Gyms Should Thank Their Personal Trainers
Gyms are in business to make money just like any other business across all industries. Their purpose though is to give individuals a place to exercise safely and to help promote overall health and fitness. They can provide many different services including classes, personal training, a pool, and many other amenities. However, some gyms out there are forcing their training staff to go out and sell to make the gym more profitable outside of the normal membership fees and amenities. Below are two examples showcasing how personal trainers are putting on their selling hats to bring the gym extra revenue.
1.) Personal trainers are selling training packages
When you sign up at a gym you are paying a membership fee—this is normal. You generally have the option to pay month to month or you can pay for a full year upfront if you wish. Along with your membership, many gyms offer 1-2 free sessions with their personal trainers to get you started and familiar with the equipment and ensure you have the proper form when using the equipment. Most of the time, the personal trainers begin a new member on pieces of equipment, rather than exposing them to free weights before they are ready. After those sessions are completed, you’re on your own unless you wished to hire one of their personal trainers. Some members sign up right away, others may down the road, and some may never work with a trainer following the free sessions.
Some gyms allow their personal trainers to run their individual piece of the training business how they wish. If they get clients, great. If they don’t, then that’s on the trainer. Generally, a gym will not go out of its way to get training clients for their personal trainers — that’s the responsibility of the trainer to go sell themselves. Some gyms hire personal trainers to walk the floor and help members with form, showing them how to use a piece of equipment they’ve never used, or to give a piece of advice. But you also can’t forget that many gyms use their training staff to clean the equipment throughout the day because we still have people who frequent gyms who can’t seem to understand the concept that they need to wipe their equipment down after using it so the next person isn’t covered in their your sweat.
In some gyms, the management expects the trainers to hit a certain amount of training clients each week. Why? Because they get a cut of their training fee. Some gyms pay the trainers their normal hourly rate to train, others make them punch out and then charge the client whatever their individual training rate is, but regardless, the gym is making a cut. If a trainer is on the clock when training, whatever the training fee is generally goes into the gyms cash register. In some cases, that money is split with the trainer.
On the other side of the equation when trainers punch out, one of two things generally happen. Either the trainer pays a fee to the gym per client so the gym gets a cut, or some gyms even have a monthly plan where the trainer is forced to pay a certain rate (dollar amount) to the gym each month to be able to train clients there, regardless if they train one client all month or one-hundred clients that month. Obviously if a trainer is paying a monthly fee, it would be ideal to train as many clients as he or she can in that given month.
Another thing that some gyms push on trainers are packaged deals. This is a discounted rate for clients who sign up for a dedicated number of sessions with a trainer. Many put packages together around the summer or holidays to entice people to get in shape for the beach or for family gatherings/holiday parties. This is another quota or sales goal that gyms can put on their training staff to go out and make money for the gym.
Trainers for the most part are able to charge whatever they want for personal training sessions. Some gyms mandate these rates and for example might have their entire training staff charging $30 for a 30-minute session and then something like $50 for a 60-minute session. If you are in New York City or Los Angeles, you can expect to see those rates go through the roof. And if you are training with someone who works with celebrities, be prepared to shell out some serious cash.
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