How to Choose the Right Gym as a Personal Trainer (Career vs Dead End)

If you’re a personal trainer trying to build a real career, this is the conversation most people skip.

CEO of Fitness World and Mayor of Smittyville Chris Smith breaks down what trainers should actually be looking for when choosing a gym and why too many get it wrong from day one.

Most gyms talk about opportunity.
Very few have systems.

So what should you be asking before you say yes?

• How many clients will you realistically get?
• What does onboarding actually look like?
• Is there a 30-day plan or just “good luck”?
• Are there systems, education, and structure in place?

Because the difference between struggling and succeeding as a trainer usually isn’t effort.
It’s the environment you walk into.

This episode is about spotting the difference.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

How to tell if a gym is actually going to build a career? Because we know that's what Smittyville is all about. Building careers, not just personal training. So when a trainer is evaluating a gym to work at, what signals should they be paying attention to when they walk in the door?

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Well, there's a lot they should be paying attention to, but as the mayor of Cemedyville, I just let you know we do not issue business licenses to those businesses in Cemedyville that are what we like to call bad actors.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Do they get kicked out of town?

SPEAKER_01 0:27

They never get a business license, so we're not open, you know. So you gotta kind of move on to go somewhere else, right? So yeah. That's what happens in Cementyville. We take things very seriously. I think there's a lot of things you can look for, right? And so I think really you kind of again start with what are you looking for? And so if it's like, well, I'm looking to be part of a team because that's important to me. Well, then you'd probably be want to be at a place and say, Well, what does that mean? Like, do they do team workouts? Is this where they have team meetings? Like, do we have team education? Do we do team lunches? There's a bunch of things you could do if you value uh being part of a team as an example. So you know, I would look at that. Do they do business planning? Like if I'm a new trainer and I'm new to the industry, regardless if I'm in a big commercial gym or I'm at somebody, you know, Joey's fitness down the street and whatever, it doesn't really matter where you're at, but like what is the business planning process? So if it's like, oh no, I'm just gonna like go in and like, you know, do my thing, good luck, right? Because that's there's no plan there, right? Fail to plan, plan to fail, seven piece, private property planning prevents a physical performance, all the different things around planning, that would to me would be problematic. Um if I'm new to the industry or even newer, like if you haven't been doing this for like three to five years and you're like and you're just doing your first couple years, you should want mentorship, you should want guidance, you should want direction from somebody. Um and so is that in the form of a mentor that is assigned in that structure, or is it an actual manager that then serves as the mentor? Like whatever that structure is, but I'd be looking for those types of environments. And then some of the simplest things that even members look for. So if you go to a place and you value tidiness and cleanliness and like a place that's organized, whatever, and you go in and the gym just kind of looks messy, and that's just like the outbound, like what the facility looks like. But yet behind the scenes, you think they're gonna again have everything together to help you really progress in your career and grow your career. Uh I think we talked about that'd be Dululu, right? Like we've used that word before. Like you just you're not gonna get what you're looking for. So there's a lot of stuff, Chrissy. I could talk probably for hours on this subject alone in terms of what I think you ought to look for versus what's out there. But again, happy to give whatever detail you're looking for today.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Well, the good thing is you can talk for hours, and that's why people should like and subscribe to Smitty Bill, a podcast for personal trainers. Boom. See, you wondered where we were gonna squeeze that in.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Yes, please like, follow, and share. We would much appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

I knew it would happen organically. Now you talked about things to look for, but you've been in this game for a long time and started as a personal trainer as we've addressed. So, in your experience, have you seen things that facilities or have done that people should watch out for that could potentially stall a personal trainer's growth? The red flags, if you will.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Yeah, I mean, I I you know, we do this as part of our interview process. I certainly do it even with team members, regardless of their level today, is everyone's making an informed decision. Right. And even if you're an independent going into a different facility, it's like, oh, what's the culture? What's the vibe? What's the energy? Like, uh, how is everyone kind of cohesively make this whole thing work, right? And so that's what I want to test for. I want to make an informed decision. So, you know, some places we do working interviews, right, where you come in for a couple hours and whatever's applicable by state, provincial, federal law, so on and so forth. But to figure out like, is this the right fit for me culturally? And I think that's a great best practice, really fit both sides. So everyone kind of gets to make an informed decision. And now if I'm a trainer there, I might even ask the manager, hey, if you don't mind me asking, how many trainers have you guys hired in the last six months? How many of them are still here? Would I be able to speak with them? Because now I get to interview the the interviewee, if you will, kind of thing, right? Or I get to ask those that are in the system that are now going through what I'm being told and I'm being promised what they're gonna do for it. Because everyone's gonna promise you the world. But what do people actually deliver on and deliver against? And the only way we're gonna really know that is if you ask questions. And so asking those questions and spending that time again, if it's an enterprise operation, say take Fitness World here in Canada, and you were being interviewed for the South Surrey location as an example, you could also pop over to the semi ammo and just go take a look and just observe, just do a workout, do some cardio, see how the trainers function, how do they interact with one another, what are the managers doing? What does that look like? Do those conversations look like they're having fun at work? Or does it look like, man, they look like miserable and like this is not a good energy. Right? So I think that's what you're looking for, right? Like where where do you fit? Because if you don't fit in the beginning, you're not just one day gonna fit.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Fair enough. One of the things that you said though was asking who's here, who's been here longer than six months. Is that a huge red flag if they have very high turnover?

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Yeah, there's a lot of circumstances to that, but I mean that would to me would be a bit of a red flag, right? So if you got a high turnover and they're never delivering on that, then I'd be looking to that. I would also be asking questions like what are you gonna do for me? Right? So if I do take this opportunity, like what does that look like? How many clients should I expect to get in the first one week, second week, third week, fourth week? What does that onboarding process look like? Is there an like an in-club training checklist? Is there a 30-day game plan? Are there internal education courses? Like, what does it all consist of? Or is it like, hey, welcome, good luck. Let's see on the flip side, see if you can make it, right? And but there and unfortunately in our industry there's still a lot of that. There's a lot of just kind of throw a mud at the wall and see what sticks, and that's unfortunate. I will tell you, like, even on our side, right? Like we the turnover that we tend to experience more than anything is it's the it's the attractiveness, it's the sexiness, if you want to call it, of the industry, where it's like, I want to be in the industry and I want to be in the fitness and health and wellness and all this stuff, and oh being a personal trainer would be amazing. Like I love working out. Well, it's still a job, right? And to be good at any job, like you gotta grind and you have to work. So the romantic side of like it's gonna be it is a ma it it it will and it can be amazing, but not right away. Like you're gonna have to work, right? And so I think that actually causes probably some of the highest turnover industry is people that are just disillusioned in the beginning, which again, if you go back to like ask questions, make informed decisions, know exactly what you're getting into to make sure you you can be successful and have the right experience.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

It's funny that that's such a cause of turnover, considering when you think of what they're trying to do for their clients who come in excited and ready to get the results, and then they realize they have to grind, and that's what personal trainers push them through. So I'm like, oh, it's a little bit like calling the kettle black, no?

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Yeah, there's some hypocrisy in there for sure.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

There's a lot of hypocrisy in that. You mentioned leadership though. How important is having the visibility of leadership in Japan?

SPEAKER_01 6:47

I think I understand what you're trying to get to, which is just again, like how important is it? Is there a structure and a leader in place to how like for me? I think, yeah, it's it's probably everything, right? And particularly for those and I actually think regardless of where you're at in your journey, um, you know, Tiger Woods is now making news because I mean he's so close to my age, I've always followed him. He's fifties, now eligible for the senior two or whatever, and people are asking him, How are you still in such good shape? I used to talk about Tiger Woods all the time. I'd say he has a trainer, he has a swing coach, he has he's the best golfer in the world at the time for sure. And I think you could look at you know, at Rory, you could look at, you know, I've got a shuffler right now. We could talk I'm just talking about golfers as a whole, maybe because I went golfing recently. But like the best in the world at their profession have coaches and trainers. And so those that get to a place where it's like, I don't need any help or I know everything, again, I think you're coming from a place of like misinformation and disinformation. Because again, the human body is the most complex piece of machinery on the planet. We're still doing research all the time and we're learning more and more about the body and the science and what we can do from an exercise physiology standpoint, effectiveness, efficacy, so on and so forth. So I don't think there's ever a place you can get as a trainer where it's like, hey, I know everything. So again, having people around you, whether that's peers, partners, or a boss, a leader that can kind of set direction and keep everyone excited about learning and growing and doing more, I think is a very positive thing.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

And if you are liking and following our pages, you'll know that the mayor of Smittyville also has a coach.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

He does, yes. He does make secret appearances from time to time in some of our clips.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Yeah, it's always entertaining to see the two of you together. Shout out to Brian putting through the paces. Obviously, when you talk about turnover, there's trainers that may end up bouncing into different facilities from time to time. What tends to impact them the most in that transition?

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Yeah, I think it's kind of what I was just talking about. I think it's what they already know, right? So I think even but that's just my own experience. People that come into our system, which has been, you know, I think proven to be very, very successful over and over again. People come in with just like, well, well, here's what I know, and they want to tell us what they do. And it's like, I don't really want to know uh what you know and what you do. Um as much as like that comes into play, you've earned the you earned the right for more. So you're gonna earn that right for more as you uh learn and do all the things that we're asking you to do. Right. And then from there, I certainly want you to flex into your own personality, your own training style, your own programming. There's tons of freedom within the framework, but we want to make sure we're hitting certain marks that are gonna allow that client to have the best experience, allow you to have the most business success and all those types of things, right? So I think that's the thing that they struggle with is they want to bring their structure versus absorbing the structure that they're being asked to do, and then that's where there's conflict that happens, and then I think that you know it's obviously disruptive and almost never works.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

As the mayor of Svenyville once said, be coachable.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

What is your Smithism de jour?

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Smithism de jour. Uh I think today we'll do a little Ricky Bobby, a little NASCAR. We got NASCAR going back to the game.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

Ricky Bobby.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

We've got Daytona 500 going back to greats, right? Michael Jordan, by the way, had strength coaches, which was a big part of his career. Uh he just won three uh NASCAR races in a row with his partner Danny Hamlin and NASCAR, which is pretty crazy uh when you stop and think about it. But my NASCAR reference is Ricky Bobby, which is go slow to go fast smithism. So back to making a good decision, where should I work, where should I be, is this the right fit, does it have the right place for me to be to grow my career as a trainer? You make those decisions slowly. Like you don't go f but by making those decisions slowly, that will then allow your career to exponentially go quickly. Right? So go slow to go fast as it relates to building your career.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Wise we're the Ricky Bobby.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

There you go. I started my career as a personal trainer. I was actually playing arena football. If you can't tell, I'm a pretty big dude, right? I was playing arena football, and I needed a job in the offseason. All my teammates were like, hey man, just fake an injury. You can get a workman's comp claim, and the government will just like give you checks in the offseason. I was like, isn't that like scamming the government? Which yes, it would have been scamming the government. I was like, I think I'll get a job. I grew up in construction. My dad was a superintendent, site superintendent foreman, and I grew up as like a laborer on job sites and whatnot. So I said, hey, do you guys know who does construction? And like, bro, you're huge. I was like, well, thank you. Uh I'm aware. And they're like, no, dude, you should be like a trainer. I said, well, it's funny you say that because I'm studying to be a strength conditioning coach, but I don't have my degree yet, and I have actually haven't taken or sat for my CSCS yet through the NSCA. Like, it doesn't matter. You don't need that. I was like, what? Like, you don't need that. I was like, oh, I don't need that. Okay, great. Who do I talk to? Talked to the manager, got hired, started the next day. Woohoo! I'm a personal trainer. Hooray for me. I was at Gold's gym in Portland, Oregon, with a manager that was the manager of the gym, but not really the personal training department. And so I walked around not really knowing what I was doing, trying to find clients. Now again, I was trying to be friendly, so it was like a lot of this, like, hi, how's it going? Hey there. Nice to see you. Right? A lot of this just kind of interacting, trying to get clients. And after about 90 days, there was a vice president there, and I don't know where he is or if he's still alive now, to be truthful. His name was Harry Spencer at the time. And he said to me, He said, Hey kid, you've made like 90 days. Like, how many clients do you have? I was like, four. And he's like, four? I was like, four. And he's like, Yeah, all right, you're you seem to be committed to this. Let me see what I can teach you. I said, okay, great. So he started teaching me a little bit. And I went from like four clients to like 10, 12, 15-ish, right? Where I was semi-busy, right? I was training four or five people a day, but I wasn't making a really a living at it. I wasn't a full-time trainer, and things hadn't really clicked for me all the way yet, right? And so I was doing okay, but not great. And I'm about 90 days into it, right? Now you kind of fast forward back to our school of service science and sales, right? So he's trying to teach me the sales stuff, and I'm learning sales, but again, I'm not connecting all the dots just yet. And so I there's a giant member, his name was Mark, and Mark was this giant, huge dude, one of the strongest guys in the gym. He says, Yo, man, I lost my workout partner. I'm looking for a new workout partner. I was like, What do you what do you want from me, Mark? He's like, I want you to be my workout partner. I was like, dude, when when he's like, You see when I come in? I come in at five o'clock every night. He's like, dude, I can't work out with you at five o'clock. That's prime time in the gym. I can't just stop what I'm doing at five o'clock. He's like, dude, just work out with me from five to six thirty. I was like, I don't know, Mark. So anyway, he keeps working on me for like a week, and then I go ask my manager. My manager tells me now, he tells my manager to blankety blank, and you tell them this, and I'll help you that. And I don't really know what's for what. And again, I grew up doing football and strength conditioning and all the rest of it, right? Played a lot of sports when I was a kid. So that's how I knew how to train as well, right? Not as science-y even back then, as much as you'd think it may have been. It really wasn't. We're talking nearly 30 years ago, right? So anyway, I started working out with Mark. And Mark's again the strongest guy in the gym. What I didn't realize at the time, or wasn't even like what I would call tuned into it, or emotionally intelligent, or intelligent enough to figure it out. Who do you think else knew that Mark was the strongest guy in the gym? Who else do you think knew?

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Everybody else in the gym.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Everyone else in the gym knew that Mark was the strongest guy in the gym. And so now I'm Mark's workout partner, which by the way was great because Mark was like an old school bodybuilder, such an old school bodybuilder that eventually showed me pictures with him and Arnold and Franco Colombo and all those guys at Venice Beach. And he's like, Hey, do you have the encyclopedia bodybuilding? I was like, I sure do. Who doesn't have the Arnold Encyclopedia bodybuilding back then? Like, if you were a trainer, like you had that book, you knew what it was. And he's like, Yeah, turn and shows me, like, shows me his picture in that, and I'd have that book forever. I was like, what the holy cow! So, anyway, now what's happening? People are coming up to him asking Mark questions all the time. What do you think Mark started doing? And Mark owned his own um granite countertop company and had his own business. What do you think Mark did then? I don't really know the best abroutine, but my boy Chris, have you remember my boy Chris? He was from Texas, by the way. So he's like, Yeah, my boy Chris, he's a really solid dude. Like, he helped you out. He's like, wait a minute. Someone has a question about abroutine. I'm like, oh yeah, let me take you through. What do you do for abs now? Um I can take you through a ground-based ab routine. Let me show you how to do this or do that. Because you know, you don't want to wait for the Nautilus machine. There's a lot of ways. Have you ever done a prone cobra? Have you done this? Have you done that? Have you activated these muscles? And it just led to all these conversations, right? And so again, because again, as trainers, what do we often say? Oh, I don't need to talk to them, they're in great shape. I don't need to talk to them. You're right, they're they're not gonna buy training from me, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you shouldn't have a relationship with them. They're highly influential in the gym, right? Because sometimes I see that from young trainers, right? Who do I talk to? And they avoid talking to all these people because they're, oh, they're in shape, they're in shape. They're like walking around looking for the people that aren't in shape. Versus like every relationship matters, right? Every point of connection can matter and be meaningful and relevant. Make sense? Anyway, fast forward, boom, my now what do you think happens in my business? Explodes. So much so that I'm like, why am I a gold's gem? I don't need gold's gem. I can do this on my own. What have they done for me? Not enough. So I'm gonna go out and do my own thing, I'm gonna go open my own studio, and off I go and I go out and open my own studio. Uh, I don't even think it had a name for it other than it was like Chris's fitness. Took all my clients with me because that's what you do when you're a trainer. Uh so you guess what I thought I knew then? Everything. Do you guys think I knew everything after being a trainer for about a year? I knew very little, right? Now looking back, I'm like, I knew how very little I knew. Then I thought I knew a whole heck of a lot. Right? So fast forward from there, eventually I go, wow, this studio thing is good and I'm making good money. So much so I was calling my mentors in strength conditioning, and they were asking me, like, hey, how are you doing? I was like, I mean, it's okay, I'm making like 80 grand 30 years ago, making like 80 grand, like right out of school. They're like, say what? Like, bro, you're making more money than we're making at strength conditioning coaches. I was like, oh, okay, then I guess it's going great. And but I wasn't really happy, truthfully, even with my own studio, because something was missing. And what I actually determined was missing in my own studio, as much as it was fun to train and my space was maybe not even as big as this room, is I said, I'm just missing something. What I was missing was the heartbeat of the clubs, right? I loved commercial gyms. I love gyms where there's like music and it's like and you're like, what if it's like an old 80s song? If it's got a if it's got a beat, I'm still there, right? 90s, 2000s, up, all the way up. Like as long as it's got a beat, I'm in. That's the heartbeat of a gym. I miss that, and I miss the synergy and the community aspect of again, members that maybe didn't train with me, but I got to say hi to every day, right? I really kind of missed that. So I started looking around for a place to go. I end up a place called 24 Fitness, uh, and I happen to join 24 Fitness. I believe there were around 185 clubs when I first joined it, rode that rocket ship all the way to 440, went from a personal trainer to a vice president in five years, uh, went there with the intention of, hey, let me see where I think this can go for my career. Met some incredible mentors along the way, you know, folks of the likes of, you know, Derek Gallup, Jim Rowley, um, my you know, my current partner, Mr. Mark Mastroff, who was, you know, the owner and CEO of that business at the time. And so that was a tremendous ride for me, moved in a few different places in the US. And then eventually that led me here, truthfully, some 15 years ago, as I mentioned, right? And so I've been up here in Canada now about 15 years. Uh, was part of the a former entity called Stephen Nash Fitness World and Sports Clubs. And then through the pandemic, there were some unfortunate things that that ownership group made around the business. But when somebody else, you know, basically put a pile of lemons on the desk, I was able to make lemonade. And so I was able to buy the business with some new partners under a new structure, and I did that all, you know, five years ago. It's actually our five-year birthday this month. So it's been an incredible journey, tons of fun, right? But um, you know, essentially I've been where you're all sitting right now, which there were times early days where I sat in classrooms trying to learn how to be a personal trainer. Um, and so yeah, there was a quick 30,000 foot flyover, and there's lots of stories and all kinds of crazy stuff that happened in between.