S.Q.U.A.T.S Email #14

Social 🖥, Queue (cue) 🏋️, Uh Marketing 📱, Awesome 😀, Thinking 🧐, Site 📖

Hi friend!

Welcome to the 14th instalment of The SQUATS Newsletter.

Thank you for being here!

Each week I collate exclusive insights, tips and resources to help you accelerate your growth as a fitness professional...

Sitting comfortably?

Let's get stuck in...

Social Media

Insights that you can easily apply to your Social Media 🖥 today, so your next potential client doesn't doomscroll on by.

This week's most popular Instagram post caught me off guard.

It was an idea that came to me out of nowhere, and I'd taken it from start to finish in under 30 minutes.

And yet, it's received more engagement than any other post from 2022.

If I were to guess why it went down so well and how you can replicate it, I'd say it's due to its against-the-grain nature.

PTs do think of each other as competition.

This post tells you why that isn't true.

So, how could you do something similar?

Take a common idea people think is true and explain why it isn't.

For example:

• Eating carbs after 6pm won't make you gain weight. Here is why:

• Lifting weights will not make you bulky. Here is why:

• Exercise isn't good for weight loss. Here is why:

Let me know if you give one of these a shot by sharing your post with me on Instagram! I'd love to see your examples.

Queue (cue...)

Q: A tried and tested coaching Que (cue) 🏋️ to rapidly improve your client's form (and therefore their confidence in themselves and you.)

"Prison defence."

Thank you to reader Emma Chadwick for reminding me of this hilarious coaching cue. It's one you won't want to use in every PT session or class, but for the right client, it is perfect.

What does it refer to?

Squeezing the glutes. I'm sure you don't need me to explain the rest 😂

When could you use it?

• During a standing press

• During an ab wheel rollout

• At the top of a hip thrust, good morning, squat or deadlift

Got a coaching cue you love using or recently learned? Reply and let me know what it is to be featured in a future issue!

Uhh Marketing

U: I'll pass along some hard-learned lessons in Uh, marketing 📱, so you can spend more time showing up for your current clients and less time, money (and sanity) worrying about bringing in future clients.

A few issues back, I discussed why it's so important to market your service on the outcome and not the process.

A simple way to think about is: 

"Sell the destination, not the flight."

The reason I'm highlighting this again is because it is so easy to fall into this trap when writing sales copy on your social media, website or adverts.

For example, I often see trainers trying to sell their workouts or sessions.

But a workout is part of the process. It's like selling the flight.

The thing you should be selling is the result your service will help people achieve.

What kind of results?

Well, most people want to:

• Feel fitter

• Live longer

• Live in less pain

• To look better naked

• Improve their mental health

Those kinds of things are the things that people actually want. So, make sure when you're trying to sell your service, you sell them those things.

Awesome

A: A little slice of "Saw something Awesome 😀, thought of you". It's something I know you'll love, so I couldn't help but share it.

I recommended Matt Haig's book How to Stop Time in an earlier newsletter issue.

I love his writing.

He has a way with words that reminds me of what it means to live.

As I'd enjoyed How to Stop Time and his other popular book you may have heard of, The Midnight Library, I bought another one of his called The Humans.

I'd recommend it if you're looking for a good fiction read over the holiday period.

Here is the Amazon blurb:

"When an extra-terrestrial visitor arrives on Earth, his first impressions of the human species are less than positive. Taking the form of Professor Andrew Martin, a prominent mathematician at Cambridge University, the visitor is eager to complete the gruesome task assigned to him and hurry home to his utopian planet, where everyone is omniscient and immortal. He is disgusted by the way humans look, what they eat, their capacity for murder and war, and is equally baffled by the concepts of love and family. But as time goes on, he starts to realize there may be more to this strange species than he had thought. Disguised as Martin, he drinks wine, reads poetry, develops an ear for rock music, and a taste for peanut butter. Slowly, unexpectedly, he forges bonds with Martin’s family. He begins to see hope and beauty in the humans’ imperfection, and begins to question the very mission that brought him there."

Thinking

T: Some food for... Thinking 🧐. 

I've been thinking a lot about the importance of... thinking.

I always feel drastically better when I give myself space to think, daydream, read and journal.

Yet, I rarely do it.

I'm always on. Always searching for the next thing to do. The next thing to tick off my to-do list.

But now is a great time to make space to take stock of where you're at.

So, my advice to you is to make some space in your calendar to think. Book it in like you're booking a session with your client Barry.

My favourite way to do this is to drive to a coffee shop or library, leave my phone in the car, and sit with a pen and paper for 30-60 minutes.

Site

S: Just one of the many cutting-edge, members-only resources from the Lift the Bar Site 📖 - so you can access the solutions, knowledge, and tools you need to become an even better PT, with a simple click of the mouse.

I've mentioned in previous issues how Chris Burgess, the owner of Lift the Bar, is doing a December daily-do in our member group.

I particularly enjoyed this one on improving your training delivery.

The better your product on the gym floor, the better it is for client results, referrals, retention and business.

And, you can never 'complete' this. There is always room to get better at delivering your sessions.

My goal next year is to continue improving my programming and developing my own system, but I'd also like to play around with finishers.

I hope you enjoyed our 14th SQUATS email! I love creating it and love hearing from you so please feel to reply 👋

Stuart

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P.S. Ever feel like you're not fit enough to be a trainer?