Low Fees: Are some Personal Trainers Devaluing Our Profession?
by Noel Lyons
(London, UK.)
I fully support the concept of an introductory, get-to-know-you-what-you-can-do-for-me complimentary session that allows the client and the personal trainer to feel each other out for compatibility and so on.
BUT there are any number of reasons that low fee training is a bad idea, for the Personal Trainer, the client and the profession as a whole. Some of those reasons include:
It breeds resentment - it has a nasty habit of creating resentment in both the giver and the receiver. Over time, the giver begins to feel used, taken for granted and drained by expectations of service. And the givee feels they are getting a cheap training from a cheap Trainer.
It devalues personal training - If you get something cheap, you usually view it as worth that much. That's not a good basis for a healthy training relationship is it?
It undermines professionalism - Trainers feel they should be viewed as true professionals. But just think for a moment - when was the last time you saw another trained and respected professional - say a therapist, a doctor, a lawyer or a nurse - start out by setting up shop and promptly offering months of service for bargain - basement fees.
It violates the core tenet of all helping professions - Physician, heal thyself - One thing you learn early on as a helping profession, whether that's as a nurse, a psychologist or a coach, is to take care of yourself first. If you can't pay your own bills, let alone feel comfortable presenting yourself as a skilled professional or deal with your own insecurities around accepting payment, you're in no real position to help anyone else long-term.
It commodifies training - If people can get it for bargain-basement prices, why pay "full retail?" When a mega-stores move into a town and sells stock at artificially deflated prices, it often forces businesses whose products reflect their actual value to close because they can't compete. Likewise, discount training makes it all about the money. Never mind that the price doesn't reflect the actual cost of providing the service, or the value of that service in the client's life. When services become price-based rather than value-based, it's never long before someone discovers a better source, after which that service's economy predictably crashes.
Inexperience or just insecurity?
When just starting out, there is almost a reflexive resistance to charging full fees for training, mostly due to belief that without experience "green" trainers can't justify charging as much as someone who has more experience.
Underpayment = undervaluation
Yet for me those clients I trained at low cost were my least successful ventures. I don't know if either they or I were not fully invested in the proceedings, or if it was something altogether different. But my success began when I started charging more (and I did it because I had a loyal group of clients who were more than able to pay more!)
Plus several studies and reports from the medical and psychological fields have shown that the more confident and costly a doctor is perceived to be, the greater his or her treatment success rate is, regardless of the doctor's actual experience or level of skill. The researchers explain that just believing that the treatment and the doctor administering it is of high quality is enough to make it so for many people.
Now, I'm not suggesting we should all overcharge our clients in the pursuit of becoming a "six-figure Trainer". But the reality is that nominal fees often become self-fulfilling prophecies of undervaluation - clients simply assume that there is a reason for the trainer to charge so little, and that reason is most likely to include some lack of skill, experience or confidence on the part of the Trainer, therefore by default the training must be less valuable and the Trainer less effective than others who can charge more for the same service.
The thing is, Trainers are by nature inclined to want to help people who are in need. And we often feel that those who can least afford to pay for us are, by extension, those who are most in need. But this is not always, or even often, the case.
Some clients might actually be able to pay, if they made sacrifices elsewhere - cutting out the morning lattes and expensive restaurant meals, ditching hobbies or spending habits that are putting them in debt, etc - but are unwilling to make such sacrifices in order to better themselves. Others may simply be "entitled" - who think they are due anything they want without contributing anything on their own part - a combination that virtually precludes training from being satisfying /rewarding on either side.
The bottom line is that many clients who say they can't pay are, more accurately, simply unwilling to pay for whatever reason.
And yes, there are people who truly can't afford to pay for one-to-one training. These are the people who may well benefit more (pricewise) from the range of info products you have created or the group tele-coaching you provide!
