Recovery 2.0: Work Hard, Recover Harder

2023’s version of “work hard, play hard,” might very well be “work hard, recover harder.”

The business of recovery is booming — what was once an afterthought (strictly for serious athletes) is now centerstage in the mainstream fitness world.

Ice baths were once for marathon runners and Olympians, now celebrities are installing dedicated cold plunge pools in their homes. In 2020, Hyperice was valued at $700M and infrared sauna sales are expected to grow by $150M in just a few years.

In other words, recovery is seriously popular right now. And fortunately, this trend is a healthy one. You also don’t have to be a celebrity (or ultra wealthy) to take part in it.

We’re seeing recovery take precedence in health clubs and gyms across the country — and close to home in the San Diego area, where Inspire360 is headquartered. One local example is at the Smart Fit Method, where they’ve interwoven high-tech recovery into their AI-driven, personal-trainer-guided fitness program. State of the art machines like the BioCharger, PEMF tables, and cooling beds complement the different routines outlined in their thrice-weekly programming.

“The recovery is just as important as the workout,” says co-founder of the Smart Fit Method, Connor Darnbrough. The BioCharger, for instance, “at The Smart Fit Method, is also known as the ‘campfire’ by our members; it’s been a huge addition to our facility for multiple reasons.” Using a combination of “Light, Voltage, Frequencies & Harmonics, and Pulsed Electro-Magnetic Fields (PEMFs),” the BioCharger is purported to mimic the effects of “being in nature” for our nervous system. Darnbrough says you can get the equivalent of four hours of those natural effects, with “as little as 15 minutes” sitting near the BioCharger.

In response to Ravi Sharma’s LinkedIn question about recovery in clubs, Greg Maurer, Vice President of Fitness and Education at Workout Anytime Franchising Systems, LLC in Atlanta shared his company’s current major initiative: partnering with cream of the crop recovery brands. “Hydromassage, Beauty Angel (redlight/whole body vibration from JK North America), sauna, infrared sauna, Human Touch massage chairs, Theraguns and Therabody rollers, Styku body scanner, and Myzone and Digital Coaching Platform,” he says, “are launching at our conference.” Quite a lineup!

Beginning this month, Brick Bodies is launching what they call “a Recover Lounge” at the Timonium, MD location. They tell us their “spa-inspired Recover Lounge will feature private infrared sauna suites with vitamin C-infused showers and lavender-infused cold towels, CryoLounge chairs with customizable hot and cold zones, and Therabody leg compression with Therasound Zero-Gravity Loungers and Therabody SmartGoggles — which both utilize sound and vibration therapy.” Sounds like heaven.

In addition to creating specific recovery areas and adding equipment, some clubs are adding guided recovery into their programming. SoulBody is continuing their expansion in the mind body space with the addition of a “group exercise” style recovery class, called Restore. Gentle, yin-style yoga flows and dynamic stretching combine to improve mobility, release fascial tension, and help the body sink into the parasympathetic state.

There are also standalone studio concepts, like StretchLab, in addition to other dedicated recovery centers beginning to sprout up nationwide. Livkraft Performance Wellness in La Jolla markets “luxury self care” at their studio comprising cryotherapy, infrared saunas, float tanks, normatec boot bars, red light therapy and PEMF, facials, massage, and IV treatment.

But among these myriad choices — all of which have a different purpose and goal — Victor Verhage in Alabama raises an important point: recovery should be as personalized and specific as exercise and nutrition. “I use Morpheus Labs, Inc. HRV test and Polar Electro Oy Orthostatic test.”

If you don't test ahead of time, Verhage says, then it becomes guesswork: which modality, what intensity, what frequency, what duration? And without testing (and a starting metric), it could be difficult to monitor and track progress and efficacy. Is the treatment working? Is it achieving the desired outcome? How do we know?

This is an area of opportunity for coaches, trainers, and health club owners: in addition to adding recovery opportunities to your offerings, we’re also going to see fitness professionals and clubs start to provide recovery tracking and ensure that each treatment is an effective use of a client’s time (and money). Consider providing insights, whenever possible, to show how these methods and modalities are positively impacting your client’s health and wellbeing, beyond the obvious: it’s always a good thing to take time to decompress, rest, and heal.

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Industry Happenings:

Upcoming Events:

1. FIBO Global Fitness, April 13-16, 2023, Cologne, Germany
2. FITNESSFEST 2023 Conference & Expo, April 14th-16th, Phoenix, AZ
3. Florida MANIA®, April 14-16, 2023
4. SIBEC Americas, May 7-10, 2023, Palm Beach Gardens, Florida
5. FIT Summit, June 12-15, 2023, Raffles City, Singapore

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Upcoming Workshops:

1. Peak Pilates®: 20+ workshops in April
2. Spinning®: 15+ workshops in April
3. TRX®: 11 workshops in April
4. Oxygen Advantage®: 7 workshops in April
5. SoulBody Fitness: 4 workshops in April
6. BlazePod®: 3 workshops in April
7. Mike Boyle's CFSC: 2 workshops in April
8. Gray Institute: 1 workshop in April
9. Strive Life: 1 workshop in April

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Industry News:

• Exos released its new “Readiness Culture Code”, a blueprint to reimagine modern workplace culture and performance.
• Beachbody rebranded to BODi on its mission to build the “Health Esteem” category.
• Mark Wahlberg has taken on a larger role at F45 Training as chief brand officer.
• WHOOP, the human performance company, announced the addition of its Stress Monitor feature and breathwork protocols, created in partnership with Dr. Andrew Huberman.
• American Council on Exercise (ACE) is now an ISO accredited certification organization.
• For the first time in fifteen years, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released new treatment guidelines for children and adolescents with obesity.
• OutFit, an innovative mobile fitness service created by TRX’s Randy Hetrick, announced that it’s ready to franchise.
• Eleiko and Life Time teamed up to elevate strength training experiences.

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Thanks for Reading!

This newsletter was brought to you by Kathie Davis, Peter Davis, Ravi Sharma, Dominique Astorino, and the Inspire360 team.

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A Note from Peter & Kathie

The industry is changing rapidly and we are here to help you sift through all the noise and get to the good stuff. Every month, we'll bring you trending topics and the inside scoop that we believe is paramount for fitness professionals to know.

‍

Keep Inspiring,

Peter & Kathie Davis

‍

Want to get this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up to receive the Inspire360 Global Fitness Newsletter here.

Health Clubs Have Roared Back

The 2023 predictions and January statistics are in. “The fitness sector has roared back,” reports Bloomberg. “Right now, gyms can hope for a lasting commitment to healthy living rather than a post-holiday fitness fad", according to the author, Andrea Felsted.

Compared to January 2022, this year is already off to a stellar start. Gym visits were up roughly 32% for the first two weeks of January 2023, versus the same timeframe last year, according to the most recent data from Placer.ai. In sum: people are returning to clubs in a major way.

As an industry, we saw massive attrition during the pandemic and suffered losses on many levels. Concurrently, at-home workouts became all the rage — and there was concern that this would change the industry forever.

Now, we’re seeing Pelotons used as “clothing racks” and ​​being sold on the secondhand market. About three quarters (72%) of gym goers had already begun to return to their club by the end of 2022 (more than double the amount from late 2021!). These numbers are in line with a mid-pandemic survey run by Orangetheory and Kelton Global, which reported that 70% of fitness consumers were missing the gym. There’s just something irreplaceable about the in-person fitness experience. And after years of isolation and virtual life, the craving for real-world interaction beyond the home is strong.

If you were concerned about clients not returning to clubs, you can safely release that fear. Members are returning to clubs in droves. And if you see any attrition, consider they might be ‘ghosts,’ or “sleepers,” as Bloomberg reports — individuals with memberships who didn’t actually use the facilities they were paying for (meaning, those who are coming back to the gym are committed members).

If anything, the pandemic actually reminded everyone of the importance of protecting our health, which in turn, will protect the health and fitness industry in all facets. Research by PwC found that exercise was toward the bottom of the list of spending that consumers planned to cut. European gym David Lloyd (with 130 clubs across nine countries in the EU) found that 70% of people joining its clubs recently were doing so for mental health and wellbeing.

The world at large has discovered how integral physical fitness is to mental wellbeing — in-person fitness plays a significant role due to the added benefits of socialization and community.

In many of your own words, it comes down to community. In response to Ravi Sharma's LinkedIn question: “What have you seen as the motivating factor that is bringing people back to your facility?” Rich DeStasio, President of The Fitness Performance Group and Senior Director of Club Operations at YouFit Gyms, says members missed community connection and group programming options — something that is “extremely hard to replicate,” without going to a club.

Expanding on the concept of community, Hugh Hanley, Head of Personal Training at Puregym, adds “being around like minded people” as a major motivating factor. Comparing it to how we approach meal time, he says, “We have been eating in our houses for years but we go to restaurants for the experiences” — the same can be said for gyms and health clubs.

Additionally, Hanley echoes the statistics pointing to a renewed and strengthened focus on our health as a collective. “The [heightened] awareness on health and wellness brings in a new array of people who want to be part of a community and achieve a healthy life.”

Adrian Heffernan, VP Customer Experience at Les Mills US, agrees, positing that there’s "lots of insight to suggest that consumers are valuing their health and well-being now more than ever and prepared to spend money on it. This is great for our industry.”

“I think people missed the camaraderie, community, accountability and human interaction,” says Milica McDowell, PT, MSPT, DPT, C-EP. “There's always the potential for the unexpected when you are in person, and that's something you just can't get over Zoom.” Amen to that.

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Industry Happenings:

Upcoming Events:

1. ACSM's International Health & Fitness Summit, March 16-18, 2023, Arlington, VA
2. PerformX Live, March 17-18, 2023, Tobacco Dock, London
3. IHRSA 2023, March 20-22, 2023, San Diego, CA
4. California MANIA®, March 31- April 2, 2023, San Francisco, CA
5. FIBO Global Fitness, April 13-16, 2023, Cologne, Germany

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Upcoming Workshops:

1. Spinning®: 20+ workshops in March
2. Peak Pilates®: 20+ workshops in March
3. TRX®: 11 workshops in March
4. Oxygen Advantage®: 7 workshops in March
5. SoulBody Fitness: 3 workshops in March
6. E5 Collective: 1 workshop in March
7. Mike Boyle's CFSC: 1 workshop in March
8. RTBP: 1 workshop in March
9. U-Jam Fitness: 1 workshop in March

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Industry News:

• San Francisco ranked number 1 on the Mindbody + ClassPass Wellness Index's list of healthiest cities.
• The Community Gyms Coalition (CGC) launched its Fitness is Essential campaign.
• Les Mills just launched its newest program, Strength Development.
• Gympass adds Headspace to employee benefits.
• F45 gets $90 Million in new financing.
• movr Build, a technology to create personalized, evidence-based workouts, was announced.
• Crunch Fitness introduced Crunch+, a new platform to access on-demand and live-streamed workouts.

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Thanks for Reading!

This newsletter was brought to you by Kathie Davis, Peter Davis, Ravi Sharma, Dominique Astorino, and the Inspire360 team.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Note from Peter & Kathie

The industry is changing rapidly and we are here to help you sift through all the noise and get to the good stuff. Every month, we'll bring you trending topics and the inside scoop that we believe is paramount for fitness professionals to know.

‍

Keep Inspiring,

Peter & Kathie Davis

‍

Want to get this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up to receive the Inspire360 Global Fitness Newsletter here!

In the fast-paced world of online education, learning management platforms strive to provide comprehensive solutions that cater to the diverse needs of both educators and learners. Recognizing the growing demand for seamless e-commerce experiences, Inspire360, a leading learning management platform, has integrated BigCommerce, a powerful e-commerce platform. This integration empowers Inspire360 to offer robust online selling capabilities, enabling instructors to monetize their expertise and learners to conveniently access and purchase educational resources. In this blog post, we will explore how the integration of BigCommerce has transformed Inspire360, facilitating a seamless e-commerce experience within the platform.

Seamless Product Integration:

The integration of BigCommerce into Inspire360 allows for seamless product integration, ensuring a unified experience for both learners and instructors. Instructors can effortlessly showcase their educational offerings, including courses, e-books, study materials, and more, within the platform's e-commerce storefront. Through the integration, Inspire360 synchronizes product catalogs, inventory, and pricing information with BigCommerce, eliminating the need for manual updates and ensuring accurate and up-to-date product listings. This seamless integration streamlines the process of selling educational resources, making it easier for instructors to monetize their expertise and provide learners with a convenient purchasing experience.

Enhanced E-Commerce Functionality:

The integration of BigCommerce significantly enhances the e-commerce functionality of Inspire360. With BigCommerce's robust features, instructors can create attractive product pages, customize their online stores, and offer various pricing options, including subscriptions, one-time purchases, or bundled offerings. The platform provides secure payment gateways, ensuring the privacy and security of customer transactions. Furthermore, BigCommerce offers flexible shipping options, allowing instructors to cater to learners worldwide. By leveraging BigCommerce's comprehensive e-commerce toolkit, Inspire360 creates a user-friendly and intuitive online shopping experience within the learning management platform.

Centralized Management and Analytics:

Integrating BigCommerce into Inspire360 brings centralized management and analytics capabilities. Instructors and administrators can conveniently manage their e-commerce operations, such as order processing, inventory tracking, and customer support, from within the Inspire360 platform. This centralized approach saves time and effort by eliminating the need to navigate between multiple systems. Additionally, BigCommerce provides robust analytics and reporting features, enabling instructors to gain insights into their e-commerce performance. These analytics include sales data, customer behavior, and conversion rates, empowering instructors to make data-driven decisions to optimize their product offerings and marketing strategies.

Marketing and Promotional Opportunities:

The integration of BigCommerce expands marketing and promotional opportunities for instructors on the Inspire360 platform. BigCommerce offers a range of built-in marketing tools, such as discounts, coupons, and abandoned cart recovery features, to help instructors attract and engage customers. By leveraging these tools, instructors can implement effective marketing campaigns to promote their educational offerings, boost conversions, and foster customer loyalty. This integration enables instructors to develop a comprehensive online presence, combining their educational content with compelling marketing strategies to reach a wider audience and increase revenue.

The integration of BigCommerce into Inspire360's learning management platform marks a significant advancement in e-commerce capabilities. By seamlessly integrating e-commerce functionalities, Inspire360 empowers instructors to monetize their expertise and provide learners with convenient access to educational resources. The robust features and centralized management of BigCommerce streamline product integration, enhance e-commerce functionality, and facilitate marketing opportunities. As a result, instructors can focus on delivering exceptional educational content while leveraging a powerful e-commerce platform within the Inspire360 ecosystem. With this integration, Inspire360 reinforces its commitment to offering a comprehensive and user-friendly learning management platform that meets the diverse needs of educators and learners alike.

If you're interested in learning more about how Inspire360 can help your company, click here.

To see all of the Inspire360 integrations, click here.

The Rise of Specialty Certifications

The word “niche” is having a moment in popular culture. In an effort to stand out and highlight unique expertise, many are carving out hyper-specific spaces for themselves. Intensely-focused specificity has also made its way into mainstream fitness, where niche certification programs are seeing a meteoric rise.

You may already be part of this trend by finding your own niche through a specialty credential program. Perhaps you’ve specialized in breathwork with Oxygen Advantage®, focused on athletic performance with Exos, or mastered applied functional science, targeting the root cause of dysfunction with Gray Institute®. Regardless of specialty, you’ve become a trendsetter within the industry.

The rest of the fitness world is following your lead, and the lead of specialty certification organizations. NCCA-accredited groups have expanded their offerings exponentially. ACE is encouraging you to “stand out as a specialist,” with programs like the ACE® Behavior Change Program and the ACE® Orthopedic Exercise Program. In October 2022, NASM™ launched their Physique and Bodybuilding Coach specialization, and ISSA recently released their new Glute Specialist Course.

Fit pros are finding that specialty certifications are reframing information they thought they already knew and also rejuvenating their passion for fitness with fresh inspiration.

And health club chains have taken notice. In response to Inspire360's VP of Partnerships, Ravi Sharma's question about specialty certifications, Mitchell Keyes at Self Esteem Brands® (Anytime Fitness) called out the Muscle Activation Techniques certification as a standout program. “Not only did it teach me the best of advanced biomechanics and anatomy, it taught me HOW to critically think about the body and problem-solve differently than I had ever learned before.”

“I’m a big fan of the TRX® STC course,” added Matt Wright at The Fort Athletic Club. “I think every fit pro should have it under their belt. I’ve also had several of our coaches go through Mike Boyle’s Certified Functional Strength Coach Program. They always come back inspired and with a huge wealth of knowledge.”

Richard Earney at Midtown Athletic Clubs noted that different programs were useful at different stages of his career — a solid approach to lifelong learning.

“The first thought that comes to mind is Precision Nutrition,” replied Danny King from Lifetime®. “It’s a combo of their learning approach and the focus on helping trainers expand their knowledge into new areas to help their clients. Non-specific to one certification, but trainers tend to grow quickly when adding an assisted stretch certification, and anything more focused on stress, sleep, and recovery.”

And that really is the crux of it — specialty certifications are taking over in a big way because they are helping fitness professionals expand their point of view, deepen their knowledge base, and see things from a new angle. This is a major trend to watch in the industry and as time goes on, we're going to see professional fitness education become even more specialized.

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Industry Happenings:

Upcoming Events:

1. Connected Health & Fitness Summit - February 8-9 2023, Los Angeles, CA
2. SCW DC Mania®, Feb 24-26, 2023, Washington, D.C.
3. PerformX Live, March 17-18, 2023, Tobacco Dock, London
4. IHRSA 2023, March 20-22, 2023, San Diego, CA

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Upcoming Workshops:

1. Spinning®: 20+ workshops in February
2. Peak Pilates®: 20+ workshops in February
3. TRX®: 13 workshops in February
4. Oxygen Advantage®: 4 workshops in February
5. SoulBody Fitness: 3 workshops in February
6. BlazePod®: 2 workshops in February
7. Mike Boyle's CFSC: 2 workshops in February
8. U-Jam Fitness: 2 workshops in February
9. Strive Life: 1 workshop in February
10. Therabody®: 1 workshop in February

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News & Notes:

• Netflix has started streaming Nike Training Club content
• Experts predict the online fitness industry will see a growth of 33.10% per year through 2028
• ACSM® has announced the top 2023 worldwide fitness trends
• Exos launched their Coach for Good Program, bringing wellness programming to NYC public schools
• 2023 wellness research by RoundGlass finds that people are especially interested in workouts that support their emotional well-being

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Thanks for Reading!

This newsletter was brought to you by Kathie Davis, Peter Davis, Ravi Sharma, Dominique Astorino, and the Inspire360 team.

Want to get this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up to receive the Inspire360 Global Fitness Newsletter here.

In the ever-evolving world of online education, learning management platforms strive to provide a seamless experience for both educators and learners. To further enhance its offerings, Inspire360, a leading learning management platform, has recently integrated Avalara, a renowned tax compliance solution. This integration enables Inspire360 to streamline tax processes, ensuring compliance and minimizing administrative burdens for instructors and administrators. In this blog post, we will explore how the integration of Avalara has revolutionized Inspire360's platform and simplified tax management within the e-learning ecosystem.

Automated Tax Calculation and Reporting:

Integrating Avalara into Inspire360 equips the platform with powerful tax automation capabilities. Avalara's robust tax calculation engine automatically determines the appropriate tax rates based on the learner's location, considering factors such as jurisdictional rules and regulations. This automation eliminates the need for manual tax calculations, reducing errors and saving valuable time for instructors and administrators. Additionally, Avalara generates accurate and detailed tax reports, providing a comprehensive overview of tax transactions within the platform. By automating tax calculation and reporting, Inspire360 ensures tax compliance and simplifies financial management for all stakeholders.

Seamless Integration with E-commerce:

For learning platforms that offer e-commerce functionalities, tax compliance becomes even more critical. Inspire360's integration with Avalara seamlessly incorporates tax compliance into its e-commerce operations. When learners make purchases, Avalara automatically calculates the appropriate taxes based on their location and the products or services being offered. This integration ensures that the correct taxes are applied at the point of purchase, reducing potential audit risks and ensuring compliance with tax regulations. By streamlining tax management within the e-commerce framework, Inspire360 enables instructors to focus on delivering exceptional learning experiences rather than dealing with complex tax issues.

Tracking and Monitoring Tax Changes:

Tax regulations are subject to frequent updates and changes, making it challenging for learning management platforms to stay compliant. The integration of Avalara into Inspire360 simplifies this process by automatically tracking and monitoring tax changes across various jurisdictions. Avalara's tax experts are responsible for staying up to date with regulatory updates, ensuring that Inspire360's tax calculations and reporting remain accurate and compliant. By leveraging Avalara's expertise, Inspire360 can navigate the complex world of tax compliance effortlessly, allowing instructors and administrators to focus on their core responsibilities.

Scalability and Global Expansion:

As learning management platforms expand their reach globally, managing tax compliance across different regions can become increasingly complex. The integration of Avalara provides Inspire360 with scalability and flexibility to support global operations. Avalara's extensive tax database covers multiple jurisdictions worldwide, allowing Inspire360 to accurately calculate and apply taxes regardless of the learner's location. This scalability ensures a consistent experience for learners across borders while maintaining compliance with local tax laws and regulations.

The integration of Avalara into Inspire360's learning management platform revolutionizes tax compliance and administration within the e-learning ecosystem. By automating tax calculations, simplifying reporting, and staying up to date with tax changes, Inspire360 enables instructors and administrators to focus on delivering exceptional learning experiences rather than grappling with tax complexities. The seamless integration with e-commerce functionalities ensures accurate and compliant tax management for online transactions. As Inspire360 continues to grow and expand globally, the integration of Avalara ensures scalability and compliance across multiple jurisdictions. With this integration, Inspire360 solidifies its commitment to providing a user-friendly and compliant learning platform for educators and learners alike.

If you're interested in learning more about how Inspire360 can help your company, click here.

To see all of the Inspire360 integrations, click here.

In current times, when so many companies are either choosing to, or being forced to switch to virtual methods of conducting business, the value of a learning management system (LMS) is being realized to a greater degree. This is something that larger businesses typically turn to out of necessity and an LMS is the obvious choice for keeping all of their information organized.

Conversely, small businesses and entrepreneurs are less likely to rely upon an LMS, at least in part because they don’t feel it’s necessary. They feel like they can get by because they don’t have many people to look out for, whether that means employees or clients.

What entrepreneurs and small business managers don’t often realize is how helpful an LMS can be. In fact, having fewer people to manage daily business is precisely what makes an LMS so useful. If you’re a small business owner who offers training courses, you simply don’t have the time to be dealing with unexpected issues. Incorporating an LMS can be a game-changer in this regard.

Here’s what an LMS is, how it works, and how it can help your personal business.

What Does LMS Mean?

A learning management system is very much what it sounds like — it’s a system that organizes training materials. An LMS creates one central place to manage online training courses, track client progress, and conduct assessments in order to obtain certifications. It’s essentially a one-stop-shop for professional development.

How Does an LMS Work

In our internet-centric world, an LMS is typically created in software, but it’s not the same as old software you’d download to your desktop computer. Learning management systems typically operate in a cloud-based environment and users interact with it via browser-based software. No special downloads are necessary because everything is stored on cloud servers.

Companies building their training courses can upload all of their content into the LMS and then users only need to click a link to access the modules. While technology is obviously required to use the LMS, keeping the software on servers (as opposed to making clients download it) allows for quicker updates, fewer technological barriers, and a more seamless product.

An advanced LMS will allow businesses to tailor their training courses exactly how they’d like, given their niche, branding, and teaching methods. Videos can be used to demonstrate movements and instruction sheets can be uploaded so the trainees can save them for later reference.

Everything that could ever be required to complete an online training course can be done within the LMS.

How an LMS Can Help Your Business

Increase Productivity and Profitability

Perhaps the most important positive aspect of a great LMS is that it will allow you to increase your profitability, as well as productivity. Instead of you needing to follow up with administrative tasks associated with clients signing up for training courses, a learning management system will take care of that for you.

You don’t have to make the certificates. You don’t have to create invoices. You don’t have to schedule times in which to do live training sessions. You can simply do all the work once and then load it into the LMS, which will take things over from there. A learning management system basically takes mundane business tasks out of your hands so you can focus on the bigger picture and planning for the future.

When the time comes to update your training courses with new information, you only have to do so once instead of notifying multiple trainers and amending course materials for various people. You simply make the change in the LMS online course and your work is done.

Providing a Higher Quality Product

Make no mistake that a professional learning management system is not the same thing as creating training videos on a smartphone and uploading them to YouTube. Perhaps that’s how your business started, but as your business grows, so should you and the way you deliver content.

Once you’ve accumulated enough clients to justify the expense of upgrading your training delivery method, you owe it to yourself (and your clients) to look into an LMS. A high-quality learning management system will allow you to upload videos, audio files, slide presentations, research papers or articles, and administer assessments.

Having a higher quality product will not only help you retain current clients, but will make you more appealing to both individuals (such as personal trainers and influencers), as well as small businesses that coordinate training for their coaches and personal trainers.

The more professional and organized your delivery method, the greater the perceived value — and as the value of your content increases, so can your prices (relative to your product, of course).

Customized Branding

One of the easiest ways to make your training materials appear more professional is to add your own branding to the course materials. Remember that packaging still counts, even when it’s digital.

This helps instill more confidence in your product and can help sway potential customers into choosing your training services over a competitor’s. Having proper branding is basically Marketing 101. How can you tell people about your business if your logo isn't on the product?

Branding your training isn’t an area you want to overlook. Keeping consistent branding throughout your training course (from sign-up to certificate printing) is crucial to keeping your clients fully engaged and coming back for renewed certifications and training.

Furthermore, if your clients are clicking onto a new website to enter the LMS, you want to make sure that they understand they’re at the right place. At this point in the digital age, it’s so easy to stumble upon a website that seems legitimate, but is absolutely not. Giving your clients a warning that they’ll be clicking onto an LMS that will take you away from your website can help retain your clients, in addition to easing their worries about security, data, and identity theft anxiety.

Printed Certificates of Completion

When someone completes a training course, they’ll need some sort of certificate that provides proof of their new qualification. Some will choose to print it out, while others will simply save it as a digital file that they can send to prospective employers as needed. Regardless, providing proof of completion right when they’re finished with the training course is a great way to add perceived value.

Additionally, having your own custom branding on the certificate shows these prospective employers that their applicants have obtained their training from what appears to be a professional organization. Not only is it helpful for your clients, it’s an opportunity to network without much effort. The fitness community might be large, but it’s also small in that people are tight knit and everyone seems to know everyone — at least within their particular niches.

Allows Flexibility for Everyone

A learning management system will free up time for everyone involved. For you, as a business owner because it carries part of your workload, but also for your clients. Having everything set up in an LMS means that they can learn at their own pace, take courses when they have the time available (perhaps after children are in bed, or after work at another job), and no one has to rearrange their schedules in order to complete a program.

Expands Your Reach

One of the best things about the digital age is that every business has an expanded reach. The internet has opened doors for companies that otherwise would have been restricted to their own cities, or limited to their own professional network. Now, business owners can advertise anywhere and sell their products globally, allowing their business to grow larger than they would have ever thought possible in previous generations.

An advanced LMS is the perfect platform for delivering the same high-quality training courses across the globe. You can control the content from the very beginning, and you won’t be reliant upon finding additional employees who could train in new cities.

Logistically, a learning management system is like creating new satellite offices for your business all over the globe, but at a much lower price point and without the worry that your remote employees are maintaining the standards you set forth. You get to grow your business without losing any of the control you need on your training courses.

Incorporating a Social Component

It would be a mistake to ignore the role of social media here. Not all learning management systems will be set up to do this, but we think it’s an important component.

Social media in the fitness industry has become a way for people to interact with members of their community, both close by and far away. Brands, athletes and trainers share what they’re learning, what they’re doing for workouts, and what they’re making for dinner, passing along hot tips and exchanging ideas along the way. Choosing to share progress in your fitness certification process is one component in building your own fitness community.

This is why we believe it’s a great idea to incorporate social media into your training course materials in your LMS. When someone earns a certification, they can share their accomplishment on their favorite social media platform, tagging your company in it automatically (for marketing and brand awareness, of course).

In our LMS, the functionality is there, and you can choose to incorporate it into your training courses, or you can skip it (or your trainees can skip it).

Keeps You Organized

The more training courses you offer, the harder it is to be organized. You can label everything meticulously, you can have all the folders and good intentions in the world, and you’re bound to mess things up at some point. It might not be anything catastrophic, but perhaps you’d send the wrong folder or the wrong document to a client. With all that information, it would be easy to mix it up sooner or later.

With a learning management system, you’ll only need to put everything in place once. You’ll set up the course with the proper materials (assessments, presentations, reading materials, videos, etc) and then you’ll leave it along until it’s time to be updated with new information. Your clients won’t need to contact you to ask you for information unless there’s a problem, so there shouldn’t be much room for error.

How Inspire360 Can Help You

With over 35 years of combined experience in the health, fitness, and wellness industries, we believe we are uniquely positioned to help you organize your online training course offerings and sell them with greater confidence. We take a lot of pride in our LMS platform. We’ve spent years working on it, improving it, and perfecting it. Fortunately, our clients tend to agree.

We work with educational organizations, equipment companies, and health and wellness experts, including over 200 major brands. Hundreds of companies have used our software to improve their content management and training course offerings.

We partnered with each of them to make sure they were getting the product they could imagine, and we’ll do the same for you, regardless of the size of your business.

If you’re ready to take the next step in your business, we’re ready to help walk you through it. To get started with Inspire360, contact us or request a demo so you can see how our learning management system can work for you.

Inspire360 is proud to announce that it has officially crossed the enormous milestone of delivering over 25 million continuing education units (CEUs).

Credentialing bodies require professionals to maintain their skills and knowledge through continuing education. SaaS platform Inspire360 is the only Learning Management System built specifically for the fitness industry and is used by leading education companies to deliver education, track continuing education credits, and manage certification renewals. Having delivered more CEUs than any other software in the world, Inspire360 is proud to help clients provide fitness and wellness professional education in 219 countries.

Over 150 world-class education companies including TRX®, Spinning®, Gray Institute®, Hyperice, BOSU®, Mike Boyle Strength & Conditioning, TriggerPoint™, Therabody, MELT Method®, Myzone®, and Power Systems, use Inspire360 to provide their industry-leading education to professionals.

In addition to its Learning Management System, Inspire360 also offers a Certification Management System, Membership Management System, and Live Workshop Management System. The all-in-one platform allows fitness companies to deliver branded online courses, certifications, workshops, and subscriptions to award CEUs when students complete the necessary coursework.

Fitness education, equipment, and certification companies all use Inspire360 to take their education to the next level. Because certifications are the lifeblood of the fitness industry, Inspire360 offers a full-service Certification Management System that automatically determines certification renewal eligibility based on CECs, renewal dates, grace periods, CPR, and more.

Jason Davis, CEO of Inspire360, says "It’s been a tough year for the fitness industry, and I’m impressed that so many professionals have used this time to sharpen their skills and expand their credentials. I would like to thank all of Inspire360's clients and the fitness industry as a whole for their continued dedication to advancing the fitness industry through their offerings. We look forward to working with our clients to deliver 25 million CEUs in the years to come!"

Inspire360, a popular learning management platform, has recently integrated Affirm into its product to provide a more flexible and accessible payment option for its users. This integration allows users to pay for courses and other educational content in installments rather than upfront, making it easier for students to manage their budgets and access the education they need.

Affirm is a financial technology company that provides installment loans for online purchases. With Affirm, users can split the cost of a purchase into multiple payments over time, with interest rates typically lower than traditional credit cards. This can be especially helpful for students who may not have the financial means to pay for courses or other educational content upfront.

By integrating Affirm into its platform, Inspire360 is making education more accessible and affordable for its users. Students can now sign up for courses and pay for them in smaller, more manageable increments, rather than having to come up with a lump sum payment upfront. This can be especially helpful for students who are balancing the costs of education with other financial obligations such as rent, groceries, and other bills.

In addition to providing a more flexible payment option, Inspire360's integration of Affirm also helps to streamline the payment process for users. Students can easily select the Affirm payment option during checkout and complete the necessary steps to set up their installment plan. This makes it easier for users to enroll in courses and start learning without having to worry about complicated payment processes.

Overall, the integration of Affirm into Inspire360's learning management platform is a significant step forward in making education more accessible and affordable for students. By providing a flexible payment option, Inspire360 is helping to remove one of the financial barriers that can prevent students from accessing the education they need to succeed.

If you're interested in learning more about how Inspire360 can help your company, click here.

To see all of the Inspire360 integrations, click here.

We all want to believe that our products and services can sell themselves through their unmatched quality and irreplaceable value. Even though we’re certain these things are true for you, people can’t find that out for themselves until they’re actually interacting with what you’re selling. Before they can fully appreciate what you have to offer, you have to woo them a bit, and in the digital age, that often happens through a killer landing page.

Research has shown time and time again that online shoppers look for further information on products and services prior to making the decision to purchase. This is true across most industries and is likely to become even more common as people try to shift away from in-person experience in favor of online alternatives. As such, it’s crucial for you to have a solid landing page — one that is informative, visually appealing, and incites action.

Of course, creating landing pages is harder than it sounds. It’s easy to think you can just put a webpage with some general information on it and it will do the trick, but your landing page simply existing isn’t enough to convert potential customers. You want traffic, but you also want qualified traffic that will be interested in purchasing your products and services.

Whether you’re new to creating landing pages or you’ve written hundreds of them before, it’s always a good idea to learn more about what a “great” landing page looks like, how you can improve your own landing pages, and how to use them as leverage to grow your business. Here’s everything you need to know about building an effective landing page.

The Purpose of a Course Landing Page

First and foremost, the most important thing to keep in mind regarding your landing page is the intent, or the purpose behind it — to convert readers into paying customers. You want to get people to sign up for your course. It’s this purpose that should drive every decision you make surrounding your landing page, including the layout, the copywriting, the information included, etc.

It’s also important to keep in mind that your landing page is the first impression of your fitness certification or course. For referral traffic (people who came upon your landing page from somewhere else, such as from your employer), this may be less crucial, as they might be coming here because that’s what their employer told them to do. Perhaps the gym sends all of their trainers to your website, and if that’s the case, you’re ahead of the game.

These visitors are already going to have a reason to be on your landing page — someone told them to specifically take that course. For them, they need a few tidbits of information and easy access to the sign-up form.

However, you’ll also want to pull in trainers who are just getting started or gyms who are shopping around for new certification or course options. These may come in via organic leads, which means that people are Googling (or Bing-ing or Yahoo-ing) to find more information about a topic. They are the main reason you need to write a killer landing page.

It’s the organic leads that you’ll need to focus on converting. There are plenty of other courses that are similar enough to yours that they’d have other options. You’re trying to convince them that your certification or course is the best option available and that they should take yours above any others. In this instance, this page is your elevator pitch.

How to Build a Landing Page that Converts

Keep It Simple

Some will tell you that the only point to a landing page is to provide a place for people to sign up for your course. They feel so strongly about this notion that they recommend you don’t put much of anything on the page — simply a title and spaces for people to enter their information.

The point of keeping a simple landing page is that you don’t want to overwhelm people, but you also don’t want to make them think they’re in the wrong place. If they see a lot of copy but nowhere to sign up for the course, they may click off of the page in confusion. While this is a perfectly valid strategy, we’d recommend finding a happy medium between under sharing and oversharing.

Give visitors enough information to know that they’re in the right place, but not so much that they’re overwhelmed. They’ll need pertinent information and that’s basically all. If you need to give them additional information for the course, you can do it after they sign up via email.

Give an Overview of the Course

An effective landing page details exactly what someone can expect to learn from the course offering. This may seem like a simple piece of advice — something you’d assume you wouldn’t overlook, but you’d be surprised at how often people write landing pages that are full of fluff, but sparse on real content.

People need to know what they can expect because it helps them determine if your course is what suits their objectives and career goals the best. This is particularly important if people are looking to specialize in a given area or niche.

For example, some fitness professionals have a desire to specialize in postpartum recovery and will need to look for courses that suit those needs or include requirements moving forward with that certification. Even if they have already completed that certification, they may be personally interested in learning more about a specific subject matter.

Pay Attention to Formatting

Every web page needs to focus on formatting because it helps people get through information quicker, and walk (or click) away with better understanding. Copywriters utilize H2 and H3 headers to notate new sections and break information into smaller, more readable sections.

Another common strategy is using bullet pointed lists, which are always helpful for multiple reasons.
• First, they help break up content blocks and make the page feel less dense.
• They break down information into easily digestible snippets.
• Visually, they stand out, which draws attention.

However, you don’t want to overdo the list-making. Save your lists for the things that really matter, such as outlining the important points they can expect to learn in the course. If someone is skimming the page (realistically, most people are), this is a great way to draw their attention to the most critical information.

Additionally, you’ll want to use images to your advantage. Rather than haphazardly placing images on your landing page, use them to help shape, format, and demonstrate your text. For example, you can use an image of an instructor assisting a yoga student during a class if your landing page is geared toward yoga instruction certification courses. This image could be used to balance out a block of information that is offset to the side.

Include Testimonials if Possible

Testimonials are an asset to any business, regardless of the industry. They’re essentially positive reviews that you can use in your marketing materials to show potential clients what your current and former clients have enjoyed about your services.

Consumers who are still trying to make a buying decision enjoy reading reviews because it helps them gather additional information. They’re able to see what people like and dislike about a given product or service because it helps temper their expectations. Testimonials serve the same purpose, but you’ll be focusing on obtaining positive quotes from satisfied customers. They can be anonymized if need be by using first names and last initials, or by listing the type of customer (i.e. a personal trainer, a chain of gyms, etc).

The testimonials section doesn’t need to be very formal. It can include a congenial heading (i.e. See What Our Satisfied Clients Think of Us) and then a few short quotes that demonstrate what each client likes best about your company and your service. This is particularly important if you have distinguishing factors that set you apart from your competition.

That being said, if you don’t have testimonials, it’s not a deal-breaker. You can always add them in later as you accumulate them. Testimonials are nice to include, but they’re not critical.

Build in a Form to Sign Up Immediately

The sign-up form is very possibly the most important component of any landing page of this sort. After you’ve given your best elevator pitch, you want to strike while the iron is hot. You want to make it incredibly easy for them to sign up for your course, and the best way to do so is to create a brief form that is right there on the page. The operative word here is brief. Only require a few pieces of information, like a name, company, and email address to get started — you can ask for more information on the next page.

Depending on your business and desired branding, you may also consider a strong call to action button over a form. This could be language peppered throughout the page (once at the beginning, once at the end, perhaps once in the middle), that is accompanied by a clear, clickable/touchable button that shows your potential clients how to sign up for the course.

For example, on the Inspire360 website, we use a button that says “Request a Demo” in a few places — it’s at the top of our website on every page, as you see here at the top right corner, in addition to a large, bold button in the center.

It’s quick (only 4 boxes) and it defines exactly what information we’d need in order to set up a demonstration.

Be Sure Your Language is Clear and Concise

While it’s important to make sure you’re clear and concise on every landing page, it’s most important when you’re providing any kind of instruction on how to fill out the form, and what the next steps may be. You want to make sure that they know exactly what is expected of them, particularly after they fill out the form.

Will they be taken to another page to fill out billing information? Will they receive an email with further instructions and course materials? How do they access the course? (You don’t need to tell them how they’ll access the course now, but you can tell them they’ll receive this information via email after they complete their registration.)

Providing clear instructions will help ensure that people complete their registration properly, don’t miss any important information, and put their minds at ease.

Killer Landing Page Examples

There are really excellent examples of effective landing pages all over the internet. To give you an idea of how diverse great landing pages can be while still accomplishing the same goal, we wanted to provide some of our favorites for you.

Stash is a financial planning and investment app that is geared toward making sure everyone has access to tools that will help them give healthy financial lives through something called “micro investing.” This is their sign-up landing page: https://www.stash.com/invest

As you can see here, there is a sign up button at the top, as well as a quick form with a bright button drawing attention to how people can get started immediately. Further down the page, there is more information, such as frequently asked questions, links to pages where people can learn more about investment opportunities, explanations about micro investing, and pricing information.

At the bottom of the page, there are two calls to action — one of which is to get started with the app, while the other is an offer to sign up for their newsletter for financial advice delivered to your inbox. Overall, it’s clean, it’s visually appealing, and it sparks interest.

Another great example is FreshBooks, cloud-based accounting software available for a monthly fee that is determined by your volume of billable clients.

As with most other killer landing pages, FreshBooks provides immediate opportunities to sign up for their services. In this case, they offer a “try it free” option in the top right corner and an option to save money on their services, even inciting action by advertising their sale as a limited time offer.

Further down the page, there are pricing options, a list of features, and frequently asked questions. It’s very simple, but it’s effective.

The final example we’ll mention is Peloton, which does things a little bit differently, at least in part because they’re selling two things: the equipment and the membership.

In order to entice potential customers, they offer a 30-day in-home trial, during which time they hope you’ll call in love with the bike (or treadmill) and won’t have a desire to return it. (Yes, they will take your equipment back and give you a full refund if you truly hate it.)

Further down the page, they list benefits of the in-home trial, and even a testimonial that specifically speaks to the price tag. The customer they quote admits that the price made him hesitate, but that he was ultimately glad to have taken the plunge.

After that, they list the equipment options and include some frequently asked questions. All in all, it’s a clean page tailored to their product without ignoring the fact that their products and services aren’t cheap.

How Inspire360 Can Help You

At Inspire360, our goal is to provide the tools you need in order to more effectively run your business. We offer customizable learning management systems, certification management systems, and live workshop management systems so that your clients can easily access and utilize all your training materials and courses.

We have over 35 years of combined experience, working with companies like BOSU, Yoga Journal, TRX, Mike Boyle, and over 200 others. We’re confident that we can help you run a tighter ship, while freeing up your time to focus on the bigger picture and a future full of continued success.

If you’re ready to take the next step in your business, we’re more than happy to help. To get started with Inspire360, contact us or request a demo so you can see how our products can work for you.

When it comes to online courses, it’s a seller’s market. That said, with more and more content and educational material competing for their attention and money, online learners are becoming more discerning about what courses they’re enrolling in.

That makes sense: after all, if you have ten different courses you’re interested in, you’re always going to go toward the one that covers precisely what you want to know. That’s a double-edged sword for sellers. On one hand, it means you have an opportunity to build a course precisely targeted at your desired market. On the other, it means that a lot of potential customers might ignore your course because you didn’t do a good enough job specifying what you were covering.

Those potential mistakes — along with countless others — can make selling a course difficult.

Here are some of the common pitfalls and selling myths to avoid, especially if you’re just getting started or considering whether to create an online course.

Common Online Course Selling Myths

Successful online sales plans typically involve some testing and trial and error in order to find the right formula. However, some selling mistakes can be downright expensive and difficult to recover from, so it’s best to avoid them whenever possible.

From inadvertently turning prospects away from your course (no matter how good it is) to failing to reach your target audience, here are some of the most common roadblocks, myths, and misconceptions around selling a course online.

1. If You Build It, They Will Come

With over 4.5 billion active users as of April 2020 (just over half of the world’s population), there’s no question that the internet is the world’s ultimate marketplace. In many ways the internet has made selling products and services easier than at any other time in history due to the ease, global reach, and convenience afforded by online sales.

That said, launching an online course and hoping that people will find it and buy it on their own can be a recipe for losing money and missing out on both short and long-term sales prospects. While you don’t need a sales team or massive pre-existing audience (more on that in a bit) to create and launch an online course, failing to plan for success is planning to fail, as the old saying goes.

Creating a few user personas for your ideal student is a great place to start. It allows you to gather targeted information that you’ll need to successfully market your online course to your customers, without getting too bogged down and stuck on the details in the beginning.

You don’t need a focus group or reams of data to create targeted user personas. It can be as simple as asking a few general questions:

• Who is your ideal student?
• Why are they buying your online course?
• Where do they live?
• What languages do they speak?
• Where do they work?
• How tech savvy are they?
• How do they search for the information they need and the products they buy?
• Are they interested in professional enrichment or personal fulfillment?

Getting to know your ideal customer will make it easier to find them and get them interested in buying your courses.

2. The Myth of “Passive” Revenue and Sales

There’s no question that online learning is a booming business, and you don’t have to be a university or a large training group or certification organization to create profitable online courses that generate steady revenue and a return on your investment.

Everyone from individuals to institutions of all sizes earn significant income from online courses. It’s true that once your course has launched and starts selling, it can generate ongoing profits well into the future — and that over time, that income stream will continue to grow as you add new courses into the mix.

However, the term “passive” income or sales can be a little misleading because it gives the impression that once you’ve completed and launched your course, the sales will just flow in with little to no further effort on your part.

From updates and revisions to your lessons and content to customer service and ongoing marketing, think of the launch as the beginning of your journey, not the end. Sure, you don’t have to continuously monitor your courses — but you should be keeping an eye on them. Maintaining them thoroughly while also staying on top of user feedback will ensure continued success.

3. Your Course Has to Be Finished “or Perfect” Before You Can Start Selling It

In order for your course to sell and offer value to your students, it will obviously have to contain useful information in a professional format. But many individuals and organizations wait too long to launch a course — or worse, put off creating one at all because the task seems too daunting or they get paralyzed by the need for perfection.

The longer you wait, the less money you’ll make, and the greater the possibility that your customers will find what they need from one of your competitors. You don’t have to wait for the course to be “perfect” — or even finished — before you can start marketing and selling it.

The sooner you start promoting and selling your new course, the more money you can make, even while the course is still in production. Pre-sales are a standard industry practice, and they have the added benefit of creating buzz and helping you to build your email list as you go.

4. A Lower Price Will Equal More Sales

Pricing is always a sticking point for many entrepreneurs. Even in the best of economic times, it’s tempting to think that highly discounted or bargain basement pricing will attract more customers and generate a bigger profit in the long run as a result. This thinking can be counterintuitive for a number of reasons.

On a basic level, your pricing should reflect the time and resources that went into creating it. Remember that you’re offering your students knowledge and information that is valuable to them, and people are willing to pay a fair price for an online course, especially when it comes to improving their health and wellness, or learning a new skill that can improve their career prospects and skill set.

Pricing it too low or offering heavy discounts in order to attract more customers can backfire because it can also diminish the course’s perceived value. Being priced too low is one of the main ways that online courses lose money. You don’t want to overcharge or make it too expensive for your target market, but you don’t want to discount yourself out of making a real profit either.

5. You Need a Large Community or Built in Audience Prior to Selling Your Course

This is another myth that can sideline a good online course before it’s had a chance to unleash its brilliance on the world. On the one hand, having a strong email list and network of qualified leads can only help you when launching your course — but not having one isn’t a dealbreaker.

Waiting until you’ve built a massive email list or expanded your existing network will cause unnecessary delays and divert your attention and energy from creating the course. The longer you wait, the more money you’re leaving on the table. Putting off launching (or creating) your course until your marketing and sales plan is “perfect” will interfere with your moment and keep you from earning money.

You can work on your course content and your audience building and outreach efforts simultaneously. However, if you can’t, move ahead with the course creation first. (This is assuming that you’ve done background research and have established that the market for your content exists. Once the course is ready, you can tap in any time.)

6. It’s All Been Done Before

“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations.” - Mark Twain

There may already be a million courses and online certification programs for every topic under the sun, but no two courses and the information they contain are packaged in quite the same way. Even with billions of free and paid courses that already exist online, there’s always room for improvement, especially when the quality of online courses ranges so dramatically.

You want to know and understand your market and whether your course will have an impact, but existing competition and a crowded market isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If you’re concerned about market saturation, study your competitors to see how your course differs and to determine your unique selling proposition, which will help you sell your course when you’re ready.

Never forget that many folks taking a course online are looking for something specific: they might want a particular edge that only you can provide. Find your niche, and make sure to take advantage of what unique knowledge you have.

7. You Need a Catalog of Online Courses to Be Profitable

Even if you plan to create a series of online courses in the future, you don’t have to have more than one course in production in order to start selling and making a profit. In fact, launching one course at a time can be an asset as you study and build your market share, experiment with pricing, and generate the brand awareness that will help you sell more courses and products in the future.

Every brand is different, but if you’re just starting out with a single online course to sell, think quality over quantity. It usually makes more sense to offer one high quality course at a time than a string of mediocre ones.

8. Online Courses Lack Accreditation

Online learning has become standard practice in academia and business, and a good online course can carry as much clout and prestige as on campus learning.

Our course creation platform allows you to offer your students custom certificates for your online courses, as well as certification programs. We also facilitate continuing education credentials for online courses and programs designed to offer continuing education credits.

9. Online Courses Are Less Engaging Than in Person Learning

It might seem counterintuitive, but the opposite is actually true. Online learning tools and platforms offer students and instructors more opportunities to engage with greater flexibility.

Our platform allows you to create and sell multimedia online courses that incorporate video, audio, and text, as well as support for multiple languages so that you can offer your students a truly global experience.

10. You Need a Large Technology Budget and/or Expertise to Create and Sell Your Online Courses

The good news is that even if you’re not sure how or where to get started, you don’t have to start from scratch or reinvent the wheel to launch and sell your courses online. You certainly don’t need technical expertise or a background in computer science or e-commerce.

The right online course creation software can hold your hand through the whole process.

You don’t even need a tech team to create and manage your online courses. Our full feature learning management system has all the tools you need to launch and sell your online courses within a responsive and user-friendly platform - no coding or advanced tech skills required! Our e-commerce tools make it possible for you to start selling and earning money from your online course right away.

Request a demo to learn more and test the features of the Inspire360 learning management system and our certification management system.

In this digital age, it seems like just about everyone has a smartphone or a tablet or both. You’d have a harder time finding someone who doesn’t have a smartphone or a tablet. Surely, some people are holding strong with their flip phones or their lack of cell phones in general, but these circumstances are fewer and farther between with each passing year.

It doesn’t matter where you live, where your company is based, or what kind of training you conduct, your online course platform needs to be mobile friendly. With as quickly as technology has progressed over the past few decades, we can’t imagine it will be slowing down anytime soon, and everyone needs to be prepared.

Here’s why it’s so important to make sure your online course platform is mobile friendly.

Why Being Mobile-Friendly is Critical

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that technology is shifting more toward mobile devices with each passing year. As of 2019, there were 2.5 billion active Android users — quite a feat in just 10 years, especially considering that this number topped 2 billion in 2017. Despite the ground Android devices have covered, iPhones remain at the top of the best tech sellers list. In 2019, Apple sold 185 million iPhones (which was down from 200 million the year prior).

Not only does it seem like everyone has a smartphone, it seems like everyone is constantly staring at their smartphones. As a whole, we spend so much time on our phones that people are developing ailments dubbed text neck and text thumbs at an increasingly rapid rate. These issues are a direct result of using our bodies in a way that they’re not meant to be used for long periods of time or too many times throughout each day. If they don’t have a medical billing code yet, they probably will soon.

Having a smartphone is essentially the same thing as having a computer in your pocket. In fact, it’s exactly like having a computer in your pocket. It can do the vast majority of the things you can do on a laptop or desktop computer — do complex math, update social media, edit documents, send emails, etc. (Let’s take a moment to appreciate the fact that 40 years ago, computers took up entire rooms and now they fit in our pockets — that’s a significant technological leap in a relatively short period of time.)

Mobile Use Trends

The applicable piece of important information here is not necessarily that people are purchasing more smartphones — although they are, and it’s still valid information. The most pertinent concern is that people are using their smartphones and tablets more than they’re using their laptops or desktop computers. In fact, some people don’t even own personal computers anymore. They simply use their work computer at work and use smart devices at home.

Anyone in a position to offer retail or training services in the 21st century needs to be prepared to consider whether or not their platform is mobile friendly. If you choose to overlook this crucial aspect of design, you are alienating a significant portion of your potential customers.

We’re at a point now where mobile devices are being used more than laptops and desktops. Nearly 51% of website traffic thus far in 2020 came from a smartphone, with about 46% coming from desktop computers. Tablets came in a very distant third, with only about 3%. Given that these trends have been continuing in this trajectory for quite some time, we can only expect them to continue — at least for a while.

Furthermore, more and more people are switching to remote work models, which will increase the prevalence of smart devices at home. If someone wants to ditch their computer for good, a tablet is the next best option. Many tablets come with keyboards so you can get the feel of a computer without spending as much money. Plus, tablets are typically lighter, have batteries that last longer, and are more versatile than a more traditional laptop.

At some point, the increasing use of mobile devices might level off and we don’t expect the use of laptops and desktops to completely disappear (at least, not anytime soon), but it’s safe to say that mobile device use will continue to increase in frequency — especially as the digital native generation gets older and gains buying power.

Before too long, generations of people who are uncomfortable with technology will simply cease to be. The Silent Generation (those born before 1945) is the last generation that didn’t either grow up with technology, or learn how to use it while they were still working. Many Baby Boomers (1945-1964) adapted to developing technology, even if they struggled with it.

Generation X (1965-1980) may not have had much of this technology growing up, but they certainly have in their professional lives. Millennials (1980-1996) had computers in school and were coming of age when smartphones were being released. And of course, Generation Z (also called Digital Natives) likely don’t remember life before computers being readily available at home, and cell phones being in everyone’s pockets.

The next generation won’t ever remember a time without smartphones. Mobile devices are second nature to kids these days — they watched you tap, scroll and zoom maybe two times before they mastered a device that you’re still learning how to use. (Have you ever handed your smartphone to a toddler? They’ll figure out how to add things to your cart before you’ve realized they even opened an eCommerce app.)

The point is, younger generations expect a solid mobile experience. In the same way that people get quickly frustrated with slow websites, digital natives won’t have patience for websites or platforms that aren’t mobile friendly. If you haven’t already been focusing on making your training courses easily adaptable for mobile devices, now is the time to do so.

The good news is that it isn’t horribly difficult to do — especially if you choose an online course platform that does the heavy lifting for you.

How to Be Mobile Friendly in Your Training Course Offerings

Being mobile friendly doesn’t have to mean developing a mobile app. While a mobile app version of any website or platform is a popular way of going about things, it’s not the only way to go about it. Regardless, designing in a way that is mobile friendly requires a bit of extra thought and effort.

How Mobile Design Differs

It may be obvious — in fact, so obvious that it’s easy to overlook — but it’s important to note the physical difference between mobile devices and desktop computers and laptops. Laptop screens start at around 13 inches, but mobile devices can be as small as 6 inches. Tablets are usually somewhere in between.

When the space you’re working with is a 16:9 aspect ratio on a laptop or a desktop computer, the way you lay out information. You can afford to have longer paragraphs, for example, because they don’t appear to be “long” on a laptop screen. Your images can be larger because it won’t affect the overall page layout as severely. You can have ads or banners on the side of the screen, if that’s something you want to do.

But when you’re designing for a mobile device, everything changes. Your paragraphs can’t be very long because they feel longer for your users. No one wants to scroll (and scroll and scroll) just to finish one paragraph. Your images need to be smaller because if they’re too large, your page will look choppy and will diminish the user experience.

Ads or banners on the side of the screen are completely out of the question because there really isn’t a “side” on a mobile screen. Any of that kind of stuff will need to be inline with the content. For that matter, they shouldn’t be very large because they’ll disrupt the content just like an image will, but not in a way that contributes to your product.

Physically speaking, there will always be less screen real estate on a mobile device, but the way content responds to them is different as well. Desktop monitors and laptops are stationary devices — they sit on a desk, or a lap, or a table and the user interacts with it via a trackpad or mouse. The content itself stays stationary aside from scrolling and navigation.

On a smartphone or tablet, the content is responsive to the user’s action on a much deeper level. If the user turns the device, the content shifts so that it remains right side up and then resizes so it fits the screen better. This response is the basis of what’s called responsive design and it’s what makes an online course platform mobile friendly.

Responsive Design

Without getting into the technical details of how it actually functions, responsive design is a method of web design that changes formatting depending on the device on which the website or platform is being used. When someone navigates to a website that uses responsive design, the code looks at the screen size and orientation, color capabilities, and resolution in order to determine how it should display the website.

What this does for business owners is allows them to design one platform or website, as opposed to multiple versions of the same thing (one for desktop, one that is mobile friendly). It’s less work for the business developing the page and creates a better user experience for your target audience.

Now, provided that you choose an online course platform that utilizes responsive design (or at the very least is making sure that their platform is mobile friendly), you won’t have to worry about the technicalities of this process. However, if you don’t specifically make sure your course platform provider is utilizing mobile-friendly design, you’ll likely be the one to take the blame for it because you’re the one offering the course. It’s not that you would have done anything wrong, but it’s a matter of your company name being the public face of the course. Your training platform isn’t likely to be very high profile.

We can’t speak for other online course platforms, but Inspire360 tries to be as transparent as possible. We want to simply be the delivery method that helps your students get the education they need, while you provide the content they need in order to learn.

Therefore, we do our best to be as mobile friendly as possible. We don’t want your students to fall behind because their course platform is difficult to use. That being said, we can’t foresee every single technical issue, so we offer tech support that your students can use whenever they find it necessary.

Choosing a Mobile Friendly Online Course Platform

We do our best to provide an easy interface for companies to design their training courses, regardless of whether it’s a new one or one you’ve offered hundreds of times before. Whether you want to use our learning management system, certification management system, or live workshop management system (or integrate all three), we’ve worked tirelessly to make sure the product you deliver is mobile friendly and reliable.

There’s no need to learn HTML or any other programming languages in order to use Inspire360. We utilize a simple drag and drop format with built-in responsive design so it will provide a consistent user experience, no matter what device your students have chosen to use. With features like multimedia, custom course certificates, drip course components, and reusable components, we’re confident that we can help you cultivate your training course exactly how you envisioned it.

If you’re ready to get started with Inspire360, or want to learn more about what we can do for you, contact us or request a demo so you can see our online course platform for yourself.

Offering online training courses is the way of the future — and also, the present. With the shift to online learning and remote work, the need for high quality online course platforms is more important than ever. Particularly in the health and fitness industry, we’re seeing more and more blended learning workshops being offered.

If you’re used to offering live courses and are looking to create online workshops instead (or in addition to), it can feel a bit overwhelming. How can you determine what separates a stellar platform from a lackluster one? Here are some important things to keep in mind as you do your research.

Easy User Interface for Everyone

The best online course platforms will be easy for everyone to use. Of course, this will mean your end user — the people taking your training courses — but it also means the people who are actually creating and building your training modules.

Your Creative Team

You’ve spent a lot of time creating the content for your online training course. You and your team have written scripts and instructions, shot videos, conducted photo shoots, and tinkered with everything until it was just right. You’ve poured a lot of thought into how you want it to be delivered, and you don't want a platform that slows you down, or can’t give you the options you need.

What you need more than anything is an online course platform that helps you deliver the course you’ve designed exactly the way you want. You want it to help you, not hinder you. You don’t want to waste time trying to figure out a user interface that feels clunky and cumbersome.

We think it’s important to make a training platform feel familiar and intuitive, so the Inspire360 user interface is based on design principles that will easily coincide with programs you’re already used to — even if you’re not particularly tech savvy. We take a lot of pride in making sure almost anyone can use our training platforms.

Your End Users

Obviously the most important party here is the end user. You need them to be able to navigate through your online training course with ease and efficiency because that’s what keeps your business running. Whether they’re working for you or for a client of yours, the faster you can get trainees through the course, the faster they can get to work.

Effective online courses are well-paced, user-friendly, intuitive, and most importantly, they offer quality content that helps the trainee progress in their career. Therefore, it’s critical that your course platform helps you achieve that goal.

The platform you choose must be quick and responsive. Slow load times and tech glitches will only serve to aggravate your audience, and will eventually cause complaints.

Mobile-Friendly Responsive Design

Speaking of end users, it’s important to remember that they won’t necessarily be using a desktop computer when they complete training courses. They might not even own a traditional laptop — they might be working with a tablet connected to a keyboard, a tablet without a keyboard, or even a smartphone. Therefore, you need to choose an online course platform that can accommodate mobile-friendly responsive design.

If the term “responsive design” is unfamiliar to you, it refers to the way content appears across multiple devices. Rather than creators needing to design four different versions of a training course (for smartphones, laptops, tablets, etc), responsive design allows you to create one design, which automatically adapts to whatever device they’re using. It’s done on the back end so your users all have a similar experience, regardless of what device they’re using to complete their training course.

Tracking Progress and Certifications

There’s something satisfying about seeing a checklist being completed, or a progress bar moving across a screen. It helps us conceptualize how much work has been completed and how much work we still have to do. User-friendly online course platforms will make it easy for trainees to track their progress and keep track of their completed certifications. This is helpful for both the trainees and those administering the training because it keeps everyone on the same page.

From an administrative point of view, it can also help determine where people might be getting stuck or having trouble with the course design. If people are routinely slowing down in one particular module, it may signal a technical issue, or unclear instructions.

Create and Print Certificates

One important aspect of certification is that the trainee is able to walk away with a certificate to prove completion. Students will need this piece of paper in order to show potential employers or clients that they have the necessary training in order to do a good job.

High quality online course platforms will incorporate digital pre-fabricated certificates (complete with your branding). The platform will autofill necessary information, such as the trainee’s name and the certification title, and then generate the certificate upon completion. Trainees can print them when they wrap up their coursework, or choose to save them as a file on their computer.

Multimedia Integration

Some experts theorize that people have different learning styles, meaning that the way in which they process information is different. Other experts believe that we all learn in exactly the same way. Regardless of which theory is correct, what’s important is that what attracts and holds people’s attention varies widely. As such, it’s important to choose an online course platform that will allow you to use multiple types of media.

Being able to incorporate images, videos, written content, graphics, and anything else you can dream of will help people stay engaged, process information in a way that is best suited to their needs, and keep the training interesting. No one wants to sit through a boring training course, but it’s also less likely that they’ll be able to retain pertinent information if they’re not engaged — and that’s not good for their careers.

Furthermore, we’re dealing with fitness education here. It’s important for trainees to see proper form demonstrated so they know what to look for to prevent injury. Having demonstrative images and videos are very helpful resources.

Built-In E-Commerce

The best online course platforms will also build in e-commerce capabilities so you can have a one-stop shop for all of your training course requirements. No one wants to sign up for your training course on one website and then go to another to pay — that’s far too great a hassle and will diminish the user experience.

With Inspire360, not only can you sell your courses through our platform, but you can allow people to choose payment plans, enter coupon codes, and even accept international payments. If you already have an e-commerce platform you prefer, you can even incorporate it into the Inspire360 platform to make the process as seamless as possible for your trainees.

Allows for Live Trainings

Perhaps one of the best parts of our digital, on-demand world is the convenience it affords. If someone needs to wait to complete their training requirements until their children are in bed, or until they get home from their full-time job, or in the middle of the night because of their work schedule, online courses are perfect. But it’s also nice to have the option to take live courses. It’s like taking college courses online versus taking classes in-person.

Being able to ask a live teacher questions in real time can be an important part of the learning process for some people. Inspire360 allows you to set up live sessions in which you can also provide materials for trainees to review ahead of time, plus follow-up materials, certificates, and necessary assessments.

Built-In Course Evaluations

Feedback is critical in all course development, but for online courses, it’s even more important because you don’t get the real life, nonverbal feedback of your trainees. You can’t see their reactions, or the fact that they’re doing something incorrectly. You need to know when something is confusing or needs improvement, and in order to get that information, you need evaluations.

Inspire360’s online course platform has the option of providing course evaluations upon completion so you can see what’s working and what isn’t. This will help you further fine-tune your courses and adapt as necessary. Having this all within the same platform increases the likelihood that your trainees will actually fill out the evaluation.

Tech Support

It should come as no surprise that your chosen online course platform needs to provide some kind of technical support component. You never know the level of comfort your potential audience has with technology and online learning. You may be dealing with a group of people who have never taken a course online, and if that’s the case, they’re going to have a lot of questions that you need to be able to answer.

Furthermore, people may have issues with processing payments or navigating the course (no matter how user-friendly you make it). The important thing is that trainees have someone to contact if they’re having trouble.

Security

In our digital world, it’s critical to take data security seriously. Not only do you need to protect your own training materials, but you need to ensure that your trainees’ personal and payment information is safely secured.

The best online course platforms will take care of this on the back end for you. This isn’t something you need to be worried about on top of everything else you’re working on. Inspire360 works tirelessly to keep our clients’ information safe.

Analytics and Reporting Data

Being able to track your trainees’ habits and data with regard to their progress throughout the course can help you determine what is working with your online training course and what isn’t. It can point you in the direction of a problem you didn’t realize existed.

When compared with testing data, you can also find patterns that can help you improve your courses. If you find that trainees are consistently getting something wrong in the assessments, you might realize that some information wasn’t as clear as it could be. This information can help you make adjustments for the next group of trainees.

Versatility

Perhaps one of the most important aspects of online course platforms is that they adapt to whatever you need them to be. Having a versatile, flexible platform that lets you incorporate exactly what you need to for each type of training will only serve to help you offer a better product, which will keep you in business.

Furthermore, being able to brand the training course with your own logo and color palette will help you offer a more professional-looking product, which will help garner faith and trust from newcomers.

Automation

Automated emails can be a great feature in an online course platform in terms of keeping trainees engaged. You can touch base before scheduled training courses to make sure they know what prerequisites are required, remind them which modules still need to be completed, send surveys upon completion, and ask for feedback.

You can set the terms of this automation based on conditional terms. For example, when someone registers for a new course, they can receive a confirmation email listing important information, such as the time of the live session and how to access the course. When they complete half of the course, they could get another email telling them that they’re doing a great job and they’re halfway done. When they finish, they could get an email reminding them to take the survey.

Most of the effort with these automated emails is up-front, so once they’re set, you can forget about them and let us handle the rest.

The Best Online Course Platforms

Regardless of the reason someone signs up for an online training course (professional development, personal fulfillment, renewing a certification, etc), they’re looking for the same qualities: an easy-to-use interface, clear instructions, engaging content, help when they need it, and secure data.

We might be biased, but our online course platform is one of the best because it ticks all of these boxes and many, many more. We want our clients to feel as comfortable creating their online training courses as the trainees feel using it, so we put a lot of effort into the development of a high quality platform. We want to make it as easy as possible for our clients to conduct business — and given the continual shift to online education, we only anticipate this need growing with time.

To get started with Inspire360, contact us or request a demo so you can see how our online course platform can work for you.