Rick Richey is a NASM-CPT, CES, PES, and Master Trainer.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Rick Richey:
"Welcome to the NASM CPT Podcast. My name is Rick Richey. And today we are focusing on the final domain, domain six for the CPT seven reviews. So for those of you who are studying for your CPT seven exam, and you're going through that process, this is supplemental podcast to help support you. As you go through that process. I'm hoping that you're finding it helpful. And I know many of you are because I'm receiving DMS and Instagram on a regular basis and occasional email saying thank you so much for doing these. One of the emails that I got said it was a DM on Instagram that I really love your podcast. But sometimes you go through and talk too fast. So I am being very deliberate. And trying to slow down what I'm saying. And it probably doesn't mean much to you now, because we're in one of the last sections of the podcast for a CPT seven review. But I tried it on the last one, which was professional development part one, this is professional development and responsibility. Our second portion of it and this particular portion of your domain domains of study, there are six domains of study. This is the final one, the sixth one, and it percent, your final exam, chapters one and chapters two, I do want to point out that I am not strictly going through this for the purposes of your exam, but I am throwing in stories and content and experience. So it's not just about the exam, but it is also about you, and what it means for you and your professional development and how that applies. So today, we're going to be talking about briefly re writing job search a day in the life of personal trainer, and then we're gonna get into the sales and marketing process as we wrap it up. So let's talk right now about resume writing. This is an opportunity for you to showcase what you have done in the past and give a little information about you. Now, it needs to be interesting enough and clickable enough so that a potential employer can look at it and say, Yeah, I'd like to learn more about this person. So resume should be one to two pages long. No longer than that. I don't care how much experience you have. It is a resume, not a curriculum of attai. So we are not writing out multiple pages of what you've done in your life. But a resume one to two pages. And it should be creative, right? Give a little bit about yourself. Don't make stuff up. I don't mean creative. Don't be creative by making stuff up. I mean, be creative about what you do. I think one of the really important things, in addition to being creative, is being organized. And I have seen some really sloppy resumes in the past. Now I don't see him very much because I don't hire people so much anymore. But as a fitness manager, when I was looking at resumes, it would be amazing that some of the stuff that people put together, so just be very organized. As you put that together. You can be conventional but also a note to be a touch unconventional. Be a touch unconventional, and your approach and night that might be you know, a little segment about you. So again, just a few sentences about you and your experience, but about your life. Something that's interesting enough where I go, look, this person doesn't have much fitness experience or any. But it's pretty interesting that they were a seven time national Karate Champ I think that's kind of cool, or that they like skydiving, or that they travel and these are some of the things that they experienced on their by fitness. Well, I don't know something unconventional, also adding in some vulnerability, some vulnerability.
As a fitness professional, I knew that I didn't know everything. So if I had a PR trainer came it certainly thought that they did know everything. That was the first thing that let me know that they probably did it. So allow your vulnerabilities to be exposed. Sure. Show them and let them know. So and I'm not talking about just saying, you know, puppy books make me cry, but being vulnerable about your experience and some life experiences not just your fitness experiences. So resume writing one to two pages create organized unconventional and vulnerable now in the job search process, where do you go to look for a job? Well, in the previous episode, we talked about the different types of gyms that are out there, there are low mid priced gym, or community centers that you can look at. There are also a lot of independent studio where you can space or boutique fitness that you can work at wellness Corporation, so organizational wellness, and move into industry to work fitness in there. So it just depends what kind of job you are using to be a personal trainer. Are you looking to be more of a group fitness or group exercise instructor? Are you looking more to be a coach? Do you want to transition your career right now as you're starting to wrap up your CPT seven and say, I would really like to be a nutrition coach. Right? So that gives you maybe a pat, I know what I'm going to do next after I finished my CPT seven, I'm going to go for the NHSN certified nutrition coaching program. Right? What do you want to do? And focus towards that? Also, so the job search interview question I get a lot a tire, what should I wear, I know you're going to work at a gym, but do not walk in there wearing just gym clothes. My suggestion to you is to walk in, in professional attire, right, so look a little bit more professional suit. But coming in, in professional attire, as if you are going to interview at a place not fit. Because fitness in and depends on you. It we expect you when you come in, to not come in like you just finished a workout. This is a job interview and the appropriate attire goes for that regardless of the industry. So dress it up a little bit. Tell me about the interview process and the interview process there a couple things are going to ask you one, they're going to ask about your strengths and your weaknesses. Go in there prepared for discussing what your strengths and weaknesses are. There are many other things that will be involved here. But one of the things that are not involved that on their part, which you need to think ahead of which are what are the questions that you want to ask them. So don't go in there just seeking the job and ready to answer any questions they have, without you yourself prepared to ask them. And it's even nice when I see people I may have answered all of their questions. But when they look down and they say look, I have four questions that I wanted to ask, I asked you, are you answered questions 123 and four, this how you answered, I feel really comfortable with it. I hope that you feel comfortable with me, I look forward to this process and closing out that interview. There are many other things to discuss. But that's part of the process. And then another part of the process is how to follow up. Here is a sticking point for some trainers, and that it's just a simply uncomfortable to follow up. You don't know what you're going to say. You think well, if they want me they would have called me. It doesn't always work like that. So if if we are in need, then yes, we're gonna call somebody, we're gonna get somebody on the floor ASAP. If we are not necessarily in need. What happens is so many things come our direction as people who run facilities are managed facilities, that we aren't prioritizing this, at least in the weeks time that you were likely wanting to see some of that being prioritized on your behalf. So what do you do? Follow up.
Good to follow up with an email which might be the most comfortable version of the follow up. So follow up with an email, let them know that you appreciated their time that you enjoyed the time together. You do think it's a good fit, and that you would like to know when you would hear back whether it's a positive or negative that you'd appreciate. Response email or a phone call. So learning to follow up so job search and interviewing, where to look for jobs, what to wear The interview process and the follow up process. Alright, let's talk now about a day in the life as a CPT. So here's a day in the life as a certified personal trainer. And you may hear things like you get to set your own hours. And that's not true necessarily, not even when your own your own business, because when you you can set specific working hours. But the hours really depend on what your facility is going to require of you. And it's going to depend on when your clients train. So you may only want to work from 4pm to 10pm. But so many people train early in the morning, what you'll probably see is that you'll eventually be splitting your time, early mornings, and half later afternoon. So before people go to work when people are done with work, and you'll have a few people kind of speckled throughout the day that you might be able to train. So working on setting up your hours. So now I've gotten to the point where I don't train as much. And when I do train, I train only in the morning times up to early afternoons. And then when it's time for me to go and pick up my kids from school and things like that, that my my focus is 100% on that, after a certain time of the day, that's something that you got to work your way up to also be aware that you may have to work weekends if you're going to take this job, right. So if you work and your religious focus is stymied by that right, then you have to figure out how you can do this. So you you recognize Shabbat, so you don't want to work on Saturdays or religious Sunday. Things that you don't want to work on Sundays, and a lot of places won't hire it unless you work the weekends. So figuring out what that looks like and adding value to what we do on the weekdays. So that we have limiting on how many times we go in, if you'd like working on the weekends, then this is a home run for you. So you'll be able to set that up. And a lot of times, people aren't going to tell you why. But if you say I can't train on these days, that might be the why. And that might be something that you ask as a question on follow up, if you're curious to know what it was. Alright. So that's a working hours, you'll have facility duties, you have to clean up, everybody's going to have usually sections or responsibilities. So your section are free weights and leg room and your section to wipe down the cardio equipment. And when I worked on floor hours as a personal trainer, many moons ago, I my fellow trainers loved it when I worked because I hated being bored. And when I was new to training, and I wasn't working with that many people, I just cleaned everybody else's sections, it drove me nuts, the place might be filthy, I would go I clean up the other sections. And I will say this, I picked up a whole lot more clients than the majority of trainers did at that gym. Because the people who saw me doing my job diligently versus the trainers who didn't do much. They were more more interested in working with me, because I seemed like the type of person that they would like to work with. So do your facility duties. I'm not telling you necessarily to do other people's duties, which is what I did. But I don't like being bored. I liked working and I worked and that work paid off.
Alright, so we talked about setting specific working hours facility duties, let's also look at safety procedures. So you're going to need to know a lot about safety procedures. Some of those are going to be evacuation procedures. Some will be CPR ad procedures, first aid procedures. Being aware when somebody is sick, when somebody is uncomfortable, and working with people on as you train, are they safe training modalities I saw so and so do this at such and such games. And I thought that would be a really great thing to do. But your client has never really worked out before. So it's not a great thing to do. Everything is based off of that assessment. And then you focus on your time with that person, what they can do, how you can support them, how you can spot them. And those are very important components when it comes to the day in the life as a CPT. So check out that section in your text, in addition to the intro to sales, and I'm going to start this process off by when when I first started teaching. It wasn't NSM, I worked for a corporate gym in New York City. And they would hire a lot of new people, there were a lot of gyms there. And I would teach them some exercise science and program design and things like that. But the last day was a business course. And I remember talking about sales. And that's what we're talking about. Now, the intro to sales process, if we talk about sales, and I remember having a person sitting in the back, and they raised up their hand, and they just said, I didn't get into this job for sales. And it's funny, when I mentioned this to other educators, and people have been in the business for a long time, they all kind of laugh at that, because you can't really separate the two, you got into it for a reason. But you'd be a really good trainer. And if nobody buys it, then it don't matter. So what we're talking about here is the intro to the sales process, the person raised their hand, they said, I'm just not good at sales, I can't sell, I don't feel confident at selling. It's just not something I can do. It's not what I got in here for lunch, it goes on and on about it. And then after they were done, I was about to speak to it. And I'm glad I did it one person in the front, raise their hand and they said, Man speak to this. And I said yes. And that person turns back and looks at the person and goes, I think you're really great at selling, because you just sold me on how not good you are at it. And I couldn't do anything with smile, because it was the confidence that they had, but they weren't good at selling. It was the conviction that they had, but they weren't good at selling. It was this like gut investment that they had that they weren't good at selling and it's sold everybody on it. About we replaced that with that gut conviction that personal training is important. And that fitness is important. What if I can talk with confidence that based on what you're trying to do, it's something that I can help you accomplish? You got to believe in yourself confidence, relays competence. And when a sales process is performed correctly, as we identify a customer's need, first of all, what do they need number two, communicating solutions. And then number three, making the sale that's that's the process the 123 that might be something you need to be familiar with 123 identifying the customer's needs number one, number two, communicating solutions. Number three, making the sale when the sales process is performed correctly, there is no pressure placed on the customer. to force a decision. A sales professional guides the conversation by asking customers, several open ended questions these questions help the sales professional learn about a customer's wants, what they need, what they fear, what they desire, what they're comfortable and uncomfortable with a salesperson can then accurately communicate potential solutions back to the customer. Like sales isn't anything but communicating. I want to find out what you want. I want to see if I develop a solution and communicate that back to you. And then we market we we focus on making that sale. Now, one of the things that you may think because this is what I thought when I was new, let's say 100 bucks is how much a single training session is and I would go 100 bucks, I wouldn't pay 100 bucks for me. I don't think I'm worth that. So I have a hard time asking for 100 bucks from somebody else.
Listen, stop projecting your issues on to other people, right? You do your job, you find out what they want. You provide a solution, and you ask them for the sale. And if you work for a gym, and that's 100 bucks, that's how much that's how much they charge, then that's how much you tell them. You don't have to spend, I'll give you a free session on the side. Right just to make it a little bit. Oh, what you do is you provide value, the value you provide is either worth it or not worth it. It's not for you to decide whether or not that value is worth it for them. So what do you do you ask? You ask if it's worth it, and if it is, they'll make that purchase. And then what provide the value and try to figure out how to identify those customers needs and support those needs. But they tell you almost everything. So talk with them, communicate with them. Be in communication and be open about it. And the same thing I think goes for what we talked about in the resume process like you can be a little Little unconventional and you can be a little vulnerable and you can open up about yourself. I don't think anybody wants to think that, oh, my trainer is perfect and they never even have snacks that that aren't you know, chicken and broccoli and rice thing I think just to be open and honest with people and and allow some vulnerability to come through. Now what about these, it's kind of nice work in a gym because the gym, they do a really good job of bringing membership in or we hope that right. But now we need to prospect there are a group of people that that fitness facility. And for those of you who don't work in fitness facilities, you're independent, you have to do this without a pool of potential clients just waiting there for you. Right? So prospecting and lead generation, prospects are potential sales leads that can be converted into paying clients, they're not just a random people off the street, they are instead individuals that the fitness professional is already identified as being potentially interested in fitness services. That's the great thing about working at a corporate gym. Everybody there is already kind of interested in fitness services right there in the gym. prospects can be identified in a few different ways. Here they are, these are the four things that I want you to think about asking for referrals. That is the most powerful way that I think it's possible people that you already work with people that you already train, ask them for referrals, working the floor, the other one is working the floor. Now, I know some of you think that floor hours are mandated, I have to work the floor. If you don't put on the I get to work the floor hat, then you look like you have to work the floor. And nobody wants to train with somebody that looks like they have to be there. So work the floor, talk to people offer towels, maybe or water or Hey, you want to do a five minute abdominal or core workout. Do you want to you know I see you working this and maybe I can take you through you know no pressure, I just want to hang out I'm I'm you can even say hey, I'm pretty bored right now. And I can't think of anything more fun than working with people can I work with you for five minutes and think you through take you through an arm training program, which is a workout some arms or let's do some shoulder stability or whatever I saw you get up after a benchpress and you circle that shoulder a few times we take you through a shoulder stability workout. Alright, working the floor, warm leads people you already know or kind of No, working those warm leads. It's not cold. It's not people you've never met. But the problem is, if you don't meet people, then those leads won't be warm. So go out and meet people Introduce yourself. Just say Hey, what's up? y'all do it. Hey, what's up, man? My name is Rick. And I'm one of the trainers here. Look, I'm not trying to hit you up for training. I just said if I can help you with anything, you got questions for me. Holler me happy to help out. Pardon me, miss. Hi there. So you're doing a lot of cardio. I think it's great. I hope you're hitting your goals. My name is Rick, if there's anything I can help you with, whether it's goal setting, or maybe doing some resistance training, anything, just let me know I doesn't matter. Just talk to people, but don't talk to people as if you're trying to sell them on something. Talk to them as if you're trying to help them.
Because nobody's gonna buy anything if they think they're buying it, because that's what you want. They're gonna buy something because they feel it's what they want. And they need, it's helpful for them. Also, you can do inquiries from social media. Here's the other thing when you're on social media, ask people on social media, if they would like to train with you, especially in the comment section as you start posting things and people are commenting on your workouts or this or that, then follow up on direct message them and say, Hey, you followed up on this comment? Listen, I do Virtual Training, if there's something you want to do, or I have an eight week program, if that's something you want to do, then feel free. Let's talk about it. Alright, so inquiries from social media. Then we've got our sales and marketing is we're going to wrap this up with about three more slides on my end sales and marketing, what is sales? All right, getting people to buy things that they want, because it's a service that you can provide. Right? So there's an introduction to the sales process that we've looked at. There's prospect and lead generation, building rapport forecasting, and asking for the sale, Introduction to the sales process, prospecting and lead generation, building rapport forecasting, and asking for the sale. Well, what about marketing then? marketing is getting that stuff out there like how do I do that? How do I build value and a brand? Do you ever hear people say Like a shark tank or something, and they come and they, they, they say this is what I have. And they say, well, you have a device, not a brand. And and for a long time, I was like, I don't even know what that means. The brand is the device. The brand is the story around the device. The brand is what color things are, what's the story about it, not just who it supports, but how it began and what it means and who is my demographic? And then there is a SWOT analysis to build a brand. What are your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats? What are the four P's of marketing so we'll talk about those two things, SWOT analysis and the four P's of marketing, SWOT analysis and the four P's of marketing. I just want to say that one more time, for those of you who may be interested in the examination, SWOT analysis, and the four Ps of Marketing. There's also social media when it comes to marketing, and industry events and networking, their email campaigns. But let's move into the SWOT analysis. s strengths. What are some of your strengths? Well, you you're an SMC PT, certified personal trainer now, right are you about to be? So that is a strength? What are the weaknesses? I'm not confident and asking clients for money, which we talked about. Right? So strengths. I'm a certified fitness professional through National Academy of sports, medicine, weakness, I'm not confident asking clients for money. Well, that tends to lead into opportunities. What are some opportunities, I can take a workshop to learn more about sales and marketing for fitness professionals? There are a lot of things out there. So you find your weakness and how do you turn that weakness into an opportunity, an opportunity for your next steps? And then what are the threats, competitions from other health clubs and touring studios? in the immediate area? Some of you may consider other fitness professionals that work at the facility you work at as a threat? If you do, and I don't think that's a healthy way to look at it. But if you do, what are your opportunities? working more floor hours? being busy finding those complimentary introductory sessions and how do I work with those people and building your business by identifying Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats? Then there are the four P's of marketing, the four P's of marketing, the first p product, the specific product or service offered to the customers, what are you offering? Personal Training? Right? So find out what it is you're marketing, but can you narrow that down? I like working with people that are right, and then you add in about to get married, working with overweight or and obese individuals where I like working with people that focus on cardio respiratory training, or max strength training. Alright, what do you what services do you offer, and then prioritize some of the things that you're focused on Pilates, all right, certified personal trainer with a focus on Pilates integration.
Other P's of marketing, so let me just go through them product, price, place and promotion. So price, the amount charged for a product or service, including the volume discounts means if you buy a package, do you pay less, they're seasonal pricing a lot of people out of town in the summer. So you drop your prices then and raise them back up when the fall and the school season starts again bundling packages. So if you do this and that then what can I do for you if you buy you know a 12 pack, also throw in some virtual coaching? Price place, right place channels a product or service will go through to reach the customer? How are we going to go about getting that customer? What are the chances that we go through in order to do that? What what columns what what are these ways that we get to reach the customer and then promotion, the communication of information about the product or service with the goal of generating a positive customer response? How do we promote that we're not selling it, we're just promoting it, we're talking about it. We're getting people interested interested in us interested in fitness interested in our niche. So as we do that, we promote what we're most connected to, then we're going to make contact with people that are most connected to that. Alright, we're wrapping this up right now continuing education. For those of you who are finishing up your NSM CPT here are the requirements. It's a total of two continuing education units or C E, CS c that would be credits continuing education unit see us every two years 1.9 c us from continuing education and then point one c e us from your CPR ad certification or recertification for each hour that those two CPUs, one contact hour of study is point one. So you need about 20 hours is what it turns into over the course of two years. What opportunities are there to get the CES trade shows their workshops, online CES, CS and specializations that you can do. For instance, some of the the trade shows that are out there, like the Optima conference is a great conference that NSM puts up there all sorts of workshops that you might have attached with some of the products that you buy through NSM. Online CEC, so you can do them online, many people are, they have to be affiliated with NSM. So make sure that they're affiliated with NSM. And they offer na SM see us. And there are many education that you can go through out there. And there are other specializations that you can do. And they can get you a lot of continuing education units. So like there's NSM, certified nutrition coaching, there's the corrective exercise specialist, performance enhancement specialist, many products that NASM has, if you go through that, that puts you into a specialization, and it renews your certification. There are college courses. So if you are taking college courses, you can apply some of those college courses or industry contributions. So sometimes writing things.
Speaking at an event, those can be industry contributions. And you can appeal to have those applied for CCS, and then acquired skills and benefits. So working with niche populations, and increased pay, those are going to be things that go along with your continuing education as you start to build your toolbox of what you can do and who you specialize with working with builds a niche population for you. And then you're able to ask for more money because of the education and the time and your new skill sets. So those are opportunities. Alright, y'all. I hope you found it helpful and beneficial. We've got one more of these that we're going to talk about, and it's really about exam prep, and our exam prep conversation. It's I mean, here's the information. We've already provided the information.
We'll have a podcast coming in next week. And that podcast is going to be about exam prep, how do you prepare for the exam? What are the things that you have to do? We'll go through CES, use a little bit again, we'll go about setting up your testing what you need to set that up what to expect in this process. So that conversation will be next week.
I hope that you found this particular one beneficial in helping build your business, building your brand professional development and the relationships that you have with your client. My name is Rick Richey, if you got questions for me, you can hit me up on Instagram at Dr. dot Rick Richey or you can email me at Rick dot Richey ri ch e y at nasm.org This has been the NASM CPT podcast."
