Personal Trainer Hostage
Most facilities offer personal training as a member service. For membership gyms, it is usually the second highest revenue producer and for some smaller facilities it may be the majority of their revenues. Let’s assume that you have developed a great personal training program. Your marketing is working, the clients are seeing the results they expect and are meeting their goals, your supporting documentation and processes are all established and working and your revenues are on the upswing, bottom line: everything is good.
And then, unexpectedly, your “star” trainer (or worse trainers), decides to leave. I call this the Trainer Hostage scenario. Unfortunately this happens quite often in this industry and the reasons are abundant; better pay, better benefits, change of career, family obligations, opening their own facility, commuting distance, etc. When it happens though, the impact is immediately felt. First the customer is faced with decisions; do they continue with someone else, do they follow the trainer to the new location, do they stop all together, etc. Then the impact in lost revenues to the club is felt. A good trainer can generate in excess of $70k in revenue for the club, usually with very good margins. From a longer term perspective, your brand and identity is compromised as you do not want to be known as a club that can’t keep their trainers. If that happens you will not be able to attract new clients nor new trainers and your entire program is now at risk. So, if you can’t stop this from happening, how can you at least minimize the impact? (BTW, you will never not have any impact, if you don’t, then the trainer that is leaving shouldn’t have been there in the first place.)
To put it simply, you need to implement your personal training program in such a way that no one trainer is the star so that when he/she leaves, the impact is absorbed across the remaining trainers. Simple to say but hard to execute. In order to do this right, you will need to ensure that the following are all part of your personal training program.
- Make your trainers part of the hiring process. After checking out a potential new trainer’s references, credentials, background, education, etc. have your existing trainers give their feedback. Have the new trainer train the trainers. Have your existing trainers come up with scenarios that will test the new hire. If they become part of the process, they are more likely to share their client with their peers during their absences.
- You control the communication. So often, the club signs up a new PT client and then they simply turn them over to the trainer. It then becomes the trainer’s responsibility to manage the client, communicate their progress, make schedule changes, etc. If this happens, you are 100% dependant on that trainer’s availability. Have all “non-fitness” related communications go through the club admin staff. This includes all scheduling changes, session cancellations, resigns, pricing discussions, etc.
- Give trainers complete visibility. You need to give all your trainers access to all the clients training program details, whether they are assigned to the client or not. No way can you even think of sharing clients amongst different trainers if they cannot see what has been done, completed fitness evaluation, training notes, progress charts, etc. This information must be accessible and visible to them so that when the day comes and they need to step in, they go in well informed and completely up-to-date on that client’s progress and issues.
- Give clients complete flexibility. When you sign up a new client, the first thing you tell them to do is to try different trainers. That way, from the very beginning, they are not thinking that they are assigned and committed to a single trainer. You will need to make this easy for them. They will need access to different trainer schedules and have flexibility in how they book and schedule their sessions.
- Hire smart, fire smart. It goes without saying that all of the above will only work if all your trainers are “equal”. This does not mean they all must train the same way or have the same personalities, but if you have a diamond among rocks, it will soon become obvious to all your clients. Implement mentorship programs, train the trainer programs, have your junior trainers watch dog your seniors, etc. And when you have determined that the trainer should not be part of your program, don’t hesitate. Make the change as early as possible and your clients will respect you in the long run, even if they are the ones initially impacted.
For over 2 ½ years we have implemented a very successful personal training program where all of the above fundamentals are adhered to. This was only possible with the ClubReady management system. During this time, we have never lost a trainer to another facility, we have made over 40,000 bookings and have completed over 10,000 sessions. Every client is shared amongst the 7 current trainers and when a trainer takes a week off, that client is moved to another trainer to continue their program. The environment and atmosphere that has been created is outstanding. The clients and trainers can actually feel it when they come into the building. Personal Trainer Hostage scenarios are a thing of the past.
February 5th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Thanks for the great information you’re providing. I’m only 16 but I am looking into being a personal trainer as well as owning a gym in the future, and this is fascinating reading for me. Thanks a lot!