Instructor Newsletter 4th august 2016

Instructor Newsletter 4th august 2016

For many of us August is time of chilling and family time and taking a break from
classes and teaching, but it’s also the perfect time to refocus and plan on the final
quarter of the 2016.

Doing a quick poll with the Kick Start Franchisees, many said evening classes this week have been so busy and numbers up which is wonderful.

Back in the day, Group Exercises classes used to fluctuate with numbers up and down depending on the time of year
but now we do see a more steady flow of numbers throughout the the year.

Quick News Updates

Instagram Stories was rolled out yesterday and it’s brilliant!

If you are an Instagrammer check it out its an amazing way to really connect through video with your audience.

All of the major social media platforms are pushing video in a huge way and it is the perfect medium for Fitness & Health Pros.

Hosting a business building day yesterday we used Instagram to live stream and vlog during the day and it seems most of the big social media accounts and stars are hot footing it over there and creating some cracking content.

It’s always exciting when a new platform evolves and opens up more opportunities.

You can follow my Instagram Story at Rachel L Holmes and see behind the scenes today of my  Business Building Day with Sarah Hogan

The BrainFit Workout ™

Bristol is now fully booked and we have only a few spaces on Manchester, Birmingham & London so if you are ready to train in something.

Here is the link to book onto some of the dates click here

Where do you want to be in 12 months time?

It’s the big question that many Instructors and Fitness business owners shy away from, I think, because our industry moves so fast. New trends, new classes and concepts come steaming along that we think if we lay too many plans we won’t be able to react quickly to the new opportunities that appear. Be the leader not the follower, create the new trends, create the changes and think on a much bigger scale.

Write down 10 big goals that you want to achieve by this date in 12 months time.

Be so clear and so specific down to every last detail. Don’t just write “I want to have more free time” or “I want Instructors working for me delivering my programme”, or “I want to be a presenter”.

Be really descriptive.
The more descriptive the better, really feel and live the goal, act, speak and think as if you had attained this.

Your Daily To Do Lists

Write your TO DO LIST in your note book and then transfer to your phones notes.

Why?

I know it’s something so simple but if you do this I know you will find the same as I have. Think about how many times you take your phone out, probably 10/20 times and hour. You have your phone with you at all times, you protect it with your life, it’s as important to you as your house keys, your credit cards, even your cash, so by writing your 12 month’s Goals and your daily to do list on your phone, your lists are always there. You can add to them, edit them, it will help you stay totally and utterly focused.

Because you see them every time you look at your phone they stay at the forefront of your mind. When faced with a daily decision because you look at your goals/list throughout the day you always make the right business decision because you are totally focused.

Tips to Creating the Perfect Daily To Do List on Your Phone.

Most time management books and programmes were written years ago and they don’t take into consideration that we are now living the digital age. Harness the power of your phone and keep your goals and daily lists in the fore front of your mind.

1.Choose a time to create your list and do this at the same time every day. Like you would clean your teeth or remove your make up. Take 15 minutes every day and create the list when you have silence to completely focus.

2.Divide your tasks into a weekly list and a daily list. Only put items on your daily lists that you HAVE to get done that day. If you get through them great, then go to your weekly list and start working through that. The great thing about using your phone is anything you don’t do will carry over to the next day without you having to write it up again.

3.Look at your 12month’s goals and add a few small daily steps on your to do list that edge you closer to your big goals.

4.EDIT your lists. Remove items that you really don’t need to do that day. Only focus on the important tasks. We spend so much time faffing about doing menial stuff. Eat those frogs and get to the big, important tasks first.

5.Carry your list wherever you go, which is perfect as it’s on your phone.

The one thing we all want more of is time. You can earn more money, of course, but you can’t earn more time so make sure you plan your days in advance, allocate time and don’t waste a minute.

Decide on your priorities, 12 months goals and daily lists and then focus…Really focus like a laser beam to power through your goals.

Dubai fitness – by Kelly Reed-Banks

As some of you that follow me on social media will know, I’ve just returned from a blissful 11 days Holiday in Dubai and whilst  I was away I trained every day & caught up with an old friend who is an ex marine commando & now lives in Dubai running a fitness camp business out there.

So thought I’d give you an insight into what I experienced in case your thinking about taking a trip!

Firstly the biggest thing I noticed is that studio space is not used at all in fitness centres like it is in U.K.
We did a couple of sessions at a gym called Train strength & fitness which was a fantastic gym that had 3 studios, plus a power room & MMA studio – non of which are used by the gym!

Now back in good old Blighty these studios would be jam packed out with classes back to back all day – in Dubai they stood empty!

The gym did not put on any classes for its members, instead this gym was designed for personal trainers & instructors to rent the space – like we would a village hall to put classes on.
Then members & non members come into the gym & book their class all direct through the trainer running them.

My friend Ross ran a commando fitness camp 3x a week here in which he could use all the equipment within the power room ( there was everything from battle ropes to Olympic lifting bars, it was like a brilliant cross fit box) to run his sessions and was making a great business offering something very different out there!
Now I know this could not happen in the uk due to the fact all gyms & leisure centres offer their classes as part of their membership packages but it really opened my eyes to how differently trainers run their businesses out there.

Boot camps in Dubai are only just really becoming popular as the main focus in many of these gyms being physique  training – it’s all about the way you look in Dubai & I soon learnt that many of the physiques I was admiring in the gym from both men & women were all having a little bit of help if you know what I mean!
Cosmetic surgery is very popular not just in women having BUTT implants but in men having sinfol injections direct into their muscles to enhance their size & shape!

Les Mills is very popular in the corporate gyms but there was no Les Mills classes in the gyms I went to or in our hotel gym – although in our hotel we had a wide variety of holistic classes like yoga & PILATES.

Personal training is very popular in Dubai with locals & ex pats paying large amounts to their PT’s for regular training. Again many PTs hire studio or gym space to train their clients or you just need a membership to that gym for you, as the trainer and your client so my friend was paying £50 a month for a gym membership and he could train as many of his clients in their who were also members as he liked with no other additional rent taking home a very nice salary!

The idea of working in Dubai is very appealing, however even though people talk about it being tax free, we soon discovered that EVERYTHING costs in Dubai so even though you will make a great monthly salary if you are pro active and work hard, you also will be paying out a lot of money. You also need a min of £5000 in your bank account before you can start working there, you then need a visa, insurance, & medical insurance before any fitness company will take you on to work there as a trainer.

Currently at the moment there are no training companies out their for fitness qualifications based in Dubai, they are trying to regulate trainers & qualifications but at present there is no awarding bodies to implement this.

As a participant it was great to train out there and I know I only saw a very small portion of what the fitness industry had to offer in Dubai so I will definitely be going back to explore more!

Shout me out on social media,
Facebook – Kelly Reed Fitness
Twitter – kellyreedfitnes
Instagram – KELLYREEDBANKS
Snapchat – kellyRBFitness

Much love X

How to find your Niche in SGT by Jay Banks

One of the reasons I love small group training is I get to work with small groups of people that are all interested in the same thing and getting the same results.

Like most of you reading this I’m not just a Personal trainer and come from a group X background.
And as a group X instructor I’m sure you have many strings to your bow or as I like to call it “tools in your kit bag for the job”

These are your certification and the more you have the more variety of small groups you can offer.

The more you can offer the more money you will make

I started off targeting 2 types of groups with when I got into SGT

Weight loss (this is where KSFL franchises seriously increase revenue)

Pilates (I opened a successful pilates clinic just running SGT pilates) oh and I did my level 3 pilates right here with C2GO.

The reason I started with just these 2 niches is:

Everyone wants to improve their body shape.
And everyone needs pilates due to a bad back, weak core, having poor flexibility due to the seated culture we live in.

I’ve been doing this a while now so I’ve broken this down even more, I still offer

Weight loss and pilates but it’s more specific groupings

Weight loss is broken down to:
Small group training camp (outdoor fitness camp)
Platinum ladies (only 4 women paying a higher end price)
MMA fightness ( men’s only using mma and combat style training)
Pink belt kickboxing (women’s only using kickboxing style training)
Booty builder (women only focuses on the butt area)
Big chest, smaller gut (men only focuses on building a good chest and losing the beer gut)

Pilates has gone into:
Better backs for people with back issues

Trigger point pilates for those needing muscle realise and flexibility

Men on mats for men only

Pilates for tri athletes (I share a studio with a tri club so was a no brainer)

There is loads more you can do

If your thinking this is for you take some time to think about the niche or aviator (fancy ways of saying people you want to attract and work with)

I recommend that you start with one or two niches – not spreading yourself too thin to start as people will be confused as to what to go with. Then once you start getting really busy ( which I assure you, you will!) then break it down further – then get other trainers to teach this for you if you can to give yourself even more TIME.

If you want to send me your ideas to chat over you can contact me on Facebook Twitter, email and now snap chat.

Jay Banks 🙂

Terror in Europe….In Fact…All Over The World
By Andrew Crawford

Has anyone ever looked for the source of modern day terrorsim?

For instance lets use ‘Al Qaeeda as an example, was there an Al Qaeeda before the US/Nato invasion of Afghanistan?

Answer is No.

Okay next one Taliban.

Was there any Taliban before Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan?

Answer is No.

Okay Hamas.

Was there Hamas before Israel taking over Palestinian Lands?

Answer No.

Okay Al shabab.

Was there any Al shabab before American invasion of Somalia?

No.

Al Nusra next.

Was there any Al Nusra before American/Nato Invasion of Iraq?

Answer No.

ISIS next.

Was there any ISIS before American/Nato ILLEGAL invasion of Iraq/Libya?

Answer is No.

I got the above information whilst researching the net.

But I hope you can see the pattern, no matter how you slice it and dice it………… War breeds terrorism.

I try and put myself in their position.
If an invading country was bombing the UK, destroying airports (Gatwick, Heathrow & Stanstead), hospitals (St Georges Hospital in Tooting, St Thomas etc), schools (Your high school), government buildings (Big Ben, Houses of Parliament etc), taking over the wealth (potatoes, apples, gold, diamonds etc), killing your family & friends….and forcing their religion on you…

Would you become a Freedom fighter???

So Andrew…

You’re frightening us with all this terror talk…What’s terror got to do with Accountancy & Tax?

Well..You can see from the recent headlines that this ‘Terror’ at the moment is in Germany, previously France & Brussels not forgetting the British & USA terrorists bombing the ball ox out of Syria etc…..

It seems to be travelling everywhere…just like the travel you do in your business, in addition to the travelling you may be planning for your summer travel trips.

Ta x rules will deny a deduction for expenses of ‘ordinary commuting’.

Ordinary commuting is defined as travel between either:

Home and a permanent workplace: or

place that is not a workplace (a hotel or someone else’s home) and a permanent workplace

This means that travel expenses incurred from home to your normal place of work will not be allowable.

You must remember that when these rules were written, I suspect that there was not many ‘work from home / home as an office’ type of thing going on.

Also note the word permanent because this may be an issue for some of you.
Once at work, (permanent workplace), if you travel to visit clients from there, this is not ordinary commuting therefore these expenses are allowable. Therefore office to client travel is allowable.

There is another one…..Substantially ordinary commuting
What is this?

If you attend a college and the journey to the college is substantially the same as the distance to your permanent place of work, no deduction is allowable.

What if I travel from home to a client’s premises?
HMRC will accept that this is not ordinary costs of commuting but only providing that your client’s premises constitutes a ‘temporary workplace’.

A temporary workplace is defined as a place which you attend in the performance of your duties in order to perform a task of limited duration or for some other temporary purpose.

My Advice

If you work from home, this will be your permanent workplace or your normal place of work. Therefore travel from home to workplace….disallowable.

Travel from home to clients premises, for one 2 one…allowable
Travel to classes…..allowable
Only disallowable if venues were a ‘permanent workplace’…Since we have established that your permanent workplace is from home, these venues are temporary….especially as you may only be there 2-3 hours a day then move on to 2 or 3 other clients / venues for the rest of the time.

You may spend more time at home …oopps ….permanent workplace ..!!!

Unless my interpretation of permanent is incorrect, 3 hours out of a possible 8 hours, by definition, must be temporary.

Travelling Abroad

In this world of globalisation it is not uncommon for you to have to take a train, boat or plane overseas for the purpose of your business

On occasions you may find yourself having to travel abroad to participate in meetings, attend masterclasses or research venues for future projects.

As long as you can demonstrate that these expenses, flight costs etc were incurred properly for your business, these expenses are  claimable.

I would resist using the word holiday..!!

In a past case the HMRC disallowed all the plane flights.. the reason was as follows.

They saw that there were 2 names on the flight ticket, and asked who the other person was. It transpired that it was the partner of the taxpayer.
It was also discovered that the second named person was not paid for their time abroad, therefore the HMRC took it that although evidenced by some documentation, that the passenger was the partner of the taxpayer and was not paid for their time abroad, therefore disallowed  ALL the foreign expenditure and travel costs.
Sounds familiar?

Tax tip: If you have to go abroad on business…learn this….

If a partner is going with you, either pay them or put them on a separate ticket (technically, you cannot claim for them, however, ensure that the expenditure was incurred for the purpose of your business so pay them and claim the full costs…let them invoice you if necessary).

If you are attending a seminar/masterclass, have a copy of the brochure or timetable to show which classes you attended.

If you were invited abroad and you were not paid for your time… have a flier which clearly shows your name and picture as one of the speakers, then claim your travel and hotel costs.

If you are on a research trip….. have a diary and brochures of where and who you visited.

Finally

We need more Love in the world.

Have you noticed that all the people who talked about loving each other have been assassinated / killed?

Jesus, Ghandi, John Lennon, Martin Luther King, John Kennedy etc….Just an observation.

And if you’re travelling to Rio…….we’ll be here watching the opening ceremony…..Have fun.

Andrew James Crawford

HAVE A GREAT THURSDAY 🙂