Fitness coach reimagines his business during pandemic.
Personal fitness coach reimagines his business model during pandemic
The routine had been the same for six years.
On Saturday mornings, Jason Atlas changed into a T-shirt, a pair of comfortable shorts and lightweight training shoes, then headed down to the basement gym of his home in Dix Hills, New York, on Long Island, where precisely at 10 a.m., he met his personal trainer, Matt Sulam, for an hourlong strength-training workout.
Sulam, 48, an independent contractor who until recently saw most of his clients in their homes, had become a familiar presence since he was hired by Atlas, a lawyer, in January 2014.
Their sessions are now virtual, via Google Hangouts just one example in a field that is figuring out what the socially distanced future holds for those in a business that involves close physical contact with clients.
Like many other fitness professionals, Sulam saw his business come to a lurching halt when the epidemic struck.
On March 12, he got a call from one longtime client. “They were apologetic,” said Sulam, who has made a full-time living as a trainer since the late 1990s. “It was like, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t have you come to the house. We want to adhere to this shelter-in-place policy.’”
Text after text followed from clients expressing similar sentiments. “It was an avalanche of cancellations,” Sulam said. “‘I thought to myself, ‘I have to shift on the fly.’ “
And he did, with a grace that belies a 178-pound man with 18-inch biceps. His reimagining of the way he does business mirrors what many others in his industry (which includes about 357,000 fitness trainers and instructors in the United States, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics) have done since the onset of the epidemic.
The day after his clients began canceling, Sulam was speaking to his brother, Benjamin. “He told me he was staying in touch with his friends using video calls,” Sulam said. “I couldn’t remember the last time I’d made a video call, but that’s when the light bulb went on. I said: ‘Wait a minute. I can do virtual training sessions this way. Most of my clients have some equipment at home. All they need to do is put their phone somewhere I can see what they’re doing.’”
In the course of a few days, Sulam did nothing less than reinvent the delivery structure for his service: He took a Google Hangouts tutorial on
“Most of my clients have some equipment at home. All they need to do is put their phone somewhere I can see what they’re doing.”
Personal trainer Matt Sulam
line, and purchased, on Amazon for $10.85, an adjustable cellphone holder that allowed him to give his clients a better vantage point when he needed to demonstrate exercises. He also made a more significant investment with an upgrade of his Android phone to the model with the largest and highest-resolution screen; he even spoke to the daughter of a client who works in the film industry.
He also set up an online payment account through his bank that allowed for easy billing and payment for his sessions ($95 per hour).
As of mid-May, all but one of his approximately 20 clients have continued training with Sulam on a virtual basis. Moreover, he has gotten inquiries from new clients who live out of state business that he previously would not have been able to accept. “I can go anywhere now,” he said with a laugh.
And where Sulam seems headed to a more successful business model. “The savvy personal trainer is not sitting back waiting for things to return to normal,” said Mark Nutting, author of “The Business of Personal Training.”
Nancy Waldron, an entrepreneurship expert and associate professor at Lasell University in Newton, Massachusetts, said the lesson of Sulam’s pivot is relevant to all businesses, not just those that involve barbells.
“So many small businesses have said, ‘I can’t sell my product, I can’t sell my services, I’m just going to have to shut down,’” Waldron said, “without giving themselves the time to think about possible changes and be innovative.”
Sulam, she said, is making himself even more valuable. “In a year or two, his clients are going to say, ‘That was a hard time, but he was there for me in a way I didn’t expect,’” she said. “That matters to clients.”
Other personal-services providers in the fitness and health industry have also changed what Waldron calls this “value proposition.”
When the lockdown in California began and Sarana Miller realized that her livelihood was on hold, the Berkeley yoga instructor responded in true yogi fashion.
“I took a deep breath,” she said.
She then began thinking about how to keep her practice usually done in studios or homes or on retreats alive. She decided to take a stab at virtual teaching, even though she had no experience with it. Within a few days, Miller, 45, had downloaded the basic version of Zoom and set up lights and a camera in her home studio.
A test class for friends went well, Miller said, “so I thought, ‘Let’s open it up to a larger audience.’” She sent emails to students, new and old, inviting them to a Sunday morning class on March 29. “Just before we started the class, we reached 100, which was the limit for my version of Zoom,” she says. “I had to upgrade to Zoom Pro two minutes before the class started.”
Now, her Sunday classes average 135 participants, compared with 30 to 35 before. Students log in from across the country, as well as Mexico, France and Austria.
“I’ve grown my business in a way I would have never expected,” she said.
For Travis Macy, an endurance-sports coach in Evergreen, Colorado, the challenge was not solvable with a technology reboot. “It’s less of a supply issue, and more of demand,” Macy said. “All the races my clients were training to do have been canceled.”
Macy thought about how he could create new demand for his niche business. “We’re now saying, ‘OK, so if such and such a race isn’t happening this year, is there a cool mission or journey you’d like to take?’” he said. “‘Something meaningful to you?’”
He found clients eager to develop and prepare for such personal challenges. One plans to ride the Colorado Trail 485 miles from Denver to Durango, through the Rocky Mountains on a mountain bike. Another has expressed interest in a bike-riding tour of the West this summer with his wife. Others are planning to compete in virtual races.
“It’s highly individualized,” said Macy, who charges a monthly retainer for his services. “My role now is to help with identifying the goal, planning and guiding the client’s training, and maybe helping with the route and gear.”