💪S.S. 52 I don't care if there's an app for that, Stephanie

1. I don’t care if there’s an app for that, Stephanie – Jonathan Goodman

I was at dinner with a young colleague when I got an idea for a project I’m working on. I quickly tapped the idea into an email, sent it to myself, and returned to the conversation.

The colleague was appalled. "You know there’s an app for that, right?"

"An app for what?"

"An app you enter ideas into. It organizes the ideas so you can be more productive."

"I don’t care if there’s an app for that, Stephanie," I told her. Why would I, when my system is easy and simple and, most important, does exactly what I need it to do?

Bigger point:

Hacks or shortcuts are meaningless without strategies and principles. And when you have strategies and principles, the goal isn’t to "be more productive." It’s to produce the right work for the right reasons.

Not to do more work, but to do better work. To get good at what you do.

There isn’t an app for that.

There’s no hack for skill or knowledge or experience.

The more energy you expend searching for shortcuts, the less you’ll have for the hard, intentional work that leads to success.

2. Every trainer needs a personal brand – Pete Dupuis

Pete is cofounder of Cressey Sports Performance in Hudson, Massachusetts, and Jupiter, Florida.

It’s an exhausting, confusing time to be a gym owner. I’m running out of ways to tell my customers and fellow business owners that we don’t have answers yet. There’s no blueprint for something that’s never happened before.

But I will say this:

When this is over, gyms reopen, and business returns to "normal," every personal trainer should consider building a personal brand separate from the company they work for.

You simply can’t depend on a single source of income.

If you’re a trainer whose employer had a policy prohibiting you from building a personal brand, you need to make sure it no longer applies before you return to work.

And if you’re a gym owner who had such a policy for your trainers, I recommend changing it.

Not willing to change the policy?

Expect your best trainers to move on. Expect your best clients to follow them. And expect your gym to fail.

3. How to make email marketing work for you – Lana Sova

When I quit my job at a commercial gym and went independent, I faced a big challenge: Where would I find clients, both online and in person?

At a time when my fellow trainers were going all-in on Facebook and Instagram, I found the answer in my email list.

It was a counterintuitive choice, but my logic was simple: I could either fight for attention with every other trainer on those platforms, or I could focus on the people who were already paying attention.

I didn’t have to worry about gaming an algorithm to reach my followers with the valuable content I created. And I didn’t have to buy ads to promote my services. I could send it right to the inboxes of current, former, and potential clients.

The trick, of course, is getting them to open my email. And more than that, to get my subscribers to look forward to reading them.

These three tips will help you create emails that get opened and read.

#1. Make your subject line stand out

Your number-one goal is to get your audience to stop what they’re doing and open your email. You can only do that with compelling subject lines. (The same applies to headlines on blog posts.)

As a rule, I write at least 10 subject lines for each email. I then choose five and send them to myself.

Which one would I open if it came from anyone else? That’s the winner.

#2. Tell a story

Maybe your idea of a good time is reading studies on PubMed. That’s awesome … as long as you understand your subscribers aren’t like you.

If they open your email and see a wall of text that reads like a textbook, they’ll not only close it, they’ll be less likely to open your next one.

Give your piece a chance. Tell a story with a beginning and end, giving some context to the important information in the middle.

And break up that wall of text with short paragraphs, written in plain language tailored to your readers’ interests and comprehension.

The best stories tell your subscribers what they need to know in a way they want to read.

#3. Speak to one reader

The best writing doesn’t feel like "writing," especially in a message you’ve sent to someone’s personal inbox. The recipient should feel like you’re speaking to them one-on-one.

That’s how you increase engagement, build a bond, and guarantee you’ll be top of mind when they need a trainer’s help.

Go deeper:

--> Seven Rules for Writing Irresistible Subject Lines