over all others: last week’s $0 down promotion for the Online Trainer Academy. If you didn’t get the emails, you probably saw the posts on Facebook and Instagram. (The offer ended on September 10.)

I did it for the novelty and the challenge. The novelty is offering new customers a chance to try OTA free for 30 days. If they don’t think it’s worth an investment, they can walk away without paying me a penny. The challenge is delivering such a great product that they’d be crazy to walk away.

But as important as OTA is for my company, there had to be more to this promotion for me to focus on it to the exclusion of so many other projects.

And, indeed, there was.

It gave us a chance to test new advertising and marketing techniques and to expand our footprint. (We enrolled new students from 48 countries.) And it will ultimately give us opportunities to sell the rest of our products—books, fitness coaching, and OTA Level 2.

My point:

Your work, money, and time are valuable. Invest them in ways that compound. Create complementary products and services to increase the lifetime value of your current clients while also attracting new ones.

Do it right, and the focused effort you put in today will pay dividends long after you move on to the next project.

2. Why people always want the newest thing – Lou Schuler

Early in our relationship, my wife inherited a set of silverware from an elderly relative who descended from one of the most socially prominent families in American history. Seven ancestors came over on the Mayflower, and two cousins served as president.

Mixed in with the usual knives, forks, and spoons were specialty utensils I’d never seen before. There was a perforated spoon for draining excess juice from tomato slices. Forks for relish, crab, and cold cuts. Spoons for caviar, salt, and espresso.

I didn’t know the history of any of these things until I listened to a recent episode of the Pessimists Archive podcast (pessimists.co/forks).

As host Jason Feifer explains, most people still ate with their hands until about 200 years ago. Silverware was reserved for people rich enough to afford the silver. But with the invention of silver plating in the 1800s, the cost of utensils dropped, and eating with a fork was no longer a status symbol.

That’s when companies like Tiffany invented all those new utensils.

As Feifer explains in his newsletter, “They understood their audience well enough to know that the fork was never the big thing people wanted. Feeling special is what people wanted.”

The lesson for fitness and nutrition pros:

If the service you offer stops being novel or exciting, your customers will look for something new, something that makes them feel special again.

“That’s not a problem,” Feifer says. “It’s an opportunity.”
3. This Week on the Online Trainer Show
The Online Trainer Show is proud to be sponsored by PT Distinction. After carefully reviewing all the major software platforms, we recommend PT Distinction because it offers a unique combination of flexibility, coaching tools, and ease of use. That’s why we use it in Online Trainer Coaching, our just-launched personal training business.

Click here to get a full 60-day FREE TRIAL to try PT Distinction with your own clients.
Here’s what podcast cohosts Jonathan Goodman, Carolina Belmares, and Ren Jones talked about this week on the Online Trainer Show:

In Episode 31, The Importance of Putting Your Own Fitness First as an Online Trainer, Jon previews an article we’re publishing this week on how to fabricate success. It’s the full package, and it’s 100 percent fake.

But the overwhelming majority of personal trainers don’t want to fake anything. Especially their fitness. Most of us go into the business because we like to train, got good results from training, and want to help others reach their own goals.

The challenge is finding the time, energy, and motivation to keep training when work and life get in the way, or to reach a level of conditioning that makes it easier to land clients.

As Jon says, “The reality of it is, your body is your brand. We don’t have to like it, but that’s kind of the industry we’re in.”

(If you’re looking for help with your fitness, check out Online Trainer Coaching, the world’s first coaching service created by trainers, for trainers.)

Episode 32, How Gym Owner Jesus Acuna Made $4,600 in a Single Day with Online Training, is a departure from the usual format. Jon replays a conversation he recorded with Jesus Acuna back in June.

They talk about Jesus’ pivot to online coaching when the pandemic forced him to close his gym. It’s not much of a spoiler to reveal he actually made more money with the gym closed.

But you’ll want to hear exactly how he did it—how he communicated the changes to his clients and how he changed to an upfront billing structure.

You can read more about Jesus in our latest article:

--> How Five Coaches Grew Their Online Business in Difficult Times

You’ll find every episode here:

--> The Online Trainer Show
P.S. Whenever you’re ready, here are 3 ways we can help you:

1. Grab a free copy of The Wealthy Fit Pro’s Guide to Online Training
It’s your blueprint to building a fitness or nutrition business online. --> Click here

2. Join the Online Trainers Unite Group and connect with other online trainers  
It’s our Facebook community where fitness and nutrition pros like you can share insights and advice about starting or running a successful coaching business online.
--> Click here

3. Join the Online Trainer Academy
Our world-class certification course is everything you need to responsibly and profitably coach fitness or nutrition online. --> Click here


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YOU CAN! Because the Online Trainer Academy—the world's first and ONLY serious educational model for online trainers—is now available in an all-digital format for just $87/mo for 12 months.  

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