The Lounge Q+A: Trea Cotton, Fitness Trainer

How do you keep your workouts with clients fun?

Well, I would tell them I’m a fun trainer, but I mean business. So I like to joke around. In most of my workouts, I have fun games and challenges that I do with them. So if it’s in a group setting and I have them teaming up, going against each other. Little challenge I do is playing with dice, playing cards, make it interesting. They even like musical types. I don’t know if you know, like musical chairs, but you’re doing it in a sense with a type of workout with music and everything. So I make it interesting that way.

Do you prefer training clients in classes or private sessions?

I’m pretty much doing online classes now, but I started off as a one-on-one coach. So I do like that one-on-one connection with the client. Also, you do have benefits with groups too. Because it’s not just the one-on-one connection with me, they have other people to help motivate them and get to connect with and help them push even more than probably what I can do for them one on one. Some of them don’t want to be there with me. They want the group. I say it’s almost a split tie, but I probably would say one-on-one.

Do you love or hate selling?

Well, I started out blank, not knowing anything about business. I didn’t really have a fear of sales. I just didn’t really know how to sell. I wasn’t a sales person. Until I started learning business, participating in mentorship programs. There’s some program I found out about how to make being a sales type person easier because I was all over the place. I was really just selling them on the features and not selling them on what I could do for them. So once I started learning how I could sell how it’s going to work for them, that’s what helped me.

You shared that online training isn’t easier than in person coaching. Why?

One reason it’s not easier is because it’s still kind of taboo. Even though there’s a lot of us out here and there are a lot of trainers who are going into the online space, it’s still taboo to a lot of people – especially in my state in Mississippi. In Mississippi, people don’t usually even want to work out in-person, so you’re telling them, “I don’t even get to see you.” Most people are still in that traditional mindset where they feel like in order to reach their goals they have to meet the trainer in-person. That’s really far from the truth. It’s really about what they do outside of our sessions, not in their meeting/session with us.