Being a trainer, you are essentially offering a service. People are buying into your service and they are investing their time and money in return for your training knowledge, now before they can do that they will, of course, need to ask you a series of questions to check your credibility and knowledge, but underneath they are trying to understand your character. Although they may be buying into your training service, they are also buying into you. For this reason, it is important to become familiar with some of the top questions you might be asked as a trainer so that you can better prepare your responses. This way you keep your service consistent and coherent throughout with all your clients/inductions. So let’s get into it:
HOW MUCH DO YOU CHARGE?
Of course, this will pop up, sometimes sooner than expected. Your response to this question must be as confident as possible. Remember the value of what you are offering and the price you have decided to list for that service. If you drop your prices, you are dropping your value and thus you are losing credibility and professionalism; if however, you find they cannot afford your prices, you can offer a down sale, whereby you work around a price they can afford but you train them for a shorter session. For example, 30 minute sessions instead of 60 minute sessions for half the price. This way you are not losing value and you are saving your time. In some cases, clients might still reject this offer or not like the idea of paying for a trainer at all, in these instances you must now know the value of training and start selling them the importance of health. Ask them what price they would put on their health, compared with the price they would put on their materialistic desires.
HOW DO I GET TONED?
“Toned” is generally used more by female clients and almost all of them will use it. Your job is to find out what they mean by “get toned”, where is it exactly they want to get toned, do they have specific spots they want to work on more than others. Once you know what they mean by toned, you can start using the more specific terminology of how you would approach those areas, for example, let’s say they want to tone their waist, you would now understand they want to reduce their body fat % around their lower abdomen and hip area, meaning they would need to include more rotational movements and cardio into their routines.
HOW DO I GET A SIX PACK?
The infamous question almost every guy asks, “How do I get a six pack?” honestly speaking, there isn’t one particular way to achieve this goal but there are many opinions out there on what the best way is. The most important point is to explain the importance of lowering body fat % to reveal the abdomen, this means increasing cardio and core work. Some believe in directly training the core consistently, others think otherwise and believe that heavy compound lifts will increase core strength to a high enough degree without the need for abdominal exercises. The real answer to this question truly depends on your opinion, knowledge, and approach to achieving the six-pack look, but whatever you decide, explain it your client and progress from there.
HOW CAN I GET FIT WITH LITTLE EFFORT?
Notice “fit” is the key word, it is a word very familiar with the fitness industry and almost everyone out of fitness knows about it and thus uses it to describe their fitness desires, the important part is for you to find out what they mean by the word “fit“. Once you can establish their own definition of what it means to be fit, then you can begin to answer the question, but you must also explain that there is, of course, no quick fix solution and little effort is almost near impossible for achieving quality results. But a good trainer will be able to explain and teach how to train in a way that helps them achieve their goals in the most efficient manner possible.
WHAT’S A “CONTRACTION”?
Most clients you will come across will not be familiar with exercise and/or kinaesthetic terminology, so it’s no use shouting out “big” words for your client to better understand what to do in a movement, they will most likely not know what you mean by contraction and some will be too shy to ask. Begin explaining what happens to the muscle when in a “contracted” part of the motion, if it is at the “top” of a motion, explain the importance of this phase in the movement and how the tightness of the muscle signifies contraction, then your client will become more familiar with this phase and be able to chase this action more often.