Empowering Fitness Professionals to Build Sustainable Careers [Podcast Series]
[:55] Dr. Bantham introduces her guest, Kathleen Ferguson
Kathleen Ferguson is Founder at Coach360
She is also a mother, bodybuilder, and industry connector.
[1:08] Keeping fitness professionals in the industry
“That is really the problem that Coach360 is aiming to address, is how do we keep health and fitness professionals working and doing what they do best, which is being that guide on millions of consumers' health and fitness journey. How do we keep them in the industry, and how do we then make sure that we're matching them with the right roles in clubs and studios around the country?”
[5:18] Supporting fitness professionals’ career pathways
“So that's where we're trying to go in and figure out a better way to align the right opportunity with the right talent, and so what we're doing is we're able to essentially take the story of the club and studio and outline and articulate what that career pathway is and what those benefits are and what, most importantly, what that company culture is within that specific facility, and we can tell that story across the media platform.”
[12:57] Empowering fitness professionals to build sustainable careers
“That's why the clubs and studios come to us, is that they need talent. I mean, I can give you an example. Just this week alone, I've had probably six operators from six different brands reach out and tell me that they need either a lead trainer or a general manager yesterday. They always say yesterday is when they need it, and they just can't find and source this talent on their own because the people that are applying on these other job boards are not qualified. They don't have the experience in fitness. They've never been a trainer. They don't have a, they've never had a certification, and that's honestly that's what they're looking for in leadership most of the time.”
[17:28] State of the current fitness professional workforce
“While I believe that the number of health and fitness professionals has remained pretty much steady, we are definitely seeing a rise now in all these various different courses and certifications and pathways that a coach can go through to essentially build this long term career and drive and diversify streams of revenue.”
[21:49] Standardizing fitness professional credentials
“Those are the steps that I take to address those types of things, and honestly, it comes down to education to the consumer and the public, as well as what are we doing as an industry to come forth and make sure that we are creating some sort of cohesive and standardized methodology for CPT and credentialing.”
[29:13] Being a credible, trusted information source
“It's never perfect, but all we can do is just try our best to make sure what we're putting there is credible and rooted in science and education.”
