Business Archives | Mish Wright

Do you have an online product for your clients?

Mish Wright — Fri, 28 Jan 2022 12:19:34 +0000

If COVID has taught us anything, it is the importance of being able to diversify if your core business is working face to face with your clients.

For many, the obvious step was to move to Zoom – you are still able to train clients and for many, still able to pay the bills while we wait for our country and communities to open up.

However, after two-plus years into a pandemic, COVID continues to throw us curve balls. I believe one of the joys of being a fitness professional is the personal interaction you have with your clients. Often it feels like you are being paid to hang out with people who you genuinely care about and you get to do the thing that brings you joy – movement!

How cool is that?

However, delivering your sessions via Zoom is a strain – both for you and your clients. And although we are not locked down, thanks to Omicron, many of our clients are cautious about attending public places like gyms. Or are in isolation or worse still infected!

So what else can you do to provide an income stream that is not dependent on you delivering face to face, but equally supports your clients in their health and well-being goals?

A simple answer to that is to create an online course.

And a finished online course product can seem a simple thing. However, in reality, creating an online course represents a lot of unpaid work. Unpaid because you don’t get paid until you finish the content, upload it onto a Learning Management System, organise the landing pages and check out steps, and then maybe, just maybe… someone will buy it.

Perhaps many of these steps you need to outsource because you don’t have the technical know-how. So now it is not only unpaid work, but it costs you money to pay another person to do the work that you don’t know how to do.

This is probably the reason why every business consultant will tell you having an evergreen online course (when anyone can buy it and work through the content at their own pace) is a cash cow.

But in reality, many online course creators start creating, then realising the enormity of the project and simply don’t finish it.

Or they cut corners. Put up content that they have created for other projects. In effect, trying to squeeze round pegs into square holes just leaves the learner confused. Not only does the learner not complete the course, but having being burnt – never buy from you again.

I know firsthand just how difficult it is to create an effective and professional online course.

Over the last few years, I have created a number of online courses, for a number of organisations. And have sold them thousands of times over.

Up until now all of my courses have been for Fitness Professionals – educating them around topics of women’s health and working with older adults.

For the last 18 months, I have been creating an online course to help women, called EVEolution™

But here is the thing… I have created it for fitness professionals to add a revenue stream to their business – in a 50 / 50 agreement.

I love creating and writing education. As a teacher with a passion for pedagogy, creating the flow for the learner completely lights me up. And this is pretty much my full-time job.

I no longer physically train women or clients. But that does not stop women from contacting me to ask questions about their personal training needs in relationship to either their pelvic floor or the twists and turns of menopause (my 2 favourite subjects!).

Sure I can give them general advice… but what they really need is:

Have access to information that builds the background of understanding. This is far too big to be effectively communicated via a phone call or over email, and
Have a trainer who can work with them, who understands them and their needs.

Partnering with a fitness professional is such an obvious solution to bring two sets of skills together – me with the ability to create and deliver a professional digital product for female clients and the fitness professional to work with and be the hero coach.

If I am partnering with someone and want to divide the work 50%… then surely the profit will also be 50%.

You bet!

EVEolution™ – the Revolution in Women’s wellness is priced at $447 and any woman can purchase it directly from my website.

All through the course, I promote the ways in which having an EVEolution™ coach or trainer can help them step through the information and work with them and their individual needs.

I have even created a directory that women who are working through EVEolution™ can find you as a like-minded trainer.

However, if they buy the course through you – then you receive 50% of the cost price. The cost price of the course is $400 – with $47 going to administration costs.

By becoming an EVEolution™ Coach / Trainer – or an on-seller of the course – you will receive $200 for every course sold.

Interested to learn more?

If you’re a fitness professional or any other service provider for women and want to become an EVEolution™ partner CLICK HERE.

If you’re interested in learning more about EVEolution™ CLICK HERE.

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Just click on the image below!

The post Do you have an online product for your clients? appeared first on Mish Wright.

Building YOUR allied health team

Mish Wright — Fri, 20 Aug 2021 05:49:36 +0000

When I was a practicing personal trainer, I was often made to feel that my skills and services were inferior to that of a physiotherapist.

Coupled with this, is a genuine fear among some Fit Pro’s that referring clients to an allied health professional will somehow deem them as responsible for the injuries of their clients and / or shine a light on their own knowledge inadequacies. And there is also a lingering perception that referring will then equate to losing a client.

It is hard to build relationships when:

there is not a full understanding of what another does
mutual respect is lacking, and when
people react out of a scarcity mindset

And while it is true that the qualifications of a person who has Cert III or IV in fitness is significantly less than that of an Exercise Physiotherapists or physiotherapists – fitness professionals still have a valid role in the health equation.

A person who is on a mission to get fit are most likely to seek out the services of a fitness professional. This might be at their local gym, or it may be finding a more smaller boutique option. Even if they have injuries, there can be apprehension about cost and time and may skip seeing a phyiotherapist… when all they want to do is just get in shape.

This is even more true, when an injury can not be readily seen and either the client (or their trainer) does not probe the possibility. Such is the case for pelvic health issues, when leaking can be seen as normal, rather than as it should be seen which is common.

Leaking does not have to be you (or your clients’) normal. Having a service that you offer as a Fit Pro for women who are experiencing pelvic floor dysfunction (pain, leaking, prolapse… anything that does not feel right) can really set you apart and make you stand out as a true professional!

Creating a WIN WIN WIN situation

One of the key reasons that my personal training business mishfit® won several awards from Fitness Australia, was the formal relationships that we had with other allied health professionals. Namely pelvic health physiotherapists and dietitians.

This was a win, win, win relationship between the Allied health practitioner, the client and the mishfit® franchisee.

A win for the client because they had their pelvic floor assessed and knew exactly how to contract their pelvic floor and deep abdominal muscles. This was achieved with the help of ultrasound. Many of our clients did not even know that such a service existed. Or were reluctant as they thought such a visit was unnecessary. We sold them the benefits – as trainers we could not see if they were contracting their pelvic floor correctly and to train them approrpiately and importantly, we needed the diagnois from a professional. In the 10 + years I ran mishfit®, I never had one client who took up the money back guarantee.

We don’t know what we don’t know!

Here is a video that I made showing the experience of having the pelvic floor ultrasounded. An ultra sound is a very unobtrusive way to get visual feedback to ensure you are correctly contracting your pelvic floor. It is also a good opportunity for women to ask questions or the pelvic health physio to ask questions to see if there are any other issues.

And of course, as the Fit Pro – we benefitted greatly. Pelvic health issues have no outward signs – it is not something that you can peg on how someone walks, what they wear, or how they look. Pelvic floor dysfunction comes in all shapes sizes. However, there is such a thing as exercise induced incontinence or exercise induced prolapse. This was the best diagnostic way to have the “inside knowledge” of just how at risk a client was. A report sent back to me from the physio to the trainer with all the relevant information on how to best support each individual client.

It was also a WIN for the Allied Health professional. They were introduced to new clients, who were more likely to return to them when and if they had other issues in the future – as they were a trusted and known professional. As well as knowing that they had a team of fitness professionals who were supporting the mutual client with monitoring the exercise prescription and execution.

mishfit® Care Package

I called this arrangement the mishfit® Care Package. And it also included options with a registered dietician for those clients who were also wanting weight loss.

This system not only boosted our professionalism, but it also gave the business an additional revenue stream.

Terry Wesselink

Terry Wesselink was one of our original pelvic health physiotherapist partners. Terry has not only been a great source of wisdom and knowledge, but she was also one of the first pelvic health physiotherapists who was genuinely excited about the benefits of a partnership, like that of the mishfit® Care Package could represent in holistic health for women. Terry promoted this idea amongst many of her collegues and together we have broken down stereotypes and the outdated women’s health models.

Terry now leads the team at the Continence Foundation Victorian Branch and is responsible of the full operation of this peak body organisation. This includes pelvic health education, resource development, health promotion and managing a busy NDIS continence clinic.

I asked Terry to put her pelvic health physio hat on and tell us about:

Why do you think it is important that fitness and physio work together?

Health is something that needs to be actively pursued and pelvic health is no exception. I have learnt through experience that we cannot sit by passively and expect optimum health to be delivered to us. Quick fixes on their own, often have short lived results. In order to have good pelvic health in the long term, we need to understand how to exercise our pelvic floor and core muscles safely and effectively and then do that exercise regularly.

In my mothers era, women didn’t know they had pelvic floor muscles and even today the majority of women need some guidance in learning how to exercise their pelvic floors (and the rest of their body) safely and effectively.

Even if every physiotherapist who ever qualified, switched to women’s health there would not be enough of us to help every woman out there with a problem.

To give you some idea of the scale of the problem, take a look at these statistics:
1 in 3 women has a problem with incontinence,
Some women have overactive pelvic floors or pelvic pain, and
50% of women over 50 years have some degree of Pelvic Organ Prolapse.

I believe:

While some symptomatic women really should have a physiotherapy (or medical) assessment and treatment, not every woman who is uncertain about how to exercise safely needs pelvic floor physiotherapy.
Fitness instructors are already in the business of teaching correct and safe exercise, it makes perfect sense for them to also be involved in helping clients with correct pelvic floor activation.
Fitness instructors are also at the frontline of health and can easily screen their clients for pelvic floor issues.
Fitness instructors have their client’s trust and can encourage those who need extra help to seek it in the right place.

And as I mentioned earlier, exercise is really important in the pursuit of health. I also need to be able to refer my patients to fitness instructors who understand how to help my patients exercise safely and in a way that is appropriate for their particular pelvic floor issue.

I need fitness instructors I can talk to about my patient’s needs.

How do you see a service like the mishfit® Care Package helping women, regardless of whether they are symptomatic or not?

The mishfit® care package was a great way for women to have a brief session with a Women’s Health Physiotherapist and find out how well their pelvic floor is working. Being able to see how their pelvic floor is working on Real Time Ultrasound is a real eye-opener for many women. Many women gain extra confidence in their ability to activate (or relax) their pelvic floor muscles and some women learn the right action for the first time. Incorrect pelvic floor technique is more common in women who have symptoms, but can occur is asymptomatic women too. Getting the technique right can prevent problems developing in future.

After the Real Time Ultrasound, I could give the mishfit® instructor clear objective information to help her chose the right level of exercise and progression for each woman.

I believe it’s really important for everyone involved in your health to have access to the right information.

What are your top tips for women who need pelvic floor support?

Learning to use your pelvic floor muscles correctly is both learning a new skill and establishing a new habit and the first step in learning any new skill is to get the right instructions and instructor.

Make sure you understand the instructions and aim to perform the new skill correctly from the start.
Learn to self check or ask your instructor to check that you are performing the new skill properly.
Practice your new skill often to gain confidence in your ability.
Apply your new skill in lots of different situations to become a master.
Once you have mastered the skill, then work on your strength, coordination, speed etc.

It’s easier to establish a new habit if you associate it with an existing habit.
I work with my clients to identify appropriate habits to associate with their new pelvic floor muscle habit.
It is a true advantage if you have an instructor (fitness professional) that helps women to establish their new pelvic floor muscle habit as part of the exercise classes.

Where can people find a pelvic health physiotherapist?

The National Continence Helpline has a directory with suitably trained physiotherapists from all over Australia. Or alternatively you could ring the National Helpline 1300 33 00 66 which is staffed by continence nurses, that can help you trouble shoot any sort of pelvic floor / continence queries.

People don’t need a referral to make an appointment with a physiotherapist, but if they have symptoms, then they can speak to their GP to see if they are eligible for an Enhanced Primary Care Package which entitles them to a Medicare rebate for some of the costs.
If they have private health cover, they can check with their insurer what cover they have for Physiotherapy treatment.

Pelvic Floor education is important for everyone… what can you recommend?

The Victorian Continence Resource Centre has a great resource called Reclaim your Core – which I highly recommend:

Click on the image to purchase

And I am sure Mish, you might remember helping me with the many edits of my own book – WeeFree Women!

From Mish:

Terry is caring and funny and what is more – loves promoting Fit Pro’s who share our vision of working collaboratively to get women moving, and keep them moving – safely!

If you are a Fit Pro and especially if you are working with women, I strongly recommend that you connect and build a relationship with a pelvic health physiotherapist near your practice, to enhance the services you provide. Although this can be a WIN WIN WIN situation, don’t be disheartened if you meet an Allied Health Professional who does not seize this opportunity… keep looking – because connection, my friend, is the way of future proofing your business!

Can you find a Terry in your community?

If you’re a fitness professional or any other service provider for women and want to become an EVEolution™ partner CLICK HERE.

If you’re interested in learning more about EVEolution™ CLICK HERE.

If you enjoyed this blog…. you might also enjoy these ones.

Just click on the image below!

The post Building YOUR allied health team appeared first on Mish Wright.

Training Women – a male perspective

Mish Wright — Sat, 05 Jun 2021 23:22:15 +0000

Hi, Travis Mattern here from www.fitnesseducationonline.com.au and i’ve recently written a blog on why it’s important to upskill when training women… from the male perspective. So here it is!

As a young male trainer working at an all female bootcamp you would think I would’ve been more aware about working with pre/post natal women.

To be fair, our audience were young and very few were pregnant or post natal, but… that is just an excuse to be honest. In hindsight, I should have known better. I should have studied more, learnt more and if you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’re in the same boat. So my advice: if you’re a trainer (male or female) and you plan to work with women (at any stage of their lives) please get some further study under your belt! Pre/post natal, Menopausal, Menstrual, all of them are important topics and something that we don’t inherently know, without further study.

But, what I want to share with you today is something I’ve learnt from more recent personal experience from my wife giving birth to two children in the space of two years. Each birth were ‘emergency’ C-sections (no crazy story, just basically unplanned caesareans), but the experience is from two different obstetricians (obviously this is my own personal experience and it would likely vary depending on your doctor, or I assume your method of delivery).

As a trainer this is what the standard procedure is for a client returning to exercise after having a child:
Trainer – “Have you seen your doctor and been cleared to return to exercise?”
Client – “Yes, I just had my 6 week check up and the doctor said I’m good to start doing everything again as normal”
Trainer – “Perfect, lets get started with some burpees” (I’m being a little fictitious here and if you’re a trainer reading this blog, that’s probably not how you’d return the client to exercise).

Seems like a pretty straight forward conversation right?

As a trainer we assume the conversation with the obstetrician covers all the important topics about returning to exercise, such as: ab separation, pelvic floor health, leaking, prolapse, warning signs of potential problems, movements that might cause potential problems and general things to be aware of when returning to exercise.

But in my experience the more accurate conversation between the client and doctor looks like this:
Doctor – “After 6 weeks you can start to return to everything as normal”

End of conversation….

So the lesson in this is, “don’t assume, it makes an arse out of you and me”.

What should you be doing instead?

Firstly, get further education. You don’t need to become an expert in women’s health, but you just need to know the fundamentals of working with women and especially postnatal women. Once you’ve done this, you’ll probably want to adjust your pre exercise and return to exercise screening processes to include some more women centric questions, that will be vital in understanding what the best way to return the client to exercise.

The second thing you want to do is link up with a women’s health physiotherapist. If you didn’t know this is actually a specialty area of physiotherapy.

So why would this be important and what sorts of things would they actually do?

Well, to name a few things;
• Pregnancy related pain and/ or dysfunction (pre- and post-natal)
• Abdominal separation (rectus diastasis)
• Pelvic floor strengthening
• Caesarean or perineal scar management
• Pelvic girdle pain/ “pelvic instability”
• Urinary/ faecal incontinence (leakage)
• Pelvic organ prolapse
• Pelvic pain (including pain with intercourse, and pelvic examinations)
• Overactive bladder: Nocturia (excessive night time urination)
• Urinary urgency

The final thing, reach out to a quality educator on women’s health (I know this was the first thing, but I think it is so important that it needs to be repeated so that is sinks in). There are plenty of high quality education resources available and there really is no excuse not to know, especially if you’re reading this blog!

Author:

Travis Mattern

Co Founder and Director at Fitness Education Online

www.fitnesseducationonline.com.au

Social Media

Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/fitnesseducationline

Instagram: www.instagram.com/fitnesseducationonline

YouTube: www.youtube.com/fitnesseducationonline

Want to check out some great education around training women?

I have teamed up with Fitness Education to create super informative, easy to implement education around all aspects of training women.

All education comes with CEC’s and provides life time acccess!

Click Here

If you enjoyed this blog…. you might also enjoy these ones.

Just click on the image below!

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The rubber band effect. The politics of kindness.

Mish Wright — Wed, 21 Oct 2020 00:03:09 +0000

The playbook has changed in leadership. But it has taken a serious taste of nastiness to make us appreciate kindness. Soft skills, that many assume are naturally woven into the fabric of management, need to be placed on a platform of their own. Where they belong.

I left New Zealand in the 1996, with the idea that I would do my OE (Overseas Experience) and return to live one day. I gave myself approximately three to five years. I lived in Japan for one, London for nearly five (where my daughter was born) and now I have lived in Melbourne for nearly twenty. And although I still work and travel under New Zealand citizenship, I have now lived overseas longer than I have ever lived in New Zealand. This time frame has meant that I was only of age to vote once in our elections.

Click here to read the rest of this article!

If you’re a fitness professional or any other service provider for women and want to become an EVEolution™ partner CLICK HERE.

If you’re interested in learning more about EVEolution™ CLICK HERE.

If you enjoyed this blog…. you might also enjoy these ones.

Just click on the image below!

The post The rubber band effect. The politics of kindness. appeared first on Mish Wright.

Re-entering the workforce (as an older woman)

Mish Wright — Sun, 11 Oct 2020 04:17:38 +0000

When I first re-entered the workplace full time, I bought myself the rings photographed above. I still wear them. They remind me to be:

Brave – stand up for the things that I believe in. I am Brave.
Enough – I bring a diversity of skills to the table and self talk that tells me the contrary, does not benefit anyone. I am Enough.

When confronting times happen in the work place, as inevitably they do, I touch them to remind myself of who I am and what I stand for.

To continue reading this blog Click Here

When I first re-entered the workplace full time, I bought myself the rings photographed above. I still wear them. They remind me to be:

Brave – stand up for the things that I believe in. I am Brave.
Enough – I bring a diversity of skills to the table and self talk that tells me the contrary, does not benefit anyone. I am Enough.

When confronting times happen in the work place, as inevitably they do, I touch them to remind myself of who I am and what I stand for.

To continue reading this blog Click Here

When I first re-entered the workplace full time, I bought myself the rings photographed above. I still wear them. They remind me to be:

Brave – stand up for the things that I believe in. I am Brave.
Enough – I bring a diversity of skills to the table and self talk that tells me the contrary, does not benefit anyone. I am Enough.

When confronting times happen in the work place, as inevitably they do, I touch them to remind myself of who I am and what I stand for.

To continue reading this blog Click Here

If you’re a fitness professional or any other service provider for women and want to become an EVEolution™ partner CLICK HERE.

If you’re interested in learning more about EVEolution™ CLICK HERE.

If you enjoyed this blog…. you might also enjoy these ones.

Just click on the image below!

The post Re-entering the workforce (as an older woman) appeared first on Mish Wright.

3 Big mistakes Fit Pro’s make when taking their programs online

Mish Wright — Mon, 28 Sep 2020 22:20:23 +0000

Providing training online has been the only option for many Fit Pro’s because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But it is not as simple as just repeating what you use to do face to face, into a camera lens. And even the online programs pre-pandemic, do not adequately reflect the needs of our clients today. Here are three essential ways to ensure you hit the mark. Every time.

I’m the first to admit. I am a gym slut. Although I stay committed (often for years) to exercise options that I enjoy, it does not mean that I don’t play the field. I love to see how other fitness businesses train and generally keep my finger on the pulse of what is happening out in the field.

To continue reading this blog please click here

If you’re a fitness professional or any other service provider for women and want to become an EVEolution™ partner CLICK HERE.

If you’re interested in learning more about EVEolution™ CLICK HERE.

If you enjoyed this blog…. you might also enjoy these ones.

Just click on the image below!

The post 3 Big mistakes Fit Pro’s make when taking their programs online appeared first on Mish Wright.