From talking to hundreds of people in this industry, we
all have a different story about
how we got started in it. That's because personal training today
doesn't have the same
set career path as most other professional careers. But that isn't
just for when you're getting started; it also goes for once you're in this
career as well.
And one of the major decisions you have to make
as a trainer is where you're going to
stand in this business. Are you going to be one of the trainers at
the bottom, scratching
for whatever clients they can find at whatever rates those clients
are willing to pay? Or will
you be one of the top-level trainers that pretty much has their
pick of both?
There is no certification, degree or business
model that will make this decision for you -- you'll
have to do it yourself.
Until you start thinking like a top-level
trainer, you’ll never ascend to the type of career you
want and the type of lifestyle you want. You’ll be drowned in
work, mired in uncertainty and may
even find yourself out of this business in a few years.
The one mindset that
will get you into the upper level is your concept of giving value to your
customers and the industry. Become a value-giver. If
you want success and all of the material
things that come with it, there's nothing wrong with that. But you
can be sure you’re going to
have to contribute a lot of value to the world and
really make a lot of people’s lives better to
get it.
By “value,” I mean bringing more to the table
in every session and in your training experience
that customers are willing to pay for. This makes you desired by a
higher level of clientele,
enables you to charge higher prices, allows you to be selective
about who you take on
as a client and will bring you many more referrals, thus lowering
your marketing costs.
The other option is training more
clients at lower rates per client. Sure, that's also a model to
earn
money, but you’ll also be spending much more time in the business
(even if your employees
are doing all of the training for you) and undergoing much more
stress in the process. You'll
also have to spend more on marketing to attract all of those
clients, cutting into your bottom line.
Remember that exciting lifestyle
you dreamed of? It’s out the window. You now have a high-stress
and high-pressure job that I consider the opposite of the personal training
lifestyle.
Until you adopt the mindset to give more to
get more, you’ll never really get what it takes to jump to the
next level as a trainer. The thrilling
but also scary part is: The decision is all yours.
Kaiser
Serajuddin is the writer of the popular personal training blog,
Super-Trainer.com. He guides personal trainers through the challenging period
of starting their personal training businesses and helps them on the road to
six figures. For more information, you can download his special report, The
Six-Figure Formula, at www.super-trainer.com.
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