Fitness Leaders are Needed More Than Ever This is Debra Atkinson and you’re listening to the VrF professional’s podcast, brought to you by the Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist. For trainers who want to make working with women in midlife their niche and want to own it with a hormone balancing exercise method that has worked for thousands of women since 2013. Right now is the time to learn, create content and programs that grow your business. The world is at home. And online. And looking for you. I’ll share the link to get more details on the trainers and health coaches we’re looking for to join our team. How else are you spending your time now? Fitness leaders … and I mean that in every sense of the word: those of you who stand in the front of the room and lead classes, who do it one-to-one, and who deliver it face to face or online or by phone, and to those of you who lead those staff meetings and pump up everyone else’s tires even now when you don’t have answers because you’ve never had this problem before. Who are you being right now? Scared or Scrappy Are you focused on the problems and how bad it is? Is it a mess? or an opportunity? What do you talk about every day? Is it a bigger deal that you can’t get your hair and nails done or that you can’t help your clients in their time of need the way you’ve done business up until now? Fitness leaders get scrappy. They learn to do what me and everyone else is doing right now and that is pivot. You do that by figuring it out as you go. The answers are there. You just can’t look to anyone else to find them. You can’t expect to do business now the same way you did Before Corona (BC). You can’t even expect to do business after it’s over the same way you did so it’s time to get scrappy about that fact right now. Those over-packed group classes may not be packed again. Those shared yoga mats and TRX and battle ropes, and spinning bike handles may not appeal to your clients any more. Sanitizing them – even if you can - is not helpful. Not in the world we’re in now that is governed by a respiratory illness. What you did two months ago and the way you did business isn’t relevant right now. If you weren’t online, you potentially are right now, and yet are you doing this as a bridge? Or just doing what you can to get by? This is an opportunity fitness leaders are grabbing to create a hybrid business. Needy or Creative Are you spending time asking someone else for answers? Someone who also has never lived through a global pandemic?Why would you suspect anyone else would have the answers? They are in the exact moment you are in. You may be reaching out to them because they deal with stress better. They’re more resilient. See that for what it is and value it. Try to understand why and understand that they don’t spend the majority of their time wasting energy on negative content or online “news.” Then begin to get creative. What if you did know the answer already? What if you got creative with your time right now? Companies that are used to making triathlon kits for elite athletes are sewing masks. Surely you can make some creative changes in the way you’re doing what you do that contributes as opposed to ignores what’s happening now. Create a New Answer What if you didn’t try to just compete with the noise online providing another one of thousands of workouts available right now? What if you stood out? Why would you? What aren’t your customers and clients finding? What aren’t those millions of people who weren’t exercising before COVID19 and already fit finding? Right now, they too are online more. Right now, they still are not potentially finding answers that serve them – who might be overweight, deconditioned, feeling awkward, depressed and alone. How can you creatively serve them? Seeing Problems or Problem Solving If you’re focused on the gym being closed, the fact clients don’t want you to come over or to come to you you’re missing out. If you focus on people not spending money right now, yo