I get sent a lot of messages from people asking if I have any tips for being a good personal trainer. I feel very, very strongly about this topic so thought I would share some of my thoughts. In my opinion, personal trainers are like mechanics, you will get good quality ones who do an honest job and charge you fairly. You will also get ones who are only interested in how much they get paid and will do as little, low quality work as possible to earn that. Here are five of my top tips for being a good quality trainer. This is not an exhaustive list. 1) Your clients needs come before your salary. I personally sit down and talk through what my client is looking for before we arrange any paid sessions. If I am not the best person for the job or I dont think I can provide what they are looking for, I will tell them. In some cases I will refer them to work with a more suitable trainer and in some case I will tell them I dont think I can help them. Clients appreciate this honesty and will respect it even if you are not the trainer they are working with in the future. If I dont think I can help someone I will tell them this up front. It is much better to have someone who respects your service but pays you no money than have a paying customer who does not respect your service. One of these will refer your service to friends and the other one will not. 2) Learning never stops. People ask me what the best course is. In reality, a PT course is good for recognition that you are actually a personal trainer but in terms of knowledge it is the very tip of an infinite iceberg. Understand that learning is a journey and not a destination. To provide your clients with the best service you must be aware of emerging science and never become complacent with your knowledge base. 3) Educate, dont advertise. When I speak to trainers about their business plan they always talk about leaflet drops and business cards. This is fine to increase awareness of your brand but you must be able to genuinely show people you are good at what you do. Instead of spending money trying to advertise and hard sell to customers spend your time actually helping people. I get more inquiries from this Facebook page (dedicated to helping people) than I ever did from newspaper or magazine features. People want to hire someone they trust. 4) Stick with what you are good at. I specialise at getting people into good shape. It is what I train for myself and therefore it is what I research heavily. This does not mean I am one of the best people for injury rehabilitation, training people with a disability, training people through pregnancy or training people for a marathon. Being a good trainer doesnt mean you are expected to be good at every single niche within the fitness world. If you try and specialise at everything, you will end up specialising in nothing. It is in my best interest for clients to get the best service possible and sometimes the best service is to recommend them to someone else who is better for that client than you are. 5) Be humble. You never, ever know everything there is to know. Trainers are seen by many as arrogant and egotistical. This is an appalling image to be portrayed as seeing as we are in the industry of helping people. Interestingly enough, the people in the fitness industry with the greatest knowledge are the first to admit when there is something they dont know or when further research is needed before they draw a conclusion. In my early years I thought I knew a lot yet now, a decade later, I realise I actually know very little. What do you think makes a good trainer? Feel free to share and add to the list. :)
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 16:30:00 +0000
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