One of the biggest failures of the Personal Training Industry is the lack of business education. Exercise science and the ability to create effective programs is not all that’s needed to help create your ideal business.

I probably read 20 business books each year and while some aren’t remarkable, some can truly change how you look at your business. These are, to date, my top 10 favorites. (My standard is that I listen to everything in audio book form and if I find myself having to go back and make notes, I know I need the hard copy.) While they aren’t for Personal Trainers specifically, they absolutely apply to building and running our business.

Currently, I’m reading The Referral Engine and I’m loving it. I’m halfway through this and know I need the hard copy. Referrals are the lifeline to service businesses.

The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself

Another great book on getting your existing customers to do your marketing for you is:

Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force

I think that Seth Godin led the way into a new era, away from interruption marketing into, as he called it, permission marketing. With it followed books that showed the way to engage, connect, and create trust such as The New Rules of Marketing andPR, Inbound Marketing, and Problogger.

Permission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers

The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, 2nd Edition

Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs (New Rules Social Media Series)

ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income

Two powerful books on what it takes to help create change (or help create an environment to facilitate change) in ourselves, others, even society are:

Influencer: The Power to Change Anything

Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

My bible for anyone that wants to start their own business is E-Myth Revisited. It helps you map out your business game plan. Don’t leave home without it.

The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It

And still, after a number of years and lots of sales books later, I think that Selling the Invisible is the most accessible book on sales for those in the service industry.

Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing

I hope you get a chance to read some of these books. They are, or at least can be, real game changers for your professional life.

Best wishes, Mark

#1 Successful Personal Trainers Know the Up-to-Date Exercise Science. Now, this is #1, not because it’s the most important, but because it’s often what Personal Trainers think is the only thing they need to be successful. So, I just want to get it out of the way and move on.

Yes, if you’re a Personal Trainer, you need to know your science. In fact, if you are going to position yourself as an expert in exercise, you had better make sure you can bring it. Your clients will never reach the results they could if you can’t create safe, effective programs to get them there. 

Whether you have a degree or a certification or both, your education should never end. Research changes the answers more frequently than many of us care to admit. i.e. Fact: the way to lose body fat is to do cardio… Not any more. Fact: HIIT is far more effective in fat loss.

Successful Trainers know the science. They are perpetual students, go to conferences, clinics, take classes, read journals. Never assume that exercise science is static and that you know enough.

Check out the full series. It starts here: 
Top 10 Traits of Successful Personal Trainers (Series)

P.S. Also, follow my Business of Personal Training page on Facebook.

More and more I’m asked by club owners how they can boost the revenue of their Personal Training department. As with anything you look to change, you must first look at what you have. Who are your Personal Trainers? Do they have the traits and skills that it takes to move forward?

Trainers, if you’re not rockin’ the world with what you’re doing, not having the career you want, follow this series to see where you’re missing out and how you can take your business to the next level.

Before I even start the list there are a couple of beliefs we need to address. In his book Influencer: The Power to Change Anything, Kerry Patterson states that there are two essential beliefs in order for change to occur. 1) You must believe that it is possible, and 2) You must believe that it is worth it.

That’s where it starts. Personal Trainers, do you want to change your business? Do you believe, and I have to stress that you actually must believe, that your business CAN build? Do you believe that it is WORTH the work that you would have to put in to change it? (some people are perfectly happy doing mediocre work with mediocre results)

If you ARE one of those Trainers that believe, follow me as I lay out what it takes to become the success that you want to be.

P.S. you can also follow my Business of Personal Training Facebook page

It’s that time when everyone comes up with a top 10 list and I didn’t want to get left out. So, here’s my top 10 weight loss tips for the coming year.

1) Know and Write Down Your Goal – Yes, you want to have an idea of what you want to lose, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Know what you will feel like, what you will be able to do, how your life will be better when you reach your ideal weight. The weight amount you want to lose will not keep you motivated. The “why it’s important to you” will help keep you on task. The extra bit is to write it down. People that write down their goals are far more likely to attain them. more…

2) Get Help From a Professional – So much time, effort, and self-esteem is wasted on failed attempts because we rely on what we think we know about losing weight. The weight loss industry is a multi-billion dollar industry because people spend tons of money on useless supplements, gadgets, and fad diets. Spend your money more wisely. Get started right with the advise from an RD and a Personal Trainer that can tailor a program just for you. more…

3) Commit to Lifestyle Changes – Quick fixes may help you to lose weight in short term, but in the long run will leave you heavier and frustrated. Look to making healthy lifestyle changes that you can sustain for the rest of your life.

4) Baby Steps- With a committment of making changes for your life, comes the decrease in pressure to change everything all at once. If you try to make it all perfect tomorrow, you will crash and burn, leaving you defeated and depressed. Plan on making one or two small changes at a time. When you master them, pick one or two more to work on. i.e. At least 3 days this week I will eat a healthy breakfast.

5) Journal – The biggest pain for most people and yet one of the most beneficial things you can do. Keeping a food journal can not only help you keep track of calories, protein, carbohydrates, and fat, but will also make you aware of your habitual behaviors, such as meal timing, how often you eat out, and times/situations that are problematic. As you become more aware of these issues, you can add them to your list of baby steps to be addressed in the future. If you don’t keep a journal, you may never fully understand what you are doing. If you find that a really detailed journal is too hard to do at this time, journal light. Just write down the names of what you ate, the time you ate it, where, and why (you were hungry, bored, sad…). more…

6) Use Diet and Exercise Approach- You have to address your nutritional life, absolutely. But, if that’s all you’re doing you will either never lose the weight, or if you do lose it, you will never be able to sustain it. The same is true for exercise alone. To combine diet and exercise is key in weight loss. Additionally, while tradition has led us to believe that cardio exercise was best for losing fat, when, in  fact, high intensity weight training is really the element of change. (Another reason to consult a professional.)

7) Be a More Active Person- Now, even though high intensity weight training is the most effective activity for weight loss, everything you do burns calories, and the more you do, the more calories you burn. Too often people will exercise for 30-60 minutes and then sit on their backside for the rest of the day. Get up, get out, and find ways to be a more active person. End the slothdom. Ways to be more active at work can be found here. 

8) Plan Ahead - Nothing beats planning out the next day ahead of time. If I go into a day knowing what I will eat, when, and have written in my exercise time as an appointment, sticking with it is far easier than if I try to “wing” good behavior. Even the unexpected can be planned for once you recognize what types of things can happen to throw you for a loop.

9) Clean House- Set up your environment to help you with your goals. Get rid of the foods/treats around you at home and work that make it hard to stay on track.

10) Confront Your Frenemies -  Frenemies are those that sabotage your efforts to lose weight.  You need to have a heart-to-heart talk with them and, without mincing words, explain what you’re doing and why it’s so important to you. Then make them aware of how they are making that hard for you to accomplish your goals. Ask them if they can help you by refraining from those things that make it more difficult than it already is. more… 

Of course there are more. But these are my top 10 to carry you to success in 2009.

Best wishes, Mark