Creating Chaos - For Fitness & Sport Professionals

Now that kettlebells are well launched in the fitness industry, it's incredible as someone extremely passionate about them to see so many people using them and enjoying the great benefits. However, it is our jobs as coaches to help people use them safely and not just enjoy them but respect them.

10 years ago, blank faces would appear at the mention of kettlebells but nowadays, most have heard if not actually experienced them.

This is great news as a coach as you don't have to continually explain from scratch the entire concept. However, it does mean that the influences are now much more diverse and vast and invariably fuelled commercially.

The danger being that there are good influences and examples out there but equally, there are bad influences and examples. Due to the nature of kettlebells, this can be particularly dangerous.

The question is, how do you ensure that you remain a good influence on your clients?

Well, here are some top tips to keep you in the good books:

1. Whilst your clients are learning or if they haven't used them in a while, muscle test! Specifically look at the glutes in hip extension. If the glutes aren't firing then use PNF or glute focussedpatterns to activate. Using kettlebells with inactive glutes is asking for injury.

2. Get clients to breathe abdominally. If clients aren't setting or bracing whilst using bells, then again, the risk of injury is higher. Breathing is the most fundamental function of living and breathing abdominally is natural to us, it primes the inner core, protects spine and sets hip alignment. The problem is that for most of us, we learn how to breathe higher in the lungs as we become adults.

3. Make sure your technique is spot on by regular practise and a commitment to learn and develop. Kettlebells is an art form as well as an excellent conditioning tool. Regularly using them will ensure you keep your teaching points fresh and current whilst carrying that all important enthusiasm. Be selective over who you follow the example of.

If you'd like to find out more about becoming an instructor or an advanced instructor visit www.teamchaosuk.com


- Posted whilst adventurising using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Leeds, UK

It's a competitive market, more and more trainers are coming on the scene and the demand to be better than the rest continues to grow. Would having a few more clients make your life easier?

Well, you have a number of options:

• Advertise in local media
• Leaflets, posters and hard copy print work
• Blog posting
• Newsletters
• Social media (facebook - twitter)
• Existing clients
• The list goes on

Well, looking at the list, which ones are realistic for you? They're not all super expensive but it's worth pointing out that even the free ones cost in time and be aware of how much time is required to make them effective. How much time can you commit to regular input? How much time do you want to commit to it?

Coming from someone who has spent thousands on local media with very little results, I have no harm in saying that making huge mistakes has led us to understand which avenues are most appropriate for us.

With advertising, I would say that to get a worthy return, you need to really invest into numerous types at the same time with an effective marketing strategy. Each string needs to be clear with a call to action and always test your adverts before going live with them.

As a small company, sole trader or technician, the most realistic option to be effective is getting the biggest fans of you to do the advertising for you. Adverts aren't living and breathing. Unless you can afford TV adverts nationally, then get your customers to bring your message to life to new people. Being creative, inventive and having the confidence of your own conviction, offer your existing clients reward or incentive to refer new people to you.

It is human nature to want to help people. Clients love feeling like they had a part to play in supporting and assisting you. As long as you are making sure they feel valued, thanked and are recieving the personal appreciation for their support, they'll stick with you.

Putting a referral system in place mid way through a client relationship can be a little tricky. From the moment you meet a client, the relationship parameters and expectations are being built, every communication in face, email or by phone adds to this and therefore presenting a referral system way into an existing relationship can be a little clumsy. Presenting this at the very start is the best way to clarify expectations. Why not have it as part of your consultation, screening forms or even t & c's.

If you'd like ideas on what the most effective incentives for referrals are, drop me a line phill@creatingchaos.co.uk

In business, we talk about marketing, advertising, promotion and trying to communicate with prospective clients / customers to our business. This is an absolute must in business - if you're not growing then you're shrinking! That's just the way it goes.

However, something that I've learnt the hard way is that actually, the vast majority of income comes from existing customers. Therefore, why is it that most of our time and energy goes towards trying to entice new customers into becoming loyal champions. Well, probably a combination of things can lead to this mentality. Getting new business is a complete buzz, it is in my opinion one of the most exciting aspects of business. When we're desparate in business, it is often easy to see new customers as the only hope to help solving dismal situations. The reality is though that all the while, existing customers are there and often forgotten about. What would you do if someone you purchased from didn't seem to care and only delivered the minimum. I know what I would do and it wouldn't include putting my hand in my pocket.

By valueing your existing customers - showing them that they are the most important aspect of your company and spending every moment of your working life striving towards adding value, improving service and generally delivering as you would want to be serviced, you can be sure to have some extremely loyal customers and advocates to your business.

If you'd like more detail on the specifics of how to add fantastic value to your clients or personal training business and winning the most loyal set of customers then contact us at info@creatingchaos.co.uk

Hope this is useful

Having someone else describe how fantastic your services or products are has long been known and used as a tool in marketing, advertising and raising awareness for your business.

It speaks volumes for your services when someone recommends or refers you and it's quite staggering at how many businesses operate exclusively on referral schemes or referred marketing methods.

So, it stands to reason that having some testimonials will go a long way to help promote your work. The real trick though is getting the wording correct within what is said to ensure that the testimonial maximises on impact. Knowing the right questions to ask your clients will help massively in getting this right every time.

Here are 4 simple questions that get those key answers from your clients:

What solution were you seeking when you first hired us?
What do we provide that you value the most?
What has been the result of working with us?
What would you tell others who are considering using us?

By taking the repsonses and putting it into a neat and flowing testimonial, you will be answering all the major questions that potential clients have: namely what does this product or service do for me?

If understanding more about how your clients' minds work, how to motivate and be more effective in your coaching then why not look at our Professional Fitness Presenter course.  The PFP is a 2 day course that leaves trainers confident in knowing how to improve rapport, instruct more effectively, use influential language and engage professionally for both 1 to 1 and group level instruction. Click here for more

Having had some great feedback from my last blog, I wanted to touch more on the business side of things. After all, with so many of us trainers self employed, we don't have that line management system that guides us. In fact, the biggest way we learn is by making the mistakes. Having spoken to a lot of hugely successful people in my time, one of the greatest common features to each conversation has been 'making lots of mistakes and learning from them' - it seems it's practically a crucial part of success.

Well, in my relatively young life in business, I've made some absolutely monstrous mistakes. Ones which have felt like they've almost sunk everything that we've put our heart and soles in - the key is to see the mistake not as a mistake and as an investment. The investment you take is not to repeat the same mistake again.


One of the greatest lessons that invariably all businesses must learn is that marketing has to be shaped by benefits. Unless you are selling an absolute essential like petrol, people need to know what is in it for them.

Do people purchase personal training because they enjoy spending a lot of money to hang out with you? No!

People have varying buying strategies and generally purchase for different reasons, however, generally speaking, people buy for what they get in return. With this in mind, it stands to reason to have these clear benefits listed all over your marketing / leaflets / websites / Business cards rather than just listing your services or features. Features and services are important but not to the level that the benefits are.

When it comes to shaping your own marketing material, answer some of the following questions and include these answers. Make them clear, impacting and very visual:

• What benefits do people receive as a direct result of spending money on your services / products? (3 or 4 is often enough)
• How will this make them feel?

It's as simple as that. Speaking to people on benefits and feelings is communicating to them on an emotional level and this is often where people make decisions. Consciously or subconsciously, people buy on emotion.
Hope this helps

After more and more interest being taken with Primal Flow, I thought I'd write a little more about about what it is, how it came about and how it can benefit both you and your clients.


Looking back at my coaching career so far, even from the very first courses I attended, I remember always thinking that repeating the same movement over and over again can't be that good, however, in the early days, I really didn't know any better and so just went along with the trends that were and very much still are instructed. As my confidence and understanding of the body grew, I started to experiment more with different ways of challenging and conditioning the body.
When it comes to exercise, for me, there are a number of absolute musts with any exercise or pattern:

• It must be functional - if the movement doesn't serve a purpose then isn't doing the body, posture or alignment any favours
• It must be safe - understanding the internal workings of the core, inner stabilising units and outer global units ensures that all the movements work with the flow of the body and not against them
• It must be progressive and effective - challenging the body is the only way that exercise truly benefits, by knowing your level, ability and making the programme progressive, you can rest assured that your programme will be hugely effective
• It must be interesting - exercise should never be numb, mindless or a duty. Looking at primal man, exercise was purposeful, demanded thought and deliberation and always had an objective be it hunting, building or escaping danger.

Having been working on PF for a a number of years, many clients will have experienced numerous sequences and flows without knowing but now, the concept is completely formed and ready to take flight.

The benefits of this type of exercise can be shaped in pretty much any direction:

• Physiological - Strength, power, conditioning, endurance, balance, agility, alignment and flexibility
• Goal driven - weight loss, shape, reduce body fat, increase size, build shape or tone
• General wellness - Increase bone density, improve cardiovascular fitness, improve posture

The list goes on. The reason it is so effective is because it brings together all 25 natural and instinctive movements of the body, organises them creating stability before mobility and then follows with gradual progression through a very unique method of programming

The 2 day course 'Primal Pattern & Functional Movement Specialist' provides you with all the tools to start using primal flow for yourself, gives you hundreds of brand new exercises and a system for creating a completely unlimited list of new patterns and sequences. Find out more and book your place here

Take your clients off machines into the realms of open body movement. Machines generally speaking distort movement completely, deactivate the core and result in pain, injury and never ending discomfort. Think about it, most people can relate with a bicep curl which serves to isolate the bicep. Ok, fine, however, with over 600 hundred muscles in the body, how can you possibly achieve a balanced work out for all of them by isolating? You can't! Even if you did isolate every single one relative to their function within the body, the body doesn't operate through segmented function, it is a single unit and should be used that way.

Well, that should be enough to give you a brief understanding of the background. Subscribe to stay updated with news, new flows and further courses and workshops.

I've decided to focus a little on the business aspect of development. After all, the fitness industry has a huge portion of self employed individuals including personal trainers, bootcamp instructors, sports therapists, sports massage therapists and much more. The question is - is yours a business or a job.

That may sound crazy and ironic but being self employed doesn't necessarily mean that you have a business. It means that you are taking your own income into your own hands.



In my experience, generally speaking, self employed people in the fitness industry fall into one of the following categories:

• Highly skilled individuals who are very busy delivering
• Highly skilled individuals who aren't as busy delivering as they'd like to be

The truth is that neither of those is actually a business. A business is a scalable and leveraged concept that makes money regardless of you being there or not.

Working yourself into the ground trying desperately to fill your diary, see clients and make more money can be a fairly draining life. I know as I've been there. The constant worry over where the next chunk of money is coming from or how you'll pay for your license fee can crack even the most positive people.

The good news is that if you feel like you fall into one of those categories, technology makes it easy for you start making your models and systems more business orientated.
In our industry, people buy people and they buy experiences. Having clients that keep coming back shows that people like what you do and believe in you. There is no difference in principle(aside of a few billion £'s) between the continued custom of your clients and those of Virgin or Apple. Trust, value and service. It's time to start asking yourself some questions.

Do you see yourself doing what you're currently doing in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years time?

What do you want to be doing in 10, 20 and 30 years time?

How can you put your passion, knowledge and focus into something that can provide you with cash flow?

Wouldn't it be great to only do personal training for the love and not for the need of income.

Over the coming weeks, I'll be adding some absolute business musts when it comes to identifying yourself, keeping it simple and making your marketing a magnet for new customers.

Phill