Are You Hiring Personal Trainers Your Members Wouldn't?

By Dr. Michael Mantell

As a gym owner or general manager, here’s one thing you know for sure about your club:  the undeniable king of profit centers is personal training.  The way you market and sell your health club’s personal training is critical to establishing valuable relationships with members and, in turn, increases revenue per club member. 

But wait. There’s more.  Unless you hire the right trainers for you club in the first place, the best marketing and sales efforts will rapidly fail.  The public knows full well what to look for in hiring their personal trainers.  All they have to do is turn to the Internet, fitness magazines, and other exercise and training publications to learn what to look for in an effective trainer.  For people researching personal training, there’s no shortage of resources.

There is practically nothing out there for owners and managers of health clubs, however, to help you do the same—hire the best trainers for your staff. 

Your trainers could be certified by ACE, ACSM, NASM, ISSA, AFAA, or other top personal trainer certification organizations—but ask yourself, is that all that matters to you? Let’s hope that’s only the starting place, if you want truly inspirational, people-oriented, interpersonally skilled, cheerful, outgoing, and cordial trainers.  And you do, don’t you? 

How often do people talk about trainers in clubs who are not affable, who won’t initiate conversations with people they are not training, who spend more time chatting with other trainers rather than with members, who don’t reach out and offer to assist a member with, for example, a more proper position or suggestion for improving a movement?  It’s almost as if some trainers will only communicate with members with whom they are already training.  These are club killers and sales destroyers.  They don’t understand the old saying, “If you don’t mingle, your pockets won’t jingle.”

Knowing how to review a resume and having savvy job interviewing know-how is a critical first step.  Is the resume well organized with experience as it relates to your training needs?  Is there a career progression or large gaps in work chronology?  

Are you aware of any interviewer bias you may have from information obtained prior to the interview, inaccurate first impressions, single answers that skew your reactions, non-verbal communication, your own prejudices?

Do you know how to ask “loaded questions”? “So, which is better, ‘friendly trainers’ or ‘more professional trainers’?”  Do you understand leading questions, “We like friendly personal trainers. Are you friendly?” Are you familiar with trait questions, “Describe your personal style as a trainer,” or “What’s the best type of client for you?”

Does the applicant motivate you to your personal fitness best? Is the applicant charismatic enough for your club? Is she/he someone who has settled for “good enough?”

I’ve found that 70% of all questions you ask applicants ought to be highly structured.  This breaks down as follows:

5% should focus on rapport building

5% should be introductory to the club and job

55% should be core-questions

5% should address resume-confirming information

The other 30% should include a combination of open-ended, hypothetical and probing questions (training scenarios, challenging client issues, specific club/client needs, “tell me a time when you…?”)

Here are health club hiring don’ts:

1. Ignoring your club’s very specific needs. Do you want to hire a training sergeant, a “mind-body” trainer, an authority/planner who knows everything ever written about training, or a playful trainer who is always inventing new routines?
2. Failing to test skills. Walk around with your pre-hire and watch their interpersonal reactions, at the very least—best to watch them initiate conversation, work out, or train a member.
3. Hiring out of desperation or laziness.
4. Becoming infatuated.
5. Placating to personal baggage.
6. Hiring on someone else’s recommendation.
7. Blindly promoting from within.
8. Failing to do an extensive background reference check.
9. Failing to recognize you have made a poor hiring decision.

Remember: your members are the ultimate hiring authority on who you hire.  Keep them in mind as you interview your applicants.  If they wouldn’t hire the applicant for their  personal training, why should you? 

Comments

[Hossein Noshirvani]

Michael,

This is one of the best pieces I've read in a long time.

At the end of the day we are a service industry, and hiring the right people is key to success. Great message and great article.

- Hossein
www.motionsoft.net