We took time out to chat to Phil Wilde MET UK Teacher for his opinion on the First week for a personal trainer entering a mainstream gym. Amazing read, thanks Phil.
It's an unfortunate fact that the staff turnover levels in the fitness industry are high. New trainers need experience, gyms want experienced trainers and somewhere members are caught in the middle! If you desire to avoid being caught up on the PT conveyor belt (as one trainer drops off the back end, one more drops one at the front) there are some basic but often overlooked steps to follow.
1. Evaluate the surroundings on arrival - deal with your primary couple of working days inside the club as investigation assignment. Find out what the club are really looking for within your recruitment (apart from the clear income). Are you replenishing a failed personal trainer whom didn't survive within the eyes of your new company's business model or even are you coming in to add to the ranks because the others are busy? It may even be that their policy is to over recruit and hedge their bets in a sense - some chains will take on as many 3 or 4 PTs when they only need one. It's the fitness industry's version of survival of the fittest. Whatever you are confronted with, making the effort to survey your scenario and being 100 % aware of what environment you're heading into lets you be fully prepared and gives you the best chance for success. So few trainers make the effort to do this and before they know it, they're in over their head. Why is this important? Your observations here are going to give you a great idea of the sort of interaction members are accustomed to and unfortunately, in most cases, the gym floor is loaded with cynicism. And that leads on to point 2!
2. Beware the negative bias! There are 2 streams to this point; members and other trainers.
Members - You'll need a foot hold pretty quick in the gym but you may find that members are cynical of interacting with PTs having been formerly subjected to a clumsy, cold, hard sell. Something along the lines of 'Hi, how are you? What you training for? Pay for some sessions?' If this is the case, you'll be building relationships long before you get a chance to speak at length about what you can do to improve anyone's training. Be patient and be present! This particular will show you as different to what has been there before but will mean a lot of table talk and meeting and saying hi. Make this your target activity for your first few weeks. You need to build trust before you establish expertise instead of throw a load of freebies around. People may not reciprocate immediately, but remember, that's a direct result of any number of previous uncomfortable experiences members have had with other eager but often poorly prepared trainers. Be resilient and be different.
Various other Trainers - Don't buy into the negative bias of your new colleagues - chances are, you'll hear it all 'this isn't the right area, people can't afford it' or 'that guy shot me down and all I would like to do was help him, ignorant prick' ... if personal trainers get knocked back for offering advice it's because they offered it too soon and didn't build the relationship well enough (if at all) initially. Stay over this negativeness - it'll drag you down and rob you of your passion!
3. Get an understanding of your market place - what are people in this club training for? Could you service this? The biggest thing you'll have to figure out is how can you make your training solution sound as compelling as possible in 30-40 seconds tops and practice saying it. Put in your time here, rather than on dozens of re-writes of the profile board that no one will read. People sell PT, not profiles.
Remember - you're in a fantastic industry if you approach it right. It can be immensely rewarding on many levels. Take the downhill points as learning curves and replicate your results.
Give us your feedback just starting your career as a personal trainer?
We only recommend one company starting off and becoming a personal trainer
It's an unfortunate fact that the staff turnover levels in the fitness industry are high. New trainers need experience, gyms want experienced trainers and somewhere members are caught in the middle! If you desire to avoid being caught up on the PT conveyor belt (as one trainer drops off the back end, one more drops one at the front) there are some basic but often overlooked steps to follow.
1. Evaluate the surroundings on arrival - deal with your primary couple of working days inside the club as investigation assignment. Find out what the club are really looking for within your recruitment (apart from the clear income). Are you replenishing a failed personal trainer whom didn't survive within the eyes of your new company's business model or even are you coming in to add to the ranks because the others are busy? It may even be that their policy is to over recruit and hedge their bets in a sense - some chains will take on as many 3 or 4 PTs when they only need one. It's the fitness industry's version of survival of the fittest. Whatever you are confronted with, making the effort to survey your scenario and being 100 % aware of what environment you're heading into lets you be fully prepared and gives you the best chance for success. So few trainers make the effort to do this and before they know it, they're in over their head. Why is this important? Your observations here are going to give you a great idea of the sort of interaction members are accustomed to and unfortunately, in most cases, the gym floor is loaded with cynicism. And that leads on to point 2!
2. Beware the negative bias! There are 2 streams to this point; members and other trainers.
Members - You'll need a foot hold pretty quick in the gym but you may find that members are cynical of interacting with PTs having been formerly subjected to a clumsy, cold, hard sell. Something along the lines of 'Hi, how are you? What you training for? Pay for some sessions?' If this is the case, you'll be building relationships long before you get a chance to speak at length about what you can do to improve anyone's training. Be patient and be present! This particular will show you as different to what has been there before but will mean a lot of table talk and meeting and saying hi. Make this your target activity for your first few weeks. You need to build trust before you establish expertise instead of throw a load of freebies around. People may not reciprocate immediately, but remember, that's a direct result of any number of previous uncomfortable experiences members have had with other eager but often poorly prepared trainers. Be resilient and be different.
Various other Trainers - Don't buy into the negative bias of your new colleagues - chances are, you'll hear it all 'this isn't the right area, people can't afford it' or 'that guy shot me down and all I would like to do was help him, ignorant prick' ... if personal trainers get knocked back for offering advice it's because they offered it too soon and didn't build the relationship well enough (if at all) initially. Stay over this negativeness - it'll drag you down and rob you of your passion!
3. Get an understanding of your market place - what are people in this club training for? Could you service this? The biggest thing you'll have to figure out is how can you make your training solution sound as compelling as possible in 30-40 seconds tops and practice saying it. Put in your time here, rather than on dozens of re-writes of the profile board that no one will read. People sell PT, not profiles.
Remember - you're in a fantastic industry if you approach it right. It can be immensely rewarding on many levels. Take the downhill points as learning curves and replicate your results.
Give us your feedback just starting your career as a personal trainer?
We only recommend one company starting off and becoming a personal trainer
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