Learning Center
We’ve consolidated our videos, guides, webinars and more into the AFS Business Learning Center. Browse the resources, and use the concierge service if you need help with any topic.
I've been incredibly fortunate over the past several years to share my knowledge of the fitness space with thousands of fitness professionals. From trainers/instructors, to those aspiring to open their own gym or studio to incredibly successful operators - every opportunity provides me the platform to support our market - something I never take lightly.
No matter what stage you're in, AFS stands for raising business standards, helping you manage your clients better and become savvier performers in a business setting.
Whether or not a client decides to become or continue to be your client depends on a few things.
1. You. Your personality, teaching style, knowledge and passion will always be the most influential component as to whether or not a client will remain a client. You are your brand and your brand is a powerful sales influencer. It draws people to you, it keeps people with you.
As fitness professionals, we know consistency is key to lasting results. Honestly, most of our clients know that too. But there’s often a disconnect between understanding this at an intellectual level and implementing this knowledge for lasting change.
In order for our work to be meaningful, our mission achievable, our retention rates high and our businesses thriving, we must arm clients with the right tools for behavior change.
When I started as a personal trainer, my club had a system where we gave each new member two “free” sessions. On the first session, we took them through a traditional exercise routine with the “boring blue card” where we marched them from one machine to the next, wrote down the seat adjustment, weight and suggested sets and reps.
Then, on our second session - which we called the “wow” session - we used non-traditional equipment, applied more “functional training” movements, and tried to impress the member with all the cool exercise combinations we knew.
Risk management for fitness studios speaks to creating, fostering and delivering a safe environment for clients and employees, while also protecting the assets of the business.
Learn what it takes to create, foster and deliver enriching and memorable experiences.
Fitness is no different than many industries who are always looking to stay on top of trends. Fashion has its waves of top styles and colors, restaurants have the favorite dishes and flashy ingredients we all look to have on our plates.
Being in fitness for 12 years myself, I have seen my share of what has stayed mainstream and what has fallen to the wayside.
Clients come into a fitness studio for diverse reasons. They may want to lose weight, increase strength, train for a specific activity, or simply feel and look better. Clients across age and conditioning levels tend to share certain motivating factors. They are often strong on desire for physical transformation, and short on confidence, patience and time.
Resistance incline bodyweight training—both equipment and training methods—can be the perfect studio solution for at least five important reasons.
Building a team of dedicated and engaged employees sits at the foundation of every business strategy. In the fitness space, this becomes more critical as success in our industry means we provide a service that enables people to live a healthier quality of life. It’s a grandiose mission with (typically) a less than grandiose compensation plan.
Ask any manager, trainer or even instructor, none of them chose this career to make a lot of money.
As personal trainers and coaches, it is essential that we find out the “why” when it comes to our clients. Why are they training? Without this information, it is almost inevitable that one day that client will walk away from training with you. So, what are the main areas of motivation for clients?
There are four categories of client we’ve all seen. They want to change their appearance, relieve pain, feel healthier, and/or train or prepare for an event.
2017 is set to bring even more advanced technology to the fitness industry, especially to the discipline of heart monitoring and heart health.
Putting your business on the cutting edge of this technology can give you an edge that will last you the entire year, creating a more engaged relationship between you and your clientele based around a more effective fitness program. Here are just a few of the ways that fitness technology can change your business for the better.
Calculating ROI can sometimes be difficult to quantify. In this Q&A clip, Ingrid Owen talks about how to ensure your programming is receiving a solid return on investment.
Increasing your customer acquisition or conversion rate is one thing - improving the lifetime value of your customers is quite another.
Ingrid Owen along with AFS Founder & CEO Josh Leve discuss how fitness studios can build community around the ideas of health and wellness.
The growing aging Boomer population is huge, affluent, well-educated and looking for trainers that can safely and effectively improve their health and fitness. In essence, they are the ideal client group.
However, many fitness marketing messages and strategies that work well with younger adults are ineffective with older adults and may even repel them. It takes more time and effort to move them through the sales process but once they make the decision to train with you they are loyal clients that stay with you for a long time.
Ingrid Owen a consultant in the fitness industry provides her insight on why every fitness business knows to maximize their programming by identifying their niche.
In the last five years, one in every three deaths in the USA was attributed to Cardiovascular Disease (CVD). The latest statistics have also revealed that 60% of Americans don’t take part in regular physical activity and 25% are not physically active at all.
On a positive note, research tells us that statistics like these could be significantly improved if more people simply started exercising on a regular basis.
Josh Leve, AFS Founder & CEO and Ingrid Own discuss how to maximize the experience of your members and build community based on "open space" in your studio.
Technology and fitness are joined at the hip - the best gyms are known for having the best gear. After a while, however, there is only so much gear that a gym can buy! There is another way that you can use technology to differentiate yourself from competition in the fitness world, and it is actually much less expensive than investing in new machines every quarter.
Savvy gym and studio owners are now investing in mobile apps that are geared towards fitness - a high ROI activity that provides a great deal of value to patrons who do not have the money for a personal trainer or the organizational skills to keep up with their own stats.
As a trainer, you wear many different hats during a typical work week. In turn, you are pulled in many different directions among family, friends and clients.
If you are focusing on too many topics at once you cannot be in the moment, which can lead to a lack of client retention.
FBA is Right For Everybody
• Trainer, Manager or Owner • Beginner or Veteran • 500-10,000 sq.ft.