The Show Up Fitness Podcast

How to close better w/ Aaron ATL Life Time Fitness DPT

• Chris Hitchko, CEO Show Up Fitness • Season 3 • Episode 306

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SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to the Show Up Fitness Podcast, where great personal trainers are made. We are changing the fitness industry one qualified trainer at a time with our in-person and online personal training certification. If you want to become an elite personal trainer, head on over to showofffitness.com. Also make sure to check out my book, How to Become a Successful Personal Trainer. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review. Have a great day and keep showing up. How are we doing, my man? I'm doing good, Chris. I got a pretty cool text message right here I want to read to everyone. Since the seminar you did in Atlanta this past weekend, I've already generated$1,500 in new business. Between the sales calls, seminar, podcasts, you've helped me a lot with my presentation and how I interact with clients and prospects. I just want to say thank you. Your certification will be the first I recommend any trainer looking to become a trainer or anyone who's looking to advance their knowledge. Those are some kind words, my sir. And I just wanted to dive a little bit more into that. But before we do that, do you want to give us a little background how you got into training, how long you've been at lifetime, and then we'll talk about this. Sure.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh got into training. I've always kind of been into lifting weights. I had my own kind of weight loss journey when I was younger in high school. Uh lost about 60 pounds sophomore junior year in between those two uh that summer. And started helping people. I was taking weight training through high school, helping people learn their form. That's how I started getting into the idea of training with people. Uh COVID. I worked with a trainer. Really, that's what started me on that. Like, oh, I could do this as a profession. Like, people do this. Um, so I worked with them three months and then I really got into it, got my NASM, started training. It'd been almost almost five years now. It'll be five years coming up. And been now I've gone to a couple different gyms, LA Fitness, uh, private, semi-private personal training studio, and now Lifetime for about six months. Got my degree in exercise science, and now I'm here.

SPEAKER_01:

Love that. And so what inspired you to go to Lifetime in in your area in the greater Atlanta, is that like one of the better gyms to go to, or is it just uh right time, right place?

SPEAKER_00:

I would say Lifetime is definitely one of the places to go to. Um, it it's as far as Georgia Atlanta area, there's the Windy Hill Athletic Club and there's Lifetime, and Lifetime is really the main one that's much more, I would say, popular um with many, many more types of people.

SPEAKER_01:

And so then you've been there for six months, and why don't you explain a little bit more about not necessarily the difficulties, but have there been some challenges at a lifetime for those six months? And then we'll get into talking about the seminar and some sales stuff.

SPEAKER_00:

Sure. I would say the biggest difference between lifetime and I guess other gyms I've worked at is not competition, but kind of you're not just the one of the few trainers at the gym. There's a a team of trainers, uh, I think about 15 at the Woodstock location. But that's one of the main differences is you're not just getting every new lead that comes in. You're getting you have to actively work for your own leads and be able to sell on your own and be able to kind of hold your own with new clients, new business, generating your own um referrals, generating uh your own leads, all that. I would say that's the biggest change.

SPEAKER_01:

Now, with a degree in kinesiology, where'd you go to school?

SPEAKER_00:

I went to school at Kenneth State University.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, nice. And so when you when you compare, I mean, four years is pretty advanced. You learn a lot about the sciences, but when it comes to the actual profession, and you can probably par that in with a little bit with like NASA. What are some things that you see are missing from what you've experienced and where you're implementing the you know daily programming and assessments like where you're at now?

SPEAKER_00:

I would say my school did a good job overall of encouraging internships, but the classes themselves were missing on the hands-on side. It's teaching more theoretical information or book knowledge. Like uh, I mean, you learn all of the the um like the CVD risk factors and being able to screen for things and like the just the general basic stuff, which is good. Um, we did have testing classes, learning how to test for blood pressure, be able to screen for mobility and stuff, stuff like that. So there were some beneficial classes, and I think their their program at Kennesaw State was actually really good on that side, encouraging the internship. That's where I got a lot of experience from is using internship hours to learn more about the field and training other other trainers who have done it for longer. But a lot of it, if you just go there and you did the bare minimum, you would not learn very much, I guess, practically with working with actual people. Uh, they don't teach you really anything about um sales, lead nurture, lead generation. Uh that's a really big gap, I would say, is like just soft skills on working with people, talking about how their goals are important to them and how they're um how you'll be able to make an impact on them, basically.

SPEAKER_01:

What's crazy is you have this these lens on, kind of like I did when you have a degree in kinesiology, you have a pretty good foundation and you go out there and you you pass one of the certs. But I mean, imagine how many people out there who just read that book and they don't have your background, where it's like they read a book and now they're supposed to go out there and be like, what do I do? So it's like you you had the the stepping stones to get you to where you're at and you're doing it. And then you know, lifetime's fortunate enough to provide you know continued education with the weekend seminars. So let's talk a little bit more about how you were able to generate some revenue from that weekend workshop.

SPEAKER_00:

So the weekend workshop you did now, I believe last week you came down to Atlanta. Um, we went over the soft tissue mobilization, looked at screening, kind of talked about how we work with clients, being hands-on, kind of being there and showing yourself and building value as a trainer to basically meet them and show them how you can help them with their goals, being able to test and retest and show improvement, uh, either through pain reduction or difference in mobility, and really talking with them on really getting into their why and being able to kind of uh pinch it to that, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01:

So, where did this new 1500 bucks come from? Did it just fall on your lap, or what happened there?

SPEAKER_00:

So these were from workshop leads that I generated through lifetime. I had already been working with people who deal with pain in the joints, knee, shoulder, low back, uh, hip, that just those general areas. People will come in that do the larger group classes dealing with some nagging issues or past injuries or instability. They'll come in. Uh, we'll go through an assessment, and it's changed a little bit since the seminar, which I believe um helps greatly with the conversion rates. Even in the the short time that it's been, I try to track my numbers, and it seems to be a much higher conversion uh closing rate and a higher um amount per close. So what technique have you implemented you think is helping the most with that? I really think it's being hands-on. I think the more I'm able to like be there and doing stuff with them and not just having them like do an exercise and kind of explain the benefit, it's more uh have them do something. I'm actively working with them. Um, and then testing and then retesting is really just being able to show them immediate improvement um helps a lot. Like uh, for example, um on the hip screening for 9090 on knee pain, um, being able to look at how the ability to externally rotate, um, off heal off the ground and be able to test and retest and see improvement there. Um and potentially for some people see uh reduction in pain uh when we're doing soft tissue on a adductor magnus.

SPEAKER_01:

That was pretty cool on Saturday morning when we came in on day two. You said that you you implemented some of those strategies within that you know 24 hours.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I did it immediately. I we came in Friday, we did 12 to 5. I had a couple workshops that were already booked for Saturday. I immediately implemented it and closed. I I fully believe I'm pretty confident because of the techniques that you showed us.

SPEAKER_01:

Love that. And so for the trainers out there that are listening, you have a nice career capital, five years. What would be some piece of advice to help expedite that process? And maybe they want to work it a lifetime, or just overall to build that confidence and have better systems. What would be some pointers you have for them?

SPEAKER_00:

My main thing is don't do what I initially did to start out and just start training. I would get under someone as fast as I can because it really expedites the process of learning. Um, get under someone or get under multiple people so you can really learn either their systems, how they communicate with their clients, how they work with their clients, how they program for their clients, how they sell their clients. You don't want to have to learn that from scratch because you'll pay um Alex Hermozzi calls it the ignorance tax. Um, you really don't want to pay that going out. You'll pay you'll you'll pay the price with your time as opposed to just spending the time ahead of time and kind of investing in yourself a little bit more. Um just working with people. Um trainers are pretty open to teaching people. It's kind of what we do as a career. So if you're talking with that, you you only I imagine you would only have to talk with a few and like, hey, can I shadow and just help you out with your sessions, watch you train. I'll just be here taking notes. Like it wouldn't if someone came up to me doing that, I'd be like, Yeah, sure, you can follow me around today. Um I think that would be super beneficial. I think the show fitness certification compared to Nasm. I wish I had known about it a much um a while ago because just the difference in how it teaches working with people. NASM barely mentions I don't even know if it mentioned sales, it was so long ago that I got the certification, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't talk about it. It doesn't really talk about any of the important stuff of training. It talks about the the very basics. Um and by the very basics, it's on the negative side of the basic, it's talking about so much stabilization and strength endurance, like that doesn't even matter. You should be talking to clients about their goals um and what they're really really their why. Um, but you really only know that when you start training clients and experience what other trainers already do that is actually working.

SPEAKER_01:

I love that. So true because when you come in, it's it's very easy to get into like a fear-based mentality where you tell people they're broken, they're fragile, and you got to do these special exercises to build you up. But then when you learn, like you're saying, that ignorance tax, and you start learning, oh, maybe I'll take a different approach and just connect with the people, ask great questions, and they're buying you, they're investing in you. And if they have an issue with pain or they have a goal, you know, give them a great workout, give them a great experience, and then they're investing into you. And then that sales part doesn't get as salesy because you're pitching a great product, which is yourself, and you got to know that value, which a lot of trainers lack, unfortunately. But you were able to you know go through a seminar, lower body. We plan on being out there again over the summer and you know get into some upper body stuff, teach you some more stuff. But I just I thought you had a really great story, and I'm really proud of you. You you're kicking ass for five solid years and excited to meet you again coming up here in the summer. You have any questions for me before we call our day?

SPEAKER_00:

I would say, what is your, I guess, biggest thing when you're going through introduction sessions with clients, what would you say is the most important thing to do?

SPEAKER_01:

Set those clear expectations. And we were going over this in our sales call last week, and we'll go over it tomorrow tomorrow. Is when people think of free, they think that you know that there's no value to it. And so I like to let people know from the get-go, it's like, okay, you're gonna come in for this experience working with me. Uh these sessions would be 150 bucks, 200 bucks, but I'm gonna take you through a great hour workout to show the value and what this would look like working with me regularly. And I always love that question, you know, what does success look like for today? What does success look like six months from now? Because then it just gives you that idea that it gives it paints the picture in their mind that, oh, six months from now, I haven't really thought about that, but it's gonna be with you, and then you can kind of use that to parlay off it later on when you're going through the workout, like, oh, this is only 30 minutes into the workout. Imagine six months from now. Oh, you're doing great, you know, you you almost did a full push-up right there. Way to go! Because as you know, your your clients are pretty they're hard on themselves, you know, I'm pathetic, I can't do this, blah, blah. It's like you just you did a great job, you showed up. That's pretty important. The most important workout is the next one, so make sure to keep on showing up. But the the more positive and and those soft skills are so huge, and because people are buying you. And so I if I I can only imagine a lot of the trainers today, they get so hung up on the perfect program, they get so hung up on these, you know, coulda, woulda, shouldas that they're they're they don't allow for their true colors to show and they get nervous, and then when they talk about money, they're thinking about their bank account. So if you're you know a college kid and you have your first assessment, you're thinking, fuck 150 bucks, that's a lot. I can't do that. That's you know, I could do so much with it. So then they're thinking about their bank account. So you just have to realize that the person on the other side, they are interested. You just have to show that value and create that bond, and it's fun. We do this because we're helping people, and as you're learning, you can absolutely turn this into a career. And you are so you just keep on moving the needle and you'll do you'll keep on doing great.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you, Chris.

SPEAKER_01:

All right, y'all. Remember big biceps are better than small ones, and keep showing up.