#JTInTheRaw Show 42 Was The Most Viewed Show! PT’s And Multi-Level Marketing Plus More

If this is your first #JTInTheRaw welcome as I chew the thin on business.  What I share is relevant in any size or type of business.  The shows have irregular segments like Shout outs; what cheeses me off, #AskJT and as I have this week a JTRant.

In show 42 I am going to share:

• What are the tell-tale signs you are about to lose a staff member?
• Success tips for a leader – pssst everyone is a leader.
• And finally, a #JTRant on personal trainers and multilevel or network marketing.

This week I was catching up on some reading and an article struck a chord with me.

At my last Personal Trainers Industry Leaders Roundtable Adam said he knew one of his staff was looking for another job when he saw the browsing history on the work computer!

Fairly obvious sign!  What I wanted to research was: are there signs staff are looking at leaving before they start browsing the web?

How Do You Know If Your Staff Are Going To Leave?

I found some research in the Harvard Business Review that held up to scientific scrutiny. There appears to be 13 signs where the staff member has either decreased or are working at less than their usual standards:

1. Their work productivity has decreased.
2. They act less like a team player.
3. They are doing the minimum amount of work more frequently.
4. They are less interested in pleasing their manager.
5. They are less willing to commit to long-term timelines.
6. They have exhibited a negative change in attitude.
7. They have shown less effort and work motivation.
8. They have less focus on job-related matters.
9. They have expressed dissatisfaction with their job more frequently.
10. They have expressed dissatisfaction with their supervisor.
11. They leave early from work more frequently.
12. They have lost enthusiasm for the mission of the organization.
13. They have shown less interest in working with customers.

Each of these behaviours are an indication that your staff member is starting to disengage with the job.  They are less invested in their performance, colleagues, and most probably the customers – none of which is good for your business.

If you see your staff‘s behaviour trending this way, science can now confirm, you really do have cause for concern.  It’s time to decide – implement a plan to keep them or implement a plan to replace them. 

Five Tips For Success As A Business Leader

Today I am in Perth and heading off to work with a group on leading teams and maximising performance.  I thought I’d share with you my final closing remarks for them – because you all cannot be here!

These are my Five Success Tips:

1. Know your numbers! Gut feel is one thing but statistics do not lie. You can think you’ve done a good job but numbers will confirm your feelings. Get close to your numbers if you are business owner, leader or a team member and understand what they are and how they are impacted – ie what behaviours will impact those numbers.
2. Self-evaluate.  The best sports people, business people, lovers and parents all self-evaluate their performances. For me this is the difference between a good sales person and a great sale person.  A great one will self-evaluate every sale to identify what they did well and what they can improve on.  This means they know where to hone their skills.
3. Plan. I’m suggesting you plan your year, quarter, month, week and day.  For some of you, you may go micro and plan your hours.  In order to be successful, there are steps we all need to take, so plan these steps and you’ll have a faster journey to success.
4. Connect and stay connected. If you’re leading a team or selling to a prospect you need to connect with them.  This connection will lead to trust which will enhance the working environment or lead to more sales or a higher yield sale.  The real challenge is to then remain connected – this is my weakness. We all get busy and sometimes, not intentionally, just forget to stay connected with that staff member or that new client. For success, make the effort to stay connected.  It will benefit you and the business.
5. Be real.  Staff and customers will know when you are faking it.  If your head is not in the game, then don’t enter the game!  You need to be you for success.

If you think anyone could benefit from my 5 tips for success, please tag them in the comments below.

#JTRant

Last weekend was Easter and we had a constant flow of guests coming over.  The most consistent thread of conversation was “What’s with my PT trying to flog me network marketing shit?”

Which I found particularly interesting as the week prior I had a PT ask me if I know anyone in China as a product he sells now has the rights to sell in China and if I can introduce any Chinese colleagues to this PT, I can “have a slice of the pie.”

WTF!

Here is what I am hearing and seeing, personal trainers are now enlisting clients into a network-marketing scheme under the guise of either:

• Saving money on the product they “need”; or
• Building a passive income with a home based business.

First things first, I believe there is no such thing as passive income!  All income involves work.  I have sat through numerous presentations from multiple pyramid schemes and they all involve me doing work. So a passive income is just a blatant lie that is perpetuated by the scripts that multi-level marketers teach their “sales people.”

The real issue and the essence of my rant is not whether PTs should be prescribing or recommending “supplements” to their clients.  My rant is them trying to sell their clients into a scheme.

I just don’t think it is cool.  Indeed appropriate for a PT to be “getting clients involved” in a pyramid scheme.  I see it as a breach of trust.

Clients came to you for exercise based results.  Your focus must be getting them the results they came to you for.  Don’t cloud the relationship by then selling into a scheme that helps you make money.

I believe it’s unethical.

My accountant wouldn’t try and sell me into Tupperware, when he sees me bringing lunch in a plastic bag.  My Doctor would not recommend USANA or Herbalife or Isagenix vitamins when he knows I am deficient in vitamins.

If you want to be treated as a professional personal trainer then act as a professional personal trainer and service your clients on why they came to you.

While on my high horse, it would be remiss of me not to mention in my rant my thoughts on PT’s prescribing ingestables – ie stuff people take!

I am not saying PT’s cannot suggest supplementation.

I believe as a professional you need to do lots of research into anything you recommend a person ingests.

I believe that the majority of PTs do not have the knowledge to recommend something a person should ingest.

I believe without the research and the knowledge, this prescription is negligent and be rest assured I’d be suing the arse off my PT if he told me what to take and it made me ill.

In fact, I am sure there was a case in the US where a PT innocently and for the best results outcome for their client recommended a certain type of supplement.  The problem was that supplement contained something that conflicted with the heart medication the client was on.  The results achieved were one sued PT; one dead client; and one very unhappy family.

The majority of PT’s are good technicians who know very little about nutrition or life skills.  So as my mum would say “Stick to your knitting!”

Seriously personal trainers if you want to have any credibility, just do what you are trained to do and do it better than anyone else and you’ll be super successful!

These are my opinions that I know will piss people off and perhaps open a can of worms or start a conversation, so my feed is yours, tell me what you think?

Tell me if you think it is OK for PT’s to sell clients into a pyramid scheme.

This week is Filex!  It’s like Christmas for the fitness industry!

I’ll be at a Fitness Australia soiree on Wednesday night, the Business Summit on Thursday and am presenting on Friday.  I’ll be around all weekend, so if you see me and you’re a #JTInTheRaw fan or hater, grab me and say “Hi”

Remember this Friday at 6am is the Fitness Business Podcast #FBPfamily meet up.  If you’re at Filex, we’d love to see you for a networking walk around Darling Harbour!

Then after the walk will be #JTInTheRaw show 43!  I’ll be LIVE just 30 minutes before I deliver my on-boarding presentation.  I should be pumped up!

Thanks for tuning in today and I hope I have helped you identify if you have a staff member thinking of quitting; identify some success behaviours you can improve and also opened the dialogue around enlisting clients into multi-level marketing schemes.

You can subscribe to #JTInTheRaw on You Tube by clicking here, where you will see ALL episodes of the show.

Quote of The Week

Focus on what you can do good & be darn great at it.

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