Any gym owners out there? How are you paying your Trainers?

I believe we are paying our trainers well. They are doing ZERO leg work and we are referring clients to them. We price our top trainer out at $75/hour and she walks away with $37.50/hour (50%). IF she does the leg work and brings in a client by herself she gets 60% ($45/hour) and we take 40%. We cover ALL advertising, print, radio, insurance, equipment.

A perk for our trainers is that we offer small group programs on schedules (much like Group Fitness classes) for our trainers so they have consistent pay which is not based on attendance at all. Pay per class is $25/class. They do not have to do anything except show up for the class and run it (walk the floor). We design the programs and do all the marketing etc. Our trainers have ZERO sales exposure and ZERO sales pressure. We even bring in-house education and first aid/cpr recertification.

I come from a training background. I have worked many hours for free, done community work, offered cheap rates to build my clientele. I know how hard it is to develop relationships with clients and how expensive continuing education is. I did my time and now I feel that my RISK in my training center (incredible amount of DEBT) should allow me the benefit of earning commissions from my trainers who have ZERO risk in the training center.

If there are other gym owners, or training center owners out there, can you please advise how you pay out your trainers vs. what they are charged out as?

I have handed one of my trainers a client for 8 45 minute sessions and he will be a recurring client. She is complaining that I am not paying her enough. She feels that her volunteer time (with a local hockey team) and her passion for learning through continuing education should be rewarded more, she seems to not understand that this is part of the job...she makes reference to having to do "homework" to prep for a client so she actually isn't making that amount of money/hour. REALLY????

My patience is gone. I am contemplating NOT referring ANY clients to my staff and taking them all myself. Making my staff bring in their own clients and taking a rental from them instead. This way they need to do all the marketing and leg work and I am out of the picture except for collecting a small rent or punch pass amount from them.

Does anyone operate like this and how do you ladder the rates?

Thanks kindly, I don't want to whine, but I guess I am.
 
I know how much pressure it is to handle them.I once was a gym owner & I know about their behavior.The best way to handle them is to talk with them calmly & quietly it he/she is good enough for your job.If they they are not good at their work & only demanding payments,then its up to you.
 
Thanks Robert0.

I am very happy with the trainers...their personalities are great, they're professional, they are high calibre trainers. I just don't know how to drive home that I don't have money falling from the sky here and at some point we have to start making money and not just breaking even. I feel like we just keep giving them more and more and the expectations just keep growing. If they went to ANY other facility in town it would be a very rude awakening for them. We don't even make them "exclusive" to us...they are free to train on their own if they want (away from our facility) but they don't. Why would they? Everything is handed to them. I guess it's the monster we created. The newest trainer, ironically has the MOST education and the MOST drive. Today he designed and ordered his own business cards and met with us to tell us he would like to partner down the road. Now, there is a guy I'm willing to give the shirt off my back to.
 
I work at two different facilities, and I can tell you how they work...

One works on a 65/35 (trainer/club) split. They do not do any promotion of their trainers or even push personal training much. On the chance someone walks in the door looking for one, if the manager does not take them, she will pass them off to another trainer. I can say, I have not trained there in years, and I am not actually sure many others are training either.

The other has a flat fee for Trainers and it is based on years experience. For the newer Trainers, they make ~30% for a single session and more experienced get ~50%. They do a TON of promotion and often run 'specials' to try to bring in more clients. At this time, there are two brand new trainers and they are being heavily promoted - offering a special specifically with them, trying to get their names and faces out there.

The fact that you bring in education and CPR training is HUGE - I pay A LOT Of money to go to conferences and obtain other education (online, etc). To not have to pay for a hotel or travel would be very nice (at least financially).

While we all would love to be paid more - the fact is that she has made the choice to come work for you. If she wants to 'potentially' make more money, let her go off on her own and start to realize how much it costs for space, advertising, electric, utilities, etc - AND, how hard it is to get people to come in the door.

Not sure what part of the country you are in - but maybe contact other facilities around and see what they are charging for PT as well as paying their Trainers. You may find you are right in line with the industry (or maybe not ;) ). Good luck!! :)
 
I may have a solution for you. We're located in Canton, OH. We're currently a private gym, but we train out of it with pretty decent success I'd say. We are using a program called EZ Coach started by trainer in New Hampshire. We have a solid connection with him, and this program is great because it tends to people who enjoy doing themselves too, which opens up another market in the fitness training. It's a catch 22, because trainers need the work too, but it's coming to a time that it's harder to acquire more customers just because of trainers in the gym. Not too mention having to pay all the trainers. Ez Coach is a programming system that calculates a clients simple vitals such as: blood pressure, heart rate, BMI (fat %), height, weight,etc. Then we walk our clients through a physical evaluation. Start them out at a low weight to get loose, and then max them out at a 4-6 rep range. It gives access to nutrition plans, and everything else as needed too. If you'd like e-mail me for more information, my email is: peak 10 fitness @ gmail . com

It's a cool system, and reduces stress haha

Kind Regards,

Eric Fliger
 
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