(S.S. #16) Imagine the amount of privilege when . . .

1. How does your salary compare? - Jonathan Goodman

When I launched the PTDC in 2011, my goal was not just to help personal trainers become better at their jobs, but to help them make more money in the process.

What I didn’t know is how much money personal trainers actually make. No one did. Yes, we had statistics from the U.S. government for "fitness trainers and instructors." But we didn’t have data specific to our audience.

Until now. Thanks to our first annual Personal Trainer Salary Survey, we can tell you how much your fellow fitness pros earn, and how they earn it. You can find all the details here:

--> Personal Trainer Salary Survey

If you want to go straight to the highlights, you can check out our press release.

And if you want to take a deeper dive into the numbers and see some of the individual responses, you’ll find the full results on SurveyMonkey.

Go deeper: The trainers who make the most money in our salary survey have more experience, more education, and more certifications, and are more likely to train clients online, either exclusively or combined with in-person training (aka hybrid training). But how can you make more money?

We offer a roadmap in these recently updated articles:

--> How to Make $100,000-Plus Per Year as a Personal Trainer

--> Five Ways to Dominate the Gym Floor

--> How to Sell Personal Training in Five Steps

2. Why children should develop sports skills … – Lou Schuler

I’m a true believer in the power of sports. I loved playing them when I was a kid. The fact I sucked at virtually everything is what made me who I am today.

I started working out in my early teens (an unusual pursuit in 1970) because I wanted to get bigger, stronger, and faster. And although I didn’t achieve those goals when it might’ve mattered, working out worked for me, and still works almost 50 years later.

In my view, every kid should get a chance to learn these bedrock movement skills:

* Run, jump, climb
* Throw a ball, kick a ball, catch a ball, dodge a ball, hit a ball with a stick
* Swim
* Ride a bike

The lifelong benefits of those competencies show up in unexpected ways, as former youth soccer player Eric Cressey explains in this Facebook post:

"It never ceases to amaze me how many things I pick up with my feet while holding a baby. I set a new personal best today by using my big toe to turn on the iPad, swipe up, enter the password, open the White Noise app, press play, turn up the volume, and then set it to sleep mode ... without waking up a sleeping baby in my arms. Might try to make dinner with my feet, too."

We assume Anna Cressey, Eric’s wife, had some thoughts about those dinner plans.

3. … and why youth sports are endangered

Consider this breathtaking statistic from an article in the Atlantic:

"Kids’ sports is a nearly $17 billion industry, which makes it … approximately the same size as the National Football League."

And yet, the percentage of kids who play sports is declining. In 2011, 41.5 percent of 6- to 12-year-olds played a team sport. Those are the crucial ages for learning how to do all the things we just mentioned. By 2017, it declined to 37 percent.

Why? Money. As noted in this follow-up article, children from affluent families are twice as likely to play team sports as kids whose families earn less than $25,000 a year.

Well-off parents pull their kids from rec leagues to play on travel teams, which are not only expensive, they require a massive time commitment. That leaves community leagues with fewer kids to play and fewer parents to coach.

The takeaway: We think of sports as one of society’s great equalizers, and celebrate athletes who rise from poverty. But increasingly, the chance to fully develop their skills goes to kids whose parents can afford it.

4. Online content: Why quality beats quantity – Alex Cartmill

A lot of content gurus will tell you that more is better. They emphasize the quantity of your posts and videos and emails over the quality.

I’ll concede that volume matters. The more you produce, the farther you can spread your message, and the faster you can reach some of your business goals.

But I think quality should be your number-one priority. You can’t benefit from quantity unless your content is worth reading and engaging with.

It's like two people building structures.

Person 1 is purposeful, taking time to ensure each brick lines up with the one before it.

Person 2 focuses on getting down as many bricks as possible.

At first glance, you’d think Person 2 has made more progress. But every new piece of content makes the structure less stable because it doesn’t support the work that came before.

Meanwhile, Person 1 has a smaller online footprint, but each new article or post is consistent with existing articles and posts, compounding their value. That’s because all the content passes through three key filters:

* Is my unique personality shining through, or could this come from just about anyone?

* Why would the people I want to help care about this? What value does it provide to them? How does it relate to the challenges in their lives?

* If someone else wrote this post, would I stop to read it, or would I scroll right past?

Quantity and variability can coexist with high-quality content. But if quantity is the only goal, you’re building your business on an increasingly wobbly structure.

Go deeper: Alex is the head coach for the Online Trainer Academy and is Jon’s coauthor on The Wealthy Fit Pro’s Guide to Online Training, which goes on sale Tuesday, September 10.

**Thanks for reading. What to do next**

Want to improve your fitness business? Buy a book or two from the PTDC book store.

Interested in online training? Click here to take our free 3-day mini course and learn the core truths guaranteed to get you more clients.

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