Training Gym Staff & Trainers

As a gym manager, you rely on your staff members to portray your business in the best possible light. That doesn’t happen automatically. Unless you are putting regular, quality time into training your people, you will be letting both them and your gym members down. 

Yet, consistent, meaningful training is not the norm in most commercial gyms. Too often front desk staff, salespeople, and floor instructors are left to their own devices in a sink or swim atmosphere. When they sink, as many inevitably do, they often take members with them.

In this article, I’ll lay out precisely what you need to do to put in place regular, meaningful, practical training sessions that your staff will enjoy and be able to immediately benefit from.

The Importance of Regular Sales Training

Sales training is an investment that you cannot afford not to make. Here are seven reasons it needs to be part of your weekly routine …

Staff Loyalty

When you invest your time and effort into helping your staff members to become better at what they do, you will help to create a strong bond of loyalty. A regular, well thought out training program will make it easier for your staff to do their job, and it will help them to make more money. 

Investing in staff training will also build customer loyalty. Your customers will be dealing with staff members who are competent and confident in what they do.

I regularly come across new recruits across a range of industries, including the fitness industry, who are literally thrown into the deep end. If they’re lucky they get half a day’s training, which essentially involves being handed a manual and told to digest it. Then they are let loose on customers. That is not going to engender confidence in either the staff member or the customer. 

Contrast that to a staff member who receives a complete, comprehensive, and ongoing program of training. That person will be infinitely more confident and more committed to the business and to you as an employer.

Better Communication

When staff members receive a comprehensive onboarding program and regular ongoing training, they become confident about the chain of command. As a result, they’ll be far more likely to communicate with those above them about the job. That’s because they will know that everyone else has got their back.

Part of the training will cover how to communicate when problems arise and how to work through various issues that they may come across. Staff members will receive training about how to communicate with customers as well as with other staff members. 

Proper staff training will include how to properly document things in logbooks. This will allow your business to run more smoothly as it creates a paper train that removes the unreliability of faulty memory. 

When there is a lack of training, it is not hard for staff members to feel inadequate and left out. 

Increased Revenue

When your sales and floor staff are well trained, they will be able to perform their job better. This will lead to increased sales and increased retention. In order for your staff to get better at what they do, they need to train for it every day.

If you had a person turn up at the gym and tell you they wanted to lose 30 pounds and get in the best shape of their life, you’d probably advise them that they need to train every day, probably alternating cardio with resistance training, to achieve their goal.

It’s the same thing with the goal of increasing sales revenue or becoming an awesome front-of-desk staff member. Yet, in many gyms that I’ve had an association with, staff training is hit or miss at best. Often it only takes place when things are going badly as a last-ditch effort to turn things around. 

Just like working out, the key to success with training is consistency. You might schedule a 60-minute training session once per week, say on a Monday, and then have 10-minute incremental sessions each of the other weekdays. 

The rewards of this sort of consistent training will soon reveal themselves. You’ll start to pick up sales that would otherwise have been lost, your customers will be happier and your retention rate will drop off. 

Adjustment Time for New Staff

If you bring on a new sales rep and they do not get a sale in the first week, there is a strong likelihood that they are going to quit. Even if they don’t, their self-esteem and confidence in their ability to do the job will be dragging on the floor. 

The more comprehensive the onboarding process for your new sales staff is, the greater their chances of achieving success in that first week. During the onboarding process, you want to give them practical guidance that will make a difference. They need to know how to properly answer the phone, how to book an appointment and follow up on the sales process. They should also know how to navigate their way around the gym’s software. 

Brand Image

When you have a staff that is all on the same page, all well trained, enthusiastic, and ready to deliver premium-level service, your brand image will be elevated. Your customers will appreciate what they see. They will also contrast it with the level of service that they are used to receiving elsewhere and comment to others about how good things are at your business.

Skill at Overcoming Objections

In my experience as a gym owner and personal trainer, I’ve noticed that the majority of gym sales staff are not very good at overcoming customer objections. The first thing you should do when a customer objects is to agree with them. 

Let’s say that a gym member complains about some level of service. Rather than immediately going into defensive mode, as many gym staff do, the correct response is to say something like …

Joe, I understand. You know, we should be giving you better service than that. Now let’s see what we can do about it. 

By doing this, you immediately move from being across the table to being alongside them. Yet, this simple piece of training is lacking in many instances. 

When you implement practical training that addresses real-life situations with role plays, your staff will be far better equipped to deal empathetically with customers. 

Improved Administrative Skills

You may have invested in the best gym software but unless you take the time to provide your members with the proper training in how to use it, you won’t get the full value of that investment. Don’t try to upskill your staff in this area on the fly. Crave out a decent chunk of time to allow them to get fully conversant with your gym administration.

Create An SOP

SOP stands for Standard Operating Procedure. An SOP is a document that spells out how things are to be done in the gym. It provides a step-by-step guide on how to carry out repetitive tasks. 

An SOP should allow a new staff member to step in and handle a situation if an emergency situation arises. By following the step-by-step instructions in the document they will be able to complete the task.

Creating an SOP sounds like a lot of hard work and it certainly can be. However, there are apps available that can make the process a whole lot easier for you. The one I prefer to use is StepShop.

Do a brainstorm with your staff members to ensure that every process that needs to be elucidated is covered in your SOP.

Sales Training the Right Way

The first step in implementing an effective training program for your staff and trainers is to buy into the need to make it happen consistently. Having laid out seven reasons why you should take training seriously, let’s now move on to how to do it, with a focus on sales training.

Keep it Short

You do not want your training sessions to be the part of the week where your staff members zone out, keep looking at their watch or make excuses as to why they can’t make it. To avoid these things you need to make the sessions short, snappy, and practical. 

I recommend having one main training session each week. It should be attended by everybody, including trainers, front of desk staff and sales staff. Then you should hold 10-minute follow-up sessions every morning for your sales and training staff. Ideally, these short sessions should be done on a one-to-one basis with each person. This will allow you to focus on exactly what they need.

Keep it Interesting

Inform your staff members each week what the agenda will be for the coming week’s training session. Start each session with two open questions …

• What’s working well?
• What’s not working well?

Encourage people to jot down notes during the week so that they can bring them out at the start of the next meeting. Make it clear that you genuinely want to hear their feedback. Give each person in the room an opportunity to share their thoughts. Then encourage other people to give some guidance before you jump in. 

If you have an article to discuss, distribute a copy a week ahead of time and encourage people to make notes so they can contribute at the meeting. When everyone is engaged and commenting, the meeting becomes vibrant and more interesting. 

Teach Problem Solving

A big mistake I see with gym sales training is for the training leader to focus on what they think is needed as opposed to what they know is needed to really increase sales. This often happens because the trainer doesn’t understand what sales really is.

Sales is all about solving problems and building value. It is not about selling a membership or selling personal training. That will only come after you have shown the person how to solve their problem. 

Your sales training should cover each of the essential aspects of the sale, including …

• The greeting
• The evaluation
• The tour
• The analysis
• The presentation

Training in each of these areas should include how to respond to questions or objections.

Align Training To Your Strategy

Too often, a trainer will come up with a different flavor of training each month that has nothing to do with what is really needed. Of course, to align your training with your strategy, you need to have devised your sales strategy. 

To do this, you need to take the time to analyze what’s going on with the business. If your retention rate has gone up, your strategy needs to be around follow-up calls to lapsed members. If you’re getting plenty of appointments but your staff isn’t managing to close sales, then that is your focus. 

When you plan your training to address a need, keep it as clear, focused, and simple as possible. A simple tip is that when you are training a group, direct your comments to the weakest member. If you can explain things in a way that they understand, you know that everyone else will get it too. 

Provide Multiple Learning Opportunities

Rather than simply standing in front of the group and taking an hour, vary the mode of training. Watch videos, have role plays, analyze tour log sheets, and conduct mock tours of the gym. The more opportunities staff members have to do hands-on training, the more they will retain.

Communicate Expectations

Make sure that each of your sales team knows what is expected of them. When it comes to training, make it clear that you expect them to be there in time, alert, engaged, and ready to go. They should also have absorbed any material you have distributed in preparation for the meeting. 

If one of your managers is conducting the meeting, let them know that if a member of their team comes in late or is under-prepared, it is a reflection on him. This will impel the manager to pass on your high expectations to his sales team with regard to meetings.

You need to be just as clear with regards to your key performance indicators, and your sales targets.

Use Scripts

I strongly recommend using sales scripts to train your staff. You should have scripts for the telephone inquiry, the sales process, the pricing presentation, and the outbound sales presentation. 

Your sales staff should memorize these scripts so that they are second nature. Then, when they’ve got it memorized, they can put their own personality into it. 

Role-playing using the sales scripts should be a regular feature of your training sessions. 

Use a Buddy System

Buddy your new team members with experienced staff to act as their guide and mentor. This should be overseen by management to ensure that the two pair up at least weekly.

Reward Achievement

At least on a monthly basis, you should include a reward session in your training in which you acknowledge those who have made good progress. You don’t need to spend a lot of money on rewards. Acknowledgement by way of a handshake, maybe with a small gift voucher, can go a long way in terms of providing ongoing motivation. 

Ask for Feedback

At the end of a training session, ask the participants for feedback. Here are some questions you can have them respond to in writing in the last couple of minutes …

• What did you take away from this training session?
• Are there any things that are unclear?
• What is one thing from today’s training that you apply immediately?

If your staff isn’t getting anything from the training, you need to re-evaluate what you’re doing. 

Training Your Gym Instructors

Your sales staff are not the only ones who require regular training. Your instructors are also in need of it. There is great value in getting the trainers together at least once a week for a brainstorming session where they can share experiences and pass on tips to one another.

Your trainers will have a range of experience levels and qualifications. Just as you do with your sales staff, you should buddy up new trainers with more experienced ones. The more experienced person will act as a mentor and generally keep an eye on the less experienced trainer.

During your training sessions, you should include role-playing sessions where you model how to train all sorts of people with different goals. How would your approach for a person who wants to lose a hundred pounds differ from one who wants to trim their thighs, build their butt and tighten up flabby arms?

Training sessions should also focus on how to engage gym members. When a trainer is on the gym floor, how should he conduct himself? There will be people who simply want him to get out of the way so they can get one with their workout, while others will be expecting a chat? How do your experienced trainers know how to tell the difference?

What do your trainers do when they notice a person doing an exercise improperly? Do they ignore it (many do!) or do they intervene? What approach do they use to retrain the person without alienating them?

In your training sessions, make sure that all of your trainers are on the same page when it comes to exercise performance. It is not a good look if one trainer shows them one way to do squats and then another shows them a completely different way. 

Keeping gym members motivated and engaged is a key to gym retention. Gym instructors need to have the skills to be able to enthuse members and keep them positive about the gym experience. 

While some of us are more natural motivators than others, it is also a skill that can be developed. Spend some time every session training your trainers on motivation techniques. Some people benefit from the sergeant major, in-your-face type motivation, while others thrive off a more laid-back approach. Your instructors need to be able to quickly identify which type is appropriate and how to use it most effectively. Roleplay sessions are beneficial in this type of training. 

One more aspect that should be covered by your regular instructor training sessions is keeping up with the latest research, trend, and fitness innovations. Something that I found beneficial when I was running a gym was to assign a different trainer each week to give a 5-minute presentation on some new research finding, equipment innovation, or other advances in the fitness industry.

Be sure to include your personal trainers in your training sessions. They will have knowledge and experience that your floor instructors can benefit from. 

Here’s a review of the key topics to include in your weekly gym training sessions:

• An initial sharing session where each instructor discusses what’s been going well and what, if anything, they are struggling with.
• Role-play sessions on how to train people with different goals and needs.
• Specific sessions on training people with specific medical conditions.
• Sessions on exercise technique and how to teach it, ensuring that all trainers are on the same page.
• How to keep gym members motivated.
• How to write workout plans.
• Keeping up with the latest research, trends, and fitness innovations.

Summary

The key to success with staff training is consistency. Instill it as a fundamental part of your culture. Schedule it in so that everybody knows when it happens. You should have a main weekly training session, with daily one-on-one follow-ups. Your Trainers should have their own separate weekly training sessions.

Here’s a review of the keys to successful training sessions with your gym staff and trainers …

• Keep it short, focused, and concise.
• Keep it interesting
• Teach problem-solving
• Align training to your strategy
• Provide multiple learning opportunities
• Communicate expectations
• Use scripts
• Use a buddy system
• Reward achievement
• Ask for feedback

The time and effort that you and your team invest in regular meaningful training will pay off many times over in terms of improved revenues, more confident and contented staff members, and happier gym members.