Empowered Entrepreneur

For some people, teaching a few classes as an instructor or training a couple of clients per week is a perfect side hustle. But what if you're a full-time fitness professional? Is there a good side hustle that will bring in a few extra dollars? Yes! Writing, specifically about fitness and exercise, is a great opportunity for full-time fitness professionals.

Amanda Vogel, MA, is a well-known writer who has been featured in Oxygen, ACE Certified News and Fitness Journal, among many other publications. On this episode of Empowered Entrepreneur, Amanda shares how she got started in fitness writing, how to pitch your work to an editor, and her favorite pieces to write. This episode will help you understand the business of fitness writing, so you can determine if it's something you want to add to your already-crazy schedule.

Very few fitness professionals start their careers thinking they’re going to be salespeople who automatically know how to operate a business and manage others. However, the fact is that fitness is a business and it’s important to know how to think like a business person if you want to have long-term career success. Many people choose fitness as a career because they want to help others live a healthier life.  Amy Boone Thompson is no different, and has had a long, successful fitness career that includes many different positions and titles, including working on the gym floor, being a national director and holding executive titles.  Amy has served as the National Customer Experience Manager for Les Mills Fitness, the National Director of Personal Training for the Wellbridge Company, and Chief Operating Officer for FIT4Mom with over 300+ franchises in four countries. She is the winner for the 2019 IDEA Fitness Leader of the Year award, and has since joined IDEA, serving as Vice President/General Manager of AIM Fitness. Amy's personal mantra “fitness is my business,” embodies her career approach. On this episode of Empowered Entrepreneur, she shares her insights on why it is so important to learn about the business side of fitness.

Like many other fitness professionals, Tricia Murphy Madden has experienced both failure and success. On this episode of Empowered Entrepreneur, Madden, the director of education for Savvier Fitness and co-creator of Barre Above®, shares the lessons she has learned from her failure and how that experience helped her find success in other areas of the fitness industry. A lot of planning goes into creating a stellar group fitness experience. Madden talks about how a lack of success in one business led to her finding her niche as a program developer and education manager. What gives a fitness facility an immediate sense of success? How does a fitness instructor improve? What are the contributing factors that gauge professionalism in group exercise?

The experience you create for your clients and group fitness class participants is one of the most important parts of any fitness business, yet it gets very little direct attention. On this episode, guest Fabio Comana, MA, MS, a faculty instructor at San Diego State University and president of Genesis Wellness Group, and host Pete McCall discuss how to engage clients to create an optimal experience that helps you develop raving fans, from implementing behavior change strategies to designing branded, movement-based programs, you will hear ideas for various ways that you can enhance your business in the coming year

Doris Thews, Vice-President of Group Fitness, Team Training and Innovation for Vasa Fitness. The term "entrepreneur" is often used to describe an individual who creates a business from nothing. Entrepreneurs are willing to work 80 hours a week on something they enjoy, like starting a business, as opposed to simply showing up to a job and punching a clock. But did you know that you do not have to start your own business to be an entrepreneur? If you work as an instructor or trainer, yes, you may be an employee at a facility, but you still have to function as an entrepreneur. You may work for an organization, but you still act like an entrepreneur in order to build a following of clients and/or class groupies. The bottom line is that every single one of us functions as an entrepreneur because we are each responsible for promoting our services. On this episode of the Empowered Entrepreneur, Doris Thews, the vice-president of group fitness, team training and innovation for Vasa Fitness, a chain of health clubs, talks about how her ability to function as an "organization entrepreneur" evolved her career from working at the front desk to teaching group fitness to traveling the world as a master trainer, and now leading the programming and innovation for an exciting new chain of high-value health clubs. If you want a few ideas about what you can do to take more of a leadership role in your organization, or if you are looking for a new way to grow your career, you will get a lot out of this conversation

There are a very few jobs where it is possible to have a rewarding career making half-naked people sweaty and the position of group fitness instructor is one of them. One of the great things about being a group fitness instructor is that you get out of it what you put into it, the fitness industry is still so young that many career paths are still being defined. It is completely possible to evolve your career from teaching group fitness to managing programs to ultimately serving as the Chairwoman of the Board of Directors for the American Council on Exercise, however there is no specific career path, you will have to figure that out for yourself. The good news is that a generation of female leaders has forged the path from studio to C-suite and on this episode of the Empowered Entrepreneur, Shannon Fable, one of those leaders, shares how her fitness career has progressed from instructor to entrepreneur to international presenter to consultant to executive to chairwoman. 

Nothing happens by accident, if you want to succeed you have to develop a plan for how that will happen. Whether you want to become the next executive to lead the industry in new directions or you want to get the most out of your part-time role as a group fitness instructor. you will come away from this episode motivated and with some specific steps to help you on your journey.

"Master trainer" is a designation given to fitness professionals who educate their peers. Master trainers may lead a day-long workshop on how to use a specific piece of equipment; teach a multi-day certification program; or teach conference sessions on how to apply the latest research to clients' exercise programs.

One benefit of becoming a master trainer is that it can help you establish immediate credibility with clients and participants. This episode of the Empowered Entrepreneur podcast features conversations with three different master trainers and fitness studio owners to gain insights into why they became educators, the process of becoming a master trainer, and how being a fitness industry educator complements business.

Michael Piercy is the 2017 IDEA Personal Trainer of the Year and a Master Trainer for TRX and Matrix, in addition to owning The Lab, a studio in Northern New Jersey. Rick Richey and Aaron Drogoszewski are both master trainers for NASM, as well as co-owners of ReCOVER, the first fitness studio in New York City that focuses on recovery strategies. Aaron and Rick are also co-hosts of the Omnia Fitness podcast.

This episode of the Empowered Entrepreneur can help you determine whether or not it's worth investing the time and effort into becoming a master trainer. Could this be the next step in your fitness career?

Fitness professionals often find themselves immersed in the creative process as they conceive new ways to get people moving. Whether they’re dreaming up novel equipment ideas, developing entire programs or planning the perfect playlist, ingenuity often ties in to inspiration and sweat. What if, during this creative process, an idea is birthed that might just work for the mass market? Many people are stars at running a fitness business, but what does it take to bring an idea to market? One big barrier is access to financial resources.

Funding is not an issue for those lucky enough to have a rich uncle or other benefactor. However, for the majority of budding fitness entrepreneurs, access to capital is a major hurdle. Thankfully, in recent years crowdfunding—through services such as Kickstarter or Indiegogo—has helped people raise enough capital to introduce a new product or increase the manufacturing of an existing one.

On this episode of Empowered Entrepreneur, two fitness professionals share how they used crowdfunding services to get the money they needed to add fuel to their success. The first guest, Greg Nigro, vice president of sales and a founder of Terra Core Fitness, shares how the company used a crowdfunding campaign to expand its existing product line and pivot directions.

The second guest, Derek Mikulski, the inventor and CEO of ActivMotion Bar, talks about how he used crowdfunding to expand his production capabilities.

If you’ve had an idea for the perfect fitness business but weren’t sure how to get it off the ground, this episode will give you powerful insights into simple steps that will take your idea from concept to completion.

There are numerous fitness industry brands that are instantly recognizable—both products and services. Being first to market creates a unique brand identity. A fitness professional who can curate specific brand identity for his or her method of exercise, like Johnny G, for example, has a distinct advantage over competitors.

On this episode of the IDEA Empowered Entrepreneur podcast, Sergeant Ken Weichert, the 2016 IDEA Fitness Instructor of the Year, shares how he has created a unique brand identity for his group fitness program that allows him to communicate specific expectations regarding the experience participants can expect to receive in his workouts. In addition to a discussion on branding, Sgt. Ken discusses how he has become an international presenter, delivering education workshops all over the world.

This episode was recorded live at the IDEA Personal Trainer Institute East, Alexandria, Virginia. Fitness entrepreneurs, personal trainers, directors and studio owners in attendance share how they use the information they learn to help grow their respective businesses. Included is a full-length interview with Eric and Christy Giroux, the owners of Prime Fitness, Gaithersburg, Maryland. These co-owners talk about how they evolved from working for others to running their own fitness business, and how they overcame obstacles along the way.