great trainer, poor trainer - what's the difference?

What makes a great trainer so great, and others not so good? This was the discussion at our recent Million Dollar Mentoring Day event in Melbourne. The response below is from a room full of great trainers, putting together a guideline designed to lift the professionalism of the industry.

Great Personal Trainers do the following:
1. Client focus - as opposed to making it all about them (I eat only organic food and train 4 hours per day, can bench press 140kgs blah blah blah) great trainers make it relevant to the client. The great trainer genuinely wants to help their clients and displays a service ethic dedicated to the clients lifestyle and outcomes.

2. Consistency of service is high on importance to great trainers. One of the best techniques for building a strong business is referrals. By being consistent you get results and by getting results you get referrals. Clients want a consistent quality of service, this may include session start and finish on time, receive follow up calls to new clients etc.

3. Great trainers practice what they preach. They schedule time for workouts and set a good example for their clients in all parts of their life. They walk their talk and clients respect them for it.

4. Training sessions are result based, ie/ the trainer has taken the time to work out exactly what the clients goals are and have formulated a plan of action to get them there within an appropriate agreed time frame.

5. They offer a professional level of service, they are uniformed and they look after their own hygiene even when taking multiple sessions throughout the day! In addition they have adequate insurance, they screen clients for potential health issues, and they refer to other allied health professionals where appropriate. They keep appropriate records like old exercise programs and fitness evaluation and health screening data in an organised file easy to locate.

6. They ask lots of questions and actively listen for the response their clients give them and they then use that information to help refine the clients exercise program, nutrition and/or lifestyle choices.

7. Tough love is required to help people to better health. Great trainers keep clients accountable and sometimes need to hold the mirror up to their clients if they go off the rails or have 'that' conversation.

8. They are specialists rather than generalists. This means they choose to become an expoert in 1 to 3 target markets. They realise they cannot be everything to everybody and a jack of all trades but master of none.

9. Recognition of client achievement is high on their list. A great strategy many implement is to reinvest a percentage of what the client has paid them back into some sort of client appreciation event or activity.

10. They allocated exercise and nutrition homework to do between sessions and they educate the client to help them make healthier lifestyle decisions which leads to better results.

Poor trainers do the following:
1. Text or talk on mobile phones during sessions, indicating that the session is all about the trainer and their ego and not about the client and their needs.

2. They are often late to sessions and/or allow their sessions to run over time which results in inconvenience to clients.

3. They are poor communicators ie/ they often talk a lot about their favourite subject...themselves! They are tellers not askers and this is not a good recipe for adherence as the client must have their own goals as opposed to having a trainers one dimensional philosophy forced into their life.

4. They profess to be an expert in every single area of training possible - a strong giveaway is that their advertising material says they specialise in 'Weight Loss, Hypertrophy, Re-Hab, Sports Specific, Stretching, Pilates, Yoga, Pre & Post Natal, Children and the list goes on and on'. The relevant point being that a specialist refers to a small number of areas, ie/ between 1 and 3 NOT 33!

5. Often the poor trainers do not have a uniform, they are not well groomed and hygiene for some is sadly not a priority.

6. The summary being that for all of the reasons listed above they are unprofessional in many ways.

Here is a quick user guide to what makes a trainer great and what makes the others not so great. Great trainers value themselves and their clients, are consistent, professional, follow up clients outside of sessions, and walk their talk, while poor trainers do not. The only question that remains is where you will position yourself both in your own eyes as well as those of your client?

Aaron Whear