Fitness enthusiasts are always looking for the next latest greatest way to get and stay in shape. Every year there are hundreds if not thousands of fitness ideas and products that are released. Some make it, most do not. Here is a list of the latest trends for 2008 as predicted by the American Council on Fitness.

1. Educated and experienced Fitness Professionals

2. Programs that target childhood obesity

3. Personal Training

4. Strength Training

5. Core Training

6. Programs for the older adult

7. Pilates

8. Functional Fitness

9. Swiss Ball Training

10. Yoga

Some similar faces and some new ones. As you can see 2 of the top 3 focus on the fitness professional and the role they play in getting people into the gym and into shape in a safe and effective manner. This is good news for all you trainers out there so make sure you capitalize on it.

This is what youPump is made for. 

90% of the trainers use youPump to keep clients on track when they miss days at the gym. The most successful youPump trainers take a proactive approach. It is pretty safe to say that most of your clients will miss a day or two in the next 7-8 weeks.Talk to them now and make sure that missing an appointment isn’t going to throw their training into a tailspin.

Talk to them now and give them your store address. Talk to them now and make them a program with three workouts for “missed days” during the summer. Every client should have this program – just in case.

Leave a comment about your clients missing sessions in the summer and we’ll give you a free prize.

1. Click to the youPump Page with the banners www.youpump.com/banners.html – scroll down to the section that says “Banners for your Website”.

2. We give you a snippet of code that looks like this. You need to paste this in your site.
<a href=”http://www.pumpone.com/trainer/1001” target=”_blank”>

<img src=”http://www.youpump.com/images/BannerName” alt “Go to my store at PumpOne.com”

border=0></a>

3.Replace the red “1001” with your user ID AND Replace the red “BannerName” with the exact file name of the banner you like. The banners to choose from are labeled and displayed at the bottom of the page.

4. Email us for help.

If you haven’t subscribed to this blog yet (top right of the page) please do so immediately. Everyone on the email list will be getting something very cool, soon.

1. I’ve said it in every post so far, but it is very important to subscribe through email. It’s the button on the top right and it only takes 4 seconds to sign up. I’m timing you.

2. Here are a few important recent posts

• The guaranteed way to make money with youPump in the next week
• The attitude it takes to be a successful trainer
• Adding banners to your website (scroll down)

3. Ask questions and leave comments. Without a doubt, the trainers that make the most money with youPump are the trainers that participate whether it is on a conference call, through email or calling us direct.

Please look around. Thanks

This post tells the story of meeting a trainer yesterday who explained youPump to me. (Yes I work for PumpOne and he was just introduced to the site) Sometimes it helps to be brilliant (like him) and take a step back.

For the purposes of this story we’ll just call the trainer Mr. By all accounts Mr. has a very successful training business. We showed a demonstration of creating a workout in youPump and walked Mr. through a trainer webpage and customer download process. Mr. understood the product and said that it seemed very easy to use and more advanced than other websites he had seen.

The real real insight, for me, came when I asked if his customers would use this. Mr. looked at me and said that his clients do what he tells them to do, plain and simple. “When I’m in the gym I don’t ask them to do exercises, I tell them which exercises to do.” He said that he gets paid to show people results not talk about exercising.

The tone wasn’t mean or ‘controlling’ of his customers. His attitude was clearly that if he makes youPump part of his training business his customers will also, period.

Do you ask your clients to do exercises or do you tell them? Have you decided to make youPump a component of your training? Leave a comment below.

Mr. did.

I guess it’s one way to go through life worried that you’re going to be replaced by pictures and music, but I don’t think successful people really concentrate on that. Instead, successful people use new and exciting tools to their advantage.

Our most successful youPump members sell programs to their clients and use youPump to get new personal training clients. How do they do this??

Tell me if this sounds at all familiar – You are walking through the gym and you notice someone doing an exercise completely wrong. (Successful) trainers see this as an opportunity to approach a possible client. In the textbook example the trainer corrects the person and also mentions that one on one training will help all aspects of fitness. What happens next depends on the people and situation, but the golden rule is to always leave a card so they have your contact information.

How can youPump help??

Convincing someone to buy a 10 pack of training sessions isn’t the easiest thing to do. Here is where you can use youPump as a tool. If the person is hesitant about jumping on for training or seems worried about the price of training, offer to make them a customized digital trainer. This is a lot easier to sell them.

Here is what is great about this strategy. Not only are you making money by selling the trainer, but you are also starting a serious conversation with a potential customer. At the end of the day, the more people that look to you for fitness advice, the more successful of a trainer you’re going to be. A good percentage of the people that buy digital trainers will eventually become full time clients.

Please leave a comment about this post.

Tip #3 is common sense – Memorize your web store address and give it to everyone. You should be promoting your personal training business at all times. I am sure that you have at least one story about meeting an eventual client in an unconventional way.

Your web store address is www.pumpone.com/trainer/YOUR ID #. If you are getting new business cards, this should be included; if you have business cards already, it is very inexpensive to get stickers to put on the back. This way, every time you drop a business card there is a chance the recipient will check out your store.

Have you ever been in a conversation where someone discovers you’re a fitness professional? I bet at least one third of the time someone asks a workout question. Now when you respond you can include that they should check out your website where you have created workouts that go on their iPod. You can also add that you can personally design them a workout.

If you have questions or comments please leave them below.

Fortunately, technology has the ability to make everything easier. If you are serious about making money with your youPump business, you have to keep reading this blog.

It’s very easy to subscribe by email. Simply click the button on the top right of this page and you will receive essential tips that will optimize your youPump business. Please subscribe and read below for the first few youPump Tips.

I am guessing that every personal trainer reading this blog has at least one email account.  The easiest possible way to promote your PumpOne store is to put a link in your email signature. It is very easy to do and now everyone that you mail will be reminded to check out your store.

Don’t simply paste the link in, though, use some creativity. “Get my Workouts on your iPod” or “Your Personalized Workout is on my Web Store” should work much better.

If you have any technical questions, please leave them in the comments or email the office.

If you thought that Tip #1 (below) was straight forward, just wait. Now that you have designed a program for a client, you need to present your client with the idea and convince them to buy the program.

Hopefully you chose a client that would benefit from an iPod workout in the first place.  Tell your client that the program was designed especially for her and when she should use the program – ie. vacation or on Mondays and Wednesdays while she works out without you. Make sure that your client has a hand-held device and understands how to download from the web (It’s 2007 most people know how.)

The big issue is to write the web address to your online store clearly and tell your client the benefits of this product. The product is easier for you to make, easier for her to understand, more convinient and it’s the newest thing- everyone will be doing it soon. Also, if your client agrees, let her know that you will check up and remind her if it hasn’t been downloaded. After all you want her working out correctly.

Finally, be sure you have priced the workout program correctly. We suggest that the minimum price is $5 per workout included and the maximum price shouldn’t be more than your hourly rate.

Any other tips from existing trainers on how to sell your first program? Email me or leave them in the comments.