Why Personal Trainers in Gyms Fail:
5 Strategies to Succeed
In case you haven’t heard, over 80% of personal trainers quit within the first year. In most gyms, there is a 100% turnover of trainers each year!
Veterans of the fitness industry have seen this play out so many times that we can nearly predict when a trainer will quit. If it weren’t so tragic, it would be tempting to take bets on how long a new trainer will last before throwing in the towel.
The Common Gym Personal Trainer Scenario
A new trainer starts at your club wide-eyed, and bushy tailed, fresh from getting their degree or certification and ready to start their new career. They lock eyes and listen intently to all your advice on how to prospect for clients. They tell you they are confident they will succeed. They can’t wait to get started, so you send them to the wolves…I mean, members.
After their first shift of walking around awkwardly, trying to make eye contact with members who are tuned into their phones, helping a few people in need, and wiping down equipment, they come back a little dazed, but still OK. The day wasn’t quite what they expected, but they’re still confident that tomorrow will be better. They just need to readjust and strategize.
The next few days are more of the same, and you notice that the new trainer is spending more and more time in areas that they feel safer: hanging out at the front desk, talking to friendlier members, the break room, etc. You give them some pep talks, more strategies to consider, etc. These talks have less and less effect each time. Now, as they come to work, they look dejected, they avoid eye-contact with you and go straight to their safe spots until their shift is over. Then, inevitable day arrives when they inform you that they have taken another job and want to quit or cut back their hours.
Why Do Personal Trainers Fail?
Why does this sad scenario keep repeating itself? These are often talented trainers that dedicated themselves to this dream and it’s over before it even got going. The answer is simple; Sales is hard. Period. Most people can’t take the rejection and they quit. Trainers are drawn to these careers because they love fitness and want to help others. They are rarely natural salespeople. Most were not told in advance that sales would be such a big part of the game. Those that were warned simply didn’t grasp what it would feel like.
Traditional Approaches are Failing Personal Trainers
The traditional approaches to building clientele are to have the trainer work the floor and give consultations simply aren’t effective anymore. Members are too savvy and avoid these scenarios like the plague.
Strategies to Help Personal Trainers Grow Their Business
Here are some 5 strategies for both personal trainers and gym owners:
Teach Personal Trainers How to Sell
This sounds too simple, but without the ability to sell, no other strategy I present will work. I suggest checking out Personaltrainingbiz.com.
Raffle a Free Personal Training Session
Here me out on this. I have seen this play out many times. A trainer can solicit club members for days offering a free session and get nothing but rejections yet place a roll of tickets in front of a raffle box that says: “enter a drawing for a free personal session” and get 20 tickets in an hour! I don’t understand how it works but it does. Call them all and give them the good news that they won!
Organize Challenges That Force Trainer Involvement
Market a weeks-long challenge I.e., 6 Week Weight Loss Challenge. The rules require an initial session that involves a weigh-in and program design. Have weekly weigh-ins and a final appointment. This strategy makes them see you in action and offers several opportunities to sell.
Gym Offers a Tiered Membership That Provides Group Training
This strategy requires the club to structure membership tiers to accommodate. In addition to the standard membership, the club could offer a package that involves unlimited participation if group training classes. This gives the trainers opportunities to make more money and unlimited touch points with the members to sell 1 on 1 sessions.
Offer a Virtual Training Hybrid
A new option is to provide lower priced solutions for the members. Most people would love to work with a trainer but can’t afford the expense. What if you could offer tiers of training services that could accommodate anyone’s budget? Imagine offering packages starting at $10/month. Inconceivable, right? The trainers time to write those workout programs alone would exceed that cost, let alone the time and money to manage the clients, right?
Obviously, this couldn’t work with the traditional model of training, which is all manual, but it does work if your trainers used an automated workout generator. Fittovation offers a platform where the workout programming is automated and provides tools to manage an infinite number of clients efficiently. You could offer this as a stand-alone service or bundle it with live training.
I hope one of these strategies will work for you. If you’d like to learn more, contact Us.
Mike Caton has 35 years of experience in the fitness industry. He is a former IHRSA Fitness Director of the Year while working at the world-renowned Cooper Fitness Center in Dallas, TX. His other experiences range from owning his own training studio to working as a general manager at 24 Hour Fitness and lots of experiences in between. His current passion is as the founder and CEO of Fittovation where he helps gym owners and personal trainers make more money by getting their workouts to more people. He also coaches track athletes at ACE Method Coaching.
