Last week a fellow Personal Trainer reached out to me with a rant…He had been asked by a community centre to deliver an educational workshop to their fitness staff. When he got the info sheet with all the details, the sheet said “please consider donating your time”. In another situation, he was again asked to deliver a workshop, and after telling the person his hourly rate (which is way lower than it should be, IMO), they ghosted him.
Of course, he knew this topic would get me up on my soapbox. So, here we go.
Train #1: you’re just getting started
I have two trains of thought on this one that depends on where you are in your career.
If you’re new to presenting, you need opportunities to develop your skills (just like when you first started working in the fitness industry). You need feedback on your workshops and you need to build up support for how awesome a presenter you are. In this scenario, donating your time makes sense. When you’re new, whoever is bringing you in to teach the workshop, is taking a chance on you. And this scenario is a win-win, you get valuable presenting experience and they get a free workshop. If you do volunteer/donate your time, I would suggest that you ask whoever brought you in, to write you a letter of recommendation for your workshop presentation skills. You can then use these letters when applying to teach workshops elsewhere.
Train #2: you’re an established fitness professional
In this scenario, you’re not out to prove how good you are. You have 1000’s of hours as a Fitness Professional, you’ve taken 100’s, if not 1000’s, of hours of continuing education workshops.
YOU DESERVE TO BE PAID.
Do not volunteer/donate your time (unless it’s for a cause that you believe in and you truly WANT to volunteer/donate your time).
What people need to understand (and what you need to understand) is that when they book you for a 2-hour workshop they aren’t just getting 2-hours of your time. They are tapping into those 1000’s of hours of industry experience and those 1000’s of hours of continuing education. They are tapping into your blood, sweat and tears. And I’m sorry, that don’t come for free.
If you’re in this category of experienced trainer you should be charging at least $150 per hour of workshop you are teaching (IMO). Keeping in mind that you are only paid for the time you are presenting, you’re not paid for any of your prep time (ahh, the life of a Fitness Professional).
And if you’re the person booking these workshops, asking experienced Fitness Professionals to donate their time, STOP. Would you do your job for free? Not likely.
So, what if someone says you’re too expensive (I get this from time to time)? My business coach, Isabelle Mercier, has the most brilliant response to when people say you’re too expensive…check it out here. I have totally taken this on as my standard response.
What we permit, we promote
When we allow (permit) a certain behaviour (ie. saying yes to someone who expects us to work for free) we are actually promoting more of that behaviour (more people asking us to work for free). So, we need to stop permitting people to take advantage of us, this is the only way this behaviour will start to change.
Final thought…
And the final thought I will leave you with…this was a lesson from my VP when I worked for the YMCA of Greater Vancouver:
There is always money. When someone says there’s no budget for what you’re asking for, or you’re asking too much, what they’re really saying is that what you are asking for is not a priority for them.
P.S. All the arguments I make above also apply to your work as a Personal Trainer. New to the industry? You might have to discount your rates to get that experience you need. Got experience? Charge full price.
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