the three pillars
Type in “Personal Trainers” on Youtube, and the first several pages of hits fall into three categories. 1) How To Make Your First Trillion Using My Patented System as a FITNESS COACH in 202X. 2) Are Personal Trainers Even Worth It? 3) What Most PERSONAL TRAINERS Get Wrong About (Whatever).
Type in “Personal Trainers” on Youtube, and the first several pages of hits fall into three categories. 1) How To Make Your First Trillion Using My Patented System as a FITNESS COACH in 202X. 2) Are Personal Trainers Even Worth It? 3) What Most PERSONAL TRAINERS Get Wrong About (Whatever).
In light of those three categories, I don’t think it’s coincidental that the average personal trainer’s career is roughly 1-1.5 years, depending on whose statistics you believe. The fact is, even if we give ourselves a 100% margin of error, that’s still a freaky-high burnout rate. And if you’ve spent enough time in any box gym paying attention, you see the results.
In my 11+ years in the industry, I have been fascinated by what makes trainers decide to spend their professional time and energy elsewhere, and YouTube effectively gives us the answers.
They’re not making enough money, or they’re working way too hard for the money they earn.
They’re not sure they’re actually making a real difference.
They’re just not that good.
And here’s the painful part: none of these are usually their fault.
Trainers become trainers when they complete a basic course of study including riveting stuff like the Krebs Cycle and sometimes Sliding Filament Theory, then a bunch of legal stuff about how far you’re allowed to push nutritional guidelines, then making sure you can name the muscles.
All important, to be sure. I am not - nor will I ever - argue that training is “too smart” or “too nerdy” or whatever. Smarter = better 100% of the time.
But the fact is, that part’s not usually weeding people out. The courses are for sale. The tests you have to pass are for sale. As gatekeeping goes, it’s roughly as tight as a nightclub on a weeknight. If you aren’t a total putz and you have a little cash, you’re good.
Then you get a job, and this can be for any reason from “you look good working out” to “you have a slick personality” to “the local gym really needed to meet headcount goals. And if you’re a young trainer or not a trainer, you would be appalled to know how often “headcount” is the actual word used to describe training staff. Not talent or experts or “staff…” headcount. Like cattle.
I digress.
Then, you’re told “go out and talk to people and get some clients.” You receive limited and highly-variable support in this endeavor. Then you train them. Again, god-only-knows how much assistance you’re going to get in this process. And the clients will either like you and/or your work and keep hiring you for more, or they won’t and you can repeat the process all over again.
That’s what you have to survive to develop skill - let alone personality or fulfilment or business savvy.
We see it all the time: a young man who likes working out will get a cert, get a job, have a few great months on the back of having a great physique and a charming smile. He will get promoted to management on the back of those months, and then he will have a few bad months telling other trainers to just do what he did. This advice works as well as Henry Cavill telling you “if you like her, just ask her out.” He will scare off five or six trainers, before eventually deciding his true calling is in selling houses or insurance or whatever.
And honestly… whatever. I’m not trying to change that guy. I’m trying to help those five or six trainers he scared off. Because the reason his schtik didn’t work for them is that they’re either 1) unwilling or unable to work sleazy sales scripts, 2) not possessed of a great look or otherworldly charisma, or 3) trying to develop their skills instead of just selling out for numbers every time. Or some combination of the three.
I am here to tell you… you can succeed as a trainer, get great results for your clients and not work yourself to the bone, all while helping people you care about achieve results that matter (however you define those terms). I’ve seen trainers do it. It’s a road fraught with peril, but I’ve been fortunate enough to survive it and fascinated enough to see others survive it. I know what works, what doens’t work, and often why.
There are a few things you need to avoid, and a few things to make sure you do.
You need to avoid “niching down” by focus.
It’s fine to like working with powerlifters or new moms or whatever, but that’s still a huge niche and also weirdly specific for any one gym during the (maybe) 35 hours a week you see clients.
You need to niche down by becoming the niche.
That’s right, you are the niche. You are the common denominator. You have unique experiences, insights, abilities, weaknesses, etc., etc., that nobody else can copy. This doens’t help you as a “trainer,” but it gives you a crazy edge on the “personal,” which you’ll find is what people really pay for anyway.
You need to avoid sales systems.
There’s nothing directly wrong with many of them, except that they’re by definition impersonal (see above note), and unusually prone to having been developed by slick-talking con-men. We don’t want to be them. They don’t need systems because slick-talking cons come naturally to them. Those exist to con money out of you.
You need to develop your own sales process.
I could give you my exact sales “script.” It reads more like a flow chart. I can talk you through why I say what I say at every juncture, and why I believe it works. In fact maybe I will. But here’s the thing… it won’t work for you. Some of the principles might, and I would encourage you to take them and incorporate them. But if you try to be me, you’ll fail. Same as if I try to be you, I’ll fail. Again, “personal” is the game. What do you look for in a client? How do you approach demonstrating that you’re a good fit? How do you get them on your side? I was fortunate early-on that my bosses put up with a lot of experimenting on this front. My first year on the job, I had a two month period where I went 0-45 on converting sales opportunities. They straight-up told me, if that was 0-30, they’d have fired me. What kept me around was my tenacity, and the fact that I was trying hard when nobody else was.
Well, I had to, didn’t I? I wasn’t going to work to fuck spiders, as they say.
Regardless, I developed an understanding for the key points of a process. LEarned them so well, in fact, that I now struggle to even try to implement different processes. Mine closes at something like 70%. I’ll take that.
You need to avoid treating training like a job.
It’s a great job, I get it. Wear sweats to work, set your own hours, etc. etc…
You need to treat training like a career.
You’ll be shocked how far a little professionalism will take you. Dress neatly. Keep learning. Keep studying your craft. I don’t just mean exercise science (although certainly that, too). Take cues from the entertainment business, communications fields, psychology… everywhere. It sounds exhausting, but it’s actually fun after a while.
This whole screed has revolved around three points: good business, good skills, and a good sense of purpose. If you have them, you can have a lot of fun, make a ton of money, and do untold amounts of good in the fitness industry. If you don’t, you will be struggling to get by, struggling to get results, or struggling to understand what the hell you’re doing.
And you don’t deserve that from your career. Nobody does.
If you’d like more help figuring out how to have a great career as a trainer, be sure to subscribe to my email list, follow me here, on Instagram (@ericmayletrainer), on YouTube (@ericmayletrainer), or if you really want to go deep, message me for more information about my small-group mastermind where we dig deep and improve ourselves across all of these fields.