Tim Goodwin Success Diaries

Template Monster

2008-03-16T22:42:00.002+01:00

Excellent resource for you guys...

http://store.templatemonster.com/?aff=getfitlu

This is Template Monster where you can buy pre made templates for websites, blogs, ecommerce sites etc etc...

Check out my new BLOG at www.getfittoptip.com for an example of what you get. In all honesty it took me 10 minutes to get the template installed, and about an hour of fiddling around sorting all the details...

Give it a try

http://store.templatemonster.com/?aff=getfitlu

What has the last week taught me

2008-02-06T20:24:00.000+01:00

...that my body can't do everything...

I have been ill for the 2nd time in 4 weeks and I am fairly sure the latest bout was made 10 times worse by me doing too much.

So I have decided to take a step back and remind myself which elements are the most important right now. all the other projects can be picked up as and when I DO have time!

So priority number 1: Get more clients for my other trainers, which means refocussing on offline marketing and local promotion. this started today with a talk at a local company, which proved not very good due to only 2 people attending. Partly my fault for not giving my contact enough information on what my talk was on.

Tip: never do a talk without giving your contact a full primer on what you are covering.

Priority number 2: Develop systems and primary offerings to make our services by far the best in Luxembourg, which ties in nicely with my weekend...

Spent the weekend at Dax's KCA course, which was superb, this time round I am determined to utilise ALL that I have learnt, I'll do the study and practical elements and write up to obtain the qualification rather than just let it run like last time.

Priority number 3: Drop a Dress Size 31 day program - this is pretty much finished, just need to get it live...

Anything else will follow as and when.

BTW I will be doing the Web Tech Seminar probably later this month, I will give everyone more advanced notice this time and hold it at a more appropriate time too.

domain mad

2008-01-30T11:28:00.000+01:00

I went mad on Saturday night....

I was out doing some Snowboarding at the local snow Hall and on the way home I had a monster idea. Basically been wondering how to best follow up on the Corporate Athlete Conditioning Handbook, so now going to put together a load of Sporting specific 12 week programs based on the principles of the Corporate Athlete....

For example the first one will be golfersworkouts.com a 12 week conditioning program for corporate athlete golfers, I also have on the list, snowboardingworkouts.com, mtbworkouts.com etc etc...

In total i ordered over 20 new domain names.

Since then I have sourced a developer who will design the basic site template and graphics for 200USD via ScriptLance and started to pull together a program, articles, sales copy, aweber autoresponder etc.

Still got my Drop A Dress Size product to finish this week, the facebook group has been really successful idea, and I am looking to utilise this medium again to get leads for other projects.

I didn't get the response for the web tech seminar I was looking for, some feedback showed that maybe too short notice and not ideal timings for the seminars... Gonna rethink and retry later on... Still think there is mileage there!

Too much going on as I am training interns once again this week and going to Dax's KCA course too.

An Obvious Truth

2008-01-27T16:45:00.000+01:00

In a world of Internet Marketing where it seems that the latest gadget, widget, technology, trick and scam seems to hug the limelight.

This report cuts through the crap and goes back to the basic principles of marketing that just work. It's not complex, its not hyped up BS, it is just honest facts that we seem to ignore when it comes to marketing online.

I read this report and immediately changed my plans for marketing the Corporate Athlete... The obvious stuff we ignore is the stuff that REALLY does matter.

Armand Morin - Internet Marketing Explained

2008-01-27T16:37:00.000+01:00

Yep I took the plunge and decided to buy Internet Marketing Explained by Armand Morin, the stuff cover in his recent teleseminars has been just incredible.

Check out the video from his site... I'll post a link to his report too which also gave me lots of great information about web copy, affiliates etc... all useful for the corporate athlete project and other projects I am embarking on.

New Affiliate article for Corporate Athlete Handbook

2008-01-03T17:32:00.000+01:00

Hi guys

Just finished a new affiliate article that you can use on your sites and in your emails for the Corporate Athlete Handbook Physical Fitness for the Corporate Athlete

The article is called Jogging makes you slow, and is based on the methods of training we commonly adopt for a sport without thinking about how it can help or hinder our progress.

Take a look...

If you want to use it please include the following bio, and incorporate your affiliate link if you wish to promote the product:

Tim Goodwin is a fitness professional specializing in help the busiest people achieve more with their amateur sporting interests, and at the same time ridding them of excess body fat. If you are looking to develop your Physical Fitness as a Corporate Athlete visit the link to get a free 18 page report "How to lose weight even when you are really busy" containing a full 4 week program which you can start today!

Facebook challenge

2007-12-25T21:33:00.000+01:00

Not sure if many of you guys are on Facebook, it is a spectacular waste of time!!

However, my wife sowed the seeds of an idea of how to use Facebook to establish my name more.

The social networking nature of the site has facilities to set up groups where you invite your friends to join, they then tell their friends about it, then they tell even more and so on... quite viral!

One such group called the 6 degrees of Separation experiment recently notched up over 3 million members in just over 24 days!!!

Yes I did say 3 million!!!

The things is this particular group seems to achieve absolutely nothing!!! sweet FA

So armed with this knowledge I have set up my own group. GetFit.lu Drop a Dress Size in Jan '08

Basically I am going to provide a daily tips and exercises and nutritional advice to help people drop a dress size in the month of January.

I set this group up just over a week ago and the number of members has grown to over 80...

Hmmm... not exactly 3 million but hey its a start :)

Well the group is open until 1st JAN and then I am closing it to new members...

I'll keep you posted on the progress of the "experiment"

Hope you are having a nice xmas

Tools of the trade

2007-12-14T12:03:00.000+01:00

So with my Corporate Athlete website up and running now, I thought I'd let you know a little bit about the process of managing a website.

A lot of Content Management Systems (CMS) I have come across are sh1te, putting it bluntly!

I have preferred in the past to manage the content myself using basic html editing and a few tools are essential to enable this.

1. An FTP(file transfer protocol) program, this gives you the ability to upload and download your web pages to and from the server where the site is held
2. A Text editor (normally notepad is enough)

These two are essential tools the following are the not so essential:

3. GUI editor, such as Dreamweaver or FrontPage, both quite complex to use, but very useful if you are setting about creating your own website from scratch. My preferred is Dreamweaver, because of the "clean" code that it creates.
4. Image Editor, such as CorelCraw or Photoshop, you'll be able to manipulate photos and design logos and headings etc. Both quite complex to use but worth the investment in time to learn if you are developing your own sites..
5. Internet Explorer and Firefox installed on your PC. Currently IE is the most used browser, but Firefox is gaining consumer appeal! You need to be able to test on both Browsers to make sure your site displays on both.
6. PDF writer, CutePDF is free, adobe do a writer too but it is expensive
7. Video Editing tool, most software which comes with your video camera is limited and generally awkward to use. I use Ulead Video Studio, cheap and very flexible!

If I get 5 minutes i'll let you know how and where you get an FTP program sorted...

Corporate Athlete website

2007-12-04T10:33:00.000+01:00

For the first time in my life an IT developer has impressed me, and boy have I seen a few in my life!

The web developer I am using for the Corporate Athlete Handbook website sent me a FIRST draft of the website he is working on. And for a FIRST draft I had absolutely no negative feedback for it. In pretty much every aspect he had covered my specification exactly as I had envisaged. It looks clean, uncluttered, professional. Even the logo was spot on too!

Once this project is done, I will be getting them on to my next project very soon!

Well impressed! If you haven't checked out scriptlance yet, go through the link at the top right of the screen.

Scheduling work

2007-12-04T10:19:00.000+01:00

After a few manic weeks with my other trainer away, things have calmed down a little.

Time to trim down my appointment calendar. The last few days I have been working through my clients that I normally take in the evening and started to prepare to move them to Jess instead. The overall aim is to only take clients in the mornings, Monday thru to Thursday 07:00 to 14:00

All afternoons, evenings as well as my current fridays and weekends will be free!

What does this allow me to do. By segmenting my day like this, I can clearly set time to do more specific tasks, so mornings for appointments, afternoons for my own workouts then working on my business and other projects, then the evening is free to spend with my wife and/or shooting, snowboarding etc etc. something that is sadly lacking in my current calendar.

With the Corporate Athlete project getting close to live, despite the busiest period I have had with appointments, I know that future projects will come easier.

I spoke with Ben the other day and we talked about scheduling and planning your week, I passed him the Weekly Planner from the 7 habits book, which has helped me enourmously over the last 12 months and has become a very powerful tool for my other trainer too.

If you have not got a copy of this book or the planner, get it now!

Make more money, be an affiliate!

2007-11-30T17:42:00.000+01:00

So with the production of my Corporate Athlete product drawing to completion, my attention has moved to getting it into the hands of as many people as possible... Whilst my own promotion, article writing, adwords campaigns etc etc are gonna be useful, the power of leveraging other peoples lists will be the key to me getting many many more customers...

So here is the deal... whilst the product is not quite ready for release, I am looking for affiliates to start promoting the product!

Err what's an affiliate? Well it is way for you guys to benefit from my product. By registering as an affiliate for my product you'll be able to promote my product to your list, and if someone buys the product through your promotional efforts you'll make a percentage of the sale... Cold hard cash(well a check in the post actually).

I'll be using ClickBank for the backbone for the sale of the product, and they handle all the affiliate systems. So all you do is sign up on clickbank, get your link for my product with your ID embedded in it, then promote the product on your website, or to your email lists.

So if you are interested in promoting the product and making some cash, just let me know and I'll send you more details when I am ready for you to get your links!

Nothing quite like a deadline

2007-11-30T15:38:00.001+01:00

OK, putting some pressure on myself to get the Corporate Athlete website done and dusted ASAP.

I have put up a header page at www.corporateathletehandbook.com

I don't want to give away my hard work but, at the same time I know how much I need to get the project finished and ready to go BEFORE the 12 days of fitness promo starts!

New Trainer

2007-11-30T00:11:00.000+01:00

Now I have done it...

committed to getting a new trainer, or maybe two!

I set a date for my first Internship Program for the week before christmas... and sent out an email to all the trainers that have contacted me over the last 12 months.

Now I really have to get my skates on and write the training program.

Really have to do it as I'll be buried (literally) by January!

I think the thing that pushed me over the edge was a Jim Labadie email I read the other day about afformations... Act as if you already have....

How is it that I now have a successful personal training business with lots of trainers working for me
How is it that I now have a successful e-book selling 100's if not 1000's of copies each month.
How is it that I now have a life that is exactly within my excellence, allowing me to give more to my clients than they expected, in return I give something to myself...

talking of which, I sent one of my star clients a gift this week. She has just finished her first 3 month program with me. She has lost a bucket load of weight, about 2 1/2 dress sizes, completed her goal of running a 5km run without walking! (something her friends thought she would never achieve!), plus now she has renewed her passion for rock climbing, and the next 12 weeks is focussed on getting the level of flexibility and strength required to do this well...

Anyway the gift I sent her was from a company called GiftsOfCourse.com they do Europe wide delivery of fruit baskets, with various other treats in there too, not cheap, but a great gift for the perfect star client

How quick!!

2007-11-28T16:44:00.001+01:00

My developer for my Corporate Athlete website started work on my project today. So from project posted on ScriptLance to project started is about 10 days, and most of the delay has been from me!!!

The power of outsourcing strikes again!

Airports

2007-11-26T20:59:00.000+01:00

Airports are strange places, I don't particularly like them, but with a 4 hour stop off at Gatwick yesterday I did manage to get pretty much all the copy and content written for my CorporateAthlete website! result!

I have another fairly frantic week this week too many clients again, plus got two more prospects coming to see me this week! where are they all coming from. Pretty much all of the new clients will go to Jess, Two of the prospects I have met in the last week will come to me as purely one-on-one clients paying me my premium rate, I have also made sure they are only morning clients, as the aim is to now just take clients for the morning and slowly shift my evening clients to Jessica.

Putting the final touches to my 12 days product now. Web page and autoresponder still left to do...

Purple Cow's:
If you have not read the book of the same name by Seth Godin get it... very important book if you want to stand out from the crowd of me-to fitness professionals in your area...

knackered

2007-11-23T23:35:00.000+01:00

Been on a different planet the last few days, with Jess away on holiday, and get this 8 new prospects coming my way in just 7 days, I am feeling a little overwhelmed. Hence my absence from the calls and mastermind this week (sorry guys, felt quite ill this afternoon)

Anyway, managed to pretty much finish my 12 days of fitness gift. Autoresponder and opt in box will be done tomorrow. Along with writing the copy for my new Corporate Athlete website, developer found and ready to go... Plus i have a wedding to go to tomorrow, sorry the pad and paper will be in my pocket for the boring bits of the proceedings...

Feel I have missed something this week. I have fallen out of kilter from my excellence but at least I recognise it. will be back on the ball come a weeks time... with Jess back and me getting the Tim Goodwin PT internship program prepared for the week before xmas.

Roll on 2008 and some new trainers and a new product selling like hot cakes!

Is local publicity worth it.

2007-11-20T14:50:00.000+01:00

Urmmmm yes...

you may recall about 2 weeks back I mentioned I got a full double spread in the local English langauage weekly magazine here in Luxembourg. So far that has netted about 8 new prospects that I am meeting over the next week...

The article was not so great, and they didn't put my bio in there but at least I got my web link in there! But it doesn't seem to matter, the big picture of me on the page certainly makes me more human :o) no giggling at the back! rather than being a faceless trainer, hiding behind my website...

Need to set up my "something to invite people too" for next month, or early Jan....

Oh yes and get some more trainers so I don't actually have to train all these new folk myself! Anyone want a job in Luxembourg?

Later

Tim

PS. I have confirmed my developer for my Corporate Athlete handbook website! Got half the autoresponder finished. Just need to shoot some short videos, and finish my 12 days of xmas promo...

Sunday's progress

2007-11-18T19:33:00.000+01:00

A good day today, managed to really get on with the 12 days of fitness gift, over half of it written already.

About to confirm my developer on ScriptLance for the "Corporate Athlete Handbook" website. Probably going to use ClickBank as the payment processing agent and not 1shoppingcart. It gives me access to lots of affiliates and I think it is the right environment for the type of product it is.

Bit of an odd week ahead of me, I have only 3 and half days available as I have a wedding in Edinburgh next weekend. With my other trainer on holiday this next few weeks, I have loads of appointments to do, plus at least 4 new clients to meet, and probably another 2 as well.

Seems my recent promo in the press has resulted in some good leads.

We'll see how much I can get done, on the 12 days, and more for the corporate athlete project.

Today's progress

2007-11-17T18:28:00.001+01:00

Managed to get lots done today with the "Corporate Athlete" stuff.

I think I have already found my man for the website.

I re-shot all the pictures for the main document on Friday, and edited and inserted them on to the document this morning.

Added in a longer section specifying the "Corporate Athlete" and the problems that they face.

Set up an aweber account and wrote 4 of the auto-responder messages for the product, only 24 to go :o)

Tomorrow's job is to write the 12 days product based on the "Corporate Athlete"

Sunday is fun day, plus I think Snow is on the way :o(

Later...

ScriptLance project part 2

2007-11-17T16:11:00.001+01:00

So last night I said I would post the project on ScriptLance.com for my website for the "Corporate Athlete Conditioning Handbook"

So far I have had 14 different bids averaging at 478USD (although one of the bids was for 1500USD which is taking the piss!)

With ScriptLance you can view the profile of the developers who bid on your project, the feedback they have had on previous projects they have done, plus they normally post a page where you can view their portfolio of work.

The project stays active for 14 days, but you can freeze the bidding as soon as your decide on a developer.

Depending on how you present your project, you can list it for free, ScriptLance take a commission from the winning developer of 5%.

Article Help - Feedback

2007-11-17T16:08:00.000+01:00

Obviously mark gave his consent for me to post the feedback on his article so here is the email I sent him in reply, I hope this is useful feedback:

Hi Mark

actually not too bad an article... You obviously know your stuff which is great... A couple of pointers:

No need to baffle your readers with science, your readers eyes will gloss over... remove/change/or explain some of the more technical terms you use.. for example "hormone-sensitive lipase" all very interesting but simplify the explanation into real terms

Stick to one topic, talk about just nutrition stuff, try not to complicate with training info too, that can be dealt with in another article...

Remove the references to your LEAN system, the article should not be trying to sell your system. Tell them the principles of choosing good carbs without saying it is part of the LEAN system.

Your story about Alan is strong, again use it but avoid references of what you actually do, better to imply the use of the principles you mention above.

The closing part of the article would be better to conclude what you have already stated, without saying "look how great we are" :o)

The place for mentioning your LEAN system and training principles is in brief in your bio. for example...

Mark Lawrence helps overweight clients achieve substantial fat loss results utilising his LEAN system for nutrition and XYZ training protocol. He runs his own Personal Training Business in Greenwich, London along with his partner and women’s fitness expert Judit Rago. To find out more and to download a free report on The Truth About Weight-loss go to www.lawrenceandrago.co

I presume you used Dax's article writing template, the easier way of writing the articles I have found is do a quick brainstorm before you start writing using the template...

Problem: Confusion over carbs what is good what is bad
Scope: To many so called experts, to much information, and deeper understanding of the technicalities is difficult for the layman to grasp
Cost: Lots of obese folk, poor advice and knowledge means poor choices
Solution: Educate basics of what caarbs are good
Your Solution: Simple examples of what is good carbs and how to use in daily life
Stories: Alan, 55, 3kg fat loss, winning competition
Wrap Up: Reiterate all the above, agree there is lots of confusion, but it doesn't need to be, simple

Once you have written the above brainstorm simply flesh out the meat of the article. I have found this to be really the most effective wya of getting an article written. After the first few are done, it does get easier...

Apols for the slightly longer reply than expected, but hopefully this has given you the advice you need.

Tim

Article help

2007-11-17T16:04:00.000+01:00

Yesterday evening Mark asked me to review an article he had written and give him some feedback. Upon review the article was good, but I thought some changes would be useful.

The feedback I gave him might be useful for everyone else on the mentor group so here goes with the article first:

Is Your Refined Diet Making You Fat?

With obesity rates in Britain soaring and nearly a quarter of adults now classed as clinically obese, nutritional awareness has never been so important.

There is lots of confusion when it comes to carbohydrates and diet.

Different experts, books and TV programmes recommend; low carb, high carb, no carb, complex carbs, good carbs, net carbs……. and the list goes on.

Carbohydrates are one of the most difficult food types to fully understand because so many foods- some very good for you, and some not - fall under the same umbrella. They include fruits, vegetables, grains, a can of fizzy drink, a donut, or a bowl of corn flakes, for example.

When it comes to staying lean and healthy are carbohydrates ally or enemy?

A study by the American Journal of Epidemiology on ‘How Carbohydrates & Obesity are Linked’ found it is the kind of carbohydrates you eat -not the amount - that determines your risk of obesity.

What researchers need to do is start differentiating between "good" and "bad" carbs. Some researchers are already doing that, but many still fail to consider the difference.

Carbohydrates can be classified in the following groups: complex, simple, starch, fibre, sugars, refined, and unrefined.

So for example:

Vegetables would be in groups; complex, fibre, and unrefined.

White pasta would be in complex, starch and refined.

Brown rice would be in complex, starch and unrefined.

Fizzy cola would be in groups simple, sugar and refined.

Confusing huh?

It is actually not that difficult to know what carbohydrates you should and shouldn’t be eating.

The best classification to go by is the two groups, “good” unrefined and “bad” refined carbohydrates.

Never before have most of us eaten so many refined carbohydrates.

A refined carbohydrate refers to foods where machinery has been used to remove the high fibre bits (the bran and the germ) from the grain. White rice, white bread, pasta and noodles made from white flour, all processed foods (cakes, biscuits etc), sugary cereals, drinks and sugar are all examples of refined carbohydrates.

What have been "refined" out of these processed carbohydrates are all the beneficial nutrients that nature originally put into them. The bran, the fibre, and most of the vitamins and minerals have been stripped away, leaving a bland, white, longer-lasting and shelf-stable product. For example white flour has only 20 percent of the vitamins and minerals and 25 percent of the fibre of the original whole wheat kernel.

You just can’t seem to get away from refined carbohydrates.

At a restaurant-

‘Bread sir/madam?’ Nearly always white and so hard to resist when you’re hungry before the meal arrives.

At a dinner party-

‘Oooh I've made a lovely (white) pasta dish AND garlic (white) bread’ you’ve been invited for dinner; it would be rude not to eat it!

At the hotel breakfast bar-

Emmm? Shall I have special K (yes special K is refined!), cheerios, coco pops or corn flakes this morning? You’ve got to eat something your meeting starts in half an hour and could last till lunch.

Even at the gym-

‘Try one of our high energy (High refined sugar!) drinks to give you a POWER workout!’ Must be good if it makes my workout powerful!

Why are refined carbohydrates so bad for you?

Consuming excess refined grain and sugar carbohydrates is one of the main reasons why so many people suffer from:

Excess weight

Fatigue and frequent sleepiness

Depression

Brain fogginess

Bloating

Dr. David Ludwig, who treats childhood obesity at Boston Children's Hospital, says that highly processed refined carbohydrates and refined sugars are causing hormonal changes that "drive hunger, cause overeating, and increase the risk of diabetes and heart disease.”

Any meal or snack high in refined carbohydrates causes a rapid rise in blood glucose. So to compensate for this your pancreas secretes the hormone insulin into your bloodstream, which lowers your blood sugar. Insulin is essentially a storage hormone that helps you store the excess calories from carbohydrates in the form of fat in case of famine.

Not exercising AND eating a diet in high in refined carbohydrates is a ticket straight to fatsville!

High insulin levels that develop as a result of not exercising and eating refined carbohydrates suppress your fat-burning hormone called hormone-sensitive lipase. This hormone is responsible for releasing fat into your bloodstream to be utilized as fuel.

Once this important hormone is inhibited, your body is unable to burn fat and will then begin using energy from your muscle and carbohydrates.

What makes it worse is this will cause you to become abnormally hungry, which further feeds this vicious cycle!

Keeping insulin levels low and achieving your ideal weight is much simpler than you think. Trouble is we are bombarded with diet and weight loss info and products that confuse the hell out of us.

By avoiding processed foods and refined carbohydrates and getting the right type of regular exercise you can keep your insulin levels low and maintain a healthy weight.

So what carbohydrates should you eat?

Think natural!

It’s the unrefined natural carbohydrates that should replace the processed, refined and sugar carbohydrates. We get all of our clients to switch to unrefined carbohydrates as part of our L.E.A.N fat loss system nutrition plan. The L.E.A.N Fat loss system is our fastest fat loss system yet and comes from over four years of experience in training clients for fat loss.

Our client’s carbohydrates come from foods such as, fresh organic fruit, vegetables and salads, organic brown rice, Quinoa, Amaranth, millet, buckwheat, oats and rye bread.

We recommended 4-6 small meals a day and include;

- A portion of natural organic protein; beans, lentils, poultry, lean meats and fish with every meal.

- Good fats in the form of nuts, seeds, olive oil, coconut oil, avocado and fresh butter.

The moods and weight of our clients improves with the diet change alone, add in our L.E.A.N Fat Loss exercise program and the results are outstanding.

We use big movement multi-joint weight training exercises and high intensity cardiovascular intervals to create a 24 hour fat burning metabolism.

Our most recent success, Alan, a 55 year old retired business man needed to lose a lot of body fat!

Over the years those business lunches, cocktail parties and long days sitting at the laptop had taken their toll.

Knowing his health was at stake he challenged his friend to a three month charity weight loss competition.

In 3 months on the L.E.A.N program Alan lost 3 stone of body fat, raised a load of money for charity and won the competition. Now that’s what I call an achievement!

At our training facility I’ m lucky enough to see results like Alan’s all the time; the commitment and dedication shown by our clients is inspirational.

You will see that by making the change to unrefined carbohydrates you will see dramatic improvements in your weight and moods.

Add in the right type of regular exercise, we recommend weight training 3x a week mixed with high intensity cardio intervals 2-4x week, and you will get AMAZING results!

Mark Lawrence is an experienced fitness professional specialising in fat loss. He runs his own Personal Training Business in Greenwich, London along with his partner and women’s fitness expert Judit Rago. To find out more and to download a free report on The Truth About Weight-loss go to www.lawrenceandrago.com

Tip for creating e-books, reports etc

2007-11-17T10:18:00.001+01:00

For the last year or so I have been using Microsoft Publisher and NOT Word to create and edit my e-reports, e-programs etc...

Why?

Well you'll find Publisher is much more friendly when it comes to arranging pictures, editing text, changing and setting styles, creating a page template that is easy to use so your pages have a consistent look etc etc... I got so fed up with Word screwing up as soon as I added a picture, or tried to move stuff around that I gave Publisher a go.

Yes there is a little bit of a learning curve with Publisher as with any piece of software, but you'll be glad you did!

New website project posted on ScriptLance

2007-11-16T23:36:00.000+01:00

Just posted a new project on ScriptLance for my new website for the new e-product I have pretty much finished, "The Corporate Athletes Conditioning Handbook"

My experience so far of ScriptLance has been good, in that another website is being built as we speak for a good friend who is a Performance Psychologist, specialising in target sports such as Archery, rifle shooting and shotgun shooting.

If you are looking for a cheap way to get your site built, then ScriptLance may very well be the option you want to go for.

As ever I'll keep you all posted.

Busy week and UMI

2007-11-16T14:26:00.000+01:00

Busy week this week... been running round like a blue arsed fly and then sleeping at times I should be working...

Anyway... On a kind of roll today, re-shot all the pictures for my new e-book "Corporate Athlete Conditioning Handbook" so those will be done this weekend... along with my 12 days of fitness gift, which will be related to the same product... all ties in nicely

UMI: Have you set you UMI yet, what is your elevator pitch... the key to this weeks sessions is about getting our UMIs down on paper, write 10 variations, start using them in all your conversations... We are no longer a Personal Trainers we are free men(and women), who do you help, why should they care... what makes you... well YOU.

Mine is

"I help really busy professionals/people achieve more with their amateur sporting interests"... this normally leads onto the NEXT questions!

"I am an ex-IT professional you was chained to my desk for hour upon hour, as such I have a unique understanding of the impact this environment can have on your body, and how the time restrictions can impact your sporting passions."

"Results are achieved by following the 5 GetFit fundamentals of training to get the very best performance, health and fitness out of every client!"

Another Day another BLOG

2007-11-11T22:59:00.001+01:00

To go with the Corporate Athlete Handbook, I have created a new BLOG for get some link association etc...

Go to http://corporateathlete.blogspot.com/

Website is being built currently, and more final touches to the product itself :o)

Speak to you guys on tuesday...

First information product done

2007-11-10T23:48:00.000+01:00

Hoorray, I have just finished writing my first information product...

After spending too much time faffing about with "busy" tasks I actually got all this in order...

After pooling the names some of the Mentor group provided me, to my clients, my wife and anyone else who would listen, the name "The Corporate Athletes Conditioning Handbook" has stuck... thanks Mr Moy :o)

So next step, am writing my copy page just now...

Next need to set up my 1 shopping cart thingy

Then set up an Ad words campaign

Then set up an affiliate program... maybe...

And also need to write an autoresponder for the people who visit the site but don't want to buy straight up.

Need to write some emails to go along with the product too

But other than that I am done...

Is there anything else I have missed?

Next thing to work on is the 12 days of Xmas gift, which will tie in nicely with this product... and others I have planned...

Article marketing works

2007-11-10T00:22:00.001+01:00

OK, I know Dax has been going on and on about this for ages, and I am a little slow on the uptake but...

ARTICLE MARKETING WORKS!!!

Lets see 3 weeks ago I didn't even appear on the first page of google, when I did a search for "Personal Trainer Luxembourg" I am now number 3, (although the top ranked page was actually built by me, but not been touched in over 18months, and I don't work for that group anymore!)

Slightly knackered today, didn't achieve much.

If I am gonna move on from where I am I need another trainer. I am maxed out and I need to step away more from the day to day stuff and get working on building instead of working my business...

However to do so means upsetting a number of clients as I pass them on to Jess (my other trainer)

Big problem right now is that Jess is away from Wednesday for 2 1/2 weeks in Mexico, so any new clients come my way instead of what would normally be Jess :o(

Idiots guide to fitness websites part 3

2007-11-07T13:03:00.000+01:00

Getting your stuff created:

Once all the content is written and ready to go its time to get down and dirty with creating the pages themselves

3 options you should know about the wise woman... eerrrr no thats something else...

3 options when it comes to creating a webpage

1. Get a developer to create the website, but not give you any access to change the content except through a "Content Management System" which they will charge the earth for and is next to useless anyway...

2. Create a webpage for yourself, great, but only if you are willing to make some (lots) of mistakes and spend a huge amount of time playing around with the layout (ie. me ;o)

3. Hire a developer from ScriptLance to do the job, at a cut rate... BUT you must ask them to give you templates and FTP access so that you have control to amend and create your own pages.

Option 3 is your best bet because you will get a quality site and you will have the ability to make changes with ease

However, to get started I have created a really simple one page website at www.leanandmean.lu

Go have a look, and then simply right click anywhere on the screen and select view source.

You'll see a whole load of code, highlight, then copy and paste the text into Notepad.

Have a quick scan through the document and see if you can understand some of how the page is created...

More on this tomorrow.

Yet another article

2007-11-06T21:43:00.000+01:00

On a bit of an article roll... another one in the bag, done and submitted to SubmitYourArticle.com

This one is about getting high on exercise... once again if you are looking for content for your site. Let me know and I'll send you a copy with the bio links at the bottom too.

Have a look at http://www.getfit.lu/articles/getting_high.html

Idiots guide to fitness websites part 2.

2007-11-05T21:15:00.000+01:00

Content:

Get this written first, know exactly what is going to appear on each page, get this written in word BEFORE you commit to coding or contact a web developer.

I am in a situation with helping a friend set up a website, they have not given me any content, I have a developer hanging on, and we have no idea what will appear where... So

Basics:
Write out exactly what will appear on each page, HEADLINES, sub heads, copy, what images etc
Front Page:
Opt-in page: we'll come to this later, but for now know you'll be creating one
Contact me page
What's your training system,
Your Guarantee
Your gatekeeper
Who, what and where.

Done that?

Tim's idiot guide to creating a simple fitness website Part 1

2007-11-04T23:09:00.000+01:00

The reason for writing this post is that many of your guys don't have sites or do have sites but don't have any control over them.

To get the most out of your website, you will need to get down and dirty with some HTML code at some point... learn the basics now and you'll save yourself time and money when it comes to needing a quick update to your site. Sites don't need to look flash and have lots of graphics, Ryan Lee, jim labadie and many of the industries top pros have proved this!

OK, before you start creating your own website, you are going to need the following:

A domain Name: this is your www.yourdomainname.com, register with godaddy.com or EuroDNS.com
A place to host your site: this is the location your webpages actually live... I can do this at 120 Euro per year on my own server if you ask nicely
An FTP program: this makes it possible to upload and download new pages to your host for them to appear on your site - Get a free one called AceFTP 3 Freeware
A text editor - Notepad on your computer is fine, if you want to be more flash, search on google for Free HTML editors
A book on HTML, pick a for dummies guide or whatever the top rated on Amazon is...
A plan - yep thats right before you commit to writing a single line of code, you want to know what the finished site will look like.

Write down what pages you need, the text and images you want to appear on these pages, don't forget your opt-in boxes for your newsletter. Then roughly sketch out a plan of how the first page will look.

Create a simple Flow diagram, of what pages will link to what

This is the basics tomorrow, I'll post something about content...

On a roll with the quotes

2007-11-04T19:03:00.000+01:00

Bite off more than you can chew, then chew it. - Ella Williams

...and another

2007-11-04T19:00:00.001+01:00

“[Luke:] I can’t believe it. [Yoda:] That is why you fail.”

The Ultimate Yoda quote

2007-11-04T18:57:00.000+01:00

Try not.

Do or do not,

there is no try.
-- Yoda

Influencing your market

2007-11-04T12:35:00.000+01:00

Remember this quote...

"Influencing a market is more like scaling a hill, you can make progress one step at a time, as you get higher, it actually gets easier. People in the market talk to each other. They are influenced by each other. So every step of progress you make gets amplified"

Seth Godin... The Dip

If you haven't got this book yet, or not got it on order, do it now!!!

2007-11-02T21:55:00.000+01:00

This is the view Tiger Woods wakes up to when he is at home in his pad... Think I'll add to my next Magic 100 :o)

Excellence Formula

2007-11-01T21:50:00.000+01:00

I have gone through the excellence workbook a couple of times now, once when I first started Dax's original program, again when he first released the Excellence Module, and about 4-5 weeks ago, when I discovered that I was getting stuck in a bit of a rut...

I can up with similar values each time I went through it and this time I have a kinda crib sheet that stays attached to my clipboard I use for my weekly schedule and various essential documents for my training programs.

I have copied and pasted my current formula below. It is something that I try to read daily, and remind myself of who and what I want to be and try to live by these values daily. I never consider it a completed document it is always a working document and it has changed over the year!

Excellence Formula

To consistently dress smart, professional casual.
Be in the peak physical condition, healthy, strong and flexible.
Staying relaxed and in control of all situations.
Being polite and speaking with honesty and integrity.
A good mix of working in and on my business without being a necessary part of the day today running of my business.
Working with clients to keep my feet on the ground and to satisfy my desire to work closely with people helping them achieve their goals.
Working with trainers to help them develop also.
Have enough time to myself, my wife, and friends.
Training regularly for my chosen sport or my own fitness.
I want others to think of me as a trustworthy person, and the person to come to for advice on health and fitness.
Constantly working on my own personal development, reading and educating myself and all things related to my business.

I am committed to making my life a shining example to others by demonstrating my excellent by

Presenting myself clean, smart and professional.
Speaking with confidence, knowledge and integrity.
Offering as much of myself to everyone I come into contact with.

The values I hold dearest

Always striving to better myself, and those that come into contact with.
Honesty, politeness, and integrity.
Working hard, but with purpose of allowing me enough time to relax away from my profession, essentially having a perfect balance of working and living.

At the end of each day I will know whether I am on or off course by

Asking myself has everyone I came into contact with, got more than they expected from me.

Have I allowed myself the time each day to do something my myself in return.

If I am off course I will

Ask myself what I can do to make up for the shortfall.

My philosophy statement

Every day, every person I come into contact will get more than they expected from me. In return I allow myself the time to do something myself.

How valuable is my time?

2007-10-30T22:16:00.000+01:00

DEMAND - In Luxembourg there are very few highly trained, highly skilled personal trainers. The majority of the "industry" in this area have little or no qualifications so the standard of training is very poor. As such the demand for high quality personalised training programs delivered by professionals that can cater for the unique demands for each individual.

ABILITY - My ability to provide this is strong, I have demonstrable results of my abilities to train people of different backgrounds with a variety of sporting interests. I have written a number of articles, appeared on the local radio station as an expert and been quoted in local publications on a variety of health and fitness topics. I am also training a new trainer to deliver the same standard of programs to widen my ability to train more people

DIFFICULTY TO REPLACE - It is becoming more difficult to replace me in my local community, as my knowledge and experience increases all the time. I not only continue to progress my own education, but also widen my reach to many parts of the local community including dealing with local sports clubs and local interest groups. There are no other trainers in Luxembourg even touching on this level of reach and deapth of knowledge.

OUTCOME - All this means I am currently able to demand an 80 Euro per hour fee for my 1-to-1 personal training which is almost the highest in the Luxmebourg. I also train many clients on a semi-private training basis, bringing in as much as 120 Euro for an hours worth of work! My other trainer also delivers training on a semi-private training basis of which I take approximately 40% of her fees too. At the moment this means I bring in approximately 4-6,000 Euro per month. With more trainers expected to keep up with the growth of my business I expect this figure to double over the next few months.

Big question no.2 What I want

2007-10-29T21:34:00.000+01:00

Once again just when I thought I could rest on my laurels from getting the hard question answered, he fires in another...

What I want: From this program: actually this really is a question of what I want from myself from this program. Because it is an action orientated program, and not sit back listen, learn, reject type course, the onus is on me to make the most of the opportunity Dax has given me to really get it right this time through.

Being a Mentor veteran, I am slightly better prepared than I was in Feb this year, I kinda know whats coming so I really know what commitment I will put into doing this... *note to self must read The Dip again* ... I expect myself to lean into each task, give it the justice that it deserves.

This program also will give me the opportunity to really knuckle down and get some of the info products finished and ready for marketing come january. I am in the final stages of my "Basic Sports Conditioning for the Office Athlete" Bad name need some ideas on that front... tis a 4 week program, aimed as a low entry point product 20ish Euro, more of these to come...

What do I want: From my business in the next 6 months. In 6 months time, the aim is to have a monthly income that is close to that of my annual income.... wwoooooo there horsey, did I just say that? Where is that gonna come from, who knows just yet, but I least I have a figure written down to focus on. So here it is 40K per month gross income from training, my other trainers, info products and other projects too. This will happen by April 2008....

To get this I will need at least another 3 full time trainers with full calendars, paying me in excess of 4K per month this equates to each trainer having at least 40 client appointments (approximately 20 hours work a week) on a semi private training basis. Selling 10K worth of info products a month, 10K from my own training clients and the remaining from other projects I have planned.

Ambitious, yes, achievable... just about I think...

How will it be all worthwhile. I will have a thriving business model, which does not necessarily need my day to day working, I can train properly for the world championships in August of next year without worrying about losing business, and I will be in a financially more secure position to search for my own premises in the 2nd half of 08' That is how I will know It has been all worthwhile...

Take two on the What Am I Worth

2007-10-29T15:26:00.000+01:00

Probably the toughest question I have had to answer. I have got limiting beliefs associated with what I think people will pay for a service. I am always looking to compare myself to others, which is just a shit way of doing it.

I did a scan of some of the other guys BLOGS (Paul I love you buddy, you always bring a ray of sunshine to our little "sect") and I am not alone on the whole battling with worthiness...

Helped on my Dax's email what I am worth becomes more than just a monetry amount. I do think it needs to be stated as an amount though. I might get to that by the end.

Having read "4 hour work week" one useful exercise was to write down and evaluate what stuff you want in terms of having, being and doing. I want an Porsche 911 GT3 in black with all the trimings :o), I want to be the most successful trainer in luxembourg with multiple trainers delivering my training principles to hundreds, if not thousands of clients , I want to be free to travel, compete and win at the sport I hold very dear to me. All this free of concerns about how much this life costs

I do my work with passion, I don't see it as a job and I am worth not busting a gut over getting clients just for the money. I am worth getting clients that pay me to make substantial changes to their lives and never feeling guilty or dishonest about charging them for it.

I compete because there is nothing else inside of me that ignites me to the same level. I get one hell of a kick out of beating the next guy. I am worth not sacrifcing my training and competition schedule for the sake of maintaining a business that would fail without me being there.

I love to travel with my wife, to places I have not seen before, to be free of time constraints, the need to be somewhere at a certain time or day or week. I am worth not having to travel budget class, to enjoy the fresh fruits this world has to offer, to never worry about the cost or implication of my travel.

So the monetry value of worth. I am worth more than I charge currently, I know this. To get to this kind of lifestyle that I feel I am worth 500,000 Euro per year is probably the starting point
. But certainly not the end point...

Does THAT answer your question Dax?

Another article

2007-10-28T22:23:00.000+01:00

Wow I am on a roll, just bashed out another article today and fired across to Dax.

The article writing BLOG post from Dax, really does make things a lot easy when it comes to writing an article...

One of the things I did for this one was before I started writing the article proper, I simply listed the different steps and breifly wrote what was going in each section, kinda like a mind map.
Problem: Why quitting alcohol, junk food, or inactivity is so tough
Scope: Huge, chocoholics, breakfast habits, regular drinkers
Cost: weight gain, regular illness, social alienation
Solution:.... ... ...

Blah Blah

This made the act of writing the article a process of fleshing out with some meat and finding some scientific justification for what I was saying.

This one is based on breaking poor habits.

Let me know if you are looking for content for your site and I'll fire it over to you.

Dax's tough question

2007-10-27T22:01:00.000+02:00

How Much I am worth?

Wrist slap or not, I obviously didn't read his email properly... so double wrist slap for Tim..

Urm... well... dunno really... lets do some math

If I add up all the books I have read this year, training and seminars ,etc etc... multiply by my age, divide by the factor of how many people I train each week.. add the number I first thought of and hey presto I still haven't got a clue????

OK, seriously now. I came into this industry 3 years ago and the plan was in the first year to match my old job's salary of about 30K EUR per year within one year... Well i kind of did but didn't cos I was doing some web development gigs, working for my fathers business etc etc... and my training income didn't even stretch to 15% of the total... pitiful

The 2nd year was better, but not by much

This year has been a blinder, broke away from the shackles of my fathers business, took myself way out of my comfort zone, found a mentor to kick my ass and I am well on the way to a 45K+ income for this year... :o)

But really that is not what I am worth. I have a head, some people say I have personality, charm sofistication, spelling, grammer, good looks yada yada yada....

This year has been good, next year will be at least 5 times this year. With more trainers, info products, and JVs with all and sundry. Next year will be 1/4 million Eur year. Am I worth it? Why should I be worth it? I believe that the stuff I write is good, I am working to get rid of a few demons in relation to limiting beliefs. To be honest I have not really touched the surface of the stuff Dax has taught me since Feb this year, I know the 6 months will be one hell of a ride.

Does that answer your question Dax?

Day 2, just written a new article

2007-10-26T15:16:00.000+02:00

Hey guys

Just wrote an article over lunch, tis with Dax now, to see if it is really worth sending to 20,000 email addresses...

Sent it to Morty and he thinks its cool, so that is all that matters

If you have not read his BLOG post relating to writing articles go here, bit like an A-Z of article writing.

Anyway, if you are looking for some content for your website, drop me a note and I'll throw the article your way.

The scary bit...

2007-10-26T08:51:00.000+02:00

Yep, this one is a scary one... 2 days ago Dax told me my guarantee was not strong enough

I have a 12 week program, the guarantee was to drop a dress size in that time or you get your money back...

I knew it was weak, I knew it wasn't strong enough.

I was scared that Dax would tell me to mirror his 21 days or DOUBLE your money back (man this guy has some balls!).

Thankfully a little bargaining and realism saw me plunge for a 60 day money back guarantee.

Still a marked upping of my game.

So yesterday evening I sent out this newsletter to my subscriber list, I will be contacting my press contacts today to get a press release into the local media.

Keep you all posted of how this brings in some new clients...

Tim

My latest domain

2007-10-25T21:44:00.000+02:00

Oh my god I have sooooo many domains it is stupid....

Some link to pages, some not, just got them cos they sounded cool, and are stored away for the future when I might use them...

The latest from today....

www.timgoodwin.eu

The others are...

www.getfit.lu
www.getfitatthegym.com
www.getfitresources.com
www.bootcamp.lu
www.massage.lu
www.leanandmean.lu
www.dropadresssize.lu
www.thebodyofyourlife.com

Plus some non fitness related ones too...

www.archerytoolbox.com

Success is on the top shelf...

2007-10-25T17:56:00.000+02:00

... you reach it by standing on top of all the books you read!

I suppose my first blog posting should be about the top 5 books I have read this year, that have made the biggest impact on my business and my ongoing advancement during my time being mentored by Dax on the Personal Trainer Success Academy.

Actually in no particular order...

7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen Covey (for putting my life in perspective)
Magic 100 - Dax Moy (It really is the big daddy of goal acheivement books!)
Simpleology - Mark Joyner (Love the book, love the desktop software more!, idoiots guide to getting much much more done!)
The E-myth - Michael E Gerber (Systems, working on your business, not in it!)
The Success Principles - Jack Canfield (Just success.)