Project Management: The Future of Personal Training?

By Alwyn Cosgrove

For www.EliteFTS.com

Let's throw an idea around…

We are both personal trainers. Both of us charge $100 per session. We are hired by two identical twin females who want to drop 20 lbs of fat. You train twin number one three times a week for ten weeks (30 sessions) and succeed in reaching your goal. I train twin number two twice a week for five weeks (ten sessions) and we also reach our goal.

Under the current billing model for personal training, you would have made $3000. I would have made $1000, or significantly less, despite delivering the result in half the time that you did and with a third of the sessions (effort).

In other words, I get the same results in half the time for a third of the effort. Therefore, I HAVE TO BE worth more. Yet under normal billing models, I'd get paid less. This represents the problem in fitness training as I see it.

Most trainers are getting paid for their time, not for their results. I think the future will be short-term project management.

Does a client want to lose 20 lbs of fat? The fee is $2500 whether it takes me ten weeks or four weeks. Does a client want to bench press 200 lbs and is currently at 150 lbs? The fee is $1500, regardless of how long it takes.

Doesn't it make sense? Why should a trainer who can get better results in less time not be paid more? If it takes Trainer A eight hours to train a client and get a result, and Trainer B writes a better program and gets the same result from two hours of training, isn't Trainer B better? Absolutely. AT LEAST four times better! But under normal billing, he or she would make less than Trainer A.

A client asked how much it cost for me to design a program for them. I told them, and then they asked how long it took. I replied, “Seventeen years of intensive study, so far.” They got the point.

At this point in my career, I can write a better program in 15 minutes than most trainers can write in three hours. I literally spend one 1/12th of the time that they would. Doesn't that make me worth more as opposed to less?

I think the future of billing in our industry will be project management. The fee is based upon the clients goal and when we achieve it, not on a “per hour,” “dollars for time” arrangement.

If you can get a result faster than anyone else, you are worth more. The same reasoning applies to why a cross country flight costs more than a cross country bus ride. It gets people to their goal faster.

Just something to think about…

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Alwyn Cosgrove is a Tae kwon-do international champion. He has utilized his personal experience as an athlete and combined it with the advanced theories of European sports science and the principles of modern strength and conditioning systems. He has worked with a wide variety of clientele including several Olympic and national level athletes, five world champions, and professionals in a multitude of sports such as boxing, martial arts, soccer, ice skating, football, fencing, triathlon, rugby, bodybuilding, dance, and fitness competition. For more information, visit Alwyn’s website at: http://www.alwyncosgrove.com.

Elite Fitness Systems strives to be a recognized leader in the strength training industry by providing the highest quality strength training products and services while providing the highest level of customer service in the industry. For the best training equipment, information, and accessories, visit us at www.EliteFTS.com.