April 5, 2020

Remote sit-ups

Sent by Jonathan Stark on April 5th, 2020

After no small amount of encouragement from me, my personal trainer finally agreed to do a remote workout video call with me.

Our first session was last Wednesday. It was the first time he had ever used Zoom for anything, nevermind coaching a client thorough a workout.

Nevertheless, it went well. It might not have been as effective as being in the gym physically, but it was way the heck better than nothing.

We had our second session today, four days later. While we were chit-chatting between sets of plank jacks, I asked if he had any other clients who he was doing Zoom calls with.

His reply:

“I have 35 clients booked for this coming week.”

He went from zero to all but five of his clients in four days! He even picked up two past clients who had moved away, one to Connecticut and one to LA.

Even though I was the one who talked him into remote sessions, I was surprised by how quickly and completely he pivoted his business from a very “physical world” type of thing into the virtual realm.

I commented on this and he said, “Yeah at this point it just feels like this is the new normal. Seems like things aren’t going to go back to the old way for a long time. Maybe ever.”

He went on to say that most of the other trainers at his gym were having a hard time making the transition to remote sessions. They didn’t like the idea of training people without all the fancy gym equipment and they were uncomfortable with the remote video technology.

“I tried to show them how easy it is, but... I don’t know,” he told me, shaking his head.

We both knew what he meant but didn’t say... If his other trainers don’t adapt, their income will probably going to go to zero for a very long time.

Here’s the thing...

There’s going to be a new normal.

Adapting now while everything’s in flux is going to be a lot easier than scrambling in 6 months (or 6 weeks) once everyone has settled into a new status quo.

Now is the time.

Yours,

—J