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Should You Hire a Life Coach at Your Health Club?

September 21, 2016

Being healthy means more than being physically fit. It includes being mentally and emotionally strong as well. Hiring a life coach at your health club can help encourage your members on matters having to do with careers or personal challenges. According to Newsweek a life coach is “Part consultant, part motivational speaker, part therapist and part rent-a-friend, coaches work with managers, entrepreneurs, and just plain folks, helping them define and achieve their goals — career, personal, or most often, both.”

Encourage Members to Go Beyond Physical Fitness

Hiring a life coach can push your members to become better versions of themselves, much like how a personal trainer pushes her or her client to be their best physically. The difference is that a personal trainer motivates members by pushing them to be in the best person they can through a tailored exercise regimen, while a life coach will motivate members to reach a goal and encourage mental health. A life coach is your members’ source of positivity, motivation, and accountability in their physical fitness, personal relationships, and professional life.

Help Your Staff Understand Members’ Needs

When hiring a life coach, your club can better understand each member’s personal needs and, identify other aspects of their lives that can affect their fitness goals, like stress at work or home. Once the life coach has identified stressors or goals for a member, they can work with them to create direction and focus and give advice.

With this information, you can tailor your fitness center to meet their needs and attract new  members by showing them that your club can make a difference in not only their physical health, but mental. A “trial” meeting with a life coach would be a good way to entice potential members to sign a membership with your club – complete with regular check-ins with his or her own personal life coach. Remember: a life coach is not a counselor. They merely provide their clients with guidance and motivation so they can make their own decisions.

Life Coaches Aren’t for Everyone

Life coaches in health clubs may not satisfy your member base if they come in looking for just the bare essentials to do what they want, get in their desired workout, and move on to the next task. A life coach could be beneficial to a club that already has a staff meant to enrich a member’s life, like a personal trainer, nutritionist, or dietician and is looking to add another service. Clubs that are looking to understand each member on a more personal level and use this method as a form of signing new memberships could also benefit from a life coach.

Up Next: 5 Ways to Get Your Gym Staff to Do More