Our company challenged Phil Wilde, MET UK Teacher for his opinion
on the 1st week for a personal trainer entering a mainstream gym.
Amazing read, thanks Phil.
It's a regrettable 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 between! If you want to avoid being mesmerized on the PT conveyor belt (as one trainer drops off the back end, another drops one at the front) there are some simple but often looked over steps to follow.
1. Evaluate the situation on arrival - treat your first few days in the club as survey mission. Find out what the club are searching for in your recruitment (aside from the obvious profit). Are you replacing a failed trainer who didn't cut it in the eyes of your new company's business model or are you coming in to add to the ranks due to the fact that 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 faced with, taking the time 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 many cases, the gym floor is loaded with cynicism. Which 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 rather 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? Buy some sessions?' If this holds, you'll be building relationships long before you get a chance to speak at length about what you can possibly do to improve anyone's training. Be patient and be present! This will show you as different to what has existed before but will mean a lot of casual conversation and meeting and greeting. Make this your target activity for your first few weeks. You need to build trust before you establish expertise rather than throw a load of freebies around. People may not reciprocate immediately, but remember, that's a direct result of any lot of previous uncomfortable experiences members have had with other enthusiastic but often poorly prepared trainers. Be resilient and be different.
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 wanted to do was help him, ignorant prick'... if 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) first. Stay above this negativity - it'll drag you down and rob you of your enthusiasm!
3. Get an understanding of your market place - what are people in this club training for? Can you service this? The biggest thing you'll need 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. Invest your time here, rather than on dozens of re-writes of the profile board that no one will read. People sell PT, not profiles.
4. Just remember - you're in a terrific industry if you approach it right. It can be immensely rewarding on many levels. Take the falling points as learning curves and replicate your successes.
What are your experiences from starting in the industry?
It's a regrettable 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 between! If you want to avoid being mesmerized on the PT conveyor belt (as one trainer drops off the back end, another drops one at the front) there are some simple but often looked over steps to follow.
1. Evaluate the situation on arrival - treat your first few days in the club as survey mission. Find out what the club are searching for in your recruitment (aside from the obvious profit). Are you replacing a failed trainer who didn't cut it in the eyes of your new company's business model or are you coming in to add to the ranks due to the fact that 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 faced with, taking the time 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 many cases, the gym floor is loaded with cynicism. Which 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 rather 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? Buy some sessions?' If this holds, you'll be building relationships long before you get a chance to speak at length about what you can possibly do to improve anyone's training. Be patient and be present! This will show you as different to what has existed before but will mean a lot of casual conversation and meeting and greeting. Make this your target activity for your first few weeks. You need to build trust before you establish expertise rather than throw a load of freebies around. People may not reciprocate immediately, but remember, that's a direct result of any lot of previous uncomfortable experiences members have had with other enthusiastic but often poorly prepared trainers. Be resilient and be different.
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 wanted to do was help him, ignorant prick'... if 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) first. Stay above this negativity - it'll drag you down and rob you of your enthusiasm!
3. Get an understanding of your market place - what are people in this club training for? Can you service this? The biggest thing you'll need 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. Invest your time here, rather than on dozens of re-writes of the profile board that no one will read. People sell PT, not profiles.
4. Just remember - you're in a terrific industry if you approach it right. It can be immensely rewarding on many levels. Take the falling points as learning curves and replicate your successes.
What are your experiences from starting in the industry?
We only recommend one company, http://www.corefitnesseducation.com for starting off and becoming a personal trainer.
Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ben_CamaraArticle Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7469870
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