PT income and the 80/20 rule

Most of you will have heard of Pareto's principle, that many things in the world follow an 80/20 distribution, especially that 80% of your income will come from 20% of your clients. This seems to be largely true, even if the numbers aren't quite right. As well, 80% of your headaches at work come from 20% of your clients, and those are never the clients giving you the 80% of your income. 

Obviously you have to look at this over time. If you have 10 clients, you will not find that 2 of them are doing 80% of your PT sessions. But over a year or two with clients coming and going you might find that a few who stick around for a long time end up spending a lot of money on you. 

I have some stats from my own training so we can look at the income part, see attached giving information from 2010.07.01-2012.06.30. 

• "Sessions" are those done from start to finish; this includes sessions the person never showed to but got charged for, but does not include any extra time I gave them but didn't charge for, eg if they came at 0600 and I had no-one at 0630 the session might go till 0645.
• "Months" are the months they worked with me for, though obviously this number goes up for those still with me.
• "Income" is simply the percentage of total sessions.
• "Income cumul" means the cumulative income of those clients.

For FY2010/11 and 2011/12 I did 1,549 paid PT sessions, where a "session" is 30 minutes. Some people did a full hour, and there were some sessions where people were absent without notice and so were charged for even though I didn't train them. I generally gave the training time to someone else like a current or potential client.

I trained 36 different people at least once each, not counting when I covered for some other trainer, gave out entirely free sessions to people who never signed up, etc. Of those, 12 remained clients till the end of the period, these are the ones highlighted in grey. 

• Client #1 by himself made up 14% of my PT income. 
• 6 of 36 clients (17%) made up 53% of my PT income.
• 12 of 36 (33%) made up 81% income.
• 18/36 (50%) made up 91%.

As for headaches,

• 8/36 (22%) of the clients I would classify as a "headache", in that if they showed up again today offering to buy 100 sessions up front non-refundable I'd turn them down
• These 8 headaches provided 7% of my income.

So it's not quite the 80/20 rule, but it's certainly true that a small number of clients provided most of my PT income, and none of these were those giving me headaches. In pure dollar terms, half (18) of the clients weren't really worth bothering with, since they provided only 1/10th the income of the rest. The time I spent training them I could have spent giving free sessions to my bigger-spending clients, planning their workouts, finding interesting articles for them to read, etc. 

The problem is of course that you never know exactly which clients are going to be the ones sticking around the longest. For example, 4 of the bottom 18 clients are still with me, if they're still around in a year or two then they'll look more important. However, generally speaking the clients giving me the most headaches are not among the big spenders. The exception would be #10, who was likeable and worked hard in sessions, but did nothing outside the PT sessions, had a terrible diet, and missed or was late to about 1/4 sessions due to sleeping in, being "sick", etc. 

I can make some general observations about what makes a client long-term.

• If they tell you how super-dedicated they are without your asking, they'll never last. Truly dedicated people are quietly dedicated; the others are trying to convince themselves.
• Those who are quick to sign up are quick to quit. The longest-lasting ones have generally been those who took 6 weeks to 6 months to sign up.
• Those given PT sessions by family or as part of a centre promotion never last; they perceive it as "free!" and so don't value it. If they want it, they'll pay for it.
• Physical training can change how you look, feel (health) and perform. Those who only care about looks never last. The health-oriented ones are the most dedicated.
• If they only plan to do PT for X sessions or weeks, they will eventually stop. Client #6 planned to do 6 weeks and did 12 months - but she stopped in the end. Most of the others stopped on schedule.
• If they last past session #30 they'll probably be around for 100 sessions or more. 30 sessions is after all a few months, enough time to get results or not. 
• if they miss more than 1 session in 10, they will quit by session #30 in most cases. This is different to a person who often reschedules their session because of work, family, etc.
• if they do no work outside your sessions, they will quit by session #30 in most cases.
• If they annoy you in some way, you probably annoy them in some way, and it won't last. You'll know this within 3 sessions with them, but may choose to deny it to yourself out of optimism and professional pride. If they communicate with you outside sessions, respond to your emails about stuff, they are likely to last.
• those you recruit yourself last longer than those given you by management; I recruited 27 and was given 9, and kept 11/27 and 1/9.

Thus we can paint a picture of an ideal long-term client. 

• You signed them up. They took a month or two to sign up for PT, and are paying for it all themselves.
• Quietly dedicated.
• Has good health as a goal, possibly overcoming some injury or illness. 
• Has made an open-ended commitment to PT. 
• Does workouts (even just walks to work, etc) outside PT sessions.
• Gets along well with you and communicates frequently by different means.

Most other trainers don't keep as detailed records as this, but they agree on the broad conclusions. 

Coaching movement

In the places I've worked, we often have trainee instructors come in. You're supposed to get your certifications and then do 20-40hr of placement in a gym to finish it off. Not very demanding, I know, but while some trainee instructors are very interested and do extra hours, most are bored, it's all too much of an imposition on their precious time. The intelligent ones learn to coach movement. This is important, since teaching correct movement is the most important part of our job as personal trainers. Most fitness instructors whether trainee or employed cannot teach correct movement.

Coaching movement is a three part process.

1. teach correct movement
2. over the fullest possible range of motion
3. add load

We first teach correct movement. It doesn't have to be perfect, just good enough to be going on with. Next we ensure it's over the fullest possible range of motion for that person, given restrictions of flexibility, previous injury or condition, etc - most can manage a full range of motion if you know how to coach it out of them. Only after that do we add load.

Now, when we insist on a full range of motion or add load, the movement may degrade. The half-squat looks good, drop them into a deep squat and their knees cave in. Add load? If the person can't do a proper squat with no weight, why would you add weight? First we need the movement to be correct over that fuller range of motion, so having increased the range of motion, we return to teaching correct movement.

Once it looks good, we put a dumbbell in their hands - now it starts looking rough again. Back to teaching correct movement. After a few sets it looks good, next workout we'll add load again. 

And so it goes, round and again. It's a process with no end point, you are always going to be teaching correct movement. However, you must know how to teach those movements correctly.

Teaching correct movement
In any movement, there are 10-12 points that actually matter. But there are 3-4 points that if the person gets them right, the other stuff either falls into place or can be safely ignored until they're stronger and those 3-4 points are automatic. Give them 10-12 points and they'll be overwhelmed and learn nothing, give them 3-4 and most people will get it quickly. 

Considering the basic gym movements of,

• squat
• push
• pull
• hip hinge

there are two points common to each: weight through heels, chest up. 

Weight through heels comes about because it makes the exercise safer and more effective. When you have your weight through your toes, you're less stable but more mobile. That's why dancers, boxers, basketballers and so on put their weight through their toes. If you're going to chuck a bloody great weight on your back, you want to be stable! Weight through heels makes the movement safer. 

As for effectiveness, remember that our body doesn't just adapt to what we do in the gym, but to everyday life as well. We have a seated lifestyle, so our back, arse and hamstrings are all weak. When you put your weight through your toes, the movement is more calves and quads; through the heels, more back, glutes and hamstrings. Weight through heels makes the movement more effective.

Chest up simply means that the person will have a good long back, being in thoracic and lumbar extension. That way your nice big glutes can lift the weight, instead of your poor little lower back muscles. Standing tall you look better, feel better, and more importantly from the point of view of the weightroom, you can support a big weight better - if you're building a house, do you give it bent foundations or straight? 

If you can get "weight through heels, chest up!" into your head, that's two-thirds of the technique of the most useful movements in the gym. Usually there'll just be 1-2 other points to get the movement pretty good. 

For example, in the squat the third point is "knees out". All that "butt back" and "stretch out your hamstrings as you descend" sort of stuff just confuses people. The idea is to get the damn legs out of the way so the person can drop down between them. That's "knees out". If the person can get weight through heels, chest up and knees out, then that's the squat. 

To make it easier to remember "weight through heels", lift up your big toe. For "chest up", clasp your hands to your chest and keep them there - if you let them drift forwards, you'll probably hunch over. For "knees out", at the bottom of the squat put your elbows inside your knees and push out. Voila, goblet squat.

From there, you can have a dumbbell or sandbag or whatever in your hands, or a barbell across your back. And then we start getting into tweaks of whether to do high bar or low bar squat, and whether to use a full grip or a false grip, and so on. But the three points - weight through heels, chest up, knees out - well, that's the squat, pretty much. Get that right, practice it for 20 or so reps a few times a week for a few months, and you'll be squatting well and stronger. After that we can worry about the details. 

Commonly I'll have someone start with a goblet squat. If they can do 20 decent reps with no weight, then I give them a 5kg dumbbell. If they can do 10 good reps with that, 7.5kg, and then 10kg. Once they can goblet squat 10kg for 10-20 decent reps, I know they'll be ready to stick a barbell on their back. 

We start with the empty bar, 20kg. In the first session they might need as many as 5 reps for 5 sets to get the technique okay, the bar not wobbling around too much, not cutting the depth short and so on. Next session, 22.5kg for 15-25 reps total. Next, 25kg, and so on. The jumps might be 5-10kg for a healthy young male, or 2.5kg for a woman or older person, or even 2.5kg every 2-3 weeks for someone older and injured. 

Once they hit 40kg on the barbell back squat, it's time to bring in the front squat, which they can usually get 30kg with in their first session. We might alternate between the two now. Usually only around now will I mention their grip on the bar, whether the back squat has a full or false grip and the like. I might also talk about a tight upper back. When they're squatting 20kg they can do it with a loose back, and just remembering "knees out" as they come up out of the squat is enough for them to worry about, nor are they likely to hunch over much anyway - it's only 20kg. 

But once they get to 40-60kg, their upper back starts to matter. By this stage "weight through heels, chest up, knees out" has been practiced for 12-36 workouts, so it's pretty much automatic. They can focus on other stuff. And it progresses like that: first get the basics right, then when they're automatic and the person is stronger, add in the details. 

So, every movement has 10-12 points that matter, and 3-4 points that if you get them right, everything else either falls into place or can be safely ignored until the person has practiced the 3-4 enough for them to be automatic and is stronger. 

But what are those 10-12 points? And which are the 3-4 points to begin with? How do I describe them the most succinctly? If the person is struggling up from the bottom of the squat with their bodyweight on their back they can't listen to long explanations about good lumbar and thoracic extension, they need something snappy like, "chest up!" 

To learn those concise cues you can either spend 20-30 years being a coach or trainer and fucking things up and learning, or else you can follow some experienced coaches, see how they've done things. I've found Dan John and Mark Rippetoe the most useful. Now when trainee fitness instructors come into the gym, I try to pass that stuff on.

Most aren't interested so I just get them to wipe down treadmills, but some are interested, these are the ones who will have a productive career in training themselves and others. You don't have to know everything on day one, even the dumbest trainer knows more than most gym members and thus has something to offer them - but you do have to be willing to learn more about coaching movement.