Connor the Client
Hi Precision Blog!
My name is Connor Stankus and I’m a Precision Trainer.
If you’ve been training at Precision for any length of time, I’m sure by now we’ve had an opportunity to meet each other.
If you know me, you know that I love getting the opportunity to learn more about people.
More specifically: I love learning more about the people that I’m actively helping.
Learning who a person is, is so much more than just...
What they look like
How old they are
How much they weigh
What car they drive
What shoes they wear to workout
Or how much money they make
All of us have reasons for why we do what we do. Those reasons stem from who we are.
My job technically does not require me to care to learn about: who a person is.
But... My job is way easier to accomplish, more efficient over time, and 1000% more enjoyable when I care about that person and take the time to listen & learn: who they are and why they are training with me.
Before I worked at Precision Training, before I became a personal trainer, I was a client… for about 10 minutes. Leading up to my decision to train with a personal trainer, I always thought a personal trainer is like a coach to a one person fitness team.
I was expecting my first personal training session would involve some type of an assessment or at least a sit down conversation where the trainer would listen to my explanation for why I was seeking a personal trainer in the first place.
Let’s just say, I was surprised when “my trainer” greeted me for my first session by informing me, he only had 10 minutes before he had to leave the gym to take his girlfriend out on a date. Apparently he double booked himself that night… it happens.
To his credit, before he left, he gave me the first four exercises that popped into his head when I asked him what I was supposed to do about my workout that night.
However, it would’ve been more helpful had he shown me how to perform the movements before he left.
He of course tracked the session as though he trained it cause it was my fault I signed up in the first place.
It was an eye opening experience to say the least.
He seemed so excited when I signed up.
I just walked up and said that I was interested to learn more about working with a personal trainer.
What I came to realize was, most of the training industry cares more about your money than why you’re a client.
That night, everything changed for me.
I went home and made a commitment to myself that
I was going to become a personal trainer
I was going to change the way personal training was experienced for clients & trainers
I started my “training career” as a janitor in a gym.
In what seemed like no time at all, I climbed the ranks of that company and became the personal training department head.
I was 20 years old. Financially, things were looking great for me.
Things happened so fast though, I hadn’t even finished my first personal training certification yet.
Oddly enough, the company didn’t seem to mind. I was producing for them. Better yet, I was making members happy to be in the gym, and I was working more than any other employee. They loved it and they thought I was one of them.
They thought wrong.
Needless to say, my job search began shortly after my promotion.
I was honestly getting more and more frustrated with the industry because I realized everywhere I interviewed was the same as where I had just left.
Fitness Culture
Why the client was there -- didn’t matter.
Who the client is -- didn’t matter.
What the client paid -- that mattered.
How much you sold to clients -- definitely mattered.
Do you know what you are talking about -- as long as no one got hurt, it didn’t matter.
How well you communicate, understand and demonstrate proper movement patterns, and your ability to get clients to enjoy working out -- DID NOT MATTER!
I became a personal trainer to bring change to the fitness world for the benefit of my clients and my teammates.
I knew I needed to find a place that already thought the way I was thinking because I wasn’t ready to do it myself.
I just got certified AND
I still needed to learn how a personal trainer who cares about their clients operates a successful business.
All I’d seen up to that point was disgraceful personal training that was extremely profitable for some reason.
As time passed, I nearly gave up hope I’d be able to achieve my goals before actually starting. There didn’t seem to be a diamond in the rough throughout the fitness industry.
Until, one day, I got a call.
It was this nice lady named Pat representing a gym called Precision Training.
She told me what the owner (and only trainer at the time) was like as a person, what he believed in, and how hard he worked. I loved what I was hearing and before I got my hopes up, I made sure I met Wade.
I’ll be honest. He was not nice at the interview.
I don’t hold it against him. I found out after he hired me that he was just as frustrated as I was. Except, Wade had been interviewing trainer after trainer and couldn’t find anyone who shared his same passion to change the way trainers’ train.
If you have been training at Precision for any length of time, you know how special this gym really is. I LOVE this community!!! I look forward to coming to Precision everyday.
Our members ARE the reason why I became and remain a personal trainer!!
I absolutely LOVE seeing the smile on peoples’ faces as they walk in and out of Precision Training. The joy I get when I get to see YOU succeed is like nothing else and that is what keeps me going and keeps me loving what I do.
