Article by Gill Cummings-Bell, Drummond Education
It is that time of year again. We are all winding down a little and taking some time to reflect on our achievements and our future work path.
Whether you are new to teaching fitness or you are well established in your fitness teaching/business there are many directions you could take or strings you could add to your bow to keep your teaching/business moving and progressing in the right direction. How do you know which courses or new products you want to add to your portfolio offering or teaching or your fitness business?
Whilst there are many reasons for studying a new topic, gaining a new skill, improving a current skill just studying a new course or even taking on a new product consider these five reasons. If you can use one or more of these reasons to evaluate your choice your new venture will be a winning formula.
- CPD – we all have to do it every year to retain membership for CIMSPA or REPS
- Interest and fun. We all want to feed our passion
- To self-develop and grow. Increase your confidence
- To add new ideas and variety to our current teaching/fitness offering
- To add a new income stream to our business and earning potential.
During these tough economic times we want to make sure that any investment we make in ourselves, our future training or business, has a value in one of the four areas mainly the 2-5 areas above. Whilst CPD is logged with REPS and CIMSPA and is necessary to monitor self-development we should analyse our investment in training or products to ensure it brings along one or all of the other reasons as well. This makes it a wise investment.
Interest and fun
Many training courses, reading literature or additional learning methods can increase our knowledge and just spark a new interest. My husband often refers to me as a spotter as I just have a genuine interest in learning more about the body and movement. Many courses such as ‘postural analysis and movement correction’, feed that thirst for knowledge. I get a great deal of personal satisfaction from learning more. I often learn more about myself through that process as well as the topic (I’ve even straightened out my own posture). Learning more about fitness when I study more through these courses really feeds my passion for all thing’s health and fitness.
To Self-Develop and Grow
Many courses I have attended such as ‘therapy exercise’, allow me to grow and self-develop as a teacher practitioner. I have learnt so much through these types of courses that I now work with confidence with many more clients. Many of my private clients and class members would present with various challenges. Bad knees, sore backs, dodgy hips etc. Through this sort of learning I have really grown in confidence and it has enabled me to help so many more people change their lives through my exercise prescription. With this new knowledge I feel more rounded and developed and more able to cope just within my classes when someone asks me a question on their health challenges.
To add new ideas and variety
As I work in fitness every day, I sometimes get stuck in the mud. Utube can only dig me out so much. I love attending courses such as the advanced ‘L4 Pilates’that just give me new ideas to add to my classes and bring variety and new exercises to my groups every week. These courses are incredibly valuable and help me and my class members and clients stay motivated and keep our bodies adapting and sparked up. It may not bring me new income, but it certainly keeps my current sessions new and on top of our local provider list. It keeps my class members talking about the new things they did in my class and can also often bring me new class members. It helps keep my classes on the timetable above anyone else’s.
New Income Stream
This is a biggy for me. I love fitness and work within it as my passion. I often don’t feel like I am at work. That said, I need to pay my mortgage and bills and eat every day. My bank manager loves my passion but unfortunately, I can’t pay it into my account with them. When I am considering a course for the purpose of developing a new income stream, I always run a ‘return on investment’ (ROI) projection on my course choice to see if it will in fact generate more income, or is it just going to add new ideas as described above. Courses such as ‘Sports Massage’ and ‘Exercise Therapy’ are examples of courses that will have a very strong ROI and can offer me a new income stream. i.e. a sports massage or therapy one to one sessions attracts a stream of new clients who may not come to my classes or have PT. They may just want a massage to keep them running, or a 6-week course to sort out their knee problem. As an example, I charge £40 per 30-minute session for either a massage or a one to one therapy session. 10 sessions per week bring an additional £400 per week for 5 hours work. If my course costs are £1500 it is only 6-8 weeks until my investment is paid off. A good investment no doubt and can also often include reasons 1-5 as a whole.
The answer might at first appear simple, but there is a great deal of depth and planning that goes into this winning formula of what to add to your portfolio. What course you choose to take or whatever product you buy to add to your fitness business, do your sanity checks. Present to yourself your reasons for doing it and then run your ROI on it to ensure it is a good investment. If you are not doing it for investment but one of the other valuable reasons, then that is also great. It keeps us growing.
To help you decide on your New Year, New You, for your business take a peek at our voucher offer. We will add another £100 to your graduate voucher if the course you take brings a new element for your business income for 2020. We want to help with your ROI. Even if not taking a course with us. If you just want to discuss ideas, have a career chat, explore business options, don’t hesitate to give us a call. We love to talk it all through. Whatever you choose, well done for being in your fitness business for 2018 and good luck in your growth in 2019. Explore your potential using our winning formulae and develop your fitness business.