#JTInTheRaw Show 64: Why Personal Trainers Fail

If you’re a basketball player and I tell you that I want to make you a rugby player, you’d laugh at me. 

If you have done ballet all your life and I tell you that I want you to start doing hip hop dancing, you’d laugh at me. 

If you play the piano and then I say I want you to play the harpsichord, you’re going to laugh at me. 

I am taking you from your area of strength, where you are comfortable, where you are unconsciously competent and where you are happy to now a completely different space.  And in these examples I had you flipping but still the same genre.  What would happen if I said to a ballerina, it’s time you went and played rugby! 

And these stark changes are why the fitness industry is failing personal trainers.  We are asking them to do things that are not their strengths and that is why they are quitting and that is why they are leaving the industry. 

Welcome to JTInTheRaw show 64 where I chew the thin on business and today I’m turning the blow torch on personal trainers and their mentors the fitness industry. 

Today’s question

Why do you think we are turning over personal trainers in the industry?  Why is the average length of stay in our industry less than a year for a PT?  Please pop your thoughts in the comments below – why do we turn over personal trainers? 

I understand there are pockets of success around the world and you may not be turning over PTs and if that is the case, tell me in the comments why you are not losing any! 

And if you are losing PTs, tell me why in the comments. 

What’s New With JTInTheRaw? 

After every JTInTheRaw we repurpose the show by loading on to You Tube and then using that link as a blog post on the Active Management website.  This helps in our SEO, creates content which Google love and allows people to rewatch the show. 

This week we have set up a new plug in on our word press website.  It is called Simple Social Press.  It is a time saver and for under a 100 bucks allows you to take your Facebook Live videos and feed them directly into your blog!  Plus it takes ALL the comments from below and includes them in your blog post.   

Alicia tells me there are just a few personalisation tweaks needed but it is generally a kick A little app!  Check it out: Simple Social Press!   

An Opinion Based #JTInTheRaw 

Are you ready for this statement – we are failing new personal trainers as an industry because the positioning of a PT career is a work for yourself business.  You are your on boss.  You’ll make “6 figures’ working for yourself.   

This positioning is assuming that every personal trainer should set up their own business – ie be an entrepreneur!  

A 2014 Global Report conducted by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor ranked countries based on the percentage of the adult population in each country that either owns or co-owns a business.  Australia ranked 26 with 5 to 6% of the population running their own business. 

This means that for every 100 personal trainers trained in Australia, 6 are entrepreneurial. 

6% is so low for the example I want to run by you that I have to use an American number. According to Grow America, 30% of all entrepreneurs are aged 20 to 24 – a 5 times better number than Australia. 

Using the US 30% number – For every 40 personal trainers qualified 12 are skilled enough entrepreneurially to start up their own business.  

Then further data reveals one in 3 small businesses fail in their first year of operation.  This means of our 12 personal trainers opening a business, only 8 are left at the end of 12 months.  Then 50% fail in the second year, so we are down to 4 trainers and by the fifth year only 25% are left in operation – so that’s just a one PT left from our original cohort of 40 PT’s. 

This is nothing to be proud of as an industry.  In fact I think we should feel ashamed of spitting so many trained PT’s out of our industry. 

Oh and the #1 reason small businesses fail at 32% is financial mismanagement.  I would suggest that this number is at least double if not up to triple on why personal trainers leave the industry. 

Just for fun I asked on Facebook this week why people became personal trainers and the answer: 

• To change people’s lives; 
• Because I’m passionate about exercise/heath/fitness. 

No one said, so I can run my own business. 

What I am saying is we are asking rugby players to be ballerinas or vice versa. 

I believe the fitness industry is failing people as we are driving personal trainers into running their own business.  And they simply are not cut out to run their own business. 

The models that gyms offer are generally and increasingly sub-contractor models.  That is, PTs pay rent to use the gym.  Problem is they have to get clients from either outside the gym or inside the gym.  This means: 

• Marketing; 
• They have to do the sales process; 
• They have to on-board them as a client; 
• They have do the admin of collecting their payment and reconcile sessions with payments; 
• Oh and they have to still find enough time to train them and program them.

There are at least 5 completely different skill sets in that job role right there!  Some of those skills will come naturally others require training and others require years of training! 

The good news for these PT’s is there are now a few – actually hundreds – of PT business coaches that promise the world to new PT’s.   

Everywhere PTs look, they are receiving a message to start their own business without self-evaluating if they really want to start their own business. 

When I managed my first club I had a cracking gym instructor – that’s showing my age!  For those who were born post cassettes, VHS and no mobile phones, a gym instructor was someone we paid to be on the gym floor programming and creating experiences for members.  Peter was sensational.  I said to him I’d like to promote him to be the gym floor manager and to lead the team.  He said “No thanks.  I love what I do.  I don’t want to lead I just want to do what I do.” 

I had Chris who worked as a PT in my club.  For years I used say to him that he’d earn more money working for himself and pay me rent.  He’d say “No thanks. I love what I do.  I love training people and leaving you to worry about marketing, sales and cash flow.” 

And both these times I thought: WTF! You lazy so and so’s!  Where is your entrepreneurial spirit?  

It is only now when I am older and uglier that I can stand back and acknowledge the strength of these two gentlemen!  

They were round pegs in round holes. Their skill set matched their job description perfectly.  They were working in their strengths.  And both of them worked for me for over 5 years! 

Today we are either: 

1. Jamming a square peg in a round hole, which means we have chipped the edges of the square peg to make an uncomfortable fit with the peg but we are happy as the hole is filled; or  
2. We are slotting a round peg into a square hole and while it may be a snug fit there are bits missing in the corners and these are critical bits causing them to fail. 

I now commend Pete and Chris for having the strength to do what they do best: train clients! 

It appears the only option these days is for PT’s to run their own business whether that be as a rent payer or outdoors or even opening their own studio. 

And to be frank, as entrepreneurial as I am and even a risk taker I think I’d be scared shit less opening up my own business straight after a course.  And if that was my only option, I’m not sure I’d do the course!   

But kids are doing courses as the profession is glamorised and the end result is I believe over promised!  Expectations are falsely set on both the effort required, the skills needed, the time to put in and the guaranteed income. 

What about you?  Put yourself in a 20 year old’s shoes or the shoes of someone doing a second career change.  Would you have the intestinal fortitude, the grit, the capital behind you to complete a PT course and then launch a PT business when the only thing you know is training clients and know nothing about sales, marketing, administration, pricing?  

As I said as I have got older and uglier, I am not surprised at all at the turnover of personal trainers.  The success of personal training in the future is not about what service you offer it about the business model.   

I believe that every big box gym on the planet should target a minimum of 25% of members doing some form of personal training.  And owners tell me there simply are not enough trainers to get to that percentage.  I say there are enough trainers, it’s just they have been brain washed to think the only option and the best option for them is run their own business. 

If we return to an employee based model there is a greater than average chance we’ll keep our PTs longer as they will gain enormous job satisfaction and not have to do the stuff they are poor at or dislike!   

Yes that means as employers you will pay super, potentially sick and holiday leave, and you’ll need to invest in developing your Team of personal trainers.  You’ll need a PT manager.  But you’ll won’t have to advertise for personal trainers – saving you money, time, energy and reducing your stress levels. 

And yes for personal trainers you could be earning 20-40% less than what you would earn working for yourself but there is no marketing costs, no admin time, no financial management, less stress and most importantly you can do what you love: train clients! 

A Message for Personal Trainers 

I listened to Dan Henderson this week. Dan speaks with PTs every day, and he says that every trainer he speaks to says they need more leads.   

He want on to say that after hearing the great Thomas Plummer in San Fran last week, that you need to be a master of social media to generate leads.  Ok so you now have to add social media as a skill set that you need to run your business on top of sales, retention, admin, and programming.  Not sure when you’ll fit learning that skill in.  He did offer the idea of employing someone who does know social, so that’s $75 an hour going out to a social media consultant – who is good – which means you now need to either fund that through cash flow or pick up another client.  But that doesn’t include your marketing spend, so an extra client a week to cover the marketing budget! 

Now I’m not picking on Dan at all.  I agree with him.  This is another area of business you need to know as a PT business owner. 

But what I would say and I call “bull shit” is that you need more leads.   

After nearly 30 years in the fitness industry, including running my own PT business and my own gyms, here is my simple take on a successful business model: 

1. Lead buys your service; 
2. You service that client; 
3. That client stays if they are happy; 
4. That client gets results and tells their friends or friends ask what they are doing; 
5. Client refers friends to you; 
6. You get a new lead; 
7. Lead buys your service; 

And around we go again!  

Personal trainers of the world if you need more leads then you are screwing up this equation somewhere! And I will bet it is in steps 2, 3 and 4.  Unless of course owing to mis-financial management you don’t have enough money to live on, then you stuffed up the entrepreneurial component of the business and perhaps you were made for being an employee not a business owner.  

Let me give you an example.  At the gym I go to there is a PT there that I think has paid north of $10K for PT business consulting.  How do I know, because I have seen him on-line as a testimonial for the company extolling the skills he learned from the company. 

One of his clients has just broken up with him and told me he lacked energy, his arms were folded in the session, nothing was ever recorded, the workouts were boring and she had not achieved any results training with him.  He was failing in steps 2, 3 and 4 . . .  

2. Servicing the client; 

3. Making the client happy; 

4. Getting results for the client. 

 Dan recounted that Thomas said “Your weaknesses are going to kill you.”  And that is so right! If you do not have the business skills to run a business it will kill your career and metaphorically you. 

Your decision is to visit the house of mirrors and decide do you want to be a personal training business owner or do you want be a personal trainer.  They are very different careers. 

Thank you for tuning into a longer JTInTheRaw and perhaps one that may hit a nerve for some people and for others I may just have given them permission to say “I want to be a personal trainer!” 

As always I appreciate all the engagement you guys and girls give during the show.  The likes, hearts, and even the sad faces are all awesome and I’m grateful that you come back each week or that you swing by for the first time. 

Quote of the week

Do you want to be a personal training business owner or do you want be a personal trainer?  They are very different careers. 

Do you want to work one on one with JT?

Check out all previous shows here: https://www.activemgmt.com.au/category/jt-in-the-raw/