Download - The Six-figure Trainer Program Manual

8/13/2019 The Six-figure Trainer Program Manual

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Dedicated to all my clients, past and present.

It has been your belief in me that made me be-lieve in myself, and your support that helped meachieve my dreams. I hope I was able to bringas much value to your lives as you have to mine.


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Congratulations!

Youre about to learn about Personal Training in its truest,

simplest form. Its a business that can allow you to achievewhat millions work hard for but never find: a path to enjoyable,stress-free work and an adventurous life.

Not everything youre about to read is politically corrector socially acceptable; its all real-world information, culledfrom my experiences in this field, from speaking to the worldsbest trainers, and many more trainers that youll never hear orread about but that are truly living whats called the fitness life-style. Ive separated the real from the rhetoric, and whats leftare the essentials to creating a career of respect, high salary anda limitless future.

An untold amount of effort and time went into the developmentof the information in this book, not to mention the six months ittook to write it. Please respect that and do not wrongfully dis-

tribute this book or use it improperly. Thank you for your pur-chase and I look forward to meeting you and hearing your story.

Sincerely,Kaiser Serajuddin

Copyright 2010This work is legally copyrighted in the State of New York .

It is meant for use by the sole owner or those licensed by GoHard Fitness Inc. for possession of this book.Any wrongful copying or distribution of this book will be met by full penalty of law.

This book may not be re-sold or distributed by any other party other than GoHard Fitness Inc.


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Some of us will do our jobs well and somewill not, but we will be judged by only one

thing - the result.

- Vince Lombardi


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ITRODUCTIO SIX-FIGURE TRAINER

With this book Id like to take the opportunity to introduce a new term to you:

THE TOP-LEVEL TRAIER

Top Level Training isnt a new type of training; rather, its an enhanced definitionof Personal Training. Thats because if youre not a Top Level Trainer, youre ac-tually not a trainer at all. Youre just passing through the fitness industry for ashort time and just like the wooly mammoth, youll soon be extinct..

TLTs are the trainers with the highest incomes and the highest job satisfaction.They dont go through career burn-out; instead their skills and knowledge growmonth by month and year by year. When new opportunities open up in the healthand fitness industry, theyre the ones ready to fill them. They eventually gainsuch a high level of skill, success, and perspective that they grow into other seg-ments of the fitness sector, and eventually to wide recognition and tremendoussuccess.

(Continued on page 7)


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If we were to do a comparison of Top-Level Trainers versus non-TLTs, it wouldlook like this:

TLT: Gets all the best clients.non-TLT: Trains people that dont inspire them.

TLT: Gets tons of referrals and never has to market.non-TLT: Cares more about making sales than changing lives.

TLT: Earns a high income.

non-TLT: Will soon be in a different, less desirable, less respected field.

TLT: Has a thriving training practice.non-TLT: Earns a very uncertain salary.

TLT: Moves on to expert status in the field.non-TLT: Experiences career burn-out after a few years.

TLT: Lives the fitness lifestyle, full of excitement and lots of leisure time.

non-TLT: Doesnt practice what they preach.

Which one are you?

Which one would you rather be?

This manual will help you to understand what the top of the training industrylooks like, and most importantly, give you a detailed plan of how to get there. I

myself have been on both sides of the spectrum. When I first started as a trainer,it wasnt long before I was beaten down by the profession; it became a bad job in-stead of a career I was passionate about.

I was extremely motivated: that wasn't the problem - the problem was that I


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didnt understand the profession. Being motivated has nothing to do with it; itsrules are completely different from every other profession out there. Unfortu-

nately, it took me years and the experience of training thousands of clients beforeI figure out the truth: that this isnt a typical career. For that reason, many of thestrategies you would use to get ahead in typical career will actually backfire and

blow up in your face when if youre a Personal TrainerI now realize how it should be done; that there are simple systems, habits,

and mind-sets that go into being a personal trainer that are more than just aboutsweat and dumbbells. Once you grasp these ideas, this job actually turns into bothone of the most rewarding and at the same time easiestprofessions in the world.

First Id like to commend you for being serious about your career and pick-

ing up THE SIX-FIGURE TRAINER PROGRAM. Youll find it immeasurablymore valuable to your career than any other book or DVD youve seen or read onpersonal training or general business for that matter.

More importantly, its the most practical. Books and certifications on per-sonal training are designed just to maintain the status quo and teach you the basicsof how to train. They dont tell you anything about the real world of personaltraining how to get high level clients, charge top dollar, work fewer hours, live avibrant lifestyle, and have tons of clients that keep coming back and refer you toothers. These are the most important lessons to learn, but they arent availableanywhere else. The majority of trainers will give up on this great profession and

move on to other fields before they ever learn them.But in this program, Ill show you what its really like to make it. Here

youre going to learn the real field-tested information on how to succeed in thisbusiness, but on your terms; how to have the kind of training practice you want,and how to actually create an appealing lifestyle for yourself. In society today weare what we do, and for that reason this book is about way more than just startingor improving at a job its about realizing your vision and creating a life.


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THE GREATEST JOB SIX-FIGURE TRAINER

Ican unequivocally say that Personal Training is the worlds greatest profes-sion. It brings together some unbelievable characteristics that make this the case.

Its easy to get started Its easy to do It pays a high income

For anyone that decides to enter this field, youre uniquely positioned to getstarted in something special. Who else do you know talks about their job likethat? I have no problem doing it, and its without any hype. On top of that, Idalso call Personal Training the worlds last great profession, for a few reasons:

Personal Training is completely unregulated - its ungoverned by arbi-trary standards or red tape.

Its completely democratic - youre paid for your own strengths as a


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trainer and a person, not the school you went to.

People are paying you to make them exercise - how that turned into alucrative, multi-million dollar field permanently ingrained into our culture,I have no idea.

Its the most highly consumed and at the same time also the highest

paying wellness field - more so than massage, acupuncture, or chiropracticservices. You only need a few clients to earn a very high income.

You set your own hours - want to work mornings, evenings, or go on vaca-

tion several times a year? This is your job.

Its in a rapidly expanding field - the health and wellness industry is be-ing hailed as the next trillion dollar industry. Personal Training is your startin this field, and your road to continued success and a very high income.

Its in a subject that is actually fun to participate in and learn about - Imean there are people that go to the gym every day and study health andfitness that arent Personal Trainers!

The truth is that everyone needs to work out, and millions of people do; were justthe only ones that get to make money at it!

Jim Collins in his book Good to Great talks about the signs that youre in theperfect profession for you: its when youve been enjoying what youre doing somuch, and making so much money at it, that at any moment youre afraid thatthe powers that be will find out and come busting through the doors and shutyou down; you think any day youll befound-out and it will all be taken away

from you; you have to pinch yourself at how much fun and how easy your job is.Thats exactly how Ive felt for years now as a Personal Trainer. Ive had

such an amazing lifestyle doing something that comes so naturally to me, I actu-ally feel guilty. Ill show you how to get the same feeling.


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The problem with a lot of personal trainers is they think that they dont de-serve to be this lucky or get this kind of respect. They actually fight it and end-up

making the profession unnecessarily hard. They spend millions every year on un-necessary certifications that wont improve the end training experience of theirclients and wont bring any additional money into their pockets. They choose totrain in neighborhoods or gyms where theyll never earn a high income or have areal future; they just continue to bang their heads against the wall day after day foryears on end. And they dont set themselves up to move forward in this career;they view hourly training as their last stop, not knowing there are other optionsout there for them.

But it can be different unlike any other major field in the world, all ittakes to get to the top of this one is the decision to do it; there are no other outside

boundaries.

Completely Untouched

As you probably already know, Personal Trainers are respected as highly skilled

professionals. Just like any other professional, youre considered to possess a cer-tain body of knowledge and skill that people pay you to benefit from. But unlikeother professions, there still isnt any mandatory college degree for PersonalTrainers; theres no designated number of hours you need to serve as an intern; nonumber of credits you need to accumulate. Of the wide number of major certifi-cations that you can get in Personal Training, all with different requirements anddifferences in difficulty, the amount of studying and actual tested material is aboutwhat youll find onjust onemajor exam in a difficult college class. In any other

profession, youll have to taken dozens of such tests before you can start your ca-reer; here, youve got to take just one - hardly a barrier to entry in any way.

And heres a little secret: you really dont need a certification at all to getstarted! Although from a legal perspective its not recommended (in case youresued), you will not be arrested or convicted of malpractice for not having a certifi-cation. Thats not true of chiropractors, dieticians, acupuncturists, and almost


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any health and wellness profession. And Personal Trainers very often chargemore than any of those other professionals! Its really unbelievable when you

think about it. For that reason, I refer to this field as completely untouched.While some people consider this lack of regulation as opening up the road

to quacks, its actual quite the opposite. It hearkens back to a different time andplace in history, when mastery and success in a profession was not based on thenumber of degrees you had, but on your actual skill and your real ability toachieve results and change lives. Thats the beauty of Personal Training, and thereason why I call it the last great profession. This may change one day, but fornow it is still an open field for anyone to get started, establish themselves, andmove on to even greater success.

While a new client may want to know about your credentials and certifica-tion before they start training with you, this will hardly be their deciding factor.They just want to know that youre certified, for I guess the same reason theywant to know that any professional is basically qualified. But what theyll really

judge you on is you about how you present yourself, your belief in yourself andyour work, and how youre clients talk about you when youre not around. Forthose of you who are used to just showing up and earning a paycheck, this can bea little scary - but its also very thrilling.

Entitlement

The mistake many Personal Trainers make, and like Ive said I was guilty of thisas well, is that they see this field like just any other. Theyre trying to rack up themost certifications and learn the most funky new techniques, even though theyknow these have little practical application. These trainers usually go looking fora job at a health-club, where they end up overworked and underpaid. They

punch a clock, are stuck in one place all day, and just like the millions of other liv-ing dead in our society, they work all year for a 2 week (un-paid in this case) va-cation; this isnt for me and its certainly not for you.


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But its not their fault; in our society were taught to believe that successcant be achieved with ease; were told we have to suffer for it. This is one of themajor mental barriers that we all need to overcome in pursuing our goals: you canand deserve to live a better life and succeed without the back-breaking effort orhardship thats come to typify the condition of most people in the Western World.

If you grew up in typical household, you probably dont feel like you de-serve to have it so easy. Watching my parents wake-up every day at 6 AM andcome home exhausted, I started to feel that this is the way life was supposed to be.If your upbringing was similar, you also watched your parents consumed by theirwork, losing touch with their own lives and interests. As you enter adulthood,

you begin to believe this is normal. This world-view is reinforced through themedia and popular culture; the idea that youve got to go to school for manyyears, and after that get started in a career where youll be overworked and under-

paid for several more years after that. Youre also led to believe that you have towork for a jerk-wad boss and look forward to your 2 week vacation every year. Ifyou work especially hard and are really successful, you might even get a promo-tion, where you can work even more hours and hopefully make a little more pay.And if youre reallylucky, one day when youre old and overweight, youll beable to make enough money to live comfortably and retire a few years early; but

at this point your youth has passed you by and all you have to show for it are abunch of possessions, but no real life experiences.Your first step on the road to success is to realize that this isnt how it has to

be; that you can take a completely different road.

You can work in field thats completely flexible. You can do work you love. You dont have to go to college for years on end. You dont have to begin your career working for a very poor salary. You can be your won boss withoutstarting your own business.

If you cant believe all of this, youre doomed from the beginning - youve got tobe able to visualize the lifestyle you want and the freedom you want. Once youdo, youll be able to take steps to make it your reality, and make corrections


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whenever your path falls off of your vision.Thats the first lesson I want you to learn: to have that feeling of entitle-

ment. No matter who you are or what youre earning now, you too deserve tomake a lot of money doing something you love, the freedom of not having some-one telling you what to do, and an outstanding career with a world of potential.You deserve all of these things, and the field of Personal Training is going to givethem to you!

Earning Potential

Despite what you hear in the media about David Beckhams contract or what thekid from Facebook is worth, making a comfortable living in the world today istough. The median income of a gradate from Stanford law school is $150,000dollars. This is after theyve gone to college for at least 7 years, with a few moreyears of work experience mixed in there. And remember, theyre working 60+hours a week at their first job after graduation.

Owning your own business is very much the same. Michael Gerber calls ittheE-Myth, in his book by the same name. Its the entrepreneurial myth of high

pay and lots of free time, which eventually turns into terrible hours and careerburn-out. What Gerber describes in excruciating detail is how most people starttheir businesses thinking that it will give them more free time and freedom, butthey actually become slaves to their business and are never able to enjoy the elu-sive success that was initially their goal. Considering all this, he questions themotivation of someone evening starting a business in the first place.

Being an independent Personal Trainer on the other hand can be completelydifferent; you can be your own small business without the all the hassle of actu-ally owning a business. In this arrangement you get all the benefits of being your

own boss without all of the headaches. And the self-esteem and knowledge youget from being your own boss is a benefit that cant be measured. Its true thatyoure clients pay youre bills, but during your training sessions itsyoutellingthem what to do.


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Besides this sense of freedom and confidence, there are even more benefitsto stepping up and seeking the type of life you want. When you stand up foryourself and look to get what you deserve, you end up much happier and fulfilledas a result. And best part of all, you also end up a better person that contributes

positively to our world. Make that commitment to yourself that youre going toget what you deserve, and the rest of this program will show you how to do it.


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Weve taken the time to define what Top-Level Training is by now. You knowthat its the brand of Personal Training that ensures success and a high income.Before we can get into the details of how to become a Top-Level Trainer, we needto get into a more fundamental concept and ask ourselves an even more basicquestion:

WHAT IS PERSOAL TRAIIG?

Is Personal Training about the motivation we give our clients? Is it about gettingthem to workout? Is it the workouts themselves? Is it the new exercises, tech-niques, or knowledge we convey to them? Is it about the results we help themget? What are we selling exactly?

Those are all aspects of Personal Training, but lets not lose the forest for

the trees. Theres one overarching definition that encompasses and supersedes allothers:


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Personal training is the actual sensory and physical ex-

perience the client feels from being in your presence forone hour.

Thats what a training session is, and this is what youre selling. Depending onhow this session feels will determine your success, your referrals, and your in-come. With every training session, ask yourself this:

Did your client feel good?

Like they were with a professional?

Like they grew during this session?

Were they inspired?

Were there limits pushed?

Are they looking forward to the next session?

Did they have a good time?

Are they dying to tell someone else how it went?

Youve got to begin to view your product from all these different angles. Themistake most trainers make is they think the workout is the product. They thinkall the client cares about is the workout, and if you can just give them a betterworkout you can one-day charge $100 an hour.

As professionals, we begin to think of what we do in logical terms - butremember personal training is different from other professions; as I mentioned,its the best one. Weve got to look beyond the logical and think of it also in emo-tional terms. We need to think about the feelings our client gets: prestige, motiva-


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tion, direction, inspiration, improvement. Its these feelings which the top trainercan elicit that the lower level trainer cant. This is how you dominate your mar-

ket, get booked solid, and charge top dollar.Most trainers try to raise their income by acquiring more certifications, but

what they dont realize is these certifications dont do anything to help this feel;theyre just an attempt to cover up the weaknesses. Expert status in PersonalTraining is based on a wide range of criteria only one of which is your credentials.There is no MD degree in personal training, where the client knows that yousweated for 8 + years. Instead, clients use many different and varying criteria to

judge your competency level for themselves.The trainers that try to stand just on the strength of their certifications or

even college degrees often face a harsh reality; this isnt a degreed profession.In my opinion, degreed jobs in todays society are a cop-out; they make you toiland pay your dues up front through rigorous education, with the promise that youcan coast for the rest of your life and never have to work on yourself again. Imsure many of us would like to earn the income of our physicians, but would youever want to look like him or have his personal life? I doubt it.

The medical profession is an example of the old success model; if a per-sonal trainer ever decides to coast and not work on themselves and their image, orsit back on their credentials to get them clients, theyll be out of business verysoon, or not get into any sort of business to begin with.

If you arent inspired by what you do, whos going to want to train withyou? Theyre paying for your inspiration, because as it stands now, theyre notinspired to work-out enough on their own.

A trainer may thinkthe client is paying for only the service, ie. the workoutor weight loss program; this trainer may dress poorly; he/she may not care aboutgrowing their knowledge; they may not plan the clients workout in advance orspend any time thinking of something new to challenge the clients body. Youllfind trainers like this in major health-clubs. Theyve gotten bored with the joband bored of themselves. These types of trainers are undoubtedly just passingthrough; theyre not going to be in this field for long.

But find me a successful career trainer, and Ill show you someone com-pletely different. Theyre a pleasure to be around they exude physical health be-cause unbelievably, theyre passionate about fitness. Theyre passionate aboutlife as well, and usually have some interesting story to relate to their clients,


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which their clients enjoy because theyre usually overworked career people them-selves. They view their trainer as a trusted friend and usually develop a close re-

lationship with them.This trainer is confident and in control; they can competently answer their

clients questions; theyre tentative and focused in on their client; they look good,like a true professional, dressed the way you would expect a top fitness consultantto dress; theyre taking notes and actively involved with their client; when not ac-tually working out, you will see them and their client smiling and you may peri-odically here some laughter burst out during the session (its obvious theyre hav-ing fun over there); the trainer looks clean and is well groomed (you can imaginethat they smell good too). This relationship appears to have many dimensions -they look like good friends, like a mentor and student, like a therapist and patient;you can imagine this trainer having an enjoyable lifestyle, good friends and posi-tive habits.

Were you able to see this training session in your mind? Could you visual-ize the trainer? Could you see what was going on? I have a feeling you could; ontop of that, I have feeling you imagined yourself in the picture as the trainer.What you saw was yourself at your best.

Professional Service

Probably the best way to describe training is as a professionalservice. Boththose words,professionalandservice, carry equal weight in the term; you need tokeep each word in mind and live up to them both. However, many trainers thinkabout themselves in only one of these terms; they short change their success rightthere. Its the perfect and equal combination of these two ideas that defines Per-sonal Training. Learning to balance the two is what separates it from any other

profession.This book is equally focused on both of these topics. It pays attention toboth who you are and the image youre conveying, down to the nuts and bolts ofthe training session itself. The training session is the experience its the prod-


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uct. To improving your training, you need to focus on all the elements that in-crease your in-session quality.

Being a service professional is one of the best places for someone to starttheir career. You get to sell a product that requires no overhead, just your imagi-nation and intelligence. Some of the greatest success stories in business historyhave started in the service professions. Theres nowhere else that you can gain theexperience and interpersonal skills that you can here.

What are the advantages of service?

Elimination of ego our ego is one of the main things that holds usback in our lives. Its like our protective blanket, and we tend to avoidanything that will hurt or damage our ego. But being in a service pro-fession increases your level of internal validation; it causes you to findvalue within yourself, not look to the outside world to determine yourvalue. This is a personal quality vital for any kind of success.

You dont need any raw materials, stock, or inventory when you begin;its just you. Therefore, the value of a training session is an intangiblething and takes on a largely psychic dimension. Personal trainerscharge anywhere from $20 to $1,000 a session, but theres never a

physical product they sell, unlike a $5,000 Hyundai and a $350,000Maybach, which have many obvious physical differences (although theMaybachs price is still largely psychic value).

So where do the do the differences in value of a training session come from? Thatparts up to you. As a service profession, Personal Training will teach you that itll teach you about the intrinsic value of a product or service. Youll learn to tapinto the mind of a consumer and find out what triggers their perception of value.This ability gives you an immeasurable business advantage over other tradition-ally educated professionals, who depend more on their symbols of value than ac-tual value.

If you play your cards right and learn to master all the aspects of good ser-vice, you can earn a high income without ever creating or selling a physical prod-


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uct in any way. What youre doing is creating value out of thin air; its a magicalability that once youve mastered, will make anything else you ever do seem easy

by comparison.


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Training gives us an outlet for suppressedenergies created by stress, and thus tone

the spirit just as exercise conditions thebody.

-Arnold Schwarzenegger


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YOUR SPECIALTY 2010

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At my barbershop recently I observed an interesting phenomenon. All the bar-bers there will cut the hair of anybody that walks in the door. Every new cus-tomer is an adventure in haircutting for them, and I think thats what holds themto $12 per haircut and such long hours its the lack of specialization.

Health-club trainers are the same way; theyll train anyone that walks in thedoor. For that reason, most of them probably earn much less than my barber.They train whoever theyre assigned, and it could be someone different everyhour. They think this allows them to see more clients and add to their incomes,

but what it really does is hold them back and leads to their failure.In medicine, we know that the doctors that earn the most money are the

specialists. But specialization in training doesnt require an additional degree, orany other particular differentiating strength, at least not initially.

All it takes is a decision.

Once youve made this decision about what to make your specialty, it then be-


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comes the focus of all your future work. It guides the knowledge you accumulateand the clients you take-on. It becomes the basis of your success image, how you

describe your job to others, and all of your promotions and marketing. Needlessto say, its a pretty important decision to make.

Its also essential for your job satisfaction and well-being. If you dont spe-cialize, youll find your job-satisfaction begin to diminish. We all need growth inorder to be happy, and youll find mastery hard to achieve if you dont specialize.This then makes it hard to move on to anything greater in the future. Just like any

professional, your career and personal success are closely aligned. Therefore, itsnot only important for your happiness, but also one of the most crucial things youdo for your success as well. Youll either burn-out or find your training practice

die-out one day unless you make this choice early on.

My Search For A Specialty

When I first started as a Personal Trainer at a major health-club, I was expectedto train anyone that was thrown at me. With just a general understanding of over-all fitness, me and all the other trainers were expected to be able to troubleshootthe problems of every potential client. The only mastery the management in those

positions was looking to instill in their employees was sales. Indeed, the trainersyoull find in most health clubs, even the best, are a miserable group of journey-man trainers moving from one place and one career to another.

After leaving my job as a health-club trainer and creating my independentpractice, I unfortunately still continued to generalize. Among my client roster wasan 84 year old woman, a schizophrenic, and a 12 year old boy. Weight-loss?Sports Performance? Body-building? I was expected to know it all! However,this kind of diversity didnt give me the opportunity to specialize. Since I didnt

consistently do one type of training, my ability to deliver an outstanding productto my clients was limited. At this time in my career, I had a high level of clientturn-over and couldnt figure out why. Although I had the thrill of being on myown, I was miserable: I didnt like what I was doing or who I was training. In


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fact, I was actually looking to move out of Personal Training and find other workbecause I was so unhappy with it.

This also created a lot of confusion from my potential clients. They could-nt understand or identify what I stood for and what problems I was skilled atsolving. This is a trap Im sure many trainers have fallen into. This just high-lights the importance of finding a specialty. Here are a few more benefits.

Reduces your marketing costs - allows you to focus all of your mar-keting and advertising on a smaller group of potential clients

Keeps you training the people you want to train - people that you en-joy spending time with, that bring you pleasure beyond just your train-

ing salary. Increases your level of expertise - you dont have to spend your time

studying information from every possible subject; you can insteadconcentrate on just one area

Improves your mastery - create the necessary routine and repetition toachieve mastery.

Competitive advantage - when youre a specialist, you can slowly ac-cumulate more knowledge in your niche than anyone else. It makes itharder for new trainers to serve your same client base.

Creates the foundation - when you have an area of focus, it puts you inposition to the leader of the business, and no longer the trainer, whichsets the stage for you to eventually hand over the training work to oth-ers.

Choosing Your Specialty

Besides its importance, choosing your specialty is also one of the most funthings you can do. Itll force you to find yourself, and analyze what you enjoyteaching as well as partaking in the most. In some ways, you can turn your area


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of highest interest or your hobby into your specialty.

For me, choosing a specialty was built simply around the most obvious setof standards my own training regimen and goals. I simply looked to attract peo-ple that shared my particular workout goals, and were willing to train at my levelof intensity. This narrowed the list down to people that were already in shape,that were younger so they could handle the intensity, and were looking to achieveoutstanding, well-balanced bodies. This specialty limited the total pool fromwhich I could draw clients; for example, I could no longer train children or seniorcitizens. But at the same time it created a small group of clients that I was bestsuited to train. When these clients met me or came in contact with me, they knewright away that I was the right trainer for them.

To put it in words, this is how I would describe my new specialty:

Creating lean, attractive bodies in the shortest time possiblethrough intense training and a results focus.

Although not those exact words, this specialty was apparent in all of my market-ing materials and in how I described my services to other people. And I backed itup big time - from their very first session, my clients knew that they were getting

exactly what they signed up for: complete focus on achieving their best possiblebodies with the absolute minimum in wasted time and effort.

Inherent in this new self-image were a few new rules:

I would no longer be training children.

I would no longer be training senior citizen.

I would no longer be training individuals with tremendous pre-existing

conditions that prevented them from engaging in intense exercise.

I would not be helping people rehab their injuries.


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Although this initially forced me turn away several new people that were seekingmy help, it was well worth it. Not only did it improve my work enjoyment andmake my job much easier, it also helped me to see exactly the type of people that Imost wanted to train: young, fit, and healthy people. It might seem like I took thelazy route, choosing what I did most easily as my specialty and the people Iwanted to be around as my clients. But thats just the type of synergy that this

profession allows us, so its to your benefit to take advantage of it.In instituting this system I did come across an interesting dilemma.

Through my exclusive training agreement with a health club I was partnered with,I had many people asking for training that didnt fit at all into my niche. But,turning away all of these people wouldnt be fair to the health-clubs owner, whowas looking for the best possible service for all of his members. Rather than com-

promise my standards, I hired two more personal trainers in order to handle thesespecial populations for me. They trained the children, obese, and complete nov-ices, and allowed me to focus on my specialty. This set-up allowed me to offermy training services to a wide range of people without creating a confusing imagein the mind of potential clients.

Creating Your Own Specialty

In your quest to chose a specialty, you need to ask yourself a few questions:

What are you naturally good at? What will yield a fairly large clientele? What specialties will you be able to carry further into different areas as

your career expands?

You dont need to be the best in the world at your specialty: you arent trying toreach a global market with millions of customers. You just need to create an im-


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age of excellence and trust in your particular market and situation. For that reasonyou arent really limited at all and have the freedom to do what you want; just

think about the work that will be simultaneously the most fun and profitable foryou to tackle.

This could fall around many different areas:

Sports you like Modes of exercise you engage in Special Populations you have an interest in Your own specific skills

Your own particular fitness goals

Here are some examples of potential specialties for you to chose from:

Senior CitizensIf you are looking for a very non-demanding client group, you have specializedwork or education credentials, or just have a love for older people, specializing intraining seniors may be good for you. For those that find this population a goodfit, there are many potential benefits:

They have a lot of free time to devote to their training Many are looking to train for the rest of their lives Many have lots of money They arent too demanding for results, just looking for an improved

quality of life.

If being around senior citizens is meaningful to you, this could prove to be an ex-cellent TLT niche that can easily grow to be a highly lucrative career path. Theaging baby boomer population and the increased life expectancies through medi-

cal science will make this a very large market and will only continue to grow. Ifyou can properly explain the value of your expertise and credentials, you should

be able to charge higher rates than traditional trainers. Just make sure that youseek the affluent segments of the elderly population; its unethical to take money


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from seniors that dont have it.

ChildrenOn the opposite end are children, the fastest growing part of the obese population.Many of us just find it rewarding to be around children. They are very easy towork with from a training design stand point; the only thing that matters is lots offun and activity to them. And your market is assured, because if theres one thingthat parents are willing to spend money on, its their children.

If your practice is designed around weight loss for kids, youll have to keepan eye on results. In this type of practice the results may actually be more de-

pendent on your coaching of theparentsin choosing the right foods for the child

and encouraging them to participate in sports. This greater contact with the parentis also important because for all purposes the parent is your real client - keepingthem happy is the key.

Parents are also very competitive when it comes to the performance of theirchildren at sports. This creates another huge marketing opportunity to children aswell. In general small group training and camps centered around making childrenfaster, stronger, and more competent in their sports is an area with room for tre-mendous growth. The national training chain CATS focuses on just this: plyomet-ric exercises for young people that will improve their sports performance. On a

smaller scale, this is also a strong basis to begin a Personal Training practice aswell.The child training market is huge and at this point still largely untapped.

Of all the training markets, this one in has the most potential for growth.

Super-ModelsThis is the specialty of Personal Trainer David Kirsch in New York. Hows thatfor loving your work?

As an exercise, lets consider how you would you go about making thisyour specialty. The truth is, if you made this your specialty people would simply

believe you - theyd have no reason not to. You could just put this information onall of your materials - whenever you sought a joint venture or told people what


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you do, you could tell them this is what it is. You would have to spend a littletime to think about what types of goals models might have and devise a precise

routine and set of exercise to help achieve them. But does this sound conceiv-able? Of course it does - thats the beauty of this profession. The only barrier towhat you cad do is the decision.

The list of potential specialties is endless. In the marketing chapters were goingto discuss in greater detail how to integrate your chosen niche into the grain ofyour training and your marketing message.

In terms of the prerequisite skills to choose a niche, I can understand whysome trainers may have a dilemma. If youre starting out right now, you may nothave any skills or well-developed interests. Thats okay; this process may takesome time.

Until then, my specialty is one that every trainer can relate to and use forthemselves. As youll remember, my training specialty is body-composition im-

provement: helping people gain more muscle while losing fat and creating a bet-ter, more appealing body. Not coincidentally, this is probably the most popularreason why anyone seeks Personal Training in the first place. Feel free to borrowmine until you fully explore your interests and craft your own.

Creating My Specialty

For me, my fitness goal has always been to look my best. Although Ive alwaysloved to train and trained frequently, I could never add muscle to my body effec-tively, didnt have a balanced physique (with all the muscle groups the same sizerelative to each other), and didnt have a mid-section I was happy with. It wasonly after I became a Personal Trainer that I began thinking critically about my

body and became determined to get it to a high level. Through learning and lotsof effort, I was able to eventually solve these problems; as a result of all the infor-mation I gained over this process, I was then able to make physique improvementmy specialty. I became the guy that could help you get that beach-ready body.


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I know physique improvement is a specialty for many trainers, but howmany really make it the focus of everything they do? For me my specialty deter-

mines:

The clients I choose. The training techniques I implement. The way I dress. My marketing materials.

Because of the techniques I use, I cant train people that are grossly overweight orhave physical impediments. Im forced to turn away more people than I take on;

but it allows me to achieve great results and satisfaction among my small group ofclientele; this in-turn creates even greater demand for my training.

For everyone else, your specialty may be different. But as Personal Train-ers, Ill make a rough estimate and say that about 80% of us are doing the samething: helping people look better through exercise. These could be through losingweight, increasing muscle, or both.


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The training services your provide and the clients you see make up whats calledyour training practice. Setting up your training practice properly is what keepsyou from slaving at the major health-clubs, and instead allows you train who,when, and where you want.

When you look at other Top-Level Trainers youll notice a few interestingthings. Youll notice they have businesses, without any defined shape. The typesof services they give their clients also have multiple forms. They might meetsome of their clients in a private studio, some in the clients home, some outdoors,and some clients may be organized into small boot-camps and trained at once. In-dependent training at the highest level is wide-open to however you want to do it.

This however doesnt mean its disorganized: it just means that the scheduleand earning structure are built to serve the trainer. You need to take these restric-

tions off of your own ideas of practice design as well. You can set it up any wayyou want and combine several different structures until you find the mix thathelps you get the practice you want.


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What were going to do is explore the different opportunities available totrainers and how to get each one started. As you can imagine, this is a very deep

subject that I could write an entire book about. Ive formed profitable relation-ships of all types with many different businesses over the years and could writevolumes on everything that went into setting up and securing those deals. For the

purpose of this book, Im going to break down the most important points thatwent into each arrangement and how you can set them up for yourself.

Training in Luxury Condominiums

o matter what your neighborhood or part of the country or world you live in,there are definitely many luxury residences in your area. These are buildings orcomplexes that are home to large numbers of wealthy people, and usually providethem many different services on-site for their convenience.

In almost all cases, these buildings have health-clubs; the interesting facthowever is that very few of them actually have on-staff Personal Trainers.Health-club management is a very complex task and for that reason most of these

buildings dont go to the trouble of hiring and managing a staff of trainers. Thatmakes them a ripe field for any trainer who can penetrate this market. Its reallyan unbelievable situation when you think about it: a built in population of quali-fied clients, no gym fees, and the convenience of being able to see multiple peoplein one location.

Getting InFor many of you, youll find that as you launch an aggressive marketing cam-

paign, you may get into one of these residences by accident. So many people inmajor cities live in places like this that through your general marketing and adver-

tising, youre sure to find clients who want you to train them at their private resi-dence. The key is that once youve penetrated this environment, its now your job


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to grow your influence and contacts in it.Once youre in, you can prospect and network through your existing cli-

ents, other members you meet, and the gym staff. All you need is a few clients ina location like this; once youve got them, youll be looked at as a resident spe-cialist. Youll be able to make an excellent living for years just from retaining ex-isting clients and converting the trickle of new clients and referrals that come yourway into new clients. This type of set-up is also ideal to administer the Super-Trainer System with an assistant trainer, which well discuss in later chapter.

Actively Recruiting LocationsIf you arent introduced into one of these luxury residencies by a client, then

youll have to actively recruit them. This process is slightly more difficult, butdoable and very worthwhile. What youll need to do is set-up a meeting betweenyou and the most senior member of the sports and leisure staff. In this meetingyou can first tell them about your experience and qualifications. Get this personexcited about you and what you have to offer. After that give them tons of your

business cards and brochures.The most important thing to remember in dealing with someone in this type

of situation is whats in it for them to help you. In general, this type of manager isusually overworked in dealing with member questions and complaints. The pointyou want to emphasize is that youre here to serve their members needs. Youll

be able to make life much easier for them by showing people that dont know howto exercise how to use the gym more effectively. If this gym charges for member-ship, let them know that youll be causing people to utilize the gym more fre-quently, which will lead to even more re-signs. Let them also know they can useyou as a selling point to people that are on the fence about joining the gym, wor-ried that they wont know what to do. Make these the key points of your meetingwith the health-club manager and they should understand that this can be a winfor both of you.

Creating Bird-DogsWhen dealing with the employees of the gym, people like receptionists and such,you can emphasize a different set of benefits. These people are usually just young


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people working for minimum wage: all they care about is making money. Forthem, you can create a policy where you give them a kick-back for every new cli-

ent they bring you. The key here is being subtle - its easy to offend someone, nomatter how much they make, if you make it sound like your bribing them or giv-ing them a hand-out. I have a certain way I like to create these types of bird-dogs, as theyre referred to in consulting.

The first thing I do is attach a page to my website describing my referralpolicy. I usually have this page look like an open letter, and I talk in detail abouthow much I appreciate the effort my affiliates make in referring me to our fellowclients. For this effort, I tell them I can give them a referral fee, and you fill-inwhatever you want right there; I myself have offered as much as $200 for refer-

rals. If you inform the receptionist about this policy in a friendly and respectfulmanner, theyll take it seriously and will actually promote you to gym membersquite aggressively. Ive had these types of arrangements work for me extremelywell in the past, giving me more clients than I could handle. Make sure you canactually convert these new prospects into sales, something we discuss in detail inthe Saleschapters, and make sure you pay your affiliates promptly as well. Thefirst time they get a big check from you, theyll be even more happy to tell everymember about what an excellent trainer you are.

Finding the right residential setting for you to train out of may take some timeand research. Youll first need to locate these buildings in your area, find outthere phone numbers, and do a little detective work on the phone to find out ifthey allow outside trainers and whos in charge. But the effort is very muchworthwhile. Ive seen trainers build an entire practice off of just one of these set-tings, where they work 4-6 hours a day for five days a week, all in one place withabsolutely no overhead or marketing costs. Ive met trainers that have been ablemaintain this business model for 10 years or more, and even rented an apartmentin the same luxury building as their clients so they could live on location; does itget any easier than that?!


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Teaming With Other Health Professionals

From what you learned about creating bird-dogs in the last section, its onlynatural to extend this type of relationship to other people that are in a position to

bring you a strong flow of qualified leads. This naturally extends to other HealthProfessionals. They have two things in common with you: they are around peoplethat actively consume health and fitness services, and just like you, theyre look-ing to grow their businesses.

But its not all roses; youre probably aware that health professionals havebeen in the business of cross referrals forever. You probably have a few such ar-

rangements yourself, and in that case you probably also know that these relation-ships dont bring-in too many qualified prospects. What we want to do is changethat.

The key is to put some stronger bait on the hook. In terms of stronger bait,were referring to offering them a very strong cash incentive to bring you clients.Follow the same technique I mentioned earlier; make a hidden page on your web-site that you will e-mail as a link to your affiliates. Again, on this page describehow much you appreciate the confidence these professionals are showing in you

by recommending you to their clients, and mention respectfully how you are will-ing to reward them for the risk they take to their reputation in doing so. Most

people wont have a problem or feel cheap by accepting this money. Just makesure that you properly qualify the prospect before you take them on - dont justsign-up any client that comes your way. You dont want to pay-out for people thatyou dont end up retaining long-term and that arent valuable to the growth andsuccess of your training practice.

You may find it interesting that we send back cash in our joint ventureswith other professionals; isnt sending back referrals enough? In the case of Per-sonal Training that doesn't work and heres why: by the nature of our business wehave a different type and volume of clients. Because each client uses our services

so much, as much as three times a week, we end up seeing a smaller volume ofclients than say a masseuse or nutritionist, whose clients may come to see themonce every few months, so they need a high volume of clients to remain viable. Iftheyre successful at what they do, theyll have manymore clients than you and


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the relationship of trading referrals wont be in their favor. Thats why these rela-tionships rarely go anywhere for Personal Trainers - theyre completely one-sided

and dont serve the other professional at all. By giving a large cash reward, wemake it worthwhile for the other professional to mention us to their clients.Theyll realize that in the small amount of time it takes to mention you or hand-out your business card to a customer, they can earn a few hundred dollars: a veryworthwhile return on investment.

How much should you offer as a finding fee in a joint venture agreement?That depends on how much you charge. In my case, I have a very easy way offiguring this out. In the sales sections, I discuss how we bring new customers into the sales funnel using the three-session introductory package. Well what I do is

make my finding fee the exact price of the intro-pack; depending on what I chargein those first three session, thats what Ill give. Most recently, that turned into$200 (I was charging $199) for every referral. This made some of my affiliateshighly motivated and created that situation that every trainer and training businesshopes for: a waiting list of clients.

Business Referral GroupsAs a side note, joining your local chapter of BNI may be a good idea, as long asits one of their stronger chapters. They meet every two weeks for one hour, usu-ally at 7am, and pass out referrals among each other. I personally dont like wak-

ing up that early, so I only went early in my career and then stopped. There areusually a few chapters open in every area, so before you join find one that is al-ready strong or thats growing and has motivated members. Once youre ac-cepted, make sure youre an active contributor and do your best to bring the othermembers referrals. Also, list each of them as a partner on a separate page on yourwebsite, and add them to your circle of regular contacts. You dont have to be-come best friends with people that you dont have much in common with, but itsa good idea to learn how to contribute value to others; not only your clients butyoure fellow professionals. When it all boils down to it, your income will be de-

termined by your ability to contribute value to other people. The advantage toyou is that many of these BNI members are high earning professionals, and theyknow many more people like themselves. This can quickly turn into a good re-source for gaining strong prospects for you.


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Referral and networking groups are especially valuable once youve elimi-nated yourself from the day to day training activities. Once you are the business

leader and have your employees doing all of the training (which is what youreworking for) you can spend your time constantly looking for these types of refer-ral arrangements.

Staying in Contact

Once these many relationships with gym employees and other professionals areformed, thats not the end of the story. You have to nurture them, or theyll never

bear you any fruit. You need to stay in constant contact with every new affiliateyou gain.

Send them emails keeping them up to date on whats happening in yourbusiness.

Subscribe them to your blog even if they dont ask for it. Send them holiday greeting cards.

Invite them to big parties that you, your friends, or other clients mightbe throwing.

You want them to keep you in the back of their mind, so that when the right timecomes, theyll say Hey, I know a Personal Trainer that can help you!. Most ser-vice professionals will be able to bring you at least 1 to 2 qualified, high-level cli-ents a year. Doesnt sound like much? Remember, a high-level client is worth asmuch as $10,000 a year or more to you. But these types of relationships take onlyabout 3-4 hours to create and maintain a year: thats a tremendous return on in-vestment of your time. If you get really good at this, youll eventually have so

many prospects, many of which will be potential high value clients, that youwont be able to serve them all. At this point, you may want to raise your rateseven higher to further qualify your prospects, use the Super-Trainer System tohelp you serve your clients, or even evaluate the possibility of opening your own


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training studio (less expensive than you think). I personally employed these tech-niques for a while and once I achieved a strong float of existing clients and re-

ferrals through these clients, I stopped all marketing of this kind. If I didnt Iwould have just been turning away too many people or making my practice un-necessarily complicated. In my case, I was looking to live a more mobile lifestyleand not be tied down to a training studio, but if you have a family or own prop-erty, opening a training studio may be the right thing for you.

Teaming With a Private Gym

Teaming with a private gym is probably my favorite model; its the one where Igained the most experience and learned from the most. I always feel that personaltraining is more than just a profession for us - its also a vehicle for us to grow, tolearn about ourselves, and to reach our full potential. In a health club, youll getmany, many chances to practice your sales techniques, have interactions withmany different types of people, and deal with the social pressure of a public envi-ronment. Your skills in interacting with a wide range of people is one of your

rate-limiting steps to success. Once you learn this and get things going, you canthen create a snowball effect that will take your sales and earnings to a very highlevel. I learned a lot from this arrangement and probably owe all of mysuccess toit.

Set-UpWhat does it mean to have an arrangement with a private gym? It means makingan exclusive training deal with a gym that is privately owned. The big chaingyms like Ballys have there own staff trainers and of course dont allow outsidetrainers to work in there under an circumstances. However, any other non-chain

gym is up for grabs for a private training agreement. This goes for the big fran-chises like Golds and Powerhouse, large chain gyms with dozens of locations likeDolphin Fitness Clubs, to small private gyms owned by a couple of friends or


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family members. Ive personally made successful exclusive training agreementswith all of these locations I just listed, and none of them were difficult to negoti-

ate or implement at all.

A Word About Corporate Health-ClubsBig corporations like Ballys, Equinox, and Town Sport International (which runthe New York Sports Club and Washington Sports Club Locations) look at Per-sonal Training as a major source of revenue. A key to their business model is notonly selling memberships, but also up-sales to existing members, which is wherePersonal Training comes in. They have a huge sales dimension to their training,and it shows when dealing with their trainers. They usually roam the gym floor

like used car salesman, trying to make introductory appointments or getting leadsand looking for sales to meet their monthly quota.

However, this system is terribly flawed; once youve made a sale, you nowhave to train the person on an hourly basis for the next few months. Imagine aused car salesman not only having to sell the car, but also having to teach eachcustomer to drive for 3 hours week. Thats what makes one of these training posi-tions one of the worst uses of time for a Personal Trainer. They often turn intoover 50 hours a week, only half of which is actually spent training clients. Therest of the time is mostly unpaid and spent looking for new clients And in those

actual training hours, youre clients will be paying top dollar while youll be mak-ing as little as one third of the training fees.Many trainers are seduced, from the size and glittering appearance of these

corporate gyms, that theyre a good place to pursue their training careers, butthese gyms are really just major corporations, and they view Personal Training as

just another sellable commodity. The day that you look at your career this way,youre finished.

Private Training ArrangementA much better arrangement is to make a deal with a private gym. These include

the franchise health-clubs, private chains, and the mom-and-pop gyms. you canusually negotiate a much better percentage agreement, have much more freedom,and charge whatever you want in these locations. Youll essentially have com-


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plete freedom over your practice, which is exactly what we want.And making these deals is surprisingly easy; thats because its always an

interesting group of people that decide to open gyms like this. Surprisingly,theyre not always cut out to for the nuts and bolts of all the aspects of health clubmanagement, especially Personal Training. Training isnt like any other service,and thats why no matter how smart or competent these health-club owners may

be, they can never really grasp all the nuances of running a training department.Sure, selling memberships and smoothies is easy you can use the same salesmodel as any other commodity or food product. But selling a private consultingservice is a completely different proposition. What youll find is most privatehealth club operators have long since given up on depending on Personal Training

as a major revenue earner. They just offer it as an afterthought, either through in-dependent trainers or a gym employee.This is where a Top-Level Trainer comes in. Showing these health club

owners whats possible with their training offerings is a way that you can negoti-ate a great deal for yourself. Even the independent trainers that these gyms hireare really bad; theyre usually big time losers that got certified 10 years ago andwork about 5 hours a week for the lowest rates in the industry. With the tools youlearn in this book you should be able to make a compelling offer to the gymowner and easily blow out any competitors you may encounter.

The only thing to consider here is the percentage agreement with the health-

club owner. To put it simply, you should seek an 80:20 breakdown, and at worst a75:25 arrangement. Because youll have some overhead costs in terms of promo-tional materials and other expenses, you shouldnt agree to anything less than that.Also you should seek use of office space to work and conduct client consultationsout of. This is in no way asking too much when you consider the fact that thegym owner earns a pure 20-25% profit on all training sold and gets the added

prestige of having a trainer like you training out of their facility.

In-Home And On-Location Training


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Traveling to homes can eat up a lot more time than other training arrangements,but its also a more personal service that can end up paying you more too. Thetype of person who wants a trainer to train them in their home is either too busy togo to the gym, or just afraid to do it. In either case, theyll be willing to pay morefor the added convenience of having a Personal Trainer come to them.

No matter how your training practice is set-up, in-home training should al-ways be an optional service you provide. Youll be astounded how many peopleactually have a phobia of going to gyms but still want the help of a trainer.Through your normal dealings with clients and referrals you will almost certainlycome across people that want you train them on location.

There are also a few ways you can actively recruit these types of clients.Advertising is one of them, but not the best. For an independent trainer without astudio, advertising is a very blunt tool to find clients. However, this is one of theonly ways to reach and awaken the in-home training market and has worked wellfor me in the past. Of course, the best way would be Web Marketing, which isdiscussed in detail in that chapter.

Youll find in-home training to be fun and easy, but you still have to staysharp and on your game. In these situations, its even more important to pay closeattention to your image and how you present yourself professionally, becausewhen you meet somebody on their turf they naturally have the power. In the

training relationship, you want to be able to maintain the balance of power in yourfavor at all times. This will allow you to establish a lengthy relationship with thisclient that will bring you a high income over that time. Even though youre goingto see the person in their home, you still need to dress as if you were prospectingfor clients in a crowded gym. If you let your image slip, youll eventually havethe client begin to take advantage of you - theyll start canceling more sessions,asking for concessions on price, and eventually lose interest and stop training withyou. Its completely up to you to keep the momentum in this relationship.

Naturally, when your training business matures, in home training will beone thing that you wont do anymore, and may be something that you still have as

part of your business thats administered by your employees. Its up to you to de-cide whether it stays one of the products and services your business provides. Butwhen getting started, in-home training can be a good money-maker.


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The Home Studio

If youre a home owner, setting up a home-office is another possibility. Thissituation will take skill to implement correctly, but will prove to be the most con-venient and comfortable of all. Gunnar Peterson in fact runs his training practiceout of his home, and if it works for him it should work for you!

If you own a home, there are several benefits to creating a training studio

there. As youll remember from the earlier chapters, its the relationship with thecustomer that trumps all else. Well, you cant get any more personal than havingsomeone come to your house. It also gives you a few huge psychological edges:

Youll never have any competitors; this gives you tremendous domi-nance in your clients mind.

Theres a certain respect you get when you allow someone into yourhome; they feel like a guest and are more appreciative of everythingyou do for them.

Even though training from home saves you time and cuts your over-head, you can still charge premium rates.

The one problem you need to watch out for in your Home Studio is allowing thepersonal dynamic to take-over the training dynamic. All the benefits of the in-home system will actually becomes negative if youre level of professionalismdrops in this setting. This means you cant look like you just rolled out of bed,have personal items lying around, or act like this is a social visit and not a trainingsession. Also, you want to make a clear distinction between your gym and therest of your home, and not allow your clients to generally hang around the rest of

your home too much (you can of course do this on occasion, during parties, andother events). Maintaining strict, Top-Level Trainer professionalism is absolutelykey; if you do, you can get the double benefit of both having an extremely con-


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venient training practice and having the potential to charge higher rates at thesame time.

Setting-Up Your Home GymThe main mistake people make with a home gym is that they skimp on looks. Thehome-gym can be in your basement, but it cant look like the basement gym of ateenager. It must look like a full-blown commercial space with a few personaltouches - think Equinox meets Applebees. The reason for this is that everythingyou do must scream highest level possible; if not, the TLT system crumbles. Asindependent trainers, we dont need to do much to maintain our practices, but any-thing we do must be top-notch.

Whatever the space youre using, it must be well constructed; for that rea-son the smaller the space, the more cost effective it will be to construct. If youhave a full basement, you may want to insert a false wall to reduce the squarefootage. Even a converted garage can be suitable if the inside is furnished prop-erly. The good news is it will cost less than two thousand dollars to set-up a hometraining studio. In terms of decor of the room, all you need are finished walls anda ceiling with nice lighting, and wall mirrors on at least two of the four walls.

In terms of equipment, you dont need to buy commercial machines andweights, the costs of which are astronomical. All you need is the best qualityhome-gym equipment that you can find at any big sporting good super-store. Just

make sure all the equipment matches and doesnt leave the room over-cluttered.For cardiovascular needs, you can just buy a Spinning bike (many are availablesecond hand for good prices on Craigslist and eBay). You should definitely havedecorations like posters and pictures, but make sure they are nicely mounted andframed. Youll also need a source of music, but just a simple boom-box will dothe job.

WarningOne thing you might want to keep in mind is that in this setting, theres the small

but real risk of someone claiming sexually harassment. Its unfortunate, but in to-days society youre guilty until proven innocent when it comes to an accusationlike this; even if youre innocent, you still will never be able to totally restore


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your reputation. For this reason, you might want to consider a simple surveillancesystem.

To protect myself when Im alone with someone that I dont know well,Ive brought along a small digital recorder and secretly kept it on during the ses-sion. The laws in my state allow recording of conversations if one of the parties isaware the conversation is being recorded. This way, if anything inappropriate issaid or a false claim is made, you have evidence. Once you get to know someonewell you can use your own judgment about trusting this person and not have touse the recorder anymore.

Drawbacks

The only other drawback to this system is reaching new clients. If youve alreadybuilt up your client base before you set-up your home gym, you can just moveyour clients to your home gym; youll inevitably have a few that cant do it but ifthe others were traveling to see you anyway, they shouldnt have a problem withit.

But if youre starting from scratch with a home gym, finding clients couldbe a problem. Internet advertising would be the best way to go in this case andthats fully covered in the chapter on Web Marketing.

Outdoor Training

When considering all the things that go into excellent session design, trainingoutdoors gives you many possibilities. If you live in a climate thats warm allyear round (or even if you dont), marketing yourself as an outdoor trainer can be

just what you need to set you apart and get you noticed by potential clients.Every summer in New York, I convert much of my marketing to emphasize

the fact that I provide outdoor workouts. If youre a trainer that doesnt have ahome gym or location to train out of, you can do the same. This is one way turn aweakness into a strength.

Many of the same rules apply to outdoor training as to in-home training.


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Its important to remember that when youre on your own, youre the entire pack-age. If you come with a high level of focus and standards, youll create the aura

of training at a top-notch training facility and can charge the same prices, even ifyoure training in a local playground.

Teaming With A Yoga Center Or Private Facility

While talking about the ways to set-up a Training Practice, Im sure you can seea trend developing here. One of the major concerns you have is not just what youdo or how you do it, but whereyoure going to train. Most of the issues with your

practice are location: how you look for clients and even the techniques you useand the market you chose to serve are dictated by where youll be training. Al-though I and many other trainers have forged great careers training out of differ-ent gyms and at our clients home, having a home base gives you the advantageof managing your schedule more tightly and giving clients that dont have a con-venient location to train out of a place to go. Ive had situations where eitherthrough word of mouth or through my marketing, Ive had ideal, highly motivated

prospects but simply couldnt train them because of the lack of a consistent loca-tion to train out of.

In that search for a home, another option we have is to share the offices of abusiness that already provides health related services. This arrangement can servetwo purposes: one is to give you a place to conduct training sessions, and theother is to have a built-in stream of referrals coming from the existing business.The types of businesses to target for this form of arrangement are massage cen-ters, yoga studios, physical therapy centers, as well as sports-rehabilitation cen-ters.

One thing to keep in mind is how payment will work in these settings. In

most cases it will be a percentage or flat fee that you pay out to the facility. What-ever it is, plan out beforehand how much money will be collected, divided, andhow sessions will be scheduled. Youll need to think out every single possiblescenario in detail before you have your meeting with the facility owner in order to


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get the situation working in your favor.I had a positive arrangement of this kind with a massage studio in northern

Queens, New York, in an affluent area called Bayside. I created it to diversify myareas of training in that particular neighborhood. I had a mix of on-location cli-ents at the luxury condominiums, a few in-home training clients, and a few that Itrained out of the spacious yoga studio adjoining the massage facility. This pro-vided a very good mix for me because no location was more than half a mile fromany other, making my drive between locations very short. It also gave me a large

pool out of which to refine my client list, giving my training practice a structurethat worked perfectly for me.

Health-Club Trainer

As youve probably figured out, I dont advocate working for a health-club as away of being a Top-Level Trainer. At its best, health-club training should belooked at as a way to start earning an immediate income and gaining some experi-ence and nothing more. Armed with the information in this book, you should beable to jump right to the top of your health-club setting in under a month. Thatsassuming you can keep your mind above the mediocrity of the other trainersaround you, especially the ones that have been slaving there for years. Theyll tryto bring you down and discourage you, or give you low-level advice on how toget clients and close sales. Your training manager in this environment may alsodo the same - hell simply be a sales manager and try to push you to make moreand bigger sales. Youre priority should instead be your image, your credibility,and the quality of your training. Give value and have high quality interactionswith any prospect and potential sale that comes your way, and give tremendousvalue to your existing clients. Youll soon see your client load swell, and you can

then bide your time as you begin to take the steps toward setting up and marketingyour independent practice.


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If youre not motivated by your clients, youll eventually get tired of workingwith them: this is an unavoidable fact in the world of consulting. Much of oursuccess and happiness is determined by our clients; we need them as much as theyneed us. Without the right clients, youll eventually experience career burn-out.

In other careers, you can always deal with a certain amount of dissatisfac-tion because of the regular pay-checks, or the structured environment. In PersonalTraining, your own passion needs to be the driving force. If this is missing, youllnever be able to get the right clients, keep them, and contribute the value youllneed to succeed. However, if you do pay attention to this part of the job and takethe time to chose the right clients, youll find the job almost effortless; itll belots of fun, and tremendously rewarding.

A clients value is not in the paycheck they represent to you now; its what

they mean to you in the future. Its their ability to enjoy problem free usage ofyour product (training sessions) which will lead to future re-signs and their abilityto grow your practice through referrals. This is the value of any new client: tokeep your sales funnel full and ensure the future viability of your business.


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With such an important role being played by our clients, it makes sense thatwe cant just accept everyone; we have to be picky in who we chose to work with.

Michael Port calls this the Red Velvet Rope Policy in his book,Book YourselfSolid.

We talk a bit about this screening process in other chapters. For that rea-son, weve created an introductory session package of only three sessions that al-lows us to try them out as clients before we commit to them (hows that for role-reversal!) But what are we screening for? Thats what were going to discussnow.

The screening process begins in their first phone call. In that call we canevaluate all the criteria that goes into making this person a good client. While Ill

wait until we begin the three session package to allow most of our interaction tooccur, this first conversation can give me a lot of information. I can find out ifthey have any pre-existing conditions, or just whether or not their goals fit in withmy specialty. My mission is to become a meaningful part in the lives of my cli-ents, to coach them into achieving world-class bodies and high levels of fitness.But the truth is I cant do this with everyone. Id rather avoid beginning a trainingagreement with someone that I cant complete it with; I feel that a client can actu-ally end up worse off than when they started with me if our training arrangementcant run its full course.

For most trainers, their only selection criteria is whether the customer is willingto pay, ie theyll train anyone willing to pay them. This reasoning doesnt work

because willingness to pay has nothing to do with ability to pay; when someonewants something, theyre almost always able to pay for it.

Although I look to market to primarily higher earning markets, I dont onlytrain rich people. I prefer this segment mainly because theyre the ones that are inthe best position to benefit from my services, but I get clients from every earninglevel. Ill use one client I had, a gorgeous single young lady who trained relig-iously with me for almost a year until I had to eventually drop her as a client be-cause I was changing the location of my training. Although, her training sessionsused up a lot of her pay-check, investing in her looks is something she was morethan willing to do worth. She would rave almost every training session about howworth it she felt it was, how much she got from it, and she was an excellent source


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of referrals for me as well.I had another young lady similar to the last example but who earned even

less, at a job where she likely earned less than $15 an hour. That means she hadto work more than half a day to afford one of my training session at that time.However, through the techniques youve learned in this book I structured mytraining sessions to be more than worth their price. In her busy life, her trainingsessions where like a visit to a top spa, where she was taken care of, tended toowith expert hands, and made to feel like a celebrity or million dollar client. Shealways walked in with a relaxed demeanor, relished ever bit of the challenge ofthe training, and stayed around to soak up the atmosphere and chat if I had timeafterwards. For her, training was one of her great pleasures and well worth the

huge relative investment she made in it.Another woman I trained, a young professional, was in the process of be-

ginning her career. She also didnt earn much at the time, but was smart enoughto realize that taking care of her body now was of dire importance. Shed spentyears in graduate school completely neglecting her body, and now had a job witha huge workload that still gave her little time to take care of herself. The invest-ment she made in the training sessions was an investment in her most importantasset, her own body. She paid more for her training than she did for even her ownrent, but in importance, it was probably a better investment. In only 2 hours aweek, over the course of a few months she was able to achieve consistent progressand reverse much of the effects from her years of neglect.

Willingness To Pay Vs. Ability To Pay

This all comes back to the concept we discuss in Salesof willingness to pay vs.

ability to pay. Although I suggest that you go after the markets that give yourtraining practice the greatest chance of success, the three cases above show thatthese arent the only client groups to draw from. Ive trained in every type ofneighborhood and marketed to every economic sector and have found that the


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ability and willingness to pay are two separate things. Most people think thatwhen a client objects to price, this means they cant afford it. But after Ive gotten

people that live in housing projects to commit to long-term, full-priced trainingpackages, Ive realized there are hardly any customers that are unable to pay fortraining. Instead, its really that they dont have a willingness to pay; based onwhat youve shown them so far, they arent willing to pay your prices; you have-nt created enough values in their eyes. As you gain more experience and begin toimplement the techniques in this book, you wont have many customers that areunwilling to pay any more.

In spite of this, it still makes sense to choose your clients from the higherincome groups. This just makes the probability of finding someone that has the

disposable income to invest in a trainer much greater.

The First Phone Call

So what am I screening for in that first phone call with a new prospect? The dis-cussion in the first meeting or phone call will follow what is outlined in the sales

discussion in the chapter Sales:Part I. In that section you learn its the prospectthat does most of the talking in this conversation. While, theyre talking, here aresome of the things Im looking for:

Willingness to delay the price discussion until after theyve tried thethree session intro package.

Whether their goals fit into my specialty.

Whether their pre-existing conditions will prohibit them from thegroup of exercises which I find most effective in achieving results.

Whether their training location works for me.


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What time they want t

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