I am writing this article off the back of a conversation I had with a very clever guy (Dan Norman) when I was needing some advice over a new website project I will be launching in the new year. After just over an hour of chatting with Dan it was clear that it wasn?t just my website that needed defining but my business as a whole, and I realised that I need to challenge my beliefs, my thought processes and my training systems to really define my business.
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Basically, I need to make it clear to myself and to anyone that I come into contact with, what exactly it is that I do. I also need to define how being a coach, trainer, educator and movement specialist can benefit prospective clients so that I can work on attracting the clients I want to work with and keeping away those that don?t fit my model of a ?good? client.
Who Do I Want to Work With?
If any trainers are out there reading this, then they understand the dilemma of the ?crap? client ? those people who suck the joy out of the job; who want a personal trainer to do all the work; and who maybe even want someone to blame when they inevitably fail. I have experienced those kinds of clients myself ? they come and, at some point, they go, and in my experience it?s better to tell them to get lost sooner rather than later ? they only hold your business back and the little finance they provide doesn?t pay for the energy and drive they sap!
So, who do I want as my clients? I want athletes! Now this may seem a bit elitist but it?s not the technical ability that I crave or the top-end conditioning with all the skilled exercises that are above and beyond what the general public can do. Whilst this aspect is fun, I still get the same pleasure out of taking someone with very little skill and getting drastic improvements within minutes of them warming up, or seeing someone change the way they run, move pain free, or knock a stone off the scales within a 4 week period.
What all my real success stories have in common is not physical/technical ability or favourable circumstances, but simply an ?athlete?s attitude?! Bill Bowerman (cofounder of Nike) said that ?if you have a body, you are an athlete? and I kind of disagree as I have had many clients who weren?t athletes ? athletes have drive, passion and commitment! They will do everything that is needed to reach their goal! So when I say I want to train athletes, I guess what I really mean is that ?I want to train anyone with a body who has drive, passion and commitment?!
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Uh, so what exactly is it that I do??
So where do I fit in?
Recently I have been having the hardest time defining what I do for a living. By trade I suppose I am a personal trainer, and some of what I do is personal training. But in a conversation I had with a client about personal training she claimed ?I could never see myself hiring a personal trainer?. I was almost scared to respond in case she found out that is exactly what I am! But, on deeper exploration, it turned out that she saw me not as a personal trainer but as her running coach and therapist! Similarly, I also have personal trainers who refer clients to me to improve their movement ? these trainers see me as a biomechanics expert and movement specialist. I also educate personal trainers (through live courses, article writing, and PT forums), making me, to some degree at least, an educator and a mentor?All this adds to my confusion of what it is that I actually do??
For now I have come to the conclusion that I am a facilitator of change through movement and exercise. I use movement and exercise to get someone from here to there. Whether they are overweight and want to lose a few pounds or they want to run faster, jump higher, get stronger, or get out of pain. If movement and exercise can help someone then that is where I come in. I am a catalyst for change. They supply the raw materials ? the body, the goal and the determination to succeed ? and I point them in the right direction and keep them from veering off course. If they have a body, a goal and the drive to achieve it, then with my guidance, success is inevitable.
This is the closest I have come to defining what I do!
I will keep you posted on any further epiphanies 
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Source: http://www.fitnessnewspaper.com/2012/11/28/my-ideal-client-by-scott-devenney/
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