💪S.S. 70 How COVID crushed trainers' income

1. How COVID-19 has crushed personal trainers’ income – Jonathan Goodman

How badly did COVID-19 hit the fitness industry?

This bad: 58 percent of personal trainers lost some or all of their income, according to our 2020 Personal Trainer Salary Survey.

Almost a quarter were either furloughed or laid off, and 6 percent hadn’t yet found new jobs when we conducted the survey in mid August.

But our data also show three fascinating responses to the pandemic:

Just 12 respondents out of 1,169—barely 1 percent—have decided to stop training clients and find another way to make a living.
Post-pandemic, a whopping 83 percent plan to train clients online, either primarily or combined with in-person training. That’s more than double the percentage who did so before.

Less surprising is this:

Before COVID-19, 60 percent of our respondents trained clients primarily in person. Going forward, once gyms reopen, just 14 percent say they’ll return to that business model. That’s a 75 percent decline.

To me, it makes perfect sense.

COVID-19 is not a one-off, black swan event. Gyms can close at any moment, for any number of reasons, and for any length of time. Unpredictability is the new normal, and fitness pros have to be ready for it.

Training clients online gives you an insurance policy.

Click here to read the full report:

--> Personal Trainer Salary Survey

2. When to have sympathy for the aggressor – Alex Cartmill

How a person treats you is a better reflection of their internal dialogue than how they feel about you.

Very few people I know will treat other people poorly when they’re happy and at peace with themselves.

Hurt people hurt people.

When someone directs negativity at you, you have two choices:

Get angry and upset, wonder what you did to deserve this, and allow their negativity to become your negativity.
Brush it off, even though you’re justifiably annoyed, and think about how bad someone’s life would have to be when they need to bring you down to lift their own mood.

Choice #1, meeting negativity with negativity, is easy. It’s instinctual. But it’s also a slippery slope. You concede control over your own happiness, and nothing good ever comes from that.

Choice #2, meeting negativity with sympathy, is hard. It takes real effort to impose reason on your visceral response to unprovoked aggression.

But it’s like any other type of training: The more you do it, the better you get.

And in the next few months, with the fitness industry still in turmoil and politics at the boiling point, you’re going to have a lot of opportunities to practice measured responses to angry people.

Here’s what podcast cohosts Jonathan Goodman, Carolina Belmares, and Ren Jones talked about this week on the Online Trainer Show:

Imagine if a client sent you naked progress photos. Or told you what to wear in your videos. Or communicated with you in a way that made you feel physically unsafe.

If you don’t have to imagine any of those things because they’ve happened to you or someone you know, you’re a pretty typical female online trainer.

That’s the topic in Episode 35, How to Handle Sexual Harassment with Online Training Clients.

Carolina and podcast producer Amber Reynolds share stories from their own careers and those of their female colleagues.

Some comments are ambiguous enough that a coach can ask for clarification, and perhaps clear up any legitimate misunderstandings. Others will claim they were joking, and then turn the tables on the woman for being too sensitive or politically correct.

Carolina has some advice for those men:

“If this is your only form of humor, then stop joking. … Find ways of relating with people that don’t involve sexually harassing them.”

In Episode 36, Facebook Group Secrets, the team talks about how they run successful online communities.

It starts with the name you give your group. As Jon explains, a great title is one members want to talk about with their friends.

For example, Amber named her group Hot Mess Working Mom Sanctuary. The self-deprecating language identifies exactly who it’s for (working moms who don’t take themselves too seriously), it echoes the name of her coaching program (Hot Mess to Hot Mama Blueprint), and “sanctuary” suggests a fun, nonjudgmental place to hang out with women like them.

The same dynamics are at play in Badass Body Sisterhood, Carolina’s group for successful professional women, and Lean In and Lean Out, Ren’s group for moms over 30 who want to drop a few pounds and improve their body composition.

And that’s just the start. The cohosts follow up with proven methods to grow your group and keep members engaged.

You’ll find every episode here:

--> The Online Trainer Show

P.S. Whenever you’re ready, here are 3 ways we can help you:

1. Grab a free copy of The Wealthy Fit Pro’s Guide to Online Training
It’s your blueprint to building a fitness or nutrition business online. --> Click here

2. Join the Online Trainers Unite Group and connect with other online trainers
It’s our Facebook community where fitness and nutrition pros like you can share insights and advice about starting or running a successful coaching business online.
--> Click here

3. Join the Online Trainer Academy
Our world-class certification course is everything you need to responsibly and profitably coach fitness or nutrition online. --> Click here