It is that time of year when many personal trainers and group exercise instructors start taking their clients outside for workouts. Clients love getting the fresh air and trainers can keep things interesting with TONS of new exercises and adventures in the great outdoors. We have a couple protocols when it comes to bringing clients away from the studio for workouts and I recent sent them this email as a reminder:
“Great weather has arrived in the Pacific Northwest and many of you want to take your clients outside for workouts. I love that! Read more on Going Outside With Clients? Play It Safe….
One of the MOST common questions we get from fitness business owners/managers and from those who have purchased our Business of Personal Training System is “Should I have Independent Contractors or Employees?”
Here is my answer….
Reviewing the history of the personal training industry, pretty much all of us started as independent contractors operating our personal training businesses within existing health and fitness clubs. Slowly over the years, many of these facilities decided to bring the training department in-house and make all their trainers employees. Why would they do this?
Read more on Personal Trainers: Employees vs. Independent Contractors?…
I have blogged about how we use productivity reports to gauge how full our personal trainers’ schedules are, as a way to reward personal trainers when they hit specific productivity goals and as a way to measure how our personal training business is doing overall.
Read more on Personal Trainer Productivity Means Everything!…
Last week we reviewed some of the ways to promote teamwork within your Personal Training team. Many times personal trainers LOVE their jobs, but don’t LOVE their co workers quite as much. There can be a sense of competition between personal trainers because they are trying to “win” the most clients.
We include deliberate activities and processes to ensure that our Personal Training team works together rather than fighting against each other: Read more on Does Your Team Have The Love?…
In the Personal Training Industry there is an extremely high job satisfaction rate. Personal Trainers love what they do. But the bad news is that many report that they don’t enjoy the relationships they have with fellow personal trainers in their club or community. There tends to be a sense of competition and resentment among many trainers trying to ‘win’ the same potential clients.
At Northwest Personal Training and Fitness Education we believe very strongly in a team atmosphere. If you’re not a team player, you’re not right for our team.
Read more on Personal Trainers Not Team Players?…
I recently published an article with PTontheNet that I want to share with you!
Learn how to conduct on-floor trainer evaluations that keep trainers motivated. Share with your team. Try it at your facility. Your trainers, your clients and your bottom line will thank you.
Read more on Conduct On-Floor Trainer Evaluations That Keep Trainers Motivated…
Personal trainers, group exercises instructors, CSRs and pretty much all humans like to be recognized when they work hard and do great things! At Northwest Personal Training our Fitness & Training Director selects one of our employees to be the “Employee of The Month.” Here’s what we do:
- Choosing the Employee of the Month is included in our yearly marketing plan and is something that our Fitness & Training Director puts in her calendar to do the last week of each month (for the next month’s Employee of the Month)
- The Fitness & Training Director sends out an email to the entire team letting everyone know who the Employee of the Month is and why.
- We give the Employee of The Month one of the most sought after and priceless things we have here at Northwest Personal Training….the BEST PARKING SPOT! 🙂 – it may seem like a small thing, but at our studio it is a big deal because our employee parking is pretty far away.
Read more on Employee of The Month…
One of the tasks that is included in our yearly marketing plan each year is for our Fitness & Training Director to schedule on floor trainer reviews with each of our personal trainers. If you haven’t included this in your yearly marketing plan it isn’t too late! Remember, your clients expect the very best from you and your team. Spending time with each of your personal trainers (rookies and experienced trainers) helps the trainer hone in on what is expected of himself/herself and allows you to give constructive feedback. Make sure your standards are being met. Take the time to conduct on floor trainer reviews with your staff!
Here are a couple of the things our Fitness & Training Director will be looking for:
- Arrives early and prepared for session
- Appropriate attire, hygiene and speech
- Gives a warm greeting to client
- Checks with client on the status of their workouts/fitness routine
- Has client sign in for session
- Finishes session on time
- Teaches exercises using an appropriate style (explain, demonstrate, client practices, quizzing)
- Session is dynamic and interactive
- Offers regular and appropriate eye contact
- Body language demonstrates focus and attention on client / Hands-on spotting
Read more on On Floor Trainer Reviews…
We recently requested that our trainers send in their vacation requests for the year. This is to ensure that we don’t have too many trainers gone at the same time and so that we can prepare for the absence of trainers. Our general rule is to not allow more than 2 trainers to be absent at the same time. This will differ depending on how many clients you have and how many trainers you have.
We like to remind our team that ideal times to take off are:
- June
- July
- August
- Holidays when clients will likely be out…
- Spring Break
- End of November
- End of December
And…..not ideal times to take time off are:
Read more on Personal Trainer Vacations & Paid Time Off…
One of the biggest struggles fitness businesses have is getting and keeping good personal trainers. Here are some of the most popular questions I answer on this topic. Remember, having solid systems in place that support your staff can make all the difference in the world!
How do I get and keep good personal trainers?
Keeping your trainers – you’ve got to have all pieces to the puzzle in place and include a fair compensation structure with some good perks, lots of genuine praise and recognition, responsibility and authority, gifts, team meetings, outings/get-togethers and a buy-in to your vision and what you’re trying to create….sometimes it’s easier to create this with new blood so even if you’ve lost some people, don’t stress out about it. They’ve left for a reason and your business will be better because of it.
How you prevent trainers from resenting the amount of money the gym makes on their services?
One of the best ways to help a team Read more on Get & Keep Good Personal Trainers…
