When people say personal training is oversaturated

[ugudango]

Hey everyone,
So I've been reading the book and got to the CENTS concept, and there was a paragraph about personal training that really made me think, so i decided to hop on the forum and lurk a bit. A lot of doodoo has been thrown in the direction of PTs, so I felt that i needed to write about this as I'm considering joining personal training this summer.

There are A LOT of PTs, but 9 out of 10 are absolute shit. It is saturated, but with mouth-breathing, uneducated trainers. And it's "oversaturated", but today the only fitness niche that's not oversaturated is the niche of "Full body workouts while inhaling chlorine mid set".

Most of the trainers have no idea about sales, have low confidence to approach in the gym and overall have no passion and end goals that push them trough the comfort barrier. Even if they have the confidence to approach, it would be a instant sales pitch or something alike.

A lot of them offer cookie cutter programs, and make everyone do the same program and eat the same foods, because it worked with that one client. They don't understand that it can be very detrimental to do this, but they simply don't know better.

Most of them DON'T READ BOOKS. They scroll mindlessly watching TikToks, reality shows and playing video games, and later say that "they're too busy", "I need my unwind time", "video games increase my reflexes so it's good for me!"

So is this supposed to be my competition? The word oversaturated is strong and can be scary, but i refuse to call personal training oversaturated when most of the trainers are very low in quality and not growing. I'd love to hear what you guys think, maybe It's just my ego speaking or i don't really understand what the word oversaturated means, but from my eyes it looks like this.

Thank you for reading, this is my first post on the forum.

Ivan

 

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[Jobless]

How will people tell the difference between the good and the bad PT? Especially if inexperienced?
If they had a bad experience, why would they go with a new PT?

Any industry filled with bad experiences make customers hesitant. One solution may be to distance yourself from the commonly used word for the industry. For example, instead of 'personal trainer', you can be a 'strength coach' or whatever to show that you identify with something different.

 

[biophase]

Hey everyone,
So I've been reading the book and got to the CENTS concept, and there was a paragraph about personal training that really made me think, so i decided to hop on the forum and lurk a bit. A lot of doodoo has been thrown in the direction of PTs, so I felt that i needed to write about this as I'm considering joining personal training this summer.

There are A LOT of PTs, but 9 out of 10 are absolute shit. It is saturated, but with mouth-breathing, uneducated trainers. And it's "oversaturated", but today the only fitness niche that's not oversaturated is the niche of "Full body workouts while inhaling chlorine mid set".

Most of the trainers have no idea about sales, have low confidence to approach in the gym and overall have no passion and end goals that push them trough the comfort barrier. Even if they have the confidence to approach, it would be a instant sales pitch or something alike.

A lot of them offer cookie cutter programs, and make everyone do the same program and eat the same foods, because it worked with that one client. They don't understand that it can be very detrimental to do this, but they simply don't know better.

Most of them DON'T READ BOOKS. They scroll mindlessly watching TikToks, reality shows and playing video games, and later say that "they're too busy", "I need my unwind time", "video games increase my reflexes so it's good for me!"

So is this supposed to be my competition? The word oversaturated is strong and can be scary, but i refuse to call personal training oversaturated when most of the trainers are very low in quality and not growing. I'd love to hear what you guys think, maybe It's just my ego speaking or i don't really understand what the word oversaturated means, but from my eyes it looks like this.

Thank you for reading, this is my first post on the forum.

Ivan

Well it depends on what you mean by oversaturated. Nowhere in your paragraph did you say that there are not enough trainers out there. So by your own post above you kind of acknowledge that there is an abundance of trainers. Are people complaining that they want to work out but can't find a trainer to schedule them in?

If you feel that you can offer better value and stand above the current choices of trainers in your area, then go ahead and get into the business.

Imagine a small city that has 100 McDonalds in it. Is the city oversaturated with burger restaurants? You can argue yes if you are McD's. But what does the CEO of Burger King think? You want to launch the first Burger King there instead of the 101st McDonalds. The question is, can you offer a BK burger or will it end up being just another McDonalds, or worse?

 

[Mathuin]

I get your points but this seems like cope dude.

Why not focus on something with a higher barrier to entry?

My gym (PureGym) literally has constant advertisements for their PT Academy.

 

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[Kevin88660]

Hey everyone,
So I've been reading the book and got to the CENTS concept, and there was a paragraph about personal training that really made me think, so i decided to hop on the forum and lurk a bit. A lot of doodoo has been thrown in the direction of PTs, so I felt that i needed to write about this as I'm considering joining personal training this summer.

There are A LOT of PTs, but 9 out of 10 are absolute shit. It is saturated, but with mouth-breathing, uneducated trainers. And it's "oversaturated", but today the only fitness niche that's not oversaturated is the niche of "Full body workouts while inhaling chlorine mid set".

Most of the trainers have no idea about sales, have low confidence to approach in the gym and overall have no passion and end goals that push them trough the comfort barrier. Even if they have the confidence to approach, it would be a instant sales pitch or something alike.

A lot of them offer cookie cutter programs, and make everyone do the same program and eat the same foods, because it worked with that one client. They don't understand that it can be very detrimental to do this, but they simply don't know better.

Most of them DON'T READ BOOKS. They scroll mindlessly watching TikToks, reality shows and playing video games, and later say that "they're too busy", "I need my unwind time", "video games increase my reflexes so it's good for me!"

So is this supposed to be my competition? The word oversaturated is strong and can be scary, but i refuse to call personal training oversaturated when most of the trainers are very low in quality and not growing. I'd love to hear what you guys think, maybe It's just my ego speaking or i don't really understand what the word oversaturated means, but from my eyes it looks like this.

Thank you for reading, this is my first post on the forum.

Ivan

Personal training is just a specific service.

The industry is health/fitness/nutrition. This is definitely huge.

I am more concerned with how many clients are paying (how big the market is) for personal training service compared to worrying about competition. I get the impression that if you gets online like Youtuber Greg selling training that is quite huge a market but when it comes to offline it is not as big an accessible marker. Most offline trainers struggle to make a living.

I have not done the market research and probably you should dive in on the numbers.

 

[ugudango]

How will people tell the difference between the good and the bad PT? Especially if inexperienced?
If they had a bad experience, why would they go with a new PT?

Any industry filled with bad experiences make customers hesitant. One solution may be to distance yourself from the commonly used word for the industry. For example, instead of 'personal trainer', you can be a 'strength coach' or whatever to show that you identify with something different.

It's true, spotting a bad PT as a newcomer is definitely not easy, and they will leave a sour taste to the people who realize he's bad. But generally the bad ones don't last, only sad part is there's infinite supply of them and the sour taste stays.

I like the approach for the name tip, there's not as many bad strength coaches for example as there are PTs haha.


Thank you very much for taking your time to read and write on my post!

 

[ugudango]

Well it depends on what you mean by oversaturated. Nowhere in your paragraph did you say that there are not enough trainers out there. So by your own post above you kind of acknowledge that there is an abundance of trainers. Are people complaining that they want to work out but can't find a trainer to schedule them in?

If you feel that you can offer better value and stand above the current choices of trainers in your area, then go ahead and get into the business.

Imagine a small city that has 100 McDonalds in it. Is the city oversaturated with burger restaurants? You can argue yes if you are McD's. But what does the CEO of Burger King think? You want to launch the first Burger King there instead of the 101st McDonalds. The question is, can you offer a BK burger or will it end up being just another McDonalds, or worse?

I love the approach and the analogy!
It's true, there's A LOT of PTs. It's an easy barrier of entry field, but the learning curve is huge. I always imagine a pyramid where the bottom is filled with bad ones, and it gets thinner and thinner pretty quick. I guess i misuse the word oversaturated.

I am still eager to see what my journey offers, even if i burn myself. I'm new so in any case it will be a good learning experience, or an exit from the Slowlane.

Thank you for your 2 cents!

 

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[ugudango]

I get your points but this seems like cope dude.

Why not focus on something with a higher barrier to entry?

My gym (PureGym) literally has constant advertisements for their PT Academy.

It could be, I still don't have hands on experience and maybe it's my ego talking, I wrote this post so i can borrow your eyes to see that.

It's a field that I want to pursue, but turn it into an online business at one point. I am already building foundations and have an app that I'm making. The PT journey is to get experience and understand the craft, so i can help more people with more quality. Reputation goes a long way.

I'm in Slovakia, I actually never see ads for PTs, just after looking around deeper i realized that the spots are open.

But anyways thank you for taking your time to help me!

 

[biophase]

Why are you building an app?

 

[ugudango]

Why are you building an app?

It's a side project that I'm doing to learn more, but down the line I might use it as a tool to solve some problems for me and both the online and offline clients. But it's not the main idea of the big picture.

 

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[ugudango]

Personal training is just a specific service.

The industry is health/fitness/nutrition. This is definitely huge.

I am more concerned with how many clients are paying (how big the market is) for personal training service compared to worrying about competition. I get the impression that if you gets online like Youtuber Greg selling training that is quite huge a market but when it comes to offline it is not as big an accessible marker. Most offline trainers struggle to make a living.

I have not done the market research and probably you should dive in on the numbers.

True, but the big plan is to go online. The service has a good pool of potential clients, but as mentioned in the book with the coffee shop example, it's limited. Going online is hard, but very possible. I'll have an easier time going online with a bunch of testimonials, credibility and reputation.

But at the end of the line, this is just very rough sketching. I'm young and I'm aware that next year i won't be thinking like today. But i want to take a step and see what comes out of it.

Thanks for the comment I'll research the numbers as you advised.