Do you teach at a Big Box and a Boutique Studio?
By “Big Box” I'm referring to one of the majors with multiple locations; 24 Hour, LA Fitness, Club Sports, Equinox, etc..
If so I'd like to talk to you and (if it makes sense) interview you for the Podcast…
After sorting through over 300 responses (thanks to you all!) I followed up with some additional detail about the topics I was hoping to explore:
What I'm trying to learn from you is:
Is teaching at a Big Box different from a small studio?
If so, how are you or your classes different?
Are you a “different” person/Instructor at each location?
Do you enjoy teaching at one vs. the other
Do you feel limited and/or empowered at one vs. the other?
Are you more motivated to promote and build your class numbers at one over the other?
What quick advice would your offer a new instructor on-boarding at either?
​Your thoughts?
What I got back from a number of Instructors was amazing and exactly the type of thoughtful responses I was looking for. ICI/PRO is a platform for smart talented people and it looks like I've discovered a few more 🙂 I'm in the process of setting up these interviews and plan to produce them starting next week!
One question I'm seeing I could have asked differently (and will during the interviews) is; do you feel you need to project a different personality at each location? Instead of; are you a “different” person at each location. Of course you're the same person… it's just that over the years I've experienced Instructors who appear to be very different, depending on where I take their class.
If you promise me that you won't get a big head, I'd like you to go look in the mirror and repeat after me;
“I'm a celebrity and it's about time that I started acting like one.”
Now I'm not suggesting that you should start arriving for your next class in a chauffeur driven limousine, nor am I recommending that you follow these seven steps to becoming a celebrity. But I am suggesting that you consider acting in a way that will cause others to be interested in you… which is really no different than the people you are interested in and some of our attraction to other celebrities.
The dictionary lists ce·leb·ri·ty [suh-leb-ri-tee] as a noun meaning 1. a famous or well-known person. If you've been teaching for a while, I'm going to guess that within your little world, you are well known = you are a celebrity 🙂
So if the though of you as a celebrity is intriguing, here are a few things you can work on…
Develop your Shtick
Fernando's lines; “You look marvelous my darling… you really do!” and “It is better to look good than to feel good” launched the career of Billy Crystal back in the 80's. Your shtick may not be as corny as Crystal's, but what made these lines so memorable were how Billy delivered them with an accent that many of us have tried to imitate. A very popular Instructor I know starts every class with “GOOD MORNING MINNETONKA” with a delivery fit for the opening of a World Wrestling Match or Boxing title fight. People in her class look forward to it in every class and would feel something was missing if she didn't do it.
Consistency is key to both your Shtick. What you say and how you say it should be unique and your delivery should be as consistent as possible.
Dress the part
What's the first thing you think of when I say the names of these famous singers; “Lady Gaga?” (her wild clothes) “Bono” – lead singer with U2 (his sunglasses) Brett Michaels (bandanna head wrap) “Dolly Parton” (her… wigs) you get the point.
Consider a Theme Song
Where would Gilligan's Island be today without … five passengers set sail that day for a three hour tour, a three hour tour. Admit it, you could hear the song as your read the words 🙂
What would be wrong with having a consistent song for your class intro [wlm_firstname]? A song that your students begin to associate with your class?
Gyms are experiencing a surge in the popularity of group fitness classes, and as they move out StairMasters to make way for aerobics studios, they're finding that the linchpin of a successful class is a charismatic instructor. Often former dancers or musical theater dropouts, instructors motivate students, mostly women though some men too, to pack themselves like sardines into a studio and to come back, again and again.
A demi-class of female friendship is developing: the fitness instructor and the student. “My friends and I always gush about the instructors we have a girl-crushes on,” says Katie Lee, a writer and TV personality in Water Mill, N.Y., who takes spinning classes about four times a week.
Instructors market themselves on the Web by teaching free classes on Google+ Hangouts. They attract followers by posting videos on YouTube and offer daily affirmations to sometimes tens of thousands of Facebook subscribers.
How likely is it that you would recommend this Club/Studio/Class/Instructor to a friend or colleague?
As a Life Time Fitness Instructor/employee I hear about our NPS scores frequently… and if you don't understand what NPS refers to and the effect it could have on their business or your class, you may be thinking; “so what?”
Well the short answer is your NPS score is an indication of how likely your students will be to promote the club where you teach or your class to their friends.
Let's start with some understanding from the people who developed this concept:
What is Net Promoter?
Net Promoter® is both a loyalty metric and a discipline for using customer feedback to fuel profitable growth in your business. Developed by Satmetrix, Bain & Company, and Fred Reichheld, the concept was first popularized through Reichheld's book The Ultimate Question, and has since been embraced by leading companies worldwide as the standard for measuring and improving customer loyalty.
The Net Promoter Score, or NPS®, is a straightforward metric that holds companies and employees accountable for how they treat customers. It has gained popularity thanks to its simplicity and its linkage to profitable growth. Employees at all levels of the organization understand it, opening the door to customer- centric change and improved performance.
As you can see in the image above, NPS is based on a 0-10 rating score in response to the question; How likely is it that you would recommend to a friend or colleague? The responses are then broken down into three categories:
0-6 Detractors – Unhappy people who will talk down your class or club – damaging your brand through negative word of mouth.
7-8 Passives – Satisfied, but won't go out of their way to promote your class to others.
9-10 Promoters – these are your fans 🙂 The students you look forward to seeing and they in turn look forward to telling others about the awesome class you just taught. In a nut shell, these are the people who will help FILL YOUR CLASS!
To calculate the NPS you subtract the number of Detractors from Promoters, which leaves you with either a positive number (good), zero, or a negative number (bad). So if you have 100 people respond to a survey of the ultimate question if you have more Promoters than Detractors you can expect to see your class size grow.
NPS ignores the Passives as they really don't hurt or help your business. I see the real improvements coming from moving the Detractors up the scale.
I have a few personal complaints and/or concerns with NPS:
The score tends to be skewed by the number of respondents and getting busy people to respond is tough… which is why your manager is forever asking you to ask your participants to complete a survey.
I'm personally more inclined to give negative feedback, actually… I'm guessing we all are.
You may have very little influence on your clubs NPS. If your bike maintenance is lacking, one of the two projectors isn't working or the locker room has a funny smell that causes a member to score your club as a Detractor, there isn't much you can do. This could be a good reason to drill down and solicit NPS for specific areas/departments.
So beyond Life Time, who else uses NPS to measure how successfully they are satisfying their customers? Apple for one. The link is to an article that dispels the myth that Steve Jobs never listened to his customers – Apple listens every day.
In Podcast # 196 Studio Owner Emmy Ragali explains why she has an Instructor Evaluation form on her Go Cycle website. The link to it is easy to find and she and her instructors encourage participants to give feedback regularly. I see that one of the questions is; Are you likely to recommend this instructor's class to a friend?
Which is really all that matters 🙂
Does your studio use NPS [wlm_firstname]? What have been your experiences?
I'll be discussing how we all can help to improve our clubs NPS scores in later articles.
The computer industry has an acronym: G.I.G.O which stands for:
GARBAGE IN = GARBAGE OUT
It refers to the idea that if your input data/information is inaccurate (GARBAGE IN), then any computations, using that inaccurate data/information can't be anything other than GARBAGE OUT.
Over the years I've come to believe that you should carefully consider G.I.G.O as it could apply to the Heart Rate & Power training you offer in your classes.
Spinning® Master Instructor Danielle Foster alerted me to this article: Three Reasons To Rethink Heart-Rate Training from running.competitor.com. While they don't identify G.I.G.O by name as the cause of their concerns, a quick read through their list shows, and I'm confident you'll agree, that's the case…
1. Fluctuations Do Not Correspond To Effort Levels
Perhaps the biggest limitation to heart-rate training is that many changes in your heart rate do not correlate to your fitness level. Sleep, stress, and dehydration can all raise or lower heart rate on any given day. As normal people with jobs, families, and otherwise busy lives, these outside influencers are common and can have a drastic affect on your heart rate readings.
“Sleep, stress, and dehydration can all raise or lower heart rate on any given day.” I don't know about you, but if I don't get enough sleep I can feel like >>> GARBAGE. So anything my HR Monitor or Power Meter shows me will be potentially inaccurate. Same goes for; stress, hydration levels, illness, training frequency / amount and also if you're in the doghouse… because you forgot your wedding anniversary.
2. Lack Of Concrete Data Needed To Establish Training Zones
Another inherent drawback to heart-rate training is how difficult it is to establish your max heart rate and the accurate training zones that result from that figure. While a quick Google search reveals a myriad of formulas to help you find your max heart rate, the problem with formulas is that they are based on an average. What if you’re not average? Not only that, but is maximum heart rate really the best predictor of training zones?
Sally Edwards says using shoe size would be as accurate a predictor of maximum heart rate as any age predicted formulas. So what should you use to determine your training zones? If you're really serious, I'd take a graded exercise metabolic assessment. Yes they're expensive and you might have to travel a ways to find a provider.
What about a the 20 minute threshold field tests other's promote? They may work for the true endurance athletes in your classes. It's only after hours and hours of training that most have the fitness, and have learned to tolerate (and enjoy) the pain, that is working at threshold continuously for 20 minutes. Without either, your riders are probably not really finding their actual threshold HR or watts = G.I.G.O. Any zones they build from GARBAGE will be… GARBAGE.
Were always adding new members, so in case you missed (or haven't found) my series of posts from 2011. They describe why I don't feel long threshold field tests get the results we intend.
I missed IDEA this year but our Man on the Street Chuck Cali was there. In this video Chuck interviews a number of Instructors who took part in the demonstration classes of MyRide+ from Team ICG.
This goes to my earlier post about the potential of constructing a studio in a way that will really engage your students, with minimal distractions.
The debate over cardio vs. high-intensity interval training (HIIT) usually assumes that the issue is an either/or choice. In that debate, HIIT is usually compared to absurdly low levels of cardio exercise — not to the kinds of classes ICI-PRO instructors probably teach.
This post explores the evolutionary value of combining cardio and HIIT.
In his book Born To Run, Christopher McDougall reveals the blend of morphology, paleontology, anthropology, physics, and math that led to understanding how humans became the greatest distance runners in the animal kingdom.
There’s no way this short article could do justice to McDougall’s fascinating and detailed description of the emergence of homo sapiens over Neanderthals (they were parallel species), and the evolution of humans as supreme hunters — hundreds of thousands of years before the creation of the tools we associate with hunting (spearheads, bows and arrows).
A few of the evolutionary changes include:
– upright posture to allow deeper breathing and limit retention of sun heat
– the ability to release body heat through sweat, rather than panting like other mammals until they must rest or die of hyperthermia
– the ability to accelerate when the pursued animal has been run to exhaustion.
So human “persistence hunting” combined endurance running primarily, with some sprints. Humans evolved to run in conditions that no other animals can match, and it’s easier for us.
Good At Endurance, and For a Long Time
Endurance athletes can typically continue into what would be considered old age in other sports. In many cases, such as distance running, they can still out-perform teenagers or 20-year-olds until their mid-60s.
At his first double-marathon, the most notable thing my then-35-year-old coach, Jim Karanas, saw was the age of most of the runners, who were 45 to 55. He said it told him immediately that the ultra-run was more of a mental than a physical challenge.
When workouts are always high-intensity, over-training is likely. So are failure to recover fully and a high incidence of injury.
It’s also likely that someone will burn out after constant high-intensity work, making it feel like drudgery, instead of something to look forward to each day. Why not work out in a way that you’d enjoy making part of your schedule long-term? Why not create classes like that to bring your participants back over and over again?
Matt Fitzgerald, noted marathon runner and author, suggests endurance training primarily with 2 to 3 high-intensity trainings per week.
McDougall quotes researcher Dr. Dennis Bramble, who said, “If you don’t think you were born to run, you’re not only denying history. You’re denying who you are.”
But let’s not limit this to running. Endurance athletes of other types display similar results. Countless stories describe master’s cyclists in their 50s and up outperforming younger cyclists.
In his 50s, my coach raced against the cyclists in the 30-year-old category — because he found he could perform better against them than against the experienced racers his own age! Those guys kicked his butt when he was first starting to race.
He was also one of the few (and the oldest that weekend) to ride the notorious Furnace Creek 508 fast enough to qualify for RAAM.
So the choice isn’t really between short, intense intervals and long, slow cardio with a magazine. The right kind of training is not either/or, but both.
(The cardio, of course, should be hard enough to cause a training effect, not help you catch up on your reading.)
This perfect combination is effective, enjoyable, sustainable over the long haul, and entirely in sync with our evolutionary nature.
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