(Professionally and your lifestyle)
I recently met a young man whose chose to
move into the personal training industry from a non-related industry by
managing a team of trainers. It didn’t
work out (no surprises there) and he was to reduced to earning the income that his
competence dictated. Very little. Now he is dealing with bankruptcy.
He chose to sidestep the issue of developing personal professional competency
for the highly promoted business model of hiring trainers.
Before you conclude that this story is
simply an isolated extreme case, let me bring this home – there are so few
people in this industry who possess competence that you probably haven’t met
one. And that means you are most likely also incompetent.
Before you lash out take a moment and
consider the following.
So what do most trainers to in the absence
of competency? To solve this little problem? Market.
Again before you get to knee-jerk
reactions, please don’t state I’m anti-marketing, as some have in conversation
with me. I want to be very specific – a
service provider who needs to market is probably incompetent, and using
marketing to compensate for this lack.
With only 24 hours in a day competent service providers don’t need to
market. They need to hide.
I ran a seminar in Los Angeles recently on
business building for physical preparation coaches. There some interest from
prospective attendees on how to market via social media. I let them know very quickly that I not only
will not be teaching them how to market their services, I would definitely not
be endorsing them getting into the same stinking marketing pond as the masses
in their industry.
Some what is the result of your
incompetency? I don’t really need to tell you, but here are a few of the
symptoms:
- Not enough clients.
- Not enough great clients.
- Clients failing to turn up for appointments.
- Clients not staying with you for very long i.e. high attrition rate.
- Low hourly rate.
- Worry about where your next client is going to come from.
- Time poor.
- Working weird unsustainable hours.
- Financial struggles in life.
- Wondering if you should change professions.
- Latching onto the latest shiny object in certification (mostly trend based) and wondering why nothing changed.
- Inability to support a dependent adult. Forget about having kids.
Now you’ve either resonated with what I
have said so far or your values have been so threatened you have got poisonous
in your mind and started texting nasty things about me to your buddies. That’s
okay, I used to the latter…
For those who are still with me, let me
help you.
Want to get out of the crab bucket where
99% of the industry is struggling?
Choose competence. So what is competence? Here’s my working definition
of competence:
In the absence of marketing; and in the absence of an association
with a gym, sports team, sports institution, commercial company, or
professional organization, you are able to generate an endless demand from A
class clients willing to pay you triple figures per hour.
[Thanks to the April intake of the KSI Time, Money & Happiness 21 Day Mentoring Program for showing me how you prefer to shape this definition!]
In other words, sitting in your garage gym
at home, high paying enthusiastic clients line up to see you.
Fairy tale? Not al all. This is one of the
performance criteria we achieve through out now 18 year old KSI Coaching program.
This is what we create.
So what’s the downside? It takes time and
commitment, and the right vehicle. It might take 5-10 years to achieve
this. However once you have it, no-one
can take it away.
So what do most do? Look to marketing
instead.
In the early 2000s a young Los Angeles resident
wrote to me with. They really, really wanted to work with athletes:
“…I have read [your book]
"so you want..." thoroughly. While I agree with your statements it is
easier for you with an established record to attract new clients than it is for
an "outsider" like me to break in… I'd
like to move out of the personal training field and train athletes exclusively
but bills need to be paid…”[i]
They didn’t possess the delayed gratification required to achieve competence. So how did they create the perception of having a
“…stable of Olympic level athletes….’
…a few years later? Marketing. Marketing mixed with a dose of deceit.
You see this, and you are encouraged to
model this behaviour.
So what’s wrong with marketing? Firstly it
doesn’t solve your problem. You are still incompetent professionally. Secondly it wears off. You are going to need
to keep on doing it, and that’s really time consuming. Once the clients find
your limits professionally they are out of there. And you will never get off
that marketing merry-go-round.
And then how do you give yourself a unique
marketing position (USP) in a world where everyone is marketing the same
claims? You don’t. Unless you go to telling lies, which is tragically not only
the norm in this industry:
“…The reality is that the lies in fitness far
outweigh the truths….” [ii]
…it’s encouraged:
“… It's OK to tell a lie if you know that
it's a lie... Once a personal trainer or performance specialist knows the truth
then, they can tell a little white lie to make the sale or to get the client on
board. The key to selling fitness lies (clever play on words) in knowing the
truth but, also knowing when to lie….” [iii]
Is that who you are? A liar? For the most part, I don’t believe so. It takes a special person to bullshit year after year and still feel comfortable with themselves.
Now for those who are driven to action to
improve their competence remains the challenge of selecting an educational path
where you truly will achieve competence.
As the late Jim Covey would say:
“Before you lean your ladder up against a building,
make sure it’s the right building!” [iv]
If you tie your cart to the wrong horse
your time and money invested will be of little to no use in changing your
competency
If you are attracted to my definition of
competency, and you would like some of that yourself, before you select a
mentor or teacher, ask yourself – how do they shape up against this definition?
Now before I wrap some of you might have
been wondering why I said:
“…and in the absence of an association with a
gym, sports team, sports institution, commercial company, or professional
organization,…”
They all offer great opportunities – if you like depending on others for your future.
If you open a training studio, locals will
come. You will have clients. However would they travel to you if you closed the
gym and moved 30 minutes drive away? Probably not. They are simply clients of
convenience, not really making a massive effort to get to you.
If a sports team - especially a high
profile team - employs you you can get some extra clients by marketing this
fact. For as long as this marketing fact
is relevant. In other words, you might expend a bit of energy wondering and
worrying who will give you your next contract, as you depend on this.
The same goes for a sports institution. And the same for an association with a
commercial company – it’s great whilst you are their seminar spokesperson, but
what if they find a new, younger and better model? Where will your income come
from?
So they are all great short-term income
options. However I suggest that for the most part, any clients you attract are
because of your association with these organizations, not because of your
competence. And you probably don’t want to find out whether you have stand-alone
competence – so you are going to hang on to the organizations with desperate dependency.
If you truly want to be in control of your
destiny, competency is the solution I recommend. We’ve been giving physical preparation
coaches the best option to achieve competency, and we’ve been doing it for 18
years as the time of writing this article. Yes, we are not the best at
marketing. But on your side, have you been doing what everyone else is doing? Being
attracted to the bright, shiny objects? Empty vessels making the most noise?
How’s that been working out for you….So yes, our web site and marketing are
sub-par. But we just happen to produce physical preparation coaches with the
greatest competency, who attract an endless demand of A class clients lining up
to pay triple hourly figure for their service.
You decide….marketing or competence. If you
chose competence, here’s where you can get started: http://kingsports.net/Coach/courses/menu.htm
[i] Personal communication, details reserved to
protect the message.
[ii] Reference reserved to protect the message.
[iii] Reference reserved to protect the message.
[iv] Wow, imagine that! Giving credit! I trust my
solitary habit of doing so has a positive impact on you to adopt what industries with higher integrity deem normal..
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