You're Paid by the Pound

Written by Deb and Brad Warren on Nov 10, 2008 11:27 am

Read More: Leadership | Personal Development | Prospecting | Sponsoring and Recruiting

There's a huge difference in how a fitness center owner and a personal trainer run their businesses. The owner of the club will advertise a great membership special which promises the body you desire at an affordable price. You are inspired by the photos of your future self and visit the gym. The manager greets you warmly and gives you a tour to show you all of the latest and greatest equipment designed to give you maximum results in the shortest amount of time. You have no idea how to use any of this equipment, but it surely must work because this manager, as well as many of the people in the gym, are in fantastic shape. You sign up on the spot.

You enthusiastically return the next day to transform your body and your life. You observe several members using the equipment, and it looks a bit intimidating and more complicated than you first thought. A flood of questions fill your brain, and soon you're drowning in doubt. You consider asking some of the other members for help, but you don't want to interrupt their progress by asking obvious questions. So, you play around on the treadmill for awhile and head for home.

After a few more of these sessions, spaced at increasing intervals, you decide to accept your current body as it is. After all, you tried, but creating a healthier body just didn't work for you. Those other fit people at the gym were probably born that way or just really lucky.

The owners of fitness centers can not only predict this scenario, they count on it. They get their money for you signing up. If you keep coming back, that means more work for them. Answering your questions takes time away from showing new prospects the incredible facility. Having you wander around trying to improve yourself wears out the equipment and makes the place look crowded with unfit & unsuccessful members - that's not good for business.

Imagine instead if the gym owner was only paid when you are successful. How would their attitudes and behaviors change if they were paid by the pound... if their financial success depended on your physical success? That simple yet powerful idea was the birth of the personal trainer industry.

The personal trainer is hired on a monthly basis to coach you to remarkable results. This person knows that his/her income depends upon you reaching goals and resetting new goals repeatedly until you reach your desired level of fitness. They are, quite literally, paid by the pound. Most of their business comes from the referrals of jubilant clients telling their friends who marvel at their results that they couldn't have done it without their coach.

The incredible power of the Internet has changed network marketing in many positive ways. You can now reach out to people across the globe as well as across the street. The one thing that hasn't changed is that all successful network marketers are personal trainers and coaches. They appreciate Zig Ziglar's sentiment, "You can have anything you want, if you help enough people get what they want."

As a new partner enters their business, the very best network marketing coaches begin by creating a road map to success. They mastermind with the new partner exactly why they joined, what they want to accomplish, and how they will work together to create a bold new life.

The coach assists by keeping the new members accountable until they develop self-accountability. The ultimate goal of the trainer is to make themselves unnecessary. The team partner learns how to keep moving their own goals forward as well as how to coach their own partners.

Make no mistake. You are a coach. You are paid by the pound.

Reach out to your excited new team members today.

Follow through and coach them to world class.

Keep leading forward!

Deb and Brad