100000Strong.com

Brad Howard asked:


A healthy diet and exercise… diet and exercise… diet and exercise! This is the mantra that most healthy people practice and preach daily. As such, it is no wonder that health clubs are very popular. But wait… before you dive in and get a membership subscription from the smooth-talking health club “consultant”, take a moment to understand exactly how they were able to convince you.

Many health clubs are employing rather dubious techniques to lure unsuspecting customers into their fold. Do all these marketing tricks really make you save money – or does the opposite happen? Below are some of the classic techniques used by gyms and health clubs to downright fool customers into spending more than they were led to believe.

See Behind those Health Club Marketing Tricks

Get a Free Year – Ever hear those health club gimmicks that allegedly give you 1-year of free membership when you pay for an entire year in advance? You are probably just really paying for two years worth of subscription. Ask around and see other health clubs and you’ll see that you’re not really getting much of a bargain. Don’t forget that gyms and health clubs are high-maintenance businesses. They need a lot of income to ensure optimal service for their clients so throwing in a full year of free health club access may indeed be too good to be true.

Low Monthly Rates – Is there really no catch to those extremely low monthly subscription rates? Well, no – most of the time there is a catch. And this usually comes in the form of very long contracts. These, of course, are not good. What if their service deteriorates a few months since you’ve started? This effectively puts you in a trap where you would have to pay for the entire duration of the contract regardless if you wish to leave later on.

Win a Free Membership Raffle – Fill a form for a chance to win a free membership to the health club. Few people have ever heard of anybody winning these dubious raffles but plenty have heard from unrepentant sales people over the phone trying to convince you to sign up in their health club! This is of course, thanks to the telephone number you conveniently provided to them by filling out the so-called raffle stub.

Free Training Sessions – Spending time with their exercise or fitness trainers won’t provide you with much information, but you’ll get plenty of sales talk. If they offer free training sessions, prepare yourself for a lot of hard selling and incessant talk about getting a membership. Let’s face it, after being entertained for so long, you’ll probably feel guilty not to sign up! You would do better by inspecting the premises instead.

Exaggerated Advertising – Ever see such low rates being advertised by certain health clubs? How about those money back guarantees? Or how about those state of the art gym equipment that promise to make your workouts painless? You would be surprised how far some health clubs go just to make a sale. Yes, many would stoop to lying just to make you get a membership. Always try to validate all their claims. Check the facility. Ask for specifics about the service agreement. Read the entire contract. If there is even a hint that they are lying about any of their services, then exercise (pun intended) your right to refuse their offerings.

Alan Cohen asked:

Step 1. Identify what segment of the industry you want to work in. This should be based on your passion, education, certifications and experiences. Your choices are numerous:

- Commercial Health Clubs or Non-Profit (YMCA/Jewish Community Centers, Boys and Girls Clubs, etc)

- Community Recreation Centers or Park and Recreation Departments

- University Fitness Complexes

- Medical Fitness (Health clubs attached or designed in conjunction with a local or regional healthcare system)

- Smaller, Privately Owned Niche Studios. (Personal training/Pilates/Yoga)

- Resorts and Spa Fitness

- Master Planned Residential Communities

- Military Fitness Centers

- Corporate Fitness Centers

- Own your own studio, franchise, or develop an in-home training business.

Step 2. Determine where you want to live. There’s no sense job hunting in Hartford if you want to be live in Denver. You’ll be spinning your wheels because employers want to speak to local candidates. There are several national companies that will speak to candidates from all over, but this strategy limits your choices.

Step 3. Know your economic barometer. You need to know EXACTLY what you need to earn to meet your financial obligations. Housing, auto, insurance, loans, credit cards, food, apparel, miscellaneous, etc. You can¡¦t negotiate salary, benefits, etc. if you don¡¦t know your personal financial situation. Part of your strategy may be to maintain a current job (wait staff, bartender job or other) while you ramp-up your new career. However, holding down 2 jobs can be a double edge sword. If you are serious about your new career in fitness, do not allow your secondary job to negatively impact it. Don¡¦t work in a restaurant until 2 a.m., and think you will be able to do a fitness evaluation at 6:30 a.m.

Step 4. Create a professional resume, cover letter and reference list. You can find numerous free templates on Microsoft Word. The Internet is a great resource for career development. Put your best foot forward, as your resume is your calling card. Create a resume that is more traditional than over the top.

Make sure that you personalize your cover letters and address exactly what your skills are, matched with what a company is looking for. When applying for a job found on the Internet, such as Monster.com or FitnessJobs.com, always send a cover note, and follow the exact reply mechanism the employer is requesting. If the employer requests a cover letter plus resume, don’t just e-mail your resume as an attachment!

Also, be sure you have clean copies and originals of all your degrees and certifications for your job interview. Make sure they are all up to date!

Step 5. Determine a radius of where you want to work. In the fitness industry you may be working flexible schedules. Being 20 minutes from home fits very nicely into this type of work schedule. You will be able to spend more quality time at work and home without a strenuous commute. Once you determine your radius, create a database in an Excel document of all your prospective employers. Once again, the Internet is a great resource for this as well as the local phone book.

Step 6. Network. Is there anyone you know that work for any of your prospective employers? Having someone open the door for you is one of the main avenues where people secure jobs.

Step 7. Send a cover letter and resume to your prospective employers. Write the date of contact on your Excel tracking sheet. Follow up with a call to the appropriate supervisor within 7 days. You will want to call the business and ask who is the hiring manager for the position you are trying to secure. You should visit their web site to view any career opportunities and follow their online application process.

Also, visit the location and get a feel for their business. Is it a friendly place? Is the staff well informed? Is the business well maintained and clean? Are the customers having fun and appear to be well taken care of? Can you see yourself working there?

If your answer to these questions is no, it’s probably not a good choice for you. If you were further along in your career as a supervisor or manager, this may be a lead for a job, as the existing leadership in this particular club isn’t doing so well.

Step 8. Prepare for the interview. Your efforts will eventually reward you with an interview. First, make sure you do research on the business through their web site and Internet. Ask your network of friends and family for additional information. Do not go to an interview unprepared. It shows lack of initiative, preparation, and interest of an employer who otherwise may have hired you.

Dress appropriately. You may run into the supervisor or manager. Be prepared. Introduce yourself and tell him/her what you are doing there. If you have a formal interview, depending on the region of the country you reside you may choose to wear business attire, or business casual.

Bring a small portfolio with your resumes (3 copies), references and certifications. Also, have a list of questions. You will probably be asked if you have any questions. It is not appropriate to bring up compensation unless they bring up the subject first. If they ask if you have any questions to ask, be prepared. It shows you are prepared, interested and intelligent.

Step 9. The interview. The interview should be serious and business like, but be yourself. Remember this when you begin your career: You will have fun at work, but it is a business that your employers take very seriously. You should too.

When you prepare for an interview anticipate questions you may be asked in an interview and then write out your answers. You want your responses to be concise. You shouldn’t take longer than 2 minutes to respond. Anything longer may take you off track from the question asked.

The library, Internet and bookstore, all offer extensive information on interviewing skills, including questions that both you and the interviewer may ask.

Step 10. Evaluate the interview and follow up after the interview. Send a personalized, handwritten thank you note to the person(s) who interviewed you. Remind the interviewer why hiring you would be a great fit for their business. You may not decide to take the position, but it is good business acumen to thank them for their time.

If you were offered a position, do you have enough information to make a decision? Have you seen a job description? Employee manual? Is there a compensation plan with benefits in writing? If not, ask to see them. Remind the hiring manager that you are very interested in the opportunity; however, you would like to see the information, and be able to make the right decision.

If employers don’t have anything in writing, it is a red flag. It’s important to work for a professional, well run company. Avoid working for companies that are not organized administratively.

Step 11. Accepting the position. If you believe there is a good fit and want to accept the position, make sure your economic barometer is set.

Don’t get caught up in being offered a job, and not being paid what you need or deserve.

Other than compensation, important considerations before you accept your position include:

“” Is the ownership committed to the business?

“” Do they appear to be on sound financial footing?

“” Does your supervisor seem to be someone who will be a good mentor for you and your personality?

“” Is the position something you can see yourself doing? Will you be passionate about your job?

“” Do they have a training program for new employees?

“” Is there growth potential?

“” If you are expected to generate revenues, are there realistic expectations? Are you on a 90 day produce or out lifespan? (If the answer is yes, don’t even entertain the thought of working for them. Move on.)

Be sure you advise your future employer of any upcoming family or personal obligations you are already committed to.

Remember this: There will never be a better time to negotiate for a better compensation plan than now. They want you and there is room to negotiate.

Be professional and realistic. You should have a sense of what comparable positions in the industry are paying. The more financial security you have the better you will be able to weather the storm and find the perfect job.

Eric McKinney asked:


So you want to become a studio owner and/or an in-demand local producer? Do you realize what sort of work that entails? Do you understand all the different skills you may need to be successful in that venture? What about all the various roles you will be asked or forced to take on with projects/clients?

Wait a minute, I didn’t sign up for all this.

Those of us in the music business all know that project studios are popping up everywhere these days. These are usually smaller-type studios than the professional large-scale recording studios, but can often produce high quality work for a much cheaper price for various recording artists. These types of studios have flourished in recent years due to the falling prices with equipment and recording accessories, as well as less-expensive digital hard-disk recording products and software that’s now widely available in the marketplace. But running a successful project studio can require you to develop skills to be many different people – project coordinator, record producer, psychologist, advisor, versatile scheduler, great communicator, storyteller, business person and entrepreneur, just to name a few.

In addition, just like almost any business, it also hinges on strong people skills and building relationships with your clients. This in turn helps spread the word about the studio, about working directly with you, and brings in referral projects or repeat business (the goal of any business, right?).

But being a good business person is not enough, though, since this is indeed a recording studio. You will need to develop strong audio engineering skills which alone encompass a large area of expertise. You need a good basic understanding of signal flow, recording gear, microphones, acoustics and psychoacoustics, instruments and music in general. You need to have a good idea how to record and reproduce sound through electronic and mechanical means. Many people go to school for years just to learn these skills, and most recording engineers/producers are continually learning, and gaining experience in this field with every project, due to every project being a bit different.

There are so many skills, elements and roles that you will likely need to develop. We don’t have room to discuss everything in this article, but let us discuss a few important items in more detail, give some examples and help open your mind towards what you may be getting yourself into with this line of work.

Producer or Psychologist?

When to Listen, Suggest, and Shut-Up.

Even after working with hundreds of musicians/artists in the studio, it never ceases to amaze me that using psychology throughout the session tends to be needed to move things along smoother, make everybody excited, work through bad performances, and to keep the sessions moving along in general. For example, I recall many sessions where the musician(s) get frustrated or even start self-doubting their performances or songs altogether. And there are times that they just are not hearing things back in the speakers or headphones how they thought they recorded it. They may start trying to change direction with a performance of an already established and potentially great part of the song. Sometimes, just some simple reassurance or comments such as “that is sounding great” or “that’s a really cool take right there” is all that’s needed. They often perk right back up and collect their confidence. One of the most important roles of a good producer is knowing exactly what to say at the right time, and when not to say anything at all. Critically listening to the tracks and being able to point out specifics (whether good or bad) will let the artist know that you are in the moment and helping them.

Sometimes a given performance may not be exactly what was needed for the song, or just simply did not sound right for some reason. At this point you need to find a way to get the musician(s) to ultimately re-do a track. A good producer can come up with a way, without hurting anybody’s feelings, to suggest or convince them in doing the part over again. Choosing your words carefully, the inflections of your voice and your body language are all crucial and almost an art-form in itself for communicating and ultimately guiding them through to a better performance. As mentioned online in Wikipedia, “a music producer could be compared to the film director in that the producer’s job is to create, shape and mould a piece of music in accordance with their vision for the album.”

However, in accordance with the above statements, as a producer, you have to constantly take some cues from the artist. Most artists are very sensitive and passionate about their music, and ultimately may know exactly what they are trying to get across with the musical piece. On the other hand, some do not know. But, you have to find common ground here in working with the musician. Listen to what the musician is telling you and give them the benefit of the doubt. It is ultimately, their art on the line.

Also, a musician with studio experience just may use a bit of psychology back your way as well, to possibly stroke your ego and help guide things the way they see fit for the project.

I recall a comment from producer Butch Vig, from when he was working with Nirvana on Nevermind, and Kurt Cobain simply did not want to double-track some vocal and guitar parts. Butch thought it sounded better doubled (same part recorded twice), and subtly mentioned, “John Lennon double-tracked.” That comment, that quick thinking, and that bit of psychology ultimately got Kurt to change his mind, which in turn helped with the elaborate production on that landmark album.

Being a producer/engineer myself, I store all sorts of bits of information like that in my head, ready to whip out any particular story or comment as needed for a session. For example, I remember a comment over lunch one time from producer/engineer David Thoener (engineer for John Mellencamp, John Lennon, Matchbox 20), where he mentioned working with Mutt Lange, the legendary producer, on AC/DC’s “For Those About to Rock.” Mutt had gotten some great guitar sounds like David had never heard before, and David mentioned how it really had a lot to do with the perspective of the vocal against the tracks. Therefore, I sometimes pull out that story to remind clients about the perspective of the vocal against the instrument tracks and how that can really make the song sound more rockin’ and louder if the vocal is not so out front of the music (making it almost harder to hear every word and more like you were at a loud concert). That bit of information/education often helps a client really listen and focus on the level of the vocals. Stories, comments, education, psychology in general – they are all tools you can use with guiding the bands and artists through the entire production of their project.

What am I – engineer/producer or business person or scheduler?

Juggling all of the various roles and aspects of your job logically and excellently will be crucial to your success in this business. Even while being a producer/engineer, you are still an entrepreneur – someone who organizes a business venture and assumes the risk for it, and you are a business person – one engaged in business. You need to make the best use of your time to make that time equal money. This all comes down to scheduling. You will be forced to schedule all of your business affairs and projects, and try to make every client happy by meeting their project schedule. Take note, in my experience almost every band/artist underestimates the amount of time that will be required to get the desired results for their recording project. Therefore, you will need to take this into account for them as you are scheduling your next few weeks and months of projects. You will want to build some “holes” into your schedule to have extra days for certain projects. And of course, each client has the most important project, and needs their project done by their deadline, right? So, you will likely have to find a way to constantly shuffle projects around a bit, find extra time for one project, while another may get delayed for some reason (maybe the band had a fight and they are canceling sessions that week, or someone is not finished working up parts of a song, or they are sick or just cannot get out of some other obligations).

Another aspect of this type of career is the amount of extra work that is required by you, long after the musicians have tracked their parts and have left the studio. Even if the clients want to be around for all the work you are doing they simply do not need to always be there. These tasks include cleaning up tracks (taking out the noisy parts of individual tracks, noisy guitar amp hum, lip smacks or headphone noise in between vocal phrases) and applying EQ to enhance various tracks, getting a general mix (levels between instruments and vocal parts happening), compiling tracks from various alternate takes/passes of a vocal part or guitar solo and so on. Of course, many of these tasks are where an assistant engineer comes in handy, and you can possibly delegate specific tasks to them. As busy as you might be, it is important that you learn how to get everything done in a timely manner.

Also, as a producer/engineer, I like to be well prepared before a session. Therefore, I will arrive early and prepare the studio for the project. I’ll get prepared for the type of tracking or mixing that we will be doing that day. As a producer, I often play various instruments on a project, and may want time to experiment with ideas for the instrument layers. Therefore, I usually do that when the client is not around, just to experiment and flush out some ideas for the parts. I may lay these parts into the track and see what the client thinks at the next session (unless the client specifically wants to be more involved in the instrument layers). But I always try to have plenty of great ideas to suggest to them. There may be some ideas or special effects that you want to experiment with for a particular song. It can be best to try out those ideas without the client right beside you in the studio, just to see if you can obtain what you’re hearing in your head and then present it to them.

Every project is different, every client is unique and time may sometimes seem irrelevant

Something you learn after working hundreds of studio projects is that every client is unique, everybody will likely want to do something different, and you need to be able to recognize what is the most productive way for that client to work. Some clients will have specific structures and musical parts worked out for songs ahead of time, and others will want to experiment and “wing it” in the studio, trying to find and create something during the recording process. You need to be understanding of the creative process and willing and open to trying different things. I have found that, generally, if you are open to any ideas that the client may have, they will feel that you respect them and are giving them that opportunity to experiment with musical ideas for their project. I have had many clients come back to work with me after working in another studio (a studio where engineers/producers were not as open to experimenting and trying various ideas) and simply mention to me how easy it is to work with me, how comfortable they were working with me, and how they really like that I let them experiment. After all, you do not always know what is best for a song – give the band/artist a chance to be brilliant.

Additionally, some clients will like to work very fast in the studio, trying to get as much as possible accomplished in a session. While others, will be the complete opposite, wanting to think about details a lot, taking frequent breaks, and wanting to repeatedly listen to the tracks and take time to write very specific parts. You have got to be able to judge when to push people, so that they feel like they are getting things accomplished in the studio, and when to just kind of let them take their time to develop and finish tracks for the songs. Be aware, that if enough is not getting done at the scheduled sessions, frustration may surface with the band/artist. But if you are trying to push them forward before they are ready, that can create possible issues. There is a fine line, and you will have to use your judgment, experience and people skills with these tasks. Remember, you have got a deadline, but you are trying to keep everybody happily working together and with you on the project.

Building your reputation and your career

Many of you have probably heard the statement, “you’re only as good as your last project.” Well, to some degree that is true, but it may not always be the case. Music is a fluid, living thing and once a CD is finished, it does not go away. I have had projects I completed a year or more ago all of a sudden get a lot of attention. Basically, you have really got to strive to make each project the best that you can, given the circumstances. Even though the musicians on your latest project may not be as talented as the last band, or the project may be a style of music that you are not as familiar with as others, or there are some musicians in the group that just do not see eye to eye with you on the vision of the recordings, you have got to find a way to do great work.

And honestly, from working in the studio business for more than fifteen years now, I will shoot you straight here and tell you that you really do not know what project or band is going to break out and sell tons of CDs or become the “next big thing.” And that just may be the project that garners you the most attention and recognition and leads to many other studio projects.

In addition to great work and great sounding recordings, one of the best ways to build your production/engineering career is to set a great vibe in the studio and simply get along with each client that you work with (duh!). It does not matter how you really go about that, but being a hard working producer/engineer, a very professional individual, and generally a fun, nice person will not hurt. People talk, people spread the word about you and will refer others to you if they like working with you, as with any business. And the music business is a business of “who do you know?” and “this guy made my music sound awesome.” I have had clients post blogs on MySpace or their websites about working with me in the studio, and now over half of the projects I work on were referred to me from a previous client. You get to a point that you have so many bands/artists wanting to work with you, that you get to pick and choose the next best project for your career, or for your pocketbook, in some cases. Your rates go up as your reputation and experience builds, and you get to be much more selective of the projects that you take on. There is nothing better than getting to work on what you want to work on and getting paid to do it.

If you’re working towards a career in the music business, good luck with your studio experiences and projects. Let’s all make some great music to share with the world.

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