Need advice resolving conflict with gym owner - Personal Trainer Community - Forum

[FFTrainer]

I am a personal trainer and I work as an independent contractor. The owner of the studio gym that I lease also works as a trainer. Recently he had knee surgery and asked me to cover his clients. One client he got just before he his knee surgery and this client had not trained with him. This client trained for three weeks with me and would like to stay with me as her trainer. She has not trained with the gym owner. She also referred other clients to me who I signed up. The gym owner wants to take his client back now and he feels that any clients that she referred to me belong to him. I feel that she referred those clients to me because she liked the job I was doing and referred them to me based on that and therefor any referrals brought in should belong to me.

From a third party standpoint, what would be the right thing to do in this situation? I'm fine with him keeping the client that started with him. (Although I'm not sure to do about the situation since she wants to train with me instead of him.) Should I just inform the clients that I will be unable to train them at that gym? Should I move? Should the referrels belong to him? Thoughts, comments? Thanks.

[Christina]

First off, this gym owner is not a very smart businessman. Personally, I would rather the client go with another trainer in my gym than run the risk of losing the client altogether because s/he does not want to train with me. Sounds like an ego problem. Not sure what you should do but the referrals do not belong to the gym owner. Just my 2 cents.

[chrisg35]

I agree...those referrals are yours. You need to sit down and discuss this with him and explain how they cannot be his because he did nto work for them, you did. Tell him that they were referred because of what YOU did and there is no possible way that he can take them.

Chris

[standAPART]

Tell your clients that (were referred to you) to speak to him. Managers hate when members bombard them with complaints. 99% of the time they give in

[FFTrainer]

Thanks for the response. What is proper etiquette in regard to the original client. She signed up for a month of sessions from the gym owner (who had to leave right after for knee surgery). She trained with me for three weeks and would like to stay with me. He's been paying me a small percentage of what he made to train her. I mostly did it out of a favor for him since it was much less then my hourly rate. It wouldn't be financially worth my time to continue to train his client at that rate.

In this situation is it best to inform the client that I can no longer train them? Should I ask the client to speak to the gym owner themselves? Should I pay the gym owner a fee for this client? Should I drop the client to keep good a good business relationship? Thanks for the advice.

[standAPART]

The client is a person and a consumer. Your boss is treating them like they are a tangible object you got to borrow--not he wants it back. The client is the boss...they should be able to decide.

I don't understand why this is so complex. The client decides who they want to train with--its there money.

[Christina]

The client decides who they want to train with--its there money.

100% agree. I'm having a hard time understanding how this gym owner is still in business with this sort of attitude/mentality. Very strange.

[muscletrainerdh-NSCA CPT]

I can only echo what Chris, Christina and John have said.

1)You were doing the gym owner a favor
2) YOUR EXPERTISE brought in the referrals. (Because he wasn't training at the time).

I'd put out some feelers at other studios if he cannot see this. Do not worry he will not be in business much longer.

Good luck,

Dave

[C Lenart]

I see everyone has put in their two cents so I might as well put in mine. I was in sales for 17 years and have been doing fitness training for about a year now. I thought it was bad enough that the boss had you train his client and now he wants the referrals from the first client as well? Heaven help us! If someone had done this to me when I was in sales, I would have laughed at them for showing such brass.

Maybe if you want to keep peace with the gym owner, you might advocate a small revenue share with him on the first client but the referrals on the other clients are yours and yours alone.

Curt
ACSM Health/Fitness Instructor

[FFTrainer]

I appreciate the response. It seems everyone I've talked to is in agreement on this issue except him. I've decided I can no longer work with him and I am looking for a new gym. In the meantime I need to do something about the money situation. The gym owner wants me to pay him back the money the referral gave me. He has threatened to sue me if I don't pay him the money or if I take these two clients and train them in another gym. My thoughts are that I will refund the client the money he paid me and he can then follow me wherever I go and pay me at the new location. Alternatively he can not follow me in which case a refund would be necessary anyways. My hope is this will prevent the gym owner from being able to go after me financially.

Also I owe him $200 rent for the month of February which he now says will be $300 for increase use of electricity and heating resulting from me training clients. Unfortunately I made the mistake of not getting a written contract when I started working at his gym. I don't intend to make that mistake in the future. However, he also owes me $575 for training that I did for him while he was in surgery. Judging from recent encounters I anticipate that I will have to eat this loss as I don't believe he will willing give me the money and going thru the legal system wouldn't be worth the time and money.

Does this sound like a reasonable way to handle the situation? Is there anything else I should do, or do differently? Tomorrow will likely be my last day at his gym.