A special guest post by: Joshua Neufeld, NeuFitness

To do what you love, and be able to make money doing it, is something few individuals have the opportunity to truly experience in their lives. The fitness industry is such that if you don’t show up to work every day with a passion for changing lives, then your existence will be short and unsuccessful. In order to be truly effective in such a vast and complex industry it is important to not only adapt, but identify what it is that truly makes you tick. What do you wake up every morning hoping you accomplish with your clients? Better yet, define your client. Your IDEAL client. Who is it you want to work with, and why? This is your passion, and this is what makes getting out of bed so much easier.

Simply put, a life without passion is one of monotony.

A passion is something that you do with the expectation of nothing in return. Therefore, income generation is not necessarily the goal. Rather the idea that when one is passionate enough and is willing to pursue such interests, riches are bound to follow. Separate yourself from the idea that your passion HAS to make you money and ask yourself: If I already had all the money and riches I desired, what would I do with my time? Guess what! This is your true passion. How you would spend your time if money was no object is the ultimate determining factor of one’s passion in life. Therefore, money cannot be ones motivation as it is more often than not the only factor limiting one from their passion.

A man’s fortune is not of riches but of experiences; fulfillment, not to be confused with accumulation.

With a passion comes an otherwise unattainable level of focus and drive towards your commitments. The internal motivation that comes with doing something you love everyday and knowing your lifestyle will be catered too because the effort put forth (although seemingly similar) will be much greater when the idea of time and hourly wage are no longer prevalent and you are simply going about your dreams, instead of punching a clock. Wake up with purpose beyond cash-flow. Remember, pursue your dreams and riches will follow once you put yourself in a position to be truly successful emotionally and mentally. Financially, the success will follow.

“What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do. As I have heard said, a person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.” –Timothy Ferris

Much the same, the uncomfortable conversation you must have with yourself when deciding to abandon the status quo and go after a dream. Define your passion, and then go after it, relentlessly.

Come learn from Josh on April 21-22 in Edomonton at www.ProfitablePersonalTrainerLive.com

Profitable Personal Trainer is almost two years old. It’s been quite an adventure as a part time project aside from our studio.

I’ve cherished the moments and learned as much as I’ve taught, it’s taken some time but I feel I’ve finally found my voice. I’m very excited about 2012. Watch for the evolution of Profitable Personal Trainer, I have big goals as far as providing more resources to fitness professionals throughout North America (and beyond) to become more successful in the industry we love.

There will be an evolution beyond my current focus of marketing and systems.

This evolution will take a bit of time, so I may not be posting regularly in the next short while but do stay tuned for some exciting announcements.

You may want to save the dates of April 21-22, 2012 as I’ll be hosting “Profitable Personal Trainer Live” likely in the Edmonton market with my good friend and mentor Bedros Keuilian. We’ll also be featuring other fitness professionals with some killer content on some of the top training techniques, practices and niche markets. (Like specific training for the MMA crazy, or specialized nutritional coaching.)

Watch for these changes and further announcements coming soon, and in the meantime have a very Merry Christmas.

Just one more thing…

I couldn’t post something without giving you something great you can use right now. Below is an image of my most effective facebook ad for generating new “likes.” These likes are funnelled into an immediate lead generation offer that gets them in our door.

This ad leads to our page where ppl are met with a gateway page offering free training if they simply like the page, you can view this at www.facebook.com/personaltrainingreddeer

The easiest way to add one of these pages on your own facebook page is using a free little plugin called WooBox from www.woobox.com.

I just wanted to share this with you because it could be a great tool for last minute New Year’s marketing.

You may have heard recently that a story flew around how the US Government recently declared pizza to be a vegetable. At least that’s the version of this story that I was told. None the less it’s safe to say this weird situation, likely taken out of context and totally misunderstood, received a lot of publicity, press and exposure very quickly. I wonder if it ever hit the hot trending topics list on Twitter?

As a personal trainer and fitness marketer looking to maximize your fitness marketing strategy you should take note of the industry related topics that are hitting the headlines. One of the fastest ways I know to become the local expert is to simply make sure that you have an opinion on the most current topics. Voice them on Facebook, Twitter and especially in blog posts that are optimized for your primary keywords.

There’s no doubt that thousands of people were searching major search engines to find out just what was going on in this crazy pizza controversy. There’s no doubt that main people with your local area were amongst that group and likely a number of them may be people that fit your target customer profile.

At a local level it’s great if this audience begins to find you or assists in boosting your rankings by visiting and commenting on your posts relating to these hot topics. Just by following the media you have an immediate opportunity to quickly increase your organic traffic and be known as the savvy fitness expert of your area.

This has served me well in my local market in fact it ultimately lead to a regularly running column in both the major local newspapers a relationship, credibility and marketing vehicle that my competitors can’t touch.

This last weekend I was out in Vancouver speaking at CanFitPro’s western national conference. I’m always amazed at the responses I get when I ask, “who is your most likely customer?” Maybe I shouldn’t be, after all this might have also been one of the toughest things for me to comprehend.

I can’t stress enough how important is to know your niche or be able to close your eyes and literally see your most likely customer standing before you. Once you have this very complete description you will be amazed at how your ability to communicate and generate interest from your potential audience increases. You will begin to think of ideas on how to reach, meet and recruit clients in ways your competitors will never catch on to. I know that may sound ridiculous so let me try to put it in a simpler more dramatic fashion. Would a gun enthusiast read an opera magazine? Would the language used to describe last night’s performance contain fitting and descriptive adjectives to describe the latest hunting paraphernalia? I think you get my drift.

Here’s a little exercise, begin with the following questions, answer them for who you think your most likely customer is, then try to develop 10 more questions for an even more through description.

(HINT: If you’re uncertain of who your most likely customer is then answer these questions for each the following: 1) Who would you like to train? (ie. Athletes, not recommended but common) 2) Who do you think is most around you population wise? 3) Who do you think is currently shopping for services like yours? Once you’ve answered for all three of these you will generally have one that stands out to you leading you to begin exploring that niche’s viability.)

1. Are they male or female?
2. How old are they? (10-15 year range is fine)
3. What would be their primary goal?
4. Why would they benefit from working with someone like you? Be specific.
5. How much income does their household earn annually?
6. What kinds of careers do they have?
7. What kinds of hobbies and interests do they have?
8. What kind of vehicles do they, or would they like to drive?
9. How do they dress?
10. Where would they buy clothes?
11. Where would they go out for dinner?
12. What organizations might they belong to?

Once you have a big long list of who, what, why, and where you can begin to search your local demographics and guess as to whether a number of these desired people are near by.

From that point forward all of your marketing, content and offers should be targeted to be of interest to these groups of people. You should use language that would make sense if you were conversing with them, you should refer to characteristics or roadblocks of the goals they may be trying to achieve. Your offers should be of high value based on what you think they may be looking for and you want to make sure both you and your marketing materials are present in multiple places they might frequent.

The more razor focused you can be on that one specific customer the easier it becomes to not only attract them but others also. Specialization adds value; people always want to work with the specialist.

Perhaps they may seem like common sense but repeatedly in front of audiences or more when I review this concept only a sparse few hands go up. I can guarantee this little exercise if taken seriously will completely change your business in weeks to months.