In a consultation with a prospective client the other day I caught myself describing my staff “kind of like personal trainers”, only to be met with a confused look… I really think we have a unique perspective on health/ personal training and I think what we do probably should be called something other than Personal Training.
With that said, doesn’t every other gym say they have a unique perspective? Yes, they do… but we actually mean it… Which is also exactly what they would say, and that’s annoying… I suppose marketing Sandbox Fitness has to be a little more complicated than me posting an ad that says “we’re the best” and then having everyone agree, right?
I’ve been told by marketing professionals and the like that I shouldn’t talk about what “the industry” is doing in order to build my business. Instead, I should just focus on what I do here at Sandbox Fitness and let people see the difference for themselves. For the longest time this sentiment made a ton of sense to me. But I can’t help but feel a bit frustrated calling my staff Personal Trainers when “the industry” has painted such a dumb picture of what that means. If I asked you to close your eyes and picture a “Personal Trainer” in your head, there’s a 90% shot you’re picturing a 22-year-old guy who learned how to work out in high school and wants to make lifting weights and drinking protein shakes his whole life. From the outside looking in, Personal Training just doesn’t look like “skilled labour”. So maybe I’m breaking some marketing rules here but one of two things needs to happen, either I need to stop calling my staff Personal Trainers or I need to educate (aka warn) potential personal training consumers that you can save yourself a lot of anguish if you learn the “ropes” of this business.
If you know anything about website marketing you’ll have heard the expression “content is king”. The more content on your website, the more google increases your ranking and the more business you’ll generate (hopefully). It makes sense if you own a gym and you’re trying to sell training to consumers who don’t have the time to look around and hunt for some of the “darker” areas of my industry. I could bury a sentence like ‘we’re the best Personal Training studio in Downtown Oakville’ into old blogs and chances are, you’ll be able to find us fairly quickly if you’re googling for “the best Personal Training studio in Downtown Oakville”. Ignore the fact that I’m telling you that this strategy has already given my google ranking a bit of a boost for a second as I attempt to flip conventional internet marketing on it’s head. I believe CONTEXT is really the king, and not necessarily as it relates to my website.
Knowing that most Personal Trainers have about a 5% success rate with their clients isn’t trashing my own industry, it’s context for the consumer. If you know what you’re getting into by hiring a Personal Trainer, then you won’t get ripped off, stuck in a contract, and you won’t be SOLD on results that no one can promise you. Nothing gets me more fired up than when I hear trainers saying something like, “it’ll take about 30 weeks to loose 30lbs so you need to buy 8 months worth of personal training”, then when you finish your 8 months and if you haven’t lost 30lbs the trainer points the blame at you because you like wine or something like that…
So now that we’ve scratched the surface on the “context” of my sometimes shady industry, does this mean the Personal Training is a write off? Obviously not, I’ve seen Personal Trainers:
- cure Osteo Arthritis (with the X rays to prove it)
- fix Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (which normally requires surgery)
- eliminate the pain associated with stuff like Sciatica or Plantar Fasciitis
- diagnose Cushings Disease (before their doctor even knew to test for it)
- eliminate menopausal symptoms
- reduce a thyroid cyst by 90% (prompting their doctor to cancel the schedule surgery to remove the thyroid gland)
- and so much more!
Experience has taught me that there is a lot of pride in my business, and it makes sense. It’s an industry that’s constantly blurring the lines between health and vanity. This is where we went wrong, we spent our time thinking we’re helping people by posting pictures of sweaty half naked girls and calling it “motivation”, instead of embracing our roles as health care practitioners.
So who are we then?
- We’re fully serviceable therapists, nutritionists, and strength coaches
- We’re contract free, so we keep the focus away from making sales and towards a more accountable approach to servicing clients
- We’re the type of people who never make a promise we can’t keep
- We’re good communicators and we’ll always keep you informed through your journey to better health. After all, context is king…
- We’re honest. Our number one policy is if we don’t know it then we’ll promptly learn what we need to learn in order for you to achieve the level of health you aspire too (or more).
With all that said, if someone wasn’t referred to us by a friend, doctor, physio or someone else then chances are they’ll find us by googling “Personal Trainers in Oakville”. In spite of the fact that people will still meet us expecting us to be Personal Trainers, I’m going to proudly refer to my staff as “kind of like Personal Trainers”.
Thanks for reading!
