Perspective in the Fitness “Business” by Sam Leahey

The following is a guest-blog by my friend Sam Leahey, a 23-year old rising star in the fitness field. Sam has interned under Mike Boyle and Eric Cressey.

Recently I was afforded the luxury of attending a 3-day fitness business conference. The conference was one of those “big time” events that people fly from all over the world to attend. So much networking and innovative thinking was going on there that it was overwhelming for a young buck like me. However, I’m a pretty pensive person, and I did notice some things that put a new light on my perspective of the “fitness business/industry.” Though not exhaustive, here is a batch of discoveries I made:

It is WAY easier than you might think to make money with the internet. In fact, it’s so easy ANYONE can do it.

There are TONS of personal trainers and strength & conditioning coaches out there making TONS of money. Literally, TONS!

Most of those personal trainers and S&C coaches lack real and/or long-term results with their clients/athletes.

Most of those personal trainers and S&C coaches have tremendous gaps in their knowledge of exercise science and performance training.

Most of those personal trainers and S&C coaches are a bunch of scamming affiliates who care nothing about the people to whom they’re marketing.

It is easy to get so focused on the business side of things that the quality of your products and results you get with your clients/athletes starts to decline.

Now, if you go through these statements and take them to their logical extensions, the natural questions arise – “what about the ones who DO get real and long term results with their clients/athletes?”, “what about the personal trainers and S&C coaches who DO care about the people they’re marketing to because they sincerely want to enhance the level of quality knowledge out there and are not just looking for affiliate sales?”, “what about the ones who never lose focus of quality content and never let greed take over?”, “are all these guys/girls scammers too?”

I watched person after person present and even more people stand up in the crowd to testify how successful their fitness product was. In many cases the audience got an “inside look” at the product itself (videos, ebooks, etc). By the end of day two, I naturally found myself looking over at these individuals and saying to myself things like, “You don’t deserve to be selling that. It sucks, and no one is going to get results with it,” “That is the worst cookie cutter program I’ve ever seen,” “Your advice is going to get a lot of people injured. Please do some research before sharing your knowledge with others!”, and “SHUT UP AND SIT DOWN!” As I reflected on the experience during the ride home yesterday, I realized I learned a lot of what not to do and how not to be a scamming-low-quality-affiliate-seeker like the people I just encountered. However, I also found that I naturally was qualifying these individuals on some kind of imaginary continuum. They key word in the previous sentence was “qualifying,” as in, QUALITY!!!!!!!! Ah-Ha! So that’s the difference. Hopefully this depiction below will give you the reader the same epiphany I also had a on the ride home. If not, I’ve failed as an author. 8)

So, using this standard I think we can all agree that if you’re going to be putting products out there you better be at least on the far right third of the Quality Continuum. In other words, not on the far left and not just in the middle. In case you forgot, we should ALL be striving to be at the extreme end of the right side in our profession anyway! If you’re not, then please pick a new profession, we have enough low quality “professionals” and “half-effort folks” out there already. Please don’t consider putting any products out there.

Me (left), talking to a D1 strength coach (right) I met there. This was taken during one of our “speed networking” sessions.

I need to be clear here. The information I learned this weekend is very useful and CAN be used for good to enhance the general pool of knowledge out their regarding personal training and strength & conditioning. How many trainers and coaches out there do you know that would benefit tremendously if they got a hold of an E.Cressey, M.Boyle, A.Cosgrove, S.Mcgill, or M.Robertson product? Do we believe that we can change mainstream methodology of personal training and strength & conditioning? I KNOW we can. And one of the many great mediums to do that is by distributing top quality products from the aforementioned big timers.

One night after the conference I took a drive over to meet my good friend Anthony Renna for dinner. We discussed this very idea of quality and how far too many people are focused on making money and less on the quality of product their putting out. Even more disturbing is often times these individuals care more about creating products then they do about their actual profession!!!!!!!!!!!!!! One idea that kept being preached this weekend was “over deliver,” yet many products I saw were just piling on extra crap that made it even worse. All in all, this fitness business conference left me with an even higher respect for guys like Coach Boyle, Eric Cressey , Mike Robertson, Dr.Weingroff, Dr.McGill, and so many more. Our appreciation level for these leaders should be of upmost report because of the quality information they provide us all through various mediums. In the ideal world of personal training and strength and conditioning, professionals would be known for the quality they bring to the profession and not much else.

Does this represent your way of thinking. . .

Or does this?

I’d love to know how the readers feel about this topic too. Leave a comment below and we can discuss it. . .