We get to know Meagan Baron in this Trainer Spotlight episode of FITLETE Radio.
GEORGE: Introduce yourself and tell us a little about what you do and your background.
My name is Megan Barron and I own Get Fit New Hampshire. I operate out of Concord, New Hampshire. My gym is a large group personal training facility with an emphasis on personal. So I work with clients between the ages of 50 to 70 for the most part men and women and really clients who are looking to age with grace so they can continue to do the things that they love to do and the things that they need to do as they mature. So while definitely people come to me because they're like, hey I want to lose weight. I want to feel better. The main person who's coming to me is like I want to work out again, and I don't want to get hurt when I do it. I want to be able to pick up my grandkids. I want to be able to put my own luggage in the overhead compartment. I just want to be able to retire and actually live my life. So those are the people that I work with and I absolutely love these people. So, yeah, I've been doing this for about 13 years. I do have a degree in exercise science and I started out at Get Fit New Hampshire as just an intern. I came to this gym as just a person off the street fresh out of the Marine Corps. He hired me on as an intern. I worked for free and eventually worked my way into a part-time position and then into a full-time position and then six years in he was like, hey, I'm ready to sell and I was like, oh, well, I guess I'll buy him out. So I bought out the previous owner in 2018 and it's been a ride ever since. So that's how I ended up where I'm at now, and I just like I never feel like I'm working. I absolutely positively love what I do and who I work with and I just wouldn't change it for the world.
GEORGE: Tell me a funny or interesting story about yourself that helps us get to know you as a human.
So, super funny story that happened to me this past summer. I was headed over to get my kids from their dad. We were gonna go to the beach for the afternoon. So, I drive all the way, several cities over, grab my kids at a local Dunkin Donuts and we start to head to the beach. Well, probably like two minutes after they get in my car, all of a sudden this ginormous bird like dove down and hit the front of my car and I drive like a big Tahoe. So, I was like, oh my gosh, everybody jumped super loud. We laughed about it. It was over. Then proceed to drive the rest of the way to the beach. It was about 50 minutes away. So, we drive and I'm noticing on the highway that like there are people in their cars turning their heads and they're looking at my car and I'm thinking like, like am I driving like a jerk? Like what is going on right now? And so, I get all the way to this state park in New Hampshire to the beach and I approach the gate and the guy at the gate goes, ma'am, do you know that there is a large bird hanging out of the grill of your Tahoe right now? And I was like, oh my god, are you serious? And he's like, I was like, how bad is it? He was like, ma'am, it is quite the scene. And so, I get out and I park and no kidding, a giant hawk flew into my car and it was stuck nose-first in the grill of my car and I'm thinking, oh my god, what am I gonna do? And well, it's dead. So, we go and we do the beach thing all day long, come out and I come out and I'm like, where's the bird? The bird is gone. I get closer and I realize that the bird is fully inside of my grill and also still alive. I had to call Fish and Game to take the grill off of my Tahoe to get the bird. They got the bird out and it went to the Audubon Society where it was then rehabbed and let back into the wild. So, that was a whole experience for me. That bird, that bird is amazing because it survived a 45-minute drive and all day at the beach on like an 80-degree day. So, yeah, that's probably the craziest thing that's ever happened to me.
GEORGE: What strategies do you use to attract and retain clients in your personal training business?
So outside of social media and word-of-mouth, we have positioned ourselves closely with physical therapists and chiropractors and orthopedic surgeons and the like just to be their go-to gym. We work with, like I said, an older demographic, 50 to 70, so lots of folks who have had knee replacements and hip replacements and of course they have arthritis and tons of other aches and pains. These guys don't want to get hurt and they are likely working with physical therapists or have worked with physical therapists or chiropract or orthopedic surgeons or doctors and they're looking for answers there and oftentimes the answer is, hey, you need to just like get stronger and you need to be strong as you get older so you can maintain your independence. So we've positioned ourselves closely with local physical therapists, chiropractors and orthopedic doctors so that way when they feel comfortable referring their patients to us because they know that they'll be in good hands. So of course we do really well with word-of-mouth, our clients referring their friends and family to us because they know that they'll be in good hands. We retain our clients because we actually really care. You know, we do the little things, right? We check on them when they're not in the gym. We write them handwritten notes. We continue to bring them value when they're not with us. So all those little things go such a long way. So that's how we attract and retain our clients.
GEORGE: What is your process for assessing a new client's fitness level and addressing their goals?
So I think my business is a little bit different than a lot of others who are in the personal training space because I'm large group personal training. So when I'm coaching I have two or three coaches on the floor and then I have like between 25 and 35 people on the floor training. So we have like a base training for the day and then we modify or progress that training kind of based on each individual in the room. So before somebody starts with us they go through a health history form right where there's those basic questions about aches pains injuries history things like that and then of course we go over that but then they enter a two-week free trial. So we don't do any assessments before they come in for their two-week free trial outside of their health history. We used to do a functional movement screen and kind of what we found was because we're a large group personal training we weren't able to screen everybody enough to get them out of like the bands and things like that that that went along with the functional movement screen. So we took that away we started doing just a health history and really reading close into that and then watching how they move on the floor. So our coaching team of course caters to the people who are new and then our coaches communicate amongst each other hey here's what we saw with Mary today on her squats she really needs to have a bench underneath her so that she can get that full depth or we put a DS band around her knees to really emphasize pulling her knees out as she squats down or hey she really needs some work on her hinge. So it's a lot of communication between our coaches in discussing how this client or this trial moves so that we can all be on the same page and what they really need to be coached on. But yeah we all look at that health history and we ask a lot of questions to the client especially if they have recently had like a knee replacement or something how does that squat feel? Do we need assisted? So it's just a lot of communication but other than that we don't do like a pre-screen anymore outside of just a written health history.
GEORGE: What certifications do you hold, and how do you stay updated on the latest fitness trends and research?
I am a certified functional strength coach level one. I also hold a degree in exercise science and a personal trainer certificate, of course. But outside of those things, I learn best by doing. So I enjoy going to things like the Perform Betters, and the Raise the Bar events, and the Mike Boyle seminars, things like that. I've been to Eric Cressey's seminars as well. So going to those in-person conferences, or seminars, or workshops really help me stay sharp on some of the things that are going on, because I like to do them in real time. I like to be coached by the professionals who know what they're doing, who have that strong skill set. I follow credible coaches, you know, like Luca Hoeksevar, and that's the one that comes to mind right away. He's amazing, and he's always putting out super quality content, and giving you kind of different ideas. Oh, Kevin Carr is another really super great one that just gives so much value on their social media to help you kind of stay just in tune with other ideas to help your clients progress. So I, like I said, do prefer to be in person where I can be physically coached by people like Mike Boyle, and Kevin Carr, and Eric Cressey, and Luca. I've been to a ton of his workshops also, but other than that, social media, if you know the right people to follow who are credible, then you can learn so much from their content.
GEORGE: How do you envision your personal training business evolving in the next few years?
This is definitely a super exciting question, especially because I'm fresh back from the Raise the Bar conference, where I just came up with so many great ideas. So, like I said, I'm an in-person group personal training facility. I have one big 10,000 square foot facility, sort of that big open space type of vibe. But next door, there's a space that's about 2,000 square feet. And what I'm looking to do is expand and have that be like a door control 24-7 type of gym that's accessible to people like other personal trainers, 1099 type of personal trainers, where they can come in. They can use the gym to coach their clients, but also an opportunity for me to have an online business as well, where people who aren't able to make the class times that I currently offer, I can use an app called CoachRx to write them a training. They can come in, they can do it, they can still get coached by me virtually, still use my gym and have access to all the same resources that I offer my current clients. So, so much opportunity with technology now to be able to grow and scale your business. And it's really exciting too. And then, of course, there's all these different systems where you can reach people from afar, can use the same CoachRx app and, you know, write trainings for people who are across the world and just use, you know, what they have in their local commercial gym to write them a training and be able to still follow up with them and, and keep them accountable. So there's, there's so much opportunity out there. And I always learn about something new when I go to these conferences that talk about how to scale your business.
GEORGE: What do you think are the biggest challenges currently facing the fitness & personal training industry?
I think that social media is a big challenge in the fitness space. I think from a consumer standpoint, from a client standpoint, someone who doesn't have the education in the fitness space because there's so many just opinions out there from different influencers and they're seeing all these different all this different advice and it's like how do you know which one to follow what's right for them so they're trying all these different things because they're seeing these amazing bodies and they're telling them how they got that and sometimes it's like this ridiculous information and I think of like nutrition up front like they're like should I do keto should I do paleo should I do intermittent fasting should I have red meat and I'd be a vegan like what do I do and they are just kind of trying all these different trends and they're just looking at these influencers who maybe have these like amazing bodies and they're like oh I want to look like that so I'm gonna try this but you know it's it's sad for me to see all of like the misinformation or not the full picture being put out there on social media and just making the fitness space an unnecessary like confusing space so anyways that is a that is one area where I find it's like a big huge challenge in a problem in our industry
Want more Meagan Baron in your life? You can find’em here:
Visit: https://getfitnh.com/coaches.php
Gym Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/getfitnh/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meagan_baron
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