This post explores words you use costing you customers! No one wants that from time and energy spent writing articles or doing podcasts!

Create a Common Enemy

For us all in 2020 it’s been COVID19.

For the first time in the history of the world we all have a common enemy. No matter who you might blame or back or what you do or don’t agree with about how it’s been handled, we are just people. We’re daughters and sons, parents, siblings, significant others who care about the health and well-being of our own.

It doesn’t matter if someone speaks your language or is across the street or across the globe, we’ve experienced a moment in time connecting to others.

If all workplaces communicate their mission so much that teams hold take not just the mission but the obstacles to achieving that mission personally, they’d thrive. If entire teams come together fighting the same cause – as opposed are pitted against each other – there will be fewer internal rivals and more job satisfaction.

There are Plenty of Bad Guys

And if you can harness a villain – be it age, or bone loss, or cancer, or sedentary jobs, or misinformation about fitness for midlife women… you can then become a part of a team with your audience and tribe.

You fight with them, instead of preaching or teaching.

It feels very different.

Teaching, without intending to, can feel like judgment.

If you instead are sending your message to “them” or to “the cancer” or “the menopause” or the “stigma”… then you’re fighting the battle with your audience.

Read/Listen to these two headlines:

Why What You’re Doing Is Not Working for Midlife Women/Clients

How to Harness the Power of Misleading Information

Feel the difference?

In the first there is a hook and it’s more negative. Like, you are doing it wrong! Don’t make this mistake. There’s definitely something to be said for it. There is certainly a large percent of population that will be more likely to click on that than something giving them content.

In the second example, however, there’s no blame on you the reader. It still suggests something is wrong, yet it implies that I’m going to give you the secret to be a part of the solution instead of telling you you’re a part of the problem.

They’re both potential subject lines or titles for a blog or podcast. Which one speaks to you more? Which one would you click on first?

This Very Post's Title

There’s a time and place for either a negative or positive title. And the best way for you to decide which you use is to test it. I’ve found many times that say, 3 Biggest Mistakes, will get more clicks than 3 Biggest Secrets. But… don’t guess. Start testing, even if only by looking at your statistics on traffic to your blog, or on popularity of YouTube videos.

I’ll let you in on a secret. I considered variations of two subject lines and narrowed it down to these two before choosing:

Are the Words You Use Attracting More Customers?

Are the Words You Use Costing You Customers?

Obviously, I chose the latter. Because it’s more urgent. Do you feel that when you hear it (or read it if you’re at the show notes)? Pay attention to how it feels. And remember every one of your customers is going to experience responses unique to their life, sense of humor, prior experience about the topic. When in doubt, run your titles by some of your customers.

Come up with at least 10 if not 20 variations of titles. Narrow it down to a few good titles. Use a tool like Headline Analyzer to see how well you’re doing. Be conscious of key words in your title you want to use throughout your post text too for S.E.O.

Did I just lose you with SEO and the importance of key words? If you want step-by-step support for doing this and treating your content like part of a real business, that attracts real customers I’ll link to how to learn more about the 10-month Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist. It’s open now for a limited number of trainers and health coaches and only for a limited time. You want to leverage your content to stand out in the noise.

So, let’s explore some words that are dripping with emotion and how you can use them. I’ll give you some examples of how I have used them recently.

Avoid Words You Use Costing You Customers with These Examples

Gambling (In my TEDx talk after I revealed the poor statistics on science for women and exercise I mentioned it's like "gambling... with really bad odds."

That makes listeners who are impacted, angry.

Crap (Sit ups are Stupid, Crunches are Crap is the title of a book by a recent Flipping 50 podcast guest. Brilliant and I wish I'd thought of it myself! 

The title is important because crap, doo-doo, or the actual word, conveys very succinctly that something stinks. Not you but it. 

Lies

Everything Women in Menopause Learned About Exercise May Be a Lie was the title of my TEDx talk. I’ve used it again in blog posts and podcasts. The word lies conveys strong emotion, and certainly brings us together if I’m revealing lies to you that you didn’t yet know about. Then I’m going to give you solutions for revenge in the content.

Not telling the truth…

“I haven’t been telling the truth, I was doing it wrong, we’ve all been doing it wrong.” These words, some exactly this and some implied were also a part of that TEDx talk. Let me also make something clear, you don’t create a talk and then move on and create another. Your signature story is your signature story.

You go to a Bruce Springsteen concert and expect (or demand) to hear Born to Run, right? James Taylor had better play Shower the People. They may weave in new content, but audiences want and need repetition. Before you start talking about a topic, make sure that in a year and 5 and 10 you still want to be talking about it!

Betrayed

I’ve used phrases like betrayed by your body and betrayed by the fitness industry and even medical community in blogs and presentations. It evokes a strong emotion, right? So it’s not the same as if you’d been betrayed by a spouse, but betrayal by anyone or anything can make your content memorable, or remarkable.

And to stand out, be something liked, shared, commented on that’s exactly what you want.

What they don’t tell you…

This one would be easy to insert into a post. What they don’t tell you is…

When I talk about stress with clients, especially when I’d first published You Still Got It, Girl! I would point out that though our parents probably all had the sex talk with us, what they didn’t tell you was that we were going to feel stressed. They didn’t give us the ways to abstain from that or to a morning-after solution if we did have stress. There wasn’t a stress-talk like the sex talk.

In talking about it like that I made it not their fault. And I made them think back to that moment when they had the 5thgrade health session where parents come to talk about puberty and all the things. It got personal because of a memory.

Misleading …

I’m about to publish a post for my Flipping 50 community about Misleading Fitness Studies and Poll Results from an annual trends report. I do it every year and yet it always a hot topic among both fitness professionals and midlife women seeking intelligent fitness tips.

So think about how you can look at 5 of your recent titles and see how you could have put an emotional hook in the title.

Myth-buster –

This is used commonly in titles and it’s almost always a winner. The only exception is if you over use it or it’s not an emotionally enough charged title directed at a narrow enough audience.

Weight loss Myth-Busting

Debunking Weight Loss Myths

Those are both potential titles. Yet, they’re pretty general.

Change to Menopause Weight Loss Myths or to Debunking the Menopause Weight Loss Myths in 3 Recent Fitness Magazine Articles - now you’ve got something specific, targeted at an audience, and timely with some urgency.

Two More Empowering Words  

These last two words- and by no means this is an exhaustive list - you may realize you do have emotional words in your posts, emails and conversations already. This podcast is just going to give you more of them to use strategically.

These two words are ones you could use in titles and in copy to provide a solution when you might start talking about your program or service.

Reclaim

Here’s an example of a title: How to Reclaim the Muscle You’ve Been Losing Since 30

That would peak curiosity for one, if women are like, wait a minute! I’ve been losing muscle? And it gives a solution for them too, and gives a solution to someone who you may already have informed of muscle losses that start after 25.

Here’s an example of using that word in the body of an article or email:

You can reclaim that muscle and in doing so boost your metabolism.

Get back

This is another way to say reclaim. Try them both out, or use them both. Because remember you’re going to be writing, and talking, and creating video about your topic for a long time. You’ll want to use different words to appeal to different customers as you do it.

There you are! Some specific examples of how to avoid words you use costing you customers!

It’s Not To Late!

Remember it’s not too late to change titles of YouTube videos. If it’s not getting traction and you know it’s good, go revise it. If you really haven’t had any traffic to your website articles, and you’re sure S.E.O. is something you’ve never thought about?

I’d go in and change it. Then from here on out think about your title, the key words in your title you want to be found for (these are words and phrases your customers say and search for frequently), before you post.

For now, what I want you to do is go back and look at your content and title. Are you repeating the words you want to be found for? For instance, the words you use costing you customers is the phrase I’m using in this post. Did you hear/see what I did there? I just inserted the phrase again in the post.

Words You Use Costing You Customers (and relationships)

Really, this works two ways. The words you use, and the words you don’t use could both be costing you customers. And it’s no surprise. Because if you’ve got a family, whether it’s kids, a spouse or parents and siblings, it’s HOW you say anything that gets the results you want, right?

So, try on everything!

Read your Instagram posts! Do they sound preachy and teachy? Instead of the motivating and inspiring you were shooting for? That’s good homework. Then as you begin to weave in some of these emotion-laded words you’ll begin to engage even more.

Resources mention in this post:

Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist FREE masterclass

You Might Also Like:

Words to Leave Out of Your Posts, Tweets, and Blogs

It’s Not Your Content That’s Killing You, It’s This: Get More Traffic to Blogs, Videos

A personal trainer & coach business plan is about the last thing some fitness and health professionals will want to focus on.

Have you got a plan? Are you running a business or a hobbyist? And there is nothing wrong with how you answer that question. Unless… you have the income and revenue of a hobbyist and feel as if you spend the time and energy of a business. If you work with midlife women, I can help. I can help you recommit to definitely doing more of what you love, and doing it in a way that rewards you. Because when you make more money you have both more influence and freedom.

The Money Dilemma

If you want to do more good, it requires money. You can change things with money. Whether that’s through scholarships, and donations or it’s through your own freedom to create more programming to support more individuals, the influence you have on the world, your family,  will be in part due to money. This Thursday I’m holding a special master class for personal trainers, health coaches and women in midlife who would love to be involved in a healthier career choice.

By the time we’re off the class you’ll know if this is the right choice for you, and how to really start, grow or scale your business .. you’ll also know why now is the right time. Link in the show notes.. or visit flippingfifty.com/specialist-masterclass for details.

Personal trainer & coach? You need a business plan! It’s called a proforma in most circles.

A Business Plan?

If you’re just now getting serious about what you need to do now to succeed or start for the first time… yet you’re already falling in love with the idea of becoming a personal trainer & coach you may think that a business plan is something entirely different than what I’m about to share.

This business plan is for those trainers who feel like this is all gyms, equipment, exercise, and motivation. Really, you will have to have a business plan. One that outlines how many customer you need and how you’ll get them. You’ll need to project how much the advertising and marketing will cost you and how much it costs to get every single lead.

You’ll have to project the amount of revenue from each client, the average time each client will remain a client, and if they’ll pay you monthly, annually or another frequency. Because, hey, banks like to know that. And even if you aren’t going to use any borrowed money and you’re going to invest very little to start your online business, you’re going to want to do your homework.

Be Heard Above the Other Personal Trainers & Coaches

It’s busy out there. Loud and noisy trainers want the same customers you do. So you’ll need to pay somehow to get your message in front of them unless you’re a celebrity.

Nervous? Well, you can relax. Although those things are definitely things you’ll need to think about before you really declare yourself a business. Before you incorporate, and decide if LLC is the best for you, if you can secure the business name you want, or whether someone has already trademarked it and could sue you. Just relax about all that… we’ll talk about that another time. You may be interested in walking through it with the Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist 2.0 10-month program. I’ll link to that in the show notes.

This business plan I’m about to share is more down to earth.

Your Personal Trainer & Coach Business Plan

This is not your typical business plan, so if you’re hoping I’ll give you a personal trainer & coach business plan like a proforma, let me get clear. It is the plan most out of balance if the proforma business plan is going to happen it has to be in order.

Listen, if you’re driven to success, in your own personal fitness, and your fitness business goals, there’s a chance when you begin working on your business you’ll let other assets you need to build it, slide. Here’s how to keep this three-legged stool in balance. There are three critical parts. Some of us may have felt these slipping away in 2020. There was so much business pivoting that more creating, more keyboard time, more learning time, more online meetings all had to happen. That squeezed something out. What was it for you? Exercise? Good food prep? Sleep?

Or did you go the other way? Focus on your own physical plan. Flirt with over exercise, under eating and hyper diligence to an extreme?

If you’re going to be your best for the long run, which is business, you need all of these. Here they are.

There are 3 Critical Parts to this Plan:

First in your personal trainer & health coach plan is …

Critical Part #1: Physically Planning– Are you exercising in your sweet spot? Are you planning your own meals ahead? Are you prioritizing the amount of rest that you need?

Look, most first time trainers, health coaches, fitness instructors work a few hours a week. But they exercise an astronomical amount of time. They think they’ve got to look better than anyone else, be fitter than anyone else, and do more than anyone else as if that somehow qualifies them. In someone’s eyes it does.

Let’s look at this though. First, fitness comes from the right amount of exercise and right amount of rest. A few repetitions done to muscular fatigue, the right amount of protein- veggies – carbs and fat for the individual, along with the right amount of rest is more potentially specific to fitness than more volume.

Personal Trainer & Coach Beware and Be Smart

I won’t get into some research circulating right now that women over 40 need more volume, but I will share with you that without assessing an individual women… who also needs more rest between workouts simply giving a blank statement about volume is going to create more problems of over exercise and under rest. That trainers is what we’ve been trying to break through for years. With one article in IDEA magazine containing one small line about rest and recovery, we could set women back for years.

Trainers are too willing to blindly read an author’s interpretation without reading the primary research and thinking through it themselves. Number of subjects, how was the research conducted? And all the details – like current hormonal status and nutritional compliance matter. Okay, end of rant! If you do take a look at it, read with consciousness that this is not about more volume alone.

There are many ways to achieve volume: weight, or increased reps, or increased frequency, and you must not do any of them alone in isolation without looking at rest & recovery including sleep, time between reps-sets-and workouts, and nutrition while understanding the signs a women’s hormones are messaging you and her.

Critical Part #2: Mentally Planning – Are you allowing yourself what you need in order to be creative?

I had to guard that creativity by not taking any appointments until noon. I block off full days to do planning for events or several days to do year planning.

Recently, I took 2.5 days to work on a specific project where I could work, hike, eat, and sleep with no distractions. It took me a while to figure out that if I don’t, I’m working more but working poor. I’ve tried to work this into a purposeful trip, and I’ve learned that never works. There’s always something spontaneous that comes up. You’ve got to be fully present and fresh to do good work.

Even this last week, I got away for 2.5 days to work on my next year plan. I know I have to do that. I have to block it off and out. I’ve gotten about 15 months of planning done – into forecasting January 22 as it’s the beginning of November 2020. But that couldn’t happen without time, space, mental bandwidth to focus on and evaluate.

You Need Time To Evaluate Your Business

You want to evaluate what you love doing, what gives you energy, those clients or tasks that suck the energy from you, and the value of your time and what you could train and pay someone else to do so you have more time yourself. You get into business for two or more reasons. You want freedom. Freedom to do the kind of work you want, but freedom of time and money to do it. So, if you’re simply working around the clock or you’re broke, something is not working.

You may need to dig into where your revenue came from last year. What flowed to you easily, how much time it took, what does that mean for the amount of time and energy you place on what you do and the amount of revenue you generate? Are you earning your hourly worth? Or are you just working a lot without a real profit and loss statement that works for you?

For You, If You’re Just Starting

If you’re not creating a course, or program or package, this might sound a little foreign to you. Yet, maybe it’s time for you to take a look at how you will scale your business. So, that it’s not all you leading personal training sessions or bootcamps or group fitness. It’s not all you coaching by phone. But you’ve got a program, a group, some passive income from a course and you have products that help you make money when you’re not required to be there to make the money.

Unless you can continue to raise your rates and charge $100-$200 an hour or more, it’s going to be hard to make a good living training exclusively and also have a life. No matter where you live, you’ve got to have free time, and be able to enjoy yourself.

And finally,

Critical Part #3: Spiritually Planning – Fill yourself up. Maybe for you that’s something specific or alone time. Maybe it’s partly your exercise or outdoor time. Whatever it is for you, acknowledge it and then guard it.

I am more spiritual than I am religious. I do pray, but more so I mediate, and I enjoy quiet time, and time in nature. You will find me in church on Christmas eve and giving thanks before family dinners. I won’t be in church regularly, but if someone asked me to teach Sunday school or help with Bible School, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

Know You

You need to know what fills you up in this way. Belief in something beyond you and this moment is sometimes necessary in business to keep going. Seeing this just as something, something others have gone through, you might go through again, something with meaning and meant to lead you to the next step, that can make all the difference when things are hard.

And if you’re really running a business, not a hobby, it will be hard. There will be hard decisions. Decisions about people. People who let you down or disappoint you. You’ll make business decisions not on emotion but on numbers.

That’s three legs I told you about. But there is another consideration in your personal trainer & coach business plan.

The Extended Part of Your Business

If and when you’re ready to hire a team, or even a virtual assistant for the first step, you’ll want to check on whether they’re taking care of themselves. Do they get enough sleep, exercise, and take their vitamins?

Do they have all 3 legs of this stool working for them?

There you have it 3 Critical components to a personal trainer & coach business plan that don’t include your revenue, assets, marketing plan, but instead includes the foundation from which you’ll be able to make objective decisions about that business.

Questions? Comments? Leave them below show notes at fitnessmarketingmastery-dot-com/business-plan

If you’re working with midlife women (and hey, who’s not) especially if you are one .. or if you’d like to start, I’ll link to a special master class I’m teaching about why right now… is the absolute best moment in history to start and or grow and scale your business.

The Master Class will cover:

Fitness Specialists #3 Secrets About Now, You, and How to coach women in Menopause [Save Your Spot]

You Might Also Like:

3 Things to Do Before 2021

If you are not asking how to create fitness marketing videos better, faster, and more effective at supporting your ideal clients, you’re nuts. If you already do it, you can always do it better. I don’t watch a single YouTube video without learning something. Whether it’s something to do or not to do, I am an eternal student!

Organic Traffic is Not Dead

I’ve grown my YouTube channel to 118,000 almost entirely organically. And, honestly I can say that when I do “pay to play” it isn’t as effective as the right video performing organically because I’ve shared it and amplified it regularly after it initially posts.

So… while I’m about to share gold with you… don’t forget that step 5 is just as important. That is, continuing to share it consistently with slightly different words or images.

In this episode!

This 4-step plan to create fitness marketing videos is one of my earliest lead magnets when I first began coaching and consulting with fitness professionals as a primary niche more than a decade ago. Starting then would have been a fantastic idea. And starting today is the next best time. I’ll give you more tips in some upcoming podcasts about being good on camera and getting more confident, but many of these steps you can start on and they will already improve your confidence to create fitness marketing videos.

Need More Simple Marketing to Stand Out?

If you love and or need this, especially if you work with midlife women, you’ll love the 12-month Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist mastermind. It’s always been my mission to help the fitness industry by getting and keeping the heart-centered coach and trainer.

I do that by giving you the skills not just to coach them on the fitness but to market and message in a way you feel good… and so do they. I’ll link to a special masterclass I’m doing on Thursday, sharing more about how you can become a true brand influencer. Not to star on social media but so that you can influence the world health.

Start Here

Let’s dive in… and you’re going to want to take notes, so that you’re answering all the questions I ask in each step. I’ll even suggest you pause the podcast to answer.

Step 1: Define Your Objective

1. Attract New Customers
   B. Nurture Relationships with Current Customers
2. Upsell Current Customers
   D. Create a Product for Revenue

Step 2: Choose Your Topic

1. What problem are you solving?
   B. What other things has a customer tried?
   C. Do a large percent of people in your market area have this problem?
2. Who is your competition?
   E. How do you solve this problem distinctly better?

Step 3: Choose a Findable Title

1. What question would a person with this problem or goal ask?
   B. What problem does someone want solved who would like this video?
   C. Describe the person who will find value in this video.
   D. What does the person who has this problem hate about your product?
   E. Start with a few working titles. Type them into a browser search bar. Compare the number of results that show up. Compare the number of results that have videos or images. Run the title through one more time with any changes. And decide. It doesn’t have to be perfect but it does need to be a title searched by a large enough market that you can expect some traffic from it.

Step 4: Create your Intro and Outro Scripts

1. Write your first 10 seconds out word-for-word and rehearse. In 5 seconds tell them how you’re going to solve their problem – the one they clicked the video for. Then tell them your name and dive right into content.
   B. Define your call-to-action based on your objective from #1 (do you want viewers to subscribe to your YouTube channel? Click on a live annotation that will take them to a free gift for registering for your email?)
2. Write and rehearse your close. Summarize. Add “if you liked this” and end with a specific directive. (click here, subscribe now, call now – include the number!)

That's the Findability Factor

These four steps alone will increase the findability of your videos. Even if you’re creating them, if your ideal prospects aren’t finding them, it’s costing you time.

Your “next step” to social media: https://www.flippingfifty.com/specialist-masterclass

Interested in providing menopause coaching services?

Whether you’re dreaming about having a job you love getting out of bed in the morning for, or you want to ditch your cubicle (or shall we say, kitchen) life right now? Or you love the idea of using your skills and talking to women who want, need, and deserve support… menopause coaching services may just be for you.

Before you dive in though you need absolute clarity about 3 things.

You need absolute clarity about 3 things:

1. Where you get your leads
2. How you convert them
3. How you deliver the transformation they want

Now each of those can go into even more depth.

Take leads for example

That is all about knowing your avatar, or ideal client.

• How well do you know what your audience wants, hates, needs, and has already tried?
• What is it that you will give them that is so enticing that they will want to learn more from you and voluntarily give you their email address?
• How quickly can they consume it and get a quick win?
• Clarity here is important too. Is your message absolutely clear to them?

Then we can look at the way that you convert leads into customers.

• Do you email them and then make an offer?
  Do you set up a phone consultation?
• Do you offer an in-person consultation, first session, or assessment?
• And… how good are you at converting them? Do you know what you’re going to say, how you’re going to say it and have confidence about that?

Last of those three things you need to be absolutely clear about is how you deliver the service.

Take for instance our Advanced Flipping 50 Fitness Specialists.

They can coach via phone, Skype, Facetime, Zoom or in person if that’s convenient for the client. It depends on the nature of your service and on the geography between you and your client. I, for example will meet via Skype or Facetime with my international clients. We are going over exercise plans, but we’re not working out.

I’m writing a plan for them, and then may provide just that, ask for video of them doing moves to assess them, and I may provide video for those less inclined to follow workouts on their own. I’ve been training this way since the mid 90s. It’s Training Peaks style, though I use my own website and member area.

What Speed are You Going?

Next up, I’m going to walk you through speed. Speed is going to be important for you to look at now and consider whether it’s a match for what you need to happen.

If for instance it takes you a long time to even get leads that you need to fix right away.

I’m sure you can see that as a problem because without what we call traffic whether it’s walking in the door or hitting your website, no traffic means no customers sooner or later.

Is It Your Livelihood?

And if it takes you weeks or months to convert most of your customers, what are you going to live on and eat meanwhile?

The goal would be that once you’ve listened to what your ideal customer wants to buy, you’ve created that and you’ll sell that and they’ve been waiting and excited to get it. Or if they’re new to your list, then they will want to buy it within a predictable time because it’s a great fit for exactly what they wanted.

When it’s predictable how long it will take you to get new customers after you get leads you can relax a little about having a stable revenue. To increase it you’d do more advertising! That’s easy!

Effective?

You then have to talk about how effectively you’re doing these things.

What is the rate of conversions on your leads?

Because if you’re only converting a small number (less than 40% of people who come through) there’s a gap in the quality of leads that you’re attracting or in the messaging and that’s something you want to dig into.

Measuring What Matters

• The biggest question is, are you measuring what matters?
• The number of leads within a certain time period.
• The number of those leads that converted within a specific period depending on your campaign.
• The number of those leads that convert later.

Depending on the sophistication of your CRM or customer relationship management, in other words, your email and data tracking, you can track these numbers there.

And you can also track where your money is coming from. Then from those products and services you can look at how much time it took you. You’ll learn if there’s really a profit margin for you when you take out your expenses.

Menopause Coaching Service

A menopause coaching service like that of the Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist is a business. You want to treat it like one, whether you coach 10 hours a week or you coach 40. Customers expect a level of service that can only come from you investing in yourself, your business, and delivering the best over time.

I’ll link in the show notes to a master class where you can get more information about how to learn more about the business side of personal training and health coaching. I can definitely spare you a few mistakes, and help you find your distinguishing factors that make you exactly the coach someone is looking for.

Referenced in this Podcast: 

Master Class for Menopause Coaching

/menopausecoach