The Lucrative & Influential Future of Fitness Professionals
Over the years, different training and workout models have evolved. So has the role of the trainer.
And I believe, in this Information Era and Connection Economy, it needs to change again.
Your role has to shift from “product” knowledge expert to Life Coach. While knowing your lifts, kinesiology and nutrition are critical as a Professional (and it’s what the client expects) – it is not what leads to lasting change.
What we should be compensated for is the life change we bring about, not the workout programs we create.
In a world saturated with workout programs you have no point of differentiation and as a result your services are reduced to a commodity – where you have to compete with $35/month gym memberships.
We have to change the model and context of what we do. We have to change who we are for the consumer.
We need to ask bigger questions of our clients and their life plans. With bigger questions come bigger answers and bigger context.
With bigger context comes greater retention and cashflow.
I recently read about a Fast Company article that addressed why change is so difficult. In that article it looked at the number of people (600,000 a year!) that get bypass surgery for their heart disease and another 1.3 million heart patients who get angioplasties for an annual cost of around $30 Billion.
Many of these patients could prevent this expensive procedure (upwards of $100,000 per bypass procedure) with diet and exercise. But they don’t make the changes necessary.
What’s missing?
It’s not information. It’s not a lack of options or resources when it comes to workout routines or diet advice.
What’s missing is someone they’ve given permission to that challenges their assumptions and pushes them to higher levels of self-mastery.
This type of coaching is an example of the kind of work I think fitness professionals need to build into their businesses.
People will pay for change.
The added bonus of shifting our focus to more of a Consulting role is that we can help our clients over the long run in their self-development.
This means better retention, less hours for you in the gym, more space in your schedule and greater impact in the world (or at least your community) – because we’re dealing with their behavior not their kinesiology. We’re addressing the Cause (their thinking), not the Symptom (their body).
To have a trainer I could trust to help me get to higher levels of self-mastery would be priceless. What could I do in life and business with higher levels of self-mastery? What would my income be? What would my influence be?
To take this a step further in your differentiation by adding the skills of consulting (like a life coach), you separate yourself from other trainers – and in fact, reinvent what consumers expect from the fitness industry.
But you also now offer more than a life coach as well because you have the skills and knowledge to help them have victories in an area that is very personal to them – their body.
I want to argue that your success in business as a fitness professional, will blow wide open when you redefine what it is you do as a trainer and what your core competencies really need to be.
I want to argue that you need to first be a consultant/coach that challenges peoples assumptions and helps them create change. And only then, be exceptional at prescribing workouts and nutritional advice. Because it’s in the context of my life and journey of self-mastery that your prescribed routines take on a higher meaning and bigger reward for me, your client.
Life change is the biggest conversation. And because it deals with their life, it is ever changing and evolving. This means we retain our clients longer because the context is bigger. Compare that to the context of “I want to lose weight in the next 6 months” or “I want to get ripped for a show in the next 90 days” which are limiting contexts at best.
You can only spin workout programs so many ways before people are bored and want something new.
But when the context is their life and self-mastery, your workouts are simply stepping stones to an ever-evolving journey where they get to know themselves as unstoppable, powerful and masters of their domain.
This is a call to look at the industry differently and to change how the consumer relates to us. We have knowledge and expertise that can unlock their potential through mastering their body. But it starts with how they think.
And changing their thinking starts with our ability to push and nurture them toward their goals as more than trainers… we need to be consultants.
So here’s my invitation… Let’s change how the consumer sees us. Let’s change what they expect from us. Let’s be the ones they want to pay top dollar for because of the way we push them to higher levels in their life, not just their fitness.
If you want to know more, I’m hosting a webinar where I’ll share 5 steps I use in my consulting practice that you can use in your fitness practice. These 5 steps are the key to retention and cashflow.
Using these 5 steps you can grow your business in a sustainable and scalable way without having to be salesy or spend a huge amount of marketing dollars. You don’t need to use gimmicks. You just need to be authentic, sincere and willing to stand up to your clients excuses and stand for their higher self.
