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By Elizabeth Wasserman for The Dog Daily
In the not-so-distant past, there were basically two dog food options: puppy chow and everything else. Now, dog owners have more choices. Different foods for puppies, adult dogs and the senior set have been in stores for a while. Newer to the market are foods geared to meet the requirements of dogs based on size, sensitivities to digestive ailments, skin issues, weight and level of activity.
Dogs That Benefit From the New Foods
Does the average dog need these new dog foods? "No, but they have been a godsend to owners with dogs that have certain problems or requirements," says Dr. Bonnie Beaver, past president of the American Veterinary Medical Association and a veterinary professor at Texas A&M University. "It's been extremely helpful to give good quality nutrition and meet the health needs of these animals."
A Checklist for Dog Nutritional Needs
To determine which dog food is right for your pet, experts say you should talk to your dog's veterinarian and consider the following:
More on dog food from our sponsor
Elizabeth Wasserman a Washington, D.C., area-based freelancer, has been writing about pets, among other topics, for more than 15 years. Her love of dogs, in particular, was handed down through the generations from her great-grandfather, Eric Knight, who wrote the book Lassie Come Home in the 1930s.


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Makapuno Program Ups Seedling Supply
More and more makapuno seedlings are being made available to farmers who want to plant this high-value crop. Last year, a total of 11,529 embryo-cultured makapuno (ECM) seedlings were produced to augment the usually limited supply of this coconut that bears almost 100 percent makapuno nuts.
This is a tremendous increase compared to the production of only 2,433 seedlings per year from 1996 to 2008. The increase could be attributed in a large measure to the Makapuno Comprehensive Technology Development and Commercialization Program (MCTDCP) supported by the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD) and implemented by the Philippine Coconut Authority from 1996 to March 2004.
The big increase in makapuno planting materials could also be attributed to new technology, particularly the new embryo culture technology which makes it possible to produce several plants from just one embryo. Before, only one coconut seedling can be produced from one embryo.
The embryo culture was first developed by the late Dr. Emerita de Guzman of UP Los Baños. The technique has undergone a lot of improvements and that is the reason why the supply is fast increasing although it cannot yet fully meet the big demand. We still know some people who can't get enough supply of planting materials.
The project was assessed by UP Los Baños for its economic and social impacts and the conclusion is that it has significantly increased seedling production as well as nut production. For 2010 nut production, according to PCARRD, was estimated at 107,000. That's a big jump from the average yearly production of 33,080 nuts from 1996 to 2008.
The beauty about the embryo-cultured makapuno is that the resulting trees bear almost 100 percent makapuno nuts. That is in great contrast to the old makapuno trees where only a few makapuno nuts are obtained from some bunches of regular bear-ing trees. And there are just a few of those trees that bear makapuno nut.
The makapuno development project consisted of two phases. The first phase is a survey of makapuno population in the Philippines while the second part concerned the establishment of satellite makapuno embryo culture laboratories and demonstration farms in selected sites for mass propagation of makapuno seedlings.
The makapuno survey generated a list of growers of makapuno trees (both the so-called 'kabuwig' and embryo-cultured) together with the report of individual capacities of these farmers to supply makapuno to food processors and embryos to EC laboratories.
Under the second project, six embryo culture laboratories were established in Sta. Barbara, Pangasinan; Cavite State University in Indang; PCA Research Center in Legaspi City, Albay; Tacloban City; Zamboanga City and Davao City.
Aside from the six laboratories, the program established nurseries and makapuno demonstration farms. Technical staff were trained on embryo culture technology and seedling nursery and tree farm management.
The program produced some 17,311 ECM seedlings between June 1996 and March 2004 and raised an additional 19,219 seedlings after the program (April 2004 to December 2008). Some 19,709 were dispersed from the total seedlings produced.
Promotion of ECM seedlings was done through technology awareness seminars, participation in and organization of agricultural trade fairs, distribution of flyers and other printed materials, and promotion of the makapuno demo farms to schools and other institutions.
By Zac B. Sarian

subset: commoncrawl


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Home Truths
Home Truths July 2012
My June article certainly brought forth comment from the public – all of it positive, I hasten to add.
Generally, people who do not know and understand the system, cannot fathom how we can pay guaranteed incomes of $55,000, plus quarterly bonuses that can be quite large; and still remain in business.
In fact, at a secondary school re-union a few years ago, a person I knew from schooldays, and who has also gone into real estate, came up to me and started to deride me for taking on the system we use (particularly guaranteeing people's incomes) and the ethics that we espouse. His parting shot was along the lines of 'to hell with all that ethics stuff, I just want to make some money'. He was firmly of the mind that we would go broke and that the only way to be profitable was to do it his way – the usual way. Right up to that moment, I had thought that he was a decent enough person. Now, I'm not so sure.
Really, however, it isn't at all that impossible. It is simply a matter of choosing the right people, training them well, paying them in a way that shows that we trust them to do their job and having systems in place to help in that process.
Take, for example, one of the pillars of our system – the enquiry log. Those who have seen our house-for-sale signage, may have also noticed that there is only one telephone number – that of the relevant office. No salesperson's name, no salesperson's contact details (and certainly no salesperson's photo!).
This idea is carried over into all our other advertising as well. Nowhere will you find the telephone contact details of our salespeople. It works really well. No matter what time a potential customer or client calls in or phones us, we record their names and contact details. Our sales offices are open until 7 p.m., every day, but even after this time, caller's details will be noted and written into the log.
There are many reasons why we use enquiry logs, but central among them is the desire to give the best service that we can. With this system, when a potential buyer calls, it is of no consequence whether the listing person is present or on a well-earned day off. The needs of that buyer will be met by another salesperson. This has proven to be a real benefit to buyers and sellers.
As our salespeople are able to show any property to any buyer, irrespective of whether the salesperson is the lister of a particular property, our buyers are able to be helped by anyone. Contrast this with the way in which some other agencies work, where particular properties can be shown only by the listing salesperson. The advantage of our system is clear: buyers are given better service and sellers have a greater number of qualified buyers looking at their property, both of which align with our philosophy of making it easier for sellers to sell and buyers to buy.
While I'm on the subject of making things easier for buyers and sellers, there is another aspect of our system that does just that. You may have noticed that all properties we have for sale, have an asking price. This certainly makes it easier for buyers as they can have some surety that a property is within their means, especially as most properties (and certainly the better ones) sell at or very close to the asking price. Sometimes that may be a little below, sometimes a little above the asking price, but it is usually fairly close.
But this is of benefit to the seller as well, as, combined with the way we negotiate a sale, it means that there are unlikely to be buyers who despite being attracted to the property won't try to buy it as they are afraid of having their offer rejected by the seller and being made to feel foolish.
Mentioning negotiation brings me to another difference. Just before I wrote this, I happened to be talking to an applicant for a sales position with us. As we require our salespeople to own their own homes or to have previously owned their own homes, I asked him about his experience of buying a house.
Unsurprisingly, he told me the same story that many others had previously told; that of making an offer and the salesperson running back and forth between buyer and seller until agreement had been reached. I suggest that most buyers and sellers have had similar experiences.
But I have to ask if that is really negotiation or is it simply being a messenger between the parties with them doing their own negotiation? I strongly suggest that, in most cases, it is the latter and that it is done this way because there is precious little in the way of training in negotiation given to salespeople.
Surely, however, one of the reasons for using an agency would be that they are skilled at negotiation – wouldn't it? It certainly should be and yet most agencies persist in this back-and-forth behaviour. Would it not be more efficient for the salespeople to negotiate with buyers until an acceptable offer could be made to the sellers? It would certainly be a more professional approach.
We negotiate this way and our buyers and sellers appreciate the speed and simplicity. Of course, like anything, to become skilled and maintain that skill level requires constant practice and in this we are fortunate. Because we deliberately keep our sales teams small and also because we won't countenance auctioning properties, our sales people become very skilled at negotiating.
As a consequence of our business model, we have strengthened our presence in the market place as the many references on our website will attest.


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This tasted strange last night. Woody and the bergamot was kind of muted. I'm not sure why; I steeped it 5 minutes in boiling water which seems pretty standard. But, the boyfriend liked it for some reason.
Special Teas
Popular Teas from Special Teas
See All 7Recent Entries
I added this tea but can't find a photo/description on the site as it's sold out.
This is another from my Special Teas super-sale shipment.
I was worried that the rooibos and earl grey combination would really not work for me. It's not bad, though. The flavours co-operate somewhat with the bergamot front and centre and the rooibos woodiness lingering underneath. It's not blowing me away, though, and it's not the same without a strong black tea base. Pretty much exactly what I expected.
It's been a while since I had a nice, straightforward black tea. I was a bit worried I'd find it dull.
I picked up a black tea sampler at Special Teas during a summer trip to Niagara-on-the-Lake. I tried a couple and then largely forgot about it. Now I think I'll revisit them, use them up, and perhaps order more (or grab lots when I go back this year). Looking through their site, there looks to be a great (huge!) variety of nice quality teas and interesting blends at awesome prices. I remember the store being nice, too.
This is nice, rich, and bold. I'm enjoying it while trying (and obviously failing) to write an essay.
A really lovely light, orange-scented rooibos; tasted lightly of oranges, with sweet citrus undertones. Really enjoyable!


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ISBN: 0-7414-7549-9 ©2012 Price: $13.95 Book Size: 5.5'' x 8.5'' , 96 pages Category/Subject: POETRY / General
Abstract: The worse thing a parent will endure is the loss of one of her children. On November 27, 2009 my youngest child and only son was called to heaven after a fatal car accident, at which time, every aspect of my being was shattered, especially my beliefs! I have three beautiful daughters and several grandchildren who continually, through their love and support, help me get through my 'dark days'. However, that said, the loss of my son and the emptiness that is left behind, are two things I deal with every day.


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Big power for the XTi Series.
The XTi 6000 from Crown includes improved firmware and Band Manager software that simplifies DSP control and configuring. It also provides all the power you need run big subwoofers or multi-speaker stacks: 1200W per side at 8 ohms; 2100W per side at 4 ohms; and a whopping 6000W bridged mono at 4 ohms.


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Usablenet Assistive is a UsableNet product. Usablenet Assistive Main Page.


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Saturday, May 25, 2013 | 11:16 p.m.
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Updated: 12:37 p.m. Friday, Nov. 20, 2009 | Posted: 12:11 p.m. Friday, Nov. 20, 2009
By Lindsey Hilty
Staff Writer
While there will be a big focus on feeding financially strapped people this holiday season, some area residents are concerned for the family pets as well.
Lakota Hills Animal Clinic on Tylersville Road near the Lakota West Freshman building and Creekside Early Childhood School, is collecting pet food donations for local food pantries.
"If people using the food banks cannot afford food for themselves, they certainly can't afford it for their pets," Practice Manager Mindy Faulkner said.
The Animal Friends Humane Society of Butler County has seen more animals come in this year than it did last year, but pet adoptions have decreased.
"I think a pressing reason would definitely be the fact that pets are an additional cost, and the economy is affecting what people are able or aren't able to afford," Executive Director Meg Stephenson said.
And with many people being evicted from homes or moving into apartments, she said families are having to part with their pets.
"It's obviously a very challenging time, and it's difficult to give up an animal that is part of your family," she said.
Several recent neglect cases have caught her attention, with more emaciated pets being brought into the shelter, she said. Stephenson praised the efforts of Lakota Hills Animal Clinic to ensure people and their pets can stay together.
The food drive will continue until the end of the year and may continue if successful, Faulkner said. People can drop off food at the clinic on 5130 Tylersville Road, and it will be distributed to local food banks. Smaller bags are preferred, so they can be distributed to more pet owners, she said, but any food is welcome.
"We just want to help those who really can't help themselves in this tough time," Faulkner said.
Clinic office hours are 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays and 8 a.m. to noon Saturdays.
The Animal Friends Humane Society also is in need of donations, Stephenson said, including monetary, pet-related or office and operational supplies.
Specifically, she said cat litter pans, dog and cat treats, copy paper, paper towels and super glue are needed.
Another option, she said, is for people to bring newspapers and aluminum cans to the shelter for recycling. Animal Friends receives funds based on the quantities it recycles.
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Employer Poster Packet
NJ Department of Labor and Workforce Development posters distributed in the Employer Poster Packet:
- Rulemaking update regarding new gender equity notice – January 7, 2013 - Rulemaking Bulletin
- Bulletin regarding New Gender Equity Notice
NJ Department of Labor and Workforce Development posters distributed in the Employer Poster Packet:
- Wage & Hour Law Abstract
- Child Labor Laws
- Reporting and Recordkeeping Requirements Under State Wage, Benefit and Tax Laws
11x17" poster (PDF)
8.5x11" pages (PDF) - Payment of Wages
- Schedule of Minors' Hours
- Family Leave Insurance
- UI & DI Law
- CEPA (WhistleBlower)
To receive hard copies of the above material contact the Office of Constituent Relations at (609) 777-3200
In addition to the above posters required by the NJ Department of Labor and Workforce Development, employers also are required to post information made available by the NJ Office of the Attorney General, Division on Civil Rights and the US Department of Labor. Please see the below links for additional information.
NJ Office of the Attorney General poster:
Division on Civil Rights Anti-Discrimination Posters
US Department of Labor Poster Page:
Workplace Poster Requirements for Small Businesses and Other Employers
**Employers must also post a Workers' Compensation notice, available through your insurance carrier.


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Endless Forms Most Beautiful, Part 1
How could we make progress on questions involving the evolution of form without a scientific understanding of how form is generated in the first place? [By the 1970s] population genetics had succeeded in establishing the principle that evolution is due to changes in genes, but this was a principle without an example. No gene that affected the form and evolution of any animal had been characterized. New insights in evolution would require breakthroughs in embryology.
Series: Evolution Basics
Written by BioLogos Fellow of Biology Dennis Venema, this series of posts is intended as a basic introduction to the science of evolution for non-specialists.
Belief in God in an Age of Science: John Polkinghorne, Part One
The world is not full of items stamped "made by God"—the Creator is more subtle than that—but there are two locations where general hints of the divine presence might be expected to be seen most clearly. One is the vast cosmos itself, with its fifteen-billion-year history of evolving development following the big bang. The other is the "thinking reed" of humanity, so insignificant in physical scale but, as Pascal said, superior to all the stars because it alone knows them and itself.
Series: Biological Evolution: What Makes it Good Science?
Is the contemporary theory of evolution an example of good science? Biologist Michael Buratovich explore this question in a well-researched two part essay.
Where are the Transitional Fossils?
A common argument leveled against the theory of evolution is that scientists have not been able to produce transitional fossils that show the change of one species into another. In this podcast, we address a common misconception about what transitional fossils actually are.
Series: Made in the Image of God: The Theological Implications of Human Genomics
This series by Denis Alexander reflects on advancements in genomics as well as their theological implications. He focuses on the relatedness of hominin genomes, arguing that this does not interfere with the image of God in humans. The image of God depends more on the capacity for relationship and covenant, not on a list of particular physical qualities. He then discusses why the recent studies of genomics provide "no grounds for genetic determinism."
Oxygen and Co-Creation
In the mid-seventeenth century, John Mayow conducted a series of experiments in which he showed that burning candles in bell jars consumed one-fifth of the enclosed air before extinguishing. Remarkably, mice placed in bell jars did exactly the same thing...
Death and Rebirth: The Role of Extinction in Evolution
When they imagine evolution, many Christians picture novelty: new species arising over time, or speciation events. But as the most recent Southern Baptist Voices exchange makes clear, many Christians also focus on the role of death in evolution—something that can be a stumbling block.
What Does It Mean to Be Human? A Response to Bruce Little, Part 2
Trinitarian theology and the image of God are important, non-essentialist resources to help us think about the distinct place of humanity in creation.
The Fossil Record
There are two opposite errors which need to be countered about the fossil record: 1) that it is so incomplete as to be of no value in interpreting patterns and trends in the history of life, and 2) that it is so good that we should expect a relatively complete record of the details of evolutionary transitions within all or most lineages.
The Questions Update: The Image of God
Over the last two weeks, the Forum has explored the imago Dei from various perspectives. Today's post features a preview of the updated Question, "How could humans have evolved and still be created in the ' Image of God'? written by Senior Web Consultant and Writer Deborah Haarsma.
The Broken Made Whole
There is a sense in which we look at Temma and we want to affirm that she is made in the image of God by denying that the image of God has anything to do with her physical, material body.
More Than Skin Deep: The Image of God in People with Disabilities
My students twinge and recoil a bit at the thought that persons with disabilities can be made in God's image. "They just don't look like it," they say, zeroing in on what is physically seen.
Series: Chosen by God: Biblical Election and the Imago Dei
At the center of the theological and cultural controversy surrounding biological evolution stands the question: "How do human beings—creatures uniquely created in the image and likeness of God—fit into the scientific picture of life's origins and development?" In this three-part series, Dr. Joshua Moritz endeavors to address this question by exploring what Scripture means—and does not mean—by the designation "image and likeness of God".
Southern Baptist Voices: Evolutionary Creationism and the Imago Dei
I wish to question whether or not it is possible for the image of God to be produced through the evolutionary process apart from the special intervention of God.
Understanding Evolution: Theory, Prediction and Converging Lines of Evidence, Part 1
In science, we don't really know the true way things actually work. What we have are theories—broad explanatory frameworks supported by experimentation, which we can use to make testable predictions about the natural world.
Speciation and Macroevolution
A common challenge to evolutionary theory is that while life does indeed change over time (what is known as microevolution), no one has ever seen one species evolve into another species (macroevolution).
An Unfolding Creation
When we get stuck on the idea of having biological ancestors, we can miss the point that being made in the image of God is a relational quality, not a biological trait. We can communicate and have a relationship with God, and we can reflect his character and represent him to the rest of creation.
Series: Evidences for Evolution
This technical series, co-written by Darrel Falk and David Kerk, looks into the evidence for evolution in order to dispel doubts that people may have about this well-supported theory. They look at three things specifically: the separate methods which reveal of the age of the earth, the unfolding history of whale evolution, and finally the common trends of heart development in vertebrates.
Misconceptions About Evolution, Part 2
Evolutionary theory is not in crisis; scientists accept evolution as the best explanation for life's diversity because of the multiple lines of evidence supporting it, its broad power to explain biological phenomena, and its ability to make accurate predictions in a wide variety of situations.
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Officer Johnson gets increased punishment
read more recent story comments Reader commentsForthecitizensofWT Tuesday, July 6, 2010: 6:17 pm More from ForthecitizensofWT | Wow Officer Johnson followed all protocols and didnt lie in his report and no criminal charges filed and he gets this? What is wrong with the picture? He should be back on the street unless we the public arent getting told everything! |
Proud American Tuesday, July 6, 2010: 6:37 pm More from Proud American | I would sue their pathetic butts off if I were Officer Johnson. A grand jury and outside experts agree that Officer Johnson's actions were completely in line with his training and he was exhonerated of any charges and acted according to training and a superior's orders. Now the "wonderful" Mayor and his posse of incompetents try to play political football and make it appear that they are so rightous. I hope Officer Johnson sues, wins and Mayor never-been gets booted. Nough' said. |
Brad Armstrong Tuesday, July 6, 2010: 8:05 pm More from Brad Armstrong | Sounds like a Bobby Knight plan...set up for failure!!! |
Planter Tuesday, July 6, 2010: 8:41 pm More from Planter | Martinsville management????? If you have done any reasearch at all, you must know you are as wrong as wrong can be. You are only jumping on the emotional response of those who are Monday morning quaterbacks. Real reasearch is a great tool for decision making. Nothing the police could have done would have been right and you are subjecting public servants to the moods of unknowing people. Please use your heads for something besides a hat rack. Thank you for your time. Respectfully, Planter |
jazzmanRIP Tuesday, July 6, 2010: 8:43 pm More from jazzmanRIP | Whew... Wow...Sigh...Shaking my head in disbelief...this the punishment you get for acting on the way you have been trained and for following a superior orders. Hate to think what you Mayor Deckard and your counterparts would have done if Officer Johnson had really stepped out of line and committed a crime. It is so easy for you and your safety council members to pass down a punishment like this. Where will you Mayor Deckard and your safety council members be for next two years? While Officer Johnson is having to watch his every move for the next two years I suppose you Mayor Deckard will be fervently working to be re-elected and your council members will also be going on with their lives. A split second following a Superior's orders has costs Officer Johnson two years of his life. He would have been better off disobeying his Superior's orders. His punishment for that would not have cost him two years of his life. However Officer Johnson being the man of character that he is would never be insubordinate. Now he must live another two years of this mess you Mayor Deckard created. All for political gain you Mayor Deckard hung an officer out to dry. You and your council members should be ashamed of yourselves. I for one will NEVER cast a vote for you or any of your council members to ever hold an office. People of Martinsville is this the kind of leadership you want for you and yours? A Mayor and council members who override a special prosecutor and a grand jury just to be able to puff themselves up at the expense of a police officer. Please people VOTE THEM ALL OUT!!! Show them that they cannot take matters into their own hands. There is only one God who sits on the throne and passes judgement and holds us accountable and it is NOT Phil Deckard with his holier than thou attitude or his council members with those same attitudes. Officer Johnson...do not let them get away with this!!! Please please do all you can to sue the city and the safety council if possible. Do not take this sitting down. Do your homework and go find the best attorney you can that will not stop until you win and gain your character back. If you have to go to congressional lengths to get your character back then do it Officer Johnson. You have the real God who sits on the throne to see you thru and I'm sure there is a true christian attorney who will prayerfully seek God's guidance in representing you. Hold your head high and forge on thru the wilderness for on the other side is victory for you. |
Lower Taxes Less Gov Tuesday, July 6, 2010: 9:20 pm More from Lower Taxes Less Gov | Reality is that he may have not broken any rules,sop's, sog's. When certian things are written or put in place, they should be used as a last resort or when you have tried everything else that is less harmful/traumatic! The same thing would apply to the use of pepper spray, a baton or his weapon! His punishment fits his overactions. I belive he is a good police officer and hope he will take somthing from this and turn it into a positive learning experience and become a great police officer! The same thing applys to parenting. when your child gets out of hand you shouldnt instantly give them the maximum punishment first. You should start with a lesser one and then work your way to the worst one!! I have raised several children I have also delt with many special needs childern there is many other ways that could have been used. This is only an opinion. |
Tomslick Tuesday, July 6, 2010: 9:30 pm More from Tomslick | Who do we call for assistance in this town if we have a problem with a voilent junenile. If you call the police you risk them loosing thier jobs. Election time can't come soon enough! |
Liberty Tuesday, July 6, 2010: 11:24 pm More from Liberty | daily supervisor evaluations ? I believe it may have been his old superior ( supervisor ) that was his detriment to begin with ? Maybe if he had been alone he would have handled things differently. God will see him through. |
ForthecitizensofWT Wednesday, July 7, 2010: 9:58 am More from ForthecitizensofWT | I smell a lawsuit!!! |
Tomcatt68 Wednesday, July 7, 2010: 11:57 am More from Tomcatt68 | "That prompted Jennings to slap the boy�s head, Johnson said. The blow was strong enough to knock the boy back against the house, the officer said." How is this not an assault on a minor or excessive force? And Jennings gets to retire with full benefits while Johnson gets 45 days no pay. Sad what a corrupt town Martinsville has become. |
Tomcatt68 Wednesday, July 7, 2010: 12:01 pm More from Tomcatt68 | I guess Johnson must not be a member of the Good Ole Boy club(white sheets and pointed hats). |
ForthecitizensofWT Wednesday, July 7, 2010: 1:39 pm More from ForthecitizensofWT | What I dont understand is, is that they are punishing him for past things and not what they had the meeting for. If they ( the board and Mayor) was going to punish him for past actions they should have done it when it happened not now. If I was Officer Johnson I would sue the sh** out of the City. I agree its not fair that the person who abused the child aka Mr Jennings got to retired with full pension when he should have been fired. There are no criminal charges filed and Officer Johnson was cleared by the investigator and special Prosecutor in this matter and followed all his protocols and sops so why is he being punished. Totally unacceptable by the board and Mayor. Mr Johnson im sure there is a attorny out there that is good who is itching to take on your case. You now have the City by the jewels. To me it sounds like the board and mayor "which correct me if im wrong is on the board" have a problem on there hands with non fair treatement. The sentenced him like a Judge would a criminal. So if he has 5 or 6 days good credit does that mean this officer gets a day for a day good time credit and will be back on the street where he belongs MAYOR??? If your going to not stand behind your officer and defend him and then treat and sentence him like a crook then he should get the same beneifits as a crook and thats a day for a day good time. I would be embarrassed to work for MPD right now after your own Mayor didnt say " you know the investigation is comolete and no charges filed and all guidlines were followed welcome back to the Street Darrin" but he didnt he went above and beyond to punish this officer for following protocols!!! How about since your on a rampage right now Mayor and Public Board how about we clean up our city workers. I hear then cursing and see them flipping people off all the time. Even if its there friends or something like that its not called for and a disgrace to this community. The only people I actually see working besides the Fire Dept and Police is the water Department peopple. They arent just out driving around in city trucks smoking and wasting fuel. They actually are working. There is plenty the street dept could be doing but that would consist of them not sitting at bigfoot for an hour bsing. So why arent they disciplined Mayor?? |
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Your Presidential Debate Tweets, Odd President Facts & More: Best of Twitter
We scanned Twitter to find the best presidential debate tweets from our followers
We scanned Twitter to find the best presidential debate tweets from our followers
Where did this little guy come from — ;) ? We learned about the history of the emoticon and much more on Twitter this week.
The only thing that got Twitter users more worked up than the "one-in-a-lifetime" flyover of the space shuttle Endeavor this week was perhaps the arrival of the new iPhone 5. No, we're not kidding.
Once again we bring you our favorite tweets that made us think, made us chuckle or got us a little riled up this week
Here's what we found amusing on Twitter this week. (And don't worry — our guess is these folks will be just as critical when the Dems are in the spotlight this coming week!)
We've got a mountain lion tweeting at us, plus we've learned a little more about the Olympics this week on Twitter
See what photos your Olympics heroes are tweeting
Our top 10 favorite tweets of the week
We watched as a comedian sparred with NPR's This American Life, learned why Andy Warhol painted Campbell's soup cans and got a few laughs thanks to Twitter this week
Here's what we gleaned from Twitter this week


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Online registration for summer activities and classes begins June 5th. Mail-in registrations will be processed in random order beginning at 8:30 a.m. You can register in person at any PRCS (community/recreation/senior) center or manned parks and the administrative office in Leesburg during normal operating hours.
The Summer Activity Guide is available online at www.loudoun.gov/prcs . Register online at www.loudoun.gov/webtrac.


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Online dating brings singles together who may never otherwise meet. It's a big world and the LDSPlanet.com community wants to help you connect with singles in your area. Whether you are seeking just a date, a pen pal, a casual or a serious relationship, you can meet singles in Cheyenne today! Wyoming is known as the "Cowboy State" and LDSPlanet.com is here to bring their LDS Singles together.
Search Single LDS Men in Cheyenne | Search LDS Singles in Cheyenne


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Home » News » Public Safety
January 26. 2013 10:28PM
PITTSBURG - Three nearly simultaneous snowmobile crashes sent two people to the hospital Saturday, authorities said.
The first happened around 1:15 p.m. when Kristen R. Cortigiano, 20, of Farmington, Conn., failed to negotiate a curve and downhill grade on Trail 20, causing her machine to go over an embankment, striking a large stump.
She received what appeared to be serious, but non-life threatening injuries as a result of the crash and was airlifted to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, according to state Fish and Game.
A second machine in the group also went off the trail in the same location, sustaining minor damage. That operator, Michael M. Fallat, 21, of Auburn, N.Y., was not injured but was charged with operating a snowmobile on a suspended license.
"Failure to adjust speed to changing trail conditions appears to have been the primary factor in both incidents," authorities said in a news release.
Meanwhile, the third snowmobile crash was reported on Trail 142.
Theresa Voci, 52, of Randolph, Vt., suffered injuries to her leg and thigh after her snowmobile left a bend in the trail, went down an embankment and struck several logs beneath the snow.
She was airlifted to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, Maine.
Voci and her husband told Fish and Game conservation officers that another group of snowmobiles traveling in the middle of the trail at a high rate of speed in the opposite direction forced her off the trail to avoid colliding with them, according to authorities.
Three snowmobile crashes in Pittsburg at same time
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- New Ipswich man burned in garage fire, flown to Boston - 0
- Two sustained minor injuries in Rochester crash Sunday - 0
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Lightning strikes home in Exeter
READER COMMENTS: 0- Updated: NH House defies Hassan, kills casino bill by 35-vote margin - 16
- Threats at Goffstown High 'not credible' - 0
- House votes to ban lead sinkers and jigs an ounce or under - 8
- House passes auto dealers bill of rights - 2
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Updated: Car may have started itself, crashes, burns at Manchester Home Depot
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Fitness professionals often have that herd instinct where they sometimes bunch together thinking that there is safety in numbers. While this might work for Wildebeests, who form a tight herd hoping to keep the lions away, it almost always fails for young fitness professionals who won't open their own business unless they do it with four or five other people. Nothing spells doom faster than three or four drinking/training buddies opening their first gym without a business plan or a partnership agreement.
Partnerships are often a necessity in the fitness business, where a group of liked minded fitness people band together to pool money and talent; but most of these partnerships will fail early due to the group never setting them up properly in the first place. In other words, set up your partnership well in the beginning and you might become the exception in this industry that makes it work over time.
Partnerships fail for three reasons. First of all, no one in the group ever had the final decision-making power. Someone has to have the ability to weigh all discussions and then make the final decision. This is usually the person who is the most business minded in the group and who is willing to evaluate and then act on the numbers and data at hand.
Emotion is what often ruins a partnership group at this stage. One partner is usually the emotional one and every vote or decision he or she makes revolves around not hurting someone, displeasing a client or in reaction to a competitor. Making a good business decision is far down the list for this person and every vote is dictated by avoidance of pain rather than what is right for the business.
There is also usually a person in the partnership that is perpetually broke. Anyone with ongoing financial problems is the last person you should ever hire, since there will never, ever be enough money in his life. And anyone with everlasting financial issues is also the last person you should ever be partners with, or at the very least the last person who should ever have a vote in the decision-making process of the business. Every vote this person makes will always be to take more money, cut more expenses or a regular bitch session how he is doing more work than any other partner and now deserves more money than the rest of the team.
Secondly, partnerships fail because the group never took the time to clearly put into writing everyone's job description. For example, if you have three trainers banding together to form their first training gym, who is going to do what in the business? If everyone thinks he or she will just be training clients, then who is going to acquire new clients and run the business on a daily basis.
It is also important to note that this is the stage where everyone complains about their lack of money and while they want to be partners, they also want to keep their own training money separately instead of pooling everyone's cash flow into the business. This also applies to mainstream partnerships as well. There is always the trainer guy in the group who wants to be an owner, but also refuses to give up his cash flow to the business. In this case, he is just running his own business in the new business. This comes up when job descriptions are written and you have to declare what you will do and where the money will go.
Usually when a new gym group forms, and this is why this group will fail, is that everyone throws in the clients they have and you end up with three trainers just training and no one ends up running the business. The questions that should have been asked, and clarified by job descriptions, would be who is responsible for marketing, who handles the money, who is going to hire and fire, who will be the head trainer and set the training methodology for the company. Most importantly, who will read the numbers each day, keep the team focused on making money and make the final decision on every issue that affects the health of the business.
Thirdly, most groups are undercapitalized. This seems absurd since the group formed to pool resources, but it is because they didn't have the money in the first place that they threw in everything they had to get going. The bad news here is that most investors, including family members, are reluctant to loan money to a group rather than just their person represented in the group. In other words, I really don't want to give my son $50,000 to get started since the other guys in his group don't have a lot of money to put up. This really means that one guy is paying the way for many, and if the group makes money his son only makes a smaller share, and if the group fails, the risk is with the big investor and not the broke partners who had little skin in the game.
The logic here would be to not treat all partners equally and whoever puts the most money in has the largest share, and whoever puts in the least will have the smallest percentage of stock. This theoretically makes sense, but four partners opening their first gym all think they are equals and usually demand to split the stock evenly.
Here are a few rules that will save you thousands of dollars, and maybe your business. As always, start with these as recommendations and let your attorney review everything you do:
ü A buyout agreement: If someone gets pissed off, you should have an agreement in place that one partner can use to buyout the other one using a set formula.
ü Agree to what happens with death, divorce and distress.
ü Agree to third-party mediation in advance
ü Agree to a five-year recapture plan to buyout someone else rather than having to get the cash today
ü Use this formula as the basis to buyout each other or to handle death and divorce:
(EBITDA + Owner's compensation x 3.5) – debt
This formula states that the gym is valued at a predetermined number. In this case, you are using a standard EBITDA formula (earnings before income tax, depreciation and amortization). We do not use interest in this formula, but rather income taxes, since most debt passes through or stays in the business and most sales in this industry are under three million dollars.
This formula is important in several ways. For example, if one partner gets mad and wants out, there is no squabble over the price. It is predetermined by formula, which everyone already signed and agreed to as part of the partnership papers. It is also important to note again the buyouts should be over five years and not with immediate cash. Remember the broke partner that is in every deal? Imagine he now wants out because he needs the cash and thinks he can just walk away and get paid today for his share. This puts an undue burden upon his partners to come up with the cash. Simply put into the agreement that he will be paid for his share over five years.
This also handles death and divorce well too. If a partner gets divorced, it is an understatement that the divorced partner and his ex-spouse will wildly disagree as to what the business is worth. This formula again kicks in; the ex-spouse is paid by whatever percentage he or she is entitled to through the divorce, and the payments are over five years, which allows the business to stay healthy. The stock that was repurchased can be sold again to whatever partner wants to step up or split as the partnership deems right at the time.
This works the same for death as well. Instead of arguing with parents or surviving spouses who might think the business is worth millions, the formula predetermines value and how the dead partner's family will be paid.
Partnerships aren't evil; they are just usually done stupidly, which leads to many people getting hurt and often businesses failing. It is worth saying again; if you are going to do a partnership, never get in unless you know how you are going to get out.
Just one day to make things right in the fitness universe would be all I need to kick ass. The day would be a long one since there is so much dysfunction out there and so many idiots that would need to feel the wrath of the king, but in one day you could do so much if you just had the power.
Where to start would be the big question? Would you only allow Lycra depending on BMI: anyone over 25 would be banned for life? Would you make it a law that no one could wear a $1000 worth of yoga clothes unless you actually did yoga? How about putting to death any B List athlete or star that eats prepackaged garbage meals and then does commercials touting that diet as the ultimate solution for weight loss for life? So many screwed up fitness people, so little time, but if I was the King of Fitness for just one day this would be my checklist to get the day rolling:
If was King, I'd….
Publicly execute any bitchy gym member who stands at the front counter chewing out a young employee over a first world problem. Really, the towels aren't fluffy enough today (sad but a true story)? You had to park at the back of the lot and walk to the front door? You want to cancel because you and your ginormous fat ass aren't using the gym? Execution would be swift. No trial, no jury, no second chance. You bitch out a staff member over stupid shit you die immediately. The execution would have to be fitting for the gym business. I would park a treadmill at a major mall on Saturday facing the wall and let thousands of people watch your big ass shake until you die of embarrassment.
· Force any client who ever bitches about the cost of a trainer to attend the, "Get a life" outreach program for a year. You know nothing about fitness, have never been in shape a day in your life and you think $40 or $50 an hour is too much to pay to get your first fitness clue. How many thousands of dollars did you pay to get out of shape? How much did all that crap food cost, those 1200 calories Starbucks drinks and that six-pack a day diet beer habit? You pay thousands of dollars to destroy your life, but won't pay a few bucks to work with a fitness professional that might save your pathetic overweight soul? One year of hard reality in a support group of whiners looking for a life is your penalty.
· Take away anyone's business that has ever screwed a member or client in the name of fitness, and then sterilize that person so he or she can't breed another generation of crooks. This alone could take my entire day as the King of Fitness, but it would be worth it. All the old chain guys would be first to feel the King's wrath; followed by that new generation of $10 gym guys who promise fitness on the cheap and then give no help, no support and do nothing but rent out-of-date equipment to innocent people who will now think that everyone in fitness runs their gyms like that. The punishment would be swift and mighty sayeth the King: your gym is gone and your pants are down and you will never ever bring a child in the world that will perpetuate your crooked ways.
· The King will also take care of those annoying, petty crimes that drive all of us in this business insane and who make the world think we are a bunch of overzealous dysfunctional idiots. On this list would be purists who ruin dinners by refusing to eat anything that isn't vegan, Paleo, raw, or that might have touched a sugar granule. There are people all over this planet, and also too many in this country, who go to bed hungry and would trade any meager possession for one decent meal a day, and yet we have people in this amazing place who stand there and bitch people out over meat or other food choices. Want to find out how much of a first world luxury your choice of diet is? Move to Africa for a few years and then get back to me about how that vegan diet belief system is holding up when you find that you would now trade your last pair of underwear for an egg and a clean glass of water?
Live your own life, and make your own diet choice, but stop the preaching and stop the self righteous attitude about not eating anything with eyes, especially when you are calling out of work sick three times a month because your body can't get any nutrients from six pounds of beans a day. I like vegetarians and was one for 22 years, but keep it to yourself and be thankful you live in a country rich enough where many people have to limit the calories they take in rather than spend the day searching for your next meal. Ask a North Korean farmer, who spends 10,000 calories a day slaving in a field to grow a few thousand calories worth of food if he is lucky whether he sits at a dinner table embarrassing other people about their food choices.
· The King would also go after other things on the petty list, such as old aerobic queens who scream, "woo," trainers who shout, "it's all you bro;" bitchy, pity seeking, self-justifying people on Dr. Phil who swear that they have tried every workout and diet and still can't lose weight and are now suing the potato chip companies for making them pigs; overweight, deconditioned doctors who tell clients that a calorie is a calorie; one tool wonder trainers who preach that their tool is the only tool (insert CrossFit, kettle bell people, TRX people, any specialty race crazy person, or any born again studio cycle person who rides seven days a week and wears Soul Cycle clothes on a date) and of course the female fitness contestant who spends thousands of hours working out to get into shape for a contest, but has the hair and makeup of blind homeless person.
· The King would also go after all the stuff that really has pissed me off over the years in this industry. Any gym that does any of this would be burned down on the spot and the owner's children would be sold as slaves to a band of wandering Zumba zombies from Brazil: cracked vinyl on kettle bells, dirty toilets, no rental towels; young, stupid front counter people who have no manners and who have never been trained in customer service, owners who wear old jeans to work showing total disrespect to the customers; any owner who tells me he or she is burned out working in the greatest industry in the world; stupid trainers who still put middle-aged women on bodybuilding split workouts and train them for their first natural show; fat trainers who can't muster the discipline to at least look as good as their worst conditioned client; any equipment or service company that blames the client for mistakes rather than just fixing the problem; sales people in gyms who aren't trainers too, and any gym owner who still runs a picture in his advertisements of a semi-naked big breasted fitness model telling himself she is a role model rather than acknowledging the bulge in his pants as he stares at the copy of the photo on his desk all day. All have to go when I am King of Fitness and all will die a most horrible death by being boiled in the Greek yogurt wonder food of the week.
And finally, when I am King of Fitness, and at the end of my long day making all these wrongs right, all of you honest, hard working fitness professionals who are truly trying the make the world around you a better place would be rewarded.
On this day you would be given a day of rest away from the craziness, you would be given a most wondrous meal that would be calorie free, the King himself would pour you a fine glass of fine (have a drink you purists and get over your silly ass self) and most importantly, someone would say thank you for doing what you do everyday without complaint instead of bitching your ass out over nothing that really mattered in the universe anyway. If only I was the King of Fitness for just one day…
Someone ask me if I could simply explain why the membership model is dead and why the training-centric business model will rule in the coming decade. The first chart shows a typical gym in northern New Jersey two years ago. As you can see, all the revenue in the gym comes from membership dues and only $7,000 per month comes from training.
This gym now has intense competition from both the top-end players and the low priced guys. If you have been in business for more than five years, and you have intense competition, how much can you really change that $960,000 membership revenue model. Most likely, and this is what the big chains are now experiencing, is that this number will most likely decline rather than go up and most of the strategies used to pump this number up, such as sales and discounts, no longer work. In other words, there is no growth left in membership.
$960,000 a year in net
membership income
($80k x 12)
$84,000 a year in
training income
($7k x 12)
In the next chart, the potential left in a big box player is illustrated. Simply explained, a big box gym that converts about 40% of its membership each month into a training-centric membership (based upon 12-month memberships and not one-on-one or packages) can achieve the same monthly income each month from its training revenue that it does from its membership income. In other words, and this is the entire industry in one line: the only growth potential left for the chains to pursue is a higher return per client served and not chasing memberships in an intensely competitive market.
$960,000 a year in
The industry isn't really that hard, the big chains just make it that way. The training gyms already understand, and are exploiting, a higher return per client. Most importantly, everyone in a training gym is mostly there to get results and doesn't mind paying for those same results. Where is the future for the chains. Simply change your business plan to pursue the second chart. Culture has to change, people would have to go, sacred cows would have to be slaughtered, but someday one of the big chains will post this blog on a wall and the game will be on.
"Sure, we have functional training—it's in that room in the back."
It is a shame that this statement is from a vice-president of operations from one of the largest chains in the country and not from some old and dysfunctional gym owner left over from the "80s. This comment also explains why the smaller training gyms are creating such a threat to the chains that still don't understand they never escaped the membership business while everyone else has moved on to the results business. The mainstream players chase endless volume and the training gyms have moved on to return per client, a superior business plan that is sustainable over time while the volume guys choke each other out in almost every market.
In other words, this senior executive, and so many like him, still thinks it is 1995 and believe it is just a matter of time before they magically find a way to turn back time and start selling a lot of memberships again just like the 90s: despite the price wars, increased competition in every major market and the boredom factor experienced by any normal human who now refuses to be a lab rate and repeat the circuit circle everyday for the rest of his life.
The chains also have tight blinders over their eyes preventing them from seeing that those neighborhood training gyms—the ones with 300 clients or so—are draining the best of the chain membership leaving the cheap and exploitive members left who haven't purchased a bottle of water since 1997.
The problem for so many in the industry, and for the rest of us who have to work around their stupidity, is that functional training methodology is just another add-on offering relegated to the back room to be sold as an enticement to buy a membership. Step this way sir and here we have our juice bar, our cycle room, or childcare and our functional training room. And don't forget we have TRX classes taught by aerobic queens who can't even spell functional training and can give you an incredible experience after only one day of education.
The point not understood by so many who are so far behind is that a methodology, defined as a training philosophy, is how you establish your training culture in your gym. And this training philosophy is worthless, no matter which guru you follow, without a business platform underneath it. In this example, the business platform is defined as the price structure and product sold by the gym.
In the case of the chains, they are in the membership business and could not care less if any member ever got success. The chains, and most of the other mainstream players in the big box concept, are all based upon 1980s bodybuilding, and the culture in the gym is nothing more than trying to provide the widest range of equipment that will isolate the widest range of muscles.
In the training world, everyone lives by the belief that we are here to get the maximum results, for the maximum number of clients, in the shortest period of time. One side rents equipment while the other sells results, which is kind of like the old saying of coming to knife fight with a whiffle ball bat. You can swing that plastic bat all you want, but you will still leave a bloody mess. In this case, the knife is the results one gets from using a holistic methodology and you can't beat a client that gets in shape for the first time in his life using something as simple as a kettle bell or sandbag.
Functional training restricted to the backroom is a gimmick used by owners and managers with a total lack of understanding as to what constitutes modern fitness. CrossFit, for example, is a methodology, or again a philosophy of training, and is in no way a business system, which is why so many passionate coaches in CrossFit make so little money in their boxes.
The same is true of TRX classes given by group exercise divas, baby kettle bells in aerobics, and any of the national group exercise organizations that are trying to add some type of large group team training to their group ex schedules taught by one-day weekend wonder, newly minted trainers that just hours ago had done nothing but teach aerobics for the last 15 years. All are gimmicks used to sell memberships and have nothing to do with delivering a consistent and high quality training product.
Perhaps one of the strongest examples was a conversation I recently had with a gym manager who was doing a major renovation in her facility. The facility was a big, mainstream fitness facility that was adding space. Her comments included, "Here is our new 12,000 square foot fitness area and back here is our 1000 foot functional room."
I asked her how she explained the differences in the spaces? "Well, the big room is going to be our fitness room with circuit training, free weight area and cardio equipment and in the back is where we will have suspension training and kettle bells." To her, one room was fitness and the other was functional training and her definition of fitness was the same that had been misunderstood since Arthur Jones started the circuit madness. In the real world, and to the consumer, the big room is 1995 and the smaller room is 2013.
She couldn't understand that a truly successful gym has to incorporate a complete training methodology throughout the gym and then design a business platform built upon that philosophy. The business platform is our layered pricing system that we have been using for so many years in so many financially successful training gyms and mainstream players. These owners and managers are willing to change how they think about training and are also willing to move away from the same traditional pricing methods that are failing everywhere in the country.
This obviously could be changed in just a few weeks anywhere in any chain if the operators wanted to embrace the business platform that is allowing dominance by a few hundred training gyms. The picture included with this blog is Gold's Gym, Webster, New York, and represents the first generation of owners willing to leave 1995 behind and move into a culture of success for every member. The owners, Todd, Jackie, George and Bri, have not only survived one of the toughest markets in the country, but have actually shown growth for six consecutive years.
These are talented owners who were willing to change the culture of the club, and drop so much of the equipment baggage from that era, and reinvent their business. This is especially powerful in that this Gold's was the third original Gold's in the country and while Gold's corporate is chasing the $9 express, burn it down quickly model, a few other people, such as this team, remember that they are in the fitness business and only so many people can copy the cheap price model and survive.
Adapting a training philosophy is the first step when seeking change, but you still have to infuse this belief throughout the box, no matter how big or small the gym, and then build a solid business platform that reflects this belief to every member, not just those restricted to the five percent or so who typically embrace 1995 one-on-one training. The layered pricing system is nothing more than a way to make training, which is where the results come from, available to the widest percentage of clients. The layered pricing system also, by the way, allows the gym to make more money, with a higher percentage of profit, from a significantly smaller number of members.
Look for a series of blogs starting in the next few weeks on the complete business platform and what it takes to make sustainable money over time in this convoluted fitness market.
There are two parts it takes to build a successful training-centric business that almost every owner misses. These two pieces give your program that finished feel and are two keys that separate you from your competitors. Remember that it isn't the big things that usually kill your business—it is the combination of a hundred small things done badly that will ultimately take you down.
The first missing piece of building a financially successful training centered business is creating a culture, in writing and that can be taught to everyone on the staff, that becomes the center focus of whom you are and what you are trying to accomplish. Culture is a nebulous word that is hard to grasp, and in this case it means you create a belief system based upon your philosophy as to how the client is trained and serviced during each visit.
The second missing key is the introduction of consistent coaching cues. For example, a trainer/coach who has a small group in progress, but who spends time talking to other coaches on the floor, has obviously never been taught that this behavior is bad service and bad coaching.
We stress culture in our women's-only training gym. We currently have 1400 women in the gym and about 35%, and this number is growing each month, are currently involved in training. This gym was once sold and we had to take it back as a damaged business. The first thing you have to do when you get control of a business, or try and grow an existing one, is establish why you are there and what you are trying to accomplish as a team.
We use this culture guide as the basis for our training of all coaches and group exercise instructors. We are also currently giving this out as a reference in our certification programs and other workshops through the NFBA. Of course you will need to modify it as needed for your gym, but once you create your own version, use it as a review to start every staff meeting you have with your trainers and also share it with every new training client.
Many of you may disagree with some of the actual methods, but for the sake of applying this to your gym look at the creation of culture as your main goal and not whether you agree with the particulars of training as mentioned here. Also keep in mind that this makes a great handout for potential clients since it positions you well against competition:
Sample Culture Handout (for a women's-only training gym with 22 trainers)
Why we exist
This business was created to shelter and nurture women who are seeking a more fit life, but who can't find the help and support they need to be successful in traditional, mainstream membership clubs.
Why we feel training is the key to success
Fitness is motion and motion is life!
If a woman wants to maintain the highest standard of living throughout her life, then she needs to participate in a challenging fitness program at a minimum several times a week. The core to achieving long-term success in fitness is strength training, which is the heart of our training program and is the key to sustainable health and fitness over time.
Our motto of success
Strong women are beautiful women
(Strong women are beautiful)
Our mission statement
We change lives
This gym exists for one reason, and that is to constantly challenge and lead our members to achieve the highest level of sustainable fitness they can reach. We have an obligation to our members to provide a safe environment and to help as many as we can reach their goals and beyond.
Our philosophy:
Our core workout format (maximum of 50 minutes per workout):
The stages of a new client:
Once you establish culture, you can work on coaching cues. This is the elementary list here and pros such as Rick May or Alwyn Cosgrove could do full day workshops on just this alone, but these are the ones that most trainers ignore and are also the ones that irritate the paying clients the most. If you want to keep people paying longer and staying longer, start here:
The basic rules of coaching:
Start with culture and see if this works for you. If you haven't ever written out your personal or gym philosophy, then how do your coaches know how to act and perform? Culture is not a verbal five-minute lecture at a meeting, but a systematic approach to creating an environment that separates you from every other gym in town.
Pareto's Law states that 80% of the benefit comes from 20% of the process. In other words, 80% of whatever gain you achieve comes from a narrowly focused 20% of those involved in the process of creation.
In simpler terms, if you are a traditional sales person, 80% of your revenue is generated from about 20% of your client base. There is always that narrowly focused group of people who have the income, believe in or have a high need for the product, and are willing to spend the money to get what they want.
This is also true in any gym. Most mainstream gyms, for example, generate most of their ancillary income, defined as money spent beyond the basic membership fees, from a very narrow group of members/clients. Personal training usually only penetrates about five percent of the membership in most gyms and the people who regularly spend extra money on the shake bar, supplements, clothing, special programming or any other additional revenue source in the gym usually consist of less than 10% of the gym's total clientele. Stated differently, once you get beyond membership revenue, almost ALL of the other revenue spent in a typical mainstream fitness facility is spent by far less than 20% of the membership.
What happens if these people would disappear and the money stopped being spent in that gym? For example, let's say that a 25,000 square foot gym generates about $90,000 a month in total revenue and out of that number about $50K is from membership and about $30K is from training. The gym has about 2200 members, but the training clients that generate this 30K are only about 150 in number. The other $10k spent in the gym each month is from new memberships and the snack bar, which coincidently, is supported mostly by those same training clients. Stated more clearly, this gym has over 35% of its revenue being created by only about 150 members, which is roughly 7% of its membership base.
So again what if this 7% disappeared from this gym? Most owners worry about new competitors draining their best members, but the reality for most mainstream gyms is that the normal competitor is usually a similar box that chases a lower price, or a larger, national box that chases features.
In the first case, a similar physical plant offered at a lower price will only steal the cheap members who come and go randomly anyway and will shoot their mothers to save $.20 on a Diet Coke. In the example above, this gym would find that there is a new, $9 competitor down the street opening next month. He will lose a significant portion of his cheaper members, but if the gym is fairly current in its physical plant, he can adjust prices somewhat and fight and most likely survive.
In the second case, the smaller gym, in the example above is about 25,000 square feet, gets challenged by a larger gym that is 40,000 square feet. The original, smaller gym is usually nothing more than a shrunken version of a big box national player and will always be susceptible to someone doing something bigger and fresher at the same price. Again, if the gym is fairly current, he can adjust programming and customer service and still survive.
Both of these scenarios, however, don't always result in death for the business, because the membership that leaves is usually a representation of an across the board spectrum of members and not from one specific gym demographic. In other words, all the rich people, or all the women or all the serious lifters don't leave at once, but rather a few from every category in the gym leaves due to seeking something different, convenience, a cheaper price, or a fresher concept and equipment.
Both of these competition situations have been part of the gym landscape for decades and are nothing new. The ineffective get chewed up, but don't always die, by a next generation competitor, but in most cases the old and the new will both find a way to survive unless the old is truly decrepit, a crook or in a bad location and then Darwin's Law of Selection enters and the weak and ineffective die to be replaced by a more robust breed.
The real damage is just now starting to come and is already occurring in today's market. This new killer category is represented by the next generation training gym, which has never existed in big enough numbers in the past to wreak havoc, but is now increasing to the point that they can no longer be ignored.
So now we imagine that a 6,000 square foot training gym opens directly across the street from the example we listed above and imagine that the new training gym takes only about 100 of the original gym's training clients. The training gym is state-of-the-art, focused on just delivering a superior experience and exists for one purpose and one purpose only; to get the maximum results, for the maximum number of clients in the shortest period of time.
What would happen to our example gym's total revenue if most of the 7% who have generated almost all of the business's additional revenue beyond membership, left in a 30-day period? This gym would most likely fail since it would almost impossible to rebuild the training fast enough to save it and if the gym has been in business any length of time then there is usually not much it can do to dramatically increase the membership revenue beyond a few points.
This is why the mainstream players are vulnerable and why business for the chains, and chain emulators, will be so difficult in the next five years as more and more of these new training gyms open and drain the boxes across the street. Remember, you don't have to take a lot of their members to hurt them; you only have to take a significant portion of that magical 20% who provide the 80% of the gym's overall revenue.
The mainstream gyms can fight back by becoming training-centric and moving beyond just membership based, but as we all know change is tough and getting a chain to admit that its business plan is ineffective is much like getting your fat aunt to get off her ass and start walking. She understands the need, understands the concept, and realizes that what she is doing is not working, but it is far easier to avoid rather than go proactive and seek change.
Training gyms, such as the new generation that are able to do a million a year in 6,000 feet, are perhaps both the best thing that has happened to the industry in the last 50 years and also the most frightful if you own a big box that lives and dies on just membership numbers.
Happy Holidays from the National Fitness Business Alliance! Over the past few years, our keynote speaker, Thomas Plummer, has shared with us funny reflections of the year and hopes of the future through songs and poems.
This year Thom is sharing with us his Holiday Fitness Industry Wish List for 2013. We all know and love him for his blunt honesty and creative humor. No fitness professionals, fat pool ladies or elves were hurt in the production of this wish list – Enjoy!
It is that time when the year is wrapping up and everyone starts dreaming of a new start and new opportunities for 2013.
It has been a brilliant year in so many ways and there is so much to be thankful for in our lives. Everyone is healthy, the workshops have been growing by fantastic numbers and my clients worldwide are having successful lives and financially secure businesses.
But there are still things undone and here is my random wish list for 2013. I hope you find just what you want for next year somewhere on this list:
I wish that…
·Every gym owner who has ever ripped off a client by selling him a membership that he didn't need, couldn't pay for or was simply lied to in the process would be boiled in reindeer piss and fed to the Christmas pigs.
·Every client who has postured at a front desk as some type of self important idiot while chewing out a young counter kid over a simple service issue should be forced to clean the gym toilets for eternity.
·All training clients who quit working out blaming work, spouses, kids, no time, too busy, no money or state, "I am just not into this" experience that moment of realization where it hits them that their ass is fat, and getting fatter, and nothing will change until they finally take personal responsibility and stop blaming the world for their personal misery. If you are wearing it, then you ate it and you will not lose it until you move it. This should be tattooed around their sagging arm fat as a daily reminder. Santa, please bring these people the book, "No More Excuses…Getting Off Your Fat Ass is a Life Choice."
·Hardcore vegetarians who preach to others during meals should be rubbed in bacon fat and tied in a field for the coyotes. Live your own life. Self-righteous attitudes just turn everyone off to any aspect of fitness. Go veggie, go Paleo, go fruit, but just go quietly. Please just eat the damn Christmas cookies, your mother or the members made them for you and you won't die.
·Any young trainer, who goes overseas and refuses to eat any local meals choosing to live on Paleo Kits, would realize that life and meals aren't perfect. Missing a chance to experience the world is far more important than going strict for one more meal. Santa, this kid needs the Scrooge ghosts and the ghost of Christmas future. Let them show him what he is missing in China, while eating dried meat out of a cellophane package, sitting in his hotel room.
·The word "moderation" would disappear from the culture of this country. There is no moderation and nothing good has ever happened based upon a moderate approach. The best day of your life was not moderate. The best sex you ever had was not moderate. Your first child being born was not moderate. If it is worth doing, then it is worth overdoing. Anyone who cites a moderate approach to diet, exercise, friends or living is boring and should be in charge of hand washing Santa's huge tidy whitey's after his all night run around the world without a single bathroom break.
·The owners of any chain club would realize that you can make more money, and change more lives, if you understand that you are better off with 1800 serious members than 3000 drive-bys who are just there for the cheap price. How can you morally or ethically claim to be the fitness business when only about 5% of your members get any help and everyone else merely rents equipment? Here's an idea; what if we replaced Santa's entire reindeer team with the owners or presidents of all the largest chains and forced them to haul the sleigh. Talk about functional workouts! Maybe then one of them would realize that selling memberships is far different than running a results-based business. Santa, please send these guys a reality check and let them understand that if there are 20 other gyms in the market, you can't, and that is a big CAN'T, live on volume anymore.
·Every fat pool lady who complains about every single thing in the gym from the water temperature to the texture of the towels would finally admit that the only reason they love the pool is because it is almost the only place left in a gym where you can fake working out. Yes, your doctor told you to do the pool, but that is because you refused to do anything else and he just gave up. Santa, please humble these crazy bitches by forcing them to be nice to someone for at least one hour before they die.
·To the girls who wear low cut jeans with a muffin top hanging over the side and think: "Damn I look good!" To the guys who can't run 2 miles or do 20 pushups in their size 40 jeans still trying to hit on girls. They probably feel they are in the best shape of their life but are still unhappy. It can get better if they decide today to make a change. Santa, please send them both coal, preferably heavy, so they break a sweat when carrying it around the house.
·Every trainer who submits personal photos posing or flexing, at the beach all oiled up in a tiny bathing suit, along with their resume, would understand that it is not about how you look, it is about what you can do. It is not about you, it is about the client. You are not a role model; you are a leader and professional guide through a difficult journey. Santa, bring these trainers books from Amazon on inferiority complexes and self-esteem
·The angel guarding the gates of heaven is a CrossFit geek and your first workout of the day is a month and half long row and box jump marathon.
·Every guru in our business would remember that if you wear the suit, you have to be the man. Meaning if you stand in front of 200 people who believe you are the real deal you have to be that "man" answering the same questions forever. Batman can't decide tonight he isn't going to respond to the signal. He is the guru of crime fighting and wears the suit. Batman can't stay at home watching Jersey Shore because he isn't into it tonight and is sick of helping people. Santa, I love these guys, but please bring them all drugs this year that will mellow their collective asses out.
·Every fitness guy would look at his net receivable, then look at his average training revenue and realize that the only growth left in the business is going to be in training and not in continuing to grow that membership. Memberships can be sustained over time, but never grow much in most markets. The only growth left to any fitness business is seeking a higher return per client and not chasing a shear number of new clients. Santa, please just replace these people with someone who does get it because they hurt far too many clients who trusted them with their money and who believe that every client is just a number that can be replaced tomorrow with another one just like it. Sad to tell you but 1995 is gone and it is the era of Training Centric Business.
·Running shorts on old guys, leggings on fat women and any form of Zumba wear on the severely deconditioned person would be outlawed in every state, and especially at every Wal-Mart. No one should ever be allowed to wear Lulu Lemon unless you actually do yoga or workout. Santa, please bring the old guys shorts long enough to cover the junk. Please remind the chubby women in tights that it is against the laws of nature to stuff 50 pounds of jiggle into a 20 pound container. Throw in a video showing one of those women walking away from the camera in tights. It sort of looks like 10 drunken elves trying to get out of a sleeping bag.
·Finally, I wish that we would all remember that we exist in this industry to change lives. Do this well and the money will be there. There are a lot of good people in this industry, Santa, reward them well this year. As to the ethically challenged, the lazy trainers, the inept chain people who won't change, the old style box owners who fail to evolve and to every client who has lied to himself and abused any of my staff, I hope an entire team of reindeer craps in your shoes and that Santa bites your wife's cookies.
Sometimes you have to realize that the dream you have been chasing for what might seem forever is nothing but emotion and that it might be better to just walk away and let the dream die. It might be the right dream, but the wrong time. It might be the right dream and the wrong place, or it just might be that everything you want might be the one thing you shouldn't ever have.
There is an extremely thin line you can cross where the emotion and energy you are putting into realizing your dream slowly becomes ego and an inability to know when to quit. Pride, and often arrogance in proving to the bastards you can do this no matter who tells you no, often leads to forcing something that should have never happened in the first place.
One client in particular stands out in that he chased his dream of opening his own golf school for almost 10 years. He was the right guy in that he was heavily credentialed and was recognized as one of the top golf teachers in the world. He was also the right guy in that he could raise money through his clients, friends and the banks. The mistake he made was the market he chose was never going to allow the project to happen. Not enough people in the market, no space that could be acquired at reasonable terms and no hope of getting the deal where he wanted to be due to impossible terms that could not be overcome. He is the right guy, with the right dream, but in the wrong place to be in his life.
In essence he wasted 10 years chasing the right dream for him, but the reality became he was trying to force something into the market that even if he got it opened would have been a lousy deal with high risk and a high probability of failure. His ego, however, and the emotional response to getting his ass kicked by being told no, kept driving him year after year to keep trying to force it to happen. The best advice he could hear was to pack up your wife, who wanted to move out of that part of the country anyway and was only there because of him, pack up your dream, which was portable, and head to somewhere with more clients and opportunity where he could realize his potential.
You also see this same mistake when someone wants his first gym. Patience and common sense leaves the room within minutes of the person looking at their first rental space. When the real estate agent show this person his first space, the emotion rolls over him like fat women shopping the specials at The Wal-Mart at Christmas. The sale signs go up, the over fed herd gathers, the door opens and any reason or common sense those 500 crazed shoppers might have had evaporates and the stampede is on. Emotion rules and someone is going to die over saving a few dollars on a big screen television he or she didn't need anyway.
Every dream and fantasy this potential gym owner might of had about creating his own business, and has kept him awake at night for the last three years, now has a location, a possible reality and the endless time he has spent thinking about being in his own place is now conceptually only a few months away. Except that this particular space is a bad deal and he should keep looking.
This is when the emotion overtakes the common sense and the deal gets forced. There isn't really enough parking, but he justifies it by figuring he can park his car in the alley. The signage is poor, but he believes since he is the best trainer in the area people will find him. The potential landlord doesn't want to throw in any build-out allowance into the space, which squeezes the new owner's budget, but he just mentally lowers the expected cost of everything and tells the investors it will work. And finally there is no realistic option to renew in this space, but this is also justified as a chance for him to get in and get started and is viewed as something that can be dealt with in the future since the landlord seemed such a nice guy and it should be no problem sometime "out there in three years."
In this case, telling the potential owner to walk away almost kills him. It is sort of like starting a marathon and you are only a hundred yards from the finish, but someone tells you to turn around and head back the other way or you will die and you aren't allowed to finish this race you have been training for every day for years.
There isn't any hard, fast checklist here you can use to see if this applies to you, but there are several questions you can ask yourself if you are currently feeling trapped by a dream:
Sometimes the hardest part of being a consultant is being a dream killer. Sometimes the answer is no, not today, not in this town and not for you…yet. Keep dreaming, but realize that your dream may have to change to become a reality and that chasing an emotional drain might kill you and kill that dream forever.
DOWNLOADABLE versions of all Thom's books available now! More Info >


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This ultimate Grand Canyon air tour flies the furthest and deepest into the Grand Canyon itself. Soar above the Historical Boulder City and see unbelievable views of Lake mead, the Magnificent Hoover Dam, Black Canyon, extinct volcanoes and Fortification Hill as you make your way to America's most spectacular natural wonder, the Grand Canyon!
You will descend through the depths of the Grand Canyon below the Canyon rim of this majestic and awe-inspiring "Wonder of the World" to marvel at its towering geological rock formations which span over millions of years.
Your tour is not yet over after ascending above the rim. Fly to Eldorado Canyon, the site of the biggest mining boom in early Nevada history. Prepare to step back in time as you explore the old town. Experience the rich history of the area; venture through the tunnels on a guided tour of the mines that once produced riches to some of the Nevada residents. Relax and enjoy your return flight back over the Las Vegas area.
Want to spend more time at Eldorado? Many activities are available to add on to make this adventure even more exciting. Choose from ATV, Baja Jeep or Horseback tours of the El Dorado Canyon Trails, kayaking on the Colorado River or visit the Old West Mining Camp in the back country.
At El Dorado Canyon you can kick up a little sand aboard a four-wheel drive, fully automatic ATV and ride off into the Canyon for views of the mountain ranges and the gleam of the Colorado River.
*** All riders under 18 years of age are required to have parent sign a waiver. Children 15 years and younger must ride on a 2 seat ATV with a Guide or Parent and be at least 5 feet tall.
Make your way towards El Dorado Canyon and enjoy an off-road trip up and around trails aboard the four-wheeled Ranger, guided high up the mountain side and up to the old mines scattered throughout the area.
***Passengers on the Ranger must be six (6) years or older.
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*** You must be at least 14 years of age to paddle your own kayak and 6 years of age to ride in a tandem kayak. Under 18 must have parent or guardian signed waiver to participate in tour.
The ride treks along paths that were originally used for mule driven ore carts that carried precious minerals to the river. Deep in the isolated and hidden canyon our trail winds through miles of terrain where a natural spring that attracts a variety of desert wildlife.
***Passengers must be eight (8) years of age or older.
Please Note: Comfortable clothing & footwear is advised on our tours!
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