Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 3 PART TRAINER SERIES BONUS EP - Episode 3 Assessments That Sell Training

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

3 Part Trainer Bonus Series – EP 3: How to Do an Assessment the Right Way (SELL TRAINING) Why trainers MUST use assessments. (0:42) The main value and goal of this first free session. (3:25) Mistakes trainers make. (8:40) How to Do an Assessment the Right Way (SELL TRAINING) #1 – Use easy-to-understand terminology and explain what it means to them. (15:51) #2 – Explain the benefit of what you will do for that problem. (17:11) #3 – Tie down or agree, this is valuable. (18:26) Related Links/Products Mentioned Trainer the Trainer Webinar Series Mind Pump # 1262: Why Fitness Assessments are Important Mind Pump # 1622: Nine Signs Your Trainer Sucks MAPS Prime Webinar Online Personal Training Course | Mind Pump Fitness Coaching ** Approved provider by NASM/AFAA (1.9 CEUs)! Grow your business and succeed in 2025. ** Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. All right, this is going to be part three, Assessments That Sell Training. You've already seen part one and part two. This is the final part. Also, don't forget, there's going to be a free webinar. I'm going to teach you how to sell training. How do you sell packages of training,

sessions of training for top dollar? How you present makes a big difference. It's at trainerwebinar.com. It's free, it's June 3rd, and it's happening at 4 p.m. So please go, again, it's free. Can't wait to see you there. Here comes part three. All right, so this is part three.

We're gonna talk about assessments, but to be more specific, assessments comes part three. All right, so this is part three. We're gonna talk about assessments, but to be more specific, assessments that sell training. And this is a very important topic. In fact, this is an area that I saw trainers screw up all the time. And fixing this made a huge difference with the trainers I've been working with. I know Adam brought this up earlier off Mike,

but really what I saw was nobody really using using Assessments. Yeah, which was a big problem in itself and then overcomplicating the hell out of it. I wasn't taught properly I don't know if I don't know if you guys remember Who taught you but it wasn't until I had gotten I don't know Three or so certifications and it it was probably my second NASM certification before I really started to learn how to assess somebody properly. And then I started to understand corrective exercise and do that.

Up until that point, the assessment was really a formality. It really was like, we were, this is at least how I was taught in my gym, was like, here's these series of at least how I was taught in my gym was like, here's these cool series of questions that you need to have them answer and sign basically to basically release of liability more than anything. And you know, and then they had this like this amoeba was purple and it was this body like a card. Yeah. It was like a picture of their body and you're supposed to circle areas of concern or what

with that. I remember actually my thought process from what I had pieced together because I wasn't taught was like, oh, this person had knee surgery, I'd circle the knee. They would say, I have back pain, I would circle the back. So that'd be like, and then you go to the floor and go work them out. You just start working them out. It wasn't until years later that I was taught corrective exercise.

I knew the importance of movement and understand what asymmetry and imbalances look like in the body and how profound that could be in somebody's pursuit to overall health and fitness. And then it became the cornerstone of my training. So wild. And to Justin's point about me communicating off air,

the other thing I was talking about was I felt like either you understood that and then you over communicated. You did like these crazy like FMS deep like dive, like the whole thing was assessing and then your client didn't feel like. It took an hour to get through. Oh yeah, an hour to get through, it was like over their head, they feel like what did I just show up to?

Or you had the other end of the spectrum, the trainer who like me early on didn't know what the hell they were doing and just went out there and worked you out. And the answer is somewhere in the middle. No, so first off, as a trainer, you never stop assessing a client. So you're always assessing.

Every session includes some kind of an assessment, whether you express it to them verbally or not. So let's get that out of the way. But what we're talking about specifically in this episode is typically done as a free in this episode is typically done as a free session. This is typically done as your first appointment with someone who has yet to hire you.

So you've booked an appointment for a free assessment and workout with me. That's what this typically is. And so what people need to understand, what trainers need to understand is that the value of this assessment here, particularly the specific one we're talking about here, the main value of this assessment here, particularly the specific one we're talking about here, the main value of this is to show the client, the potential client, your value.

The main value of this assessment is not to give you all the answers as the trainer. That's where you get the overcomplicated assessment. This is where you get the medical assessments where they're going through, and I've seen trainers with protractors and rulers, and I literally have. And it doesn't communicate any value

to the potential client at all. They just think that you're doing all these different diagnostic tools. Yeah, but it's not really communicating things. So number one, understand this, the goal of this assessment in that free session is to get them to hire you. That's the goal.

This client is gonna go through this assessment with me and at the end of it, they're gonna see the value in paying me to train them. So that's what you have to go in understanding. Now, it's unfortunate that I have to say this, you need to do an assessment, because trainers who don't do assessments, you're missing out massive opportunity to convey value.

And what you're actually communicating to a lot of people who are somewhat educated is that you're not a good trainer. In fact, we communicate on many episodes that a red flag for a bad trainer is that they don't do any assessment, they just take you through a workout. Well, if you don't, then you are basically showing that your value is you are just a glorified counter

and drill sergeant. That's it. Like, if you go straight into a workout with no real assessing, then all you are is a cheerleader that can count. That's it. And that is what you're conveying. And now that may work for some people who are absolutely clueless to what kind of service

they should be getting, which sometimes ends up, this is why it's like these trainers continue to do this because, oh, a couple, one in every three people have no idea and so they sign up for me or they like my personality or maybe I'm full of energy and they want that. But you are missing out on way more by not doing a full assessment. Once you learn how to do that, and I think the best way I think I've ever heard you or anybody

who knows how to assess somebody sell it to the trainer on why this is so important is I don't care if you're the best trainer in the world in one hour's time you cannot build a pound of muscle you can't lose a pound of fat so you cannot take somebody and show which by the way is gonna be 90% of people's goals you'll have some rehab and health calls, but for the most part, they are there because they want to look better, feel better, lose fat, build muscle. And you cannot physiologically do that in one hour. It's impossible. But you can take somebody who has had nagging knee pain or low back pain or shoulder clicking and

issues and you can show them some proper movements to fix that or greatly improve that in one hour. And they can feel it or reveal something that they had no idea they didn't even know about their body. Yeah. Dude this is the cornerstone of my entire training process was the assessment. Because yes, like you said, that is such a longer conversation and multiple visits to really establish the fact that we're going to be able to get to this destination, this place that you came in for in terms of your, your body fat goals and your, your strength and your, your muscle goals. But what I can do, you know, within that short period of time is I can really show them how to

But what I can do within that short period of time is I can really show them how to have their body hold the position, how to relieve pain, how to have them move in a particular way where they didn't realize they were capable of that. It's really mind blowing for them. If you don't do this, especially if you don't do it, and if you don't do it well, then what the potential client is going to do when they look at your services, is they're gonna compare your price to other trainers. Because you are no different than another trainer. Aside from maybe your personality, the way you look,

they're like, oh, you charge 150 an hour? That's a lot. This other trainer over here, try. But when you do a really good assessment, and you're presenting your value, which we're gonna get into, then they start to realize you're different. You know things.

You're better than other people. Then when start to realize you're different. You know things. You're better than other people. Then when you present, you'll become a high tier trainer by doing an effective assessment or doing an assessment that conveys your value effectively. So that's the important thing to understand here is you've got to go in understanding I'm doing these free assessments. My goal is to try and get them to become my clients. The goal of this assessment isn't to give me all the information, which is impossible

in one hour anyway. The goal of this assessment is to get that client to understand, I know what I'm doing and I'm worth every dollar. At the end of this, they're going to look at me and go, yes, I want to hire you. I'm in good hands. You want them to feel that. That's right. So the first thing you should not do is make it super detailed.

You don't need tons of detail. All you need is detail that you can communicate effectively to the client. That's it. Because I could take somebody and I could actually do an assessment that lasts an entire hour and have leftover. If I wanted to, I could start from the head, go all the way down to the toes and we can assess every part of the body. I could take them through different movements. I could look at joint mobility. I could look at extensibility. I could look at all these different things, but that's where you really make a big mistake. I had some trainers like this. I had a trainer who used to work for me who was incredibly knowledgeable when it came to correctional exercise. Actually

had a clinical background and I watched her do an assessment and I remember this was someone that hadn't hired her yet and she used, I think it's called a, it was like a, I think it's called a protractor. The leg lowering? Yeah, and there was, I mean she was measuring spinal flexion, she was using a level, you know, just a crazy assessment. And then this person leaves and I said,

wow, are they, how long have they been working with you? They've got lasers. Yeah, like how long is this person with you? And she said, oh, I'm just trying to see if they want to hire me. And I sat her down and I said, listen, you worked in a clinical setting. When in a clinical setting, they already, it's paid for. And so you need that kind of assessment to break down

why this person's leg hurts or whatever. This person coming in, you have an hour to convey your value. All you did was show you could do a bunch of measurements to them, they don't know if any of that's valuable. You just confuse them. You might impress someone because they might be like, wow, look at all these gadgets and stuff, but the reality is they're looking at it.

But why is it relevant? Why is it relevant? So it needs to be simple. Your assessment needs to be simple, not super detailed. In fact, for any of you watching who have our Maps Prime program, you know the assessment that we have in Prime, which is how we train our trainers.

So we have trainers on staff that we teach how to do our prime assessment. There's three movements, that's it. It's literally three movements. It needs to be simple, it just needs to convey value, but you gotta keep it simple. The more detailed it gets, the more you move away from what I'm talking about.

It's three movements, and it's as simple as pass or fail. That's it. There's nothing in the middle. Even though we know that there's gonna be a wide spectrum of where people fall on there, it doesn't matter. If you can't do it perfect, it's a fail, therefore I have things that will improve and help this. Right, the next mistake, and don't do this,

is keep the information to yourself. So what does this look like? Trainer's doing the assessment, and let's say, yeah, by the way, I'm gonna be clear here. Regardless of what kind of assessment you choose to do, let's say you do the standard squat, posture, push, pull assessment, which is a very common assessment, or you do our prime assessment,

or you do some other assessment, it really doesn't matter. What we're communicating applies to all of them. Do not keep the information to yourself. I've seen trainers do this as well. Well, they do a squat assessment. Okay, put your arms up above your head, please squat, and then they're taking notes. And then don't tell them.

And then they move to the next thing, okay, we're gonna do a push exercise. What did you see? How do I know what I'm doing, like what's going on here? Where's the value? That information that you're collecting needs to be communicated to the client. Well, back to your original point, Sal,

let's compare two trainers. There's one trainer who does all these assessments, all these movements, and denotes, oh, and notice arms fall forward, oh, denotes asymmetrical, oh, denotes feet externally, and they denote all that, but don't communicate. And that trainer knows all that information, writes all that stuff, is less valuable

than the trainer who finds one thing. One thing. One thing that is off on them and explains to them like, oh, the reason why your arms fall forward is you have really tight lats. Watch when we do this stretch right here and see if we can improve and then show them an improvement and then they go, oh wow, that's really cool. I didn't know that. That trainer may have less knowledge than the one who's able to break down and diagnose

everything in their body, but the trainer who showed this person or enlightened them on something that they didn't even know was going on in their body and then shows them how to improve it. Even the most intelligent trainer out of the bunch knows over time and with experience to reduce it down to one to two things is so powerful and so effective. You're reading them just like anything else. What's their button? What's their motivator? What's the thing that's going to stand out the most? And you get that from their body language and their feedback and how enthused they are. So we stay there. And you learn that as, your experience grows. So that's, I was always looking

for the most egregious thing. So I'm gonna be talking to them, doing the assessment, making my notes, communicating to them what I'm seeing, but I'm not gonna put a lot of energy and focus until I see the most egregious thing. And the most egregious thing I see, that's what we're gonna spend our time with.

And the thing you can show the value. And that's what we're gonna go on the floor and do. Yes, which is what we're gonna get to. Also, by the way, you run the risk of this, by the way. A lot of trainers don't realize this. You tell this potential person, this potential client, you know, 15 different deviations, here's what that person starts to feel like.

Oh my God, I'm a mess. This is terrible. And you actually crap them out. They don't wanna work with you. In fact, we had a post on our forum like this. Somebody went and got an assessment and came back with the chiropractor, broke them down. She's like, I didn't know to work with you. In fact, we had a post on our forum like this. Somebody went and got an assessment and came back with a chiropractor, broke them down. She's like, I didn't know I was this bad.

I couldn't, I'm reading this stuff and I'm like, no, this is all normal stuff. You could correct with exercise. But she's like, I don't know what I should do. You don't want to convey everything. You pick the one or two things. That's right. And communicate that.

And then here's another mistake is that you'll hear trainers who understand physiology. They understand biomechanics. So they talk that way. They use terminology that doesn't make sense. And what they're really trying to do is convey their intelligence. Yes.

But really what you're doing is not conveying value. Okay. For example, you know, Adam, as he was whispering and pretending to be that trainer that's not doing a good job, he said asymmetrical shift. If I notice an asymmetrical shift. No, you're going to say it moves to the left or the right. I'm gonna say, in fact, I may say it's asymmetrical shift,

but then I'm gonna say, oh, you know what that means? That means your left side is moving this way, your right side is over here. I always, okay, listen, and I know there's, of course, you're the nerdy trainer, there is a balance of this. Whenever I would have a doctor, chiropractor, physical therapist in there,

you would hear me sprinkle in a little bit of terminology so they knew that I knew what I was talking about, but then I still would still commute. So I would say something like, oh, you had an asymmetrical shift when you did your squat. What that means is your hips moved to the left when you came down. So I would use the terminology so that the person, and only if it was somebody who I felt needed to know that if it was the average Jane or Joe I'm training there's no reason even say asymmetrical. It's like literally when you squat down your hips move to the left Like that's all I have to say, you know, or your arms fall forward You don't have to say that you're like to be a store size tight

Like that makes no sense to say that, you know, like it makes no sense to do that and you only lose the people so if you are gonna use any of those terms, you better follow it up with a simplified version of that or else you just lose that client. Yeah, I used to tell people like, oh, you have an anterior pelvic tilt. All right, you know what that means? Your butt kind of sticks out a little bit. Oh, okay. You explain the terminology.

You have Instagram chick butt. That's right. So now let's talk about what you do. How do I make this assessment as valuable as possible or to put it differently, how do I make this assessment powerfully a Powerful way to convey my value. So the first thing is you communicate What you see in easy to understand terms and then tell them what it means to them Okay, so tell it what so I'll use the example. I just gave with the anterior pelvic tilt

So I'm having them do a posture. I'm looking at their posture. Say it's part of my assessments, watching their posture. So stand up for me, nice and relaxed. I go sideways, I see. Okay, do your squat, they come up. Okay, one thing that I notice is you have a bit of an anterior pelvic tilt. What that basically means is your butt kind of sticks out a little bit. Now when that happens, a lot of times people feel pressure right in this low back area. Okay, what I'm doing is I'm conveying to them what it means to them and also what's probably going to happen is that person's going to go, I do have lower back.

Oh, I do feel that in my low back. So it's coming from that. So use easy to understand terminology, explain it to them and then explain what it means for them. Don't just say you have this and that's it. Here's what this means for them. Don't just say you have this and that's it. Here's what this means for you. I noticed when you did a squat, your arms over your head, your arms really fell down forward. You probably have really tight lats. That's this muscle right here. And maybe a weakness in your

upper back. You know, with a lot of my clients who have this, they tend to have tension in their upper neck because the muscles that are supposed to stabilize the shoulder aren't doing what they're supposed to. And the person's going to go, they're going to think, wow, I do have tension in my neck. So explain what it means to them. Then what you do, here's the next thing, okay, explain the benefit of what you're going to do for that problem. Explain the benefit. So with the person, let's say with the arms falling forward, I can say,

so what we would do because of that weakness in your upper back that's causing some neck tension, I'm going to do some exercises that focus on pulling your shoulder blades back. And I may stand behind them and say, Hey, you mind if I put my hands on your shoulders? This is what we're going to work on is pulling the shoulders back. Now what I'm doing is I'm expressing the benefit because it's not just what it is and what it does, but what's the benefit is it's gonna feel,

it's gonna make your neck feel a lot better. There's a little bit of sales psychology that you're doing right now that I think is important to communicate to the trainer how powerful it is too. Because I would take it a step further and even, when I'm saying this, I'm saying what we are going to do. So what we're gonna do, you know, is it's gonna be easy for me to lose 10 pounds of fat for you or build a little bit of muscle.

Great side note. What I'm going to do is when I design your program, I'm going to specifically design exercises that are going to alleviate some of that pain that you're having and correct some of those problems that we see right now. That's part of what my job is. My job is to simplify that for you. So you just show up and you work out and you know what to do because I've taught you those movements. Now the next point here is to use the example of the person with the weak upper mid back and I said this is why you have neck tension. I'm going to say we're going to do exercise that pull this back, which is going to take

away tension in your neck. I'm now going to say let me show you an exercise that may do that. Then I'm going to take them over to something different. Let's say a cable row or a seated row. We're gonna do some of that exercise. I'm gonna put them in proper position. Then I'm gonna have them stand up and I'm gonna say, do you feel the difference? Yes I do. And then here's the best, here's the one of the most important parts. I'm gonna do what's called a tie down in sales or in sales training or to put it differently, I'm gonna get them to

agree that this is valuable. This I can't express enough. Every statement you make, anytime you're talking to anybody, but especially to a potential client, they can judge as either true or false. It is not a true statement until they agree to it. Just remember that. I can say all the whatever I want. It's not until they say, oh yes, that's true, that it's actually true.

Once I do the row exercise and they feel the mid-back and they stand up and I say, oh yes, that's true, that it's actually true. So once I do the row exercise and they feel the mid-back and they stand up and they say, can you see how that'll start to take tension off of your neck? Can you see how that'll benefit you? And they say, yes, now it's true. Now why is this important? As I'm doing the assessment, my goal is to get them

to say yes to my value several times. As I do that, imagine a snowball rolling down a hill. As it rolls down the hill, it collects more snow, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. What you'll find if you do this right, through this, and literally this kind of an assessment that I'm talking about would take you 20 to 30 minutes. It's not an hour, it's about 20 to 30 minutes. As the ball is rolling down as a snowball is gathering steam The big yes is is almost inevitable which is here. We go. Will you hire now? So that's the process right tie it down at the very end and with your assessment You should be able to find two or three areas that you can convey this kind of value

And then we talked about pain or Adam mentioned this earlier With correctional exercise that you can do in an assessment, what I like to do is have the person see and feel the difference. So if I highlight something like neck tension, I'll say to them, all right, where does it feel tight? They'll point to it. We'll do the movement. I'll have them come out and say, does it feel any different? Oh yeah.

Oh yeah, it feels a lot different. Isometrics are great for this. Yeah. Can you see how this is going gonna make your neck pain go away? Yes, I can. This is move down the line. This is the reason why I'm looking for the most egregious thing, right?

Is because this gives me the greatest opportunity to show them the greatest improvement in one to one hour. If you pick this person apart, because by the way, most people are gonna fail so many of the tests and assessments that you do with them. Most people movement-wise. Most trainers will fall. Yeah, exactly. Most people movement- to fail so many of the tests and assessments that you do with them. Most people movement-wise- Most trainers will fall for that. Yeah, exactly.

Most people movement-wise are pretty broken. You don't want to just, your point earlier, make this person feel like they're inept, they can't do anything and they may as well give up. It's like, yeah, these are really common. A lot of people have- I always say that. Very common. Very, very common.

This, very, very common. That, this and this. Then you find something that's like really bad, and really bad in the sense that it's very egregious as far as how far. Maybe their feet really externally rotate when they come out, or maybe it's just one side and not the other. It's like, oh, wow, there's a major discrepancy there. There's an opportunity for me to show them the difference in what's happening right there,

and then to take them on the floor to do specific exercises, show how I can help that. And a lot of times, you could take something that is really egregious like that, show them some corrective exercise, come back to the squat again, and show like, remember when we first did it, when we first started our assessment, and your left foot went way open,

and now it's like barely moving right now? That's just in one hour of us doing some movements. Like part of my job is we go through it, I designed this program for you, will be to completely eliminate that and fix that. And then the downstream effects from that is you're also going to feel better on your low back. You won't notice that you won't feel that tightness in your neck that we're talking about. It's all stemming from that. And part of my job, yes, lose you 15 pounds, build the muscle. That's the easy part, but this is like, this is what I'm supposed to do. This is what makes a really good trainer.

And an easy tie down for what Adam just said would be, you would just end it with say, does that make sense to you? Yeah. Yes, it does. And you're totally done. So to give another example, if I do a squat assessment and I see the person's feet turning out, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to make a note of it, then I'm going to tell them, okay, it looks like your feet are externally rotating. What that means is, as you're squatting, I don't know if you notice this, but your feet started to turn out. Typically the cause of that is

some immobility issues in the ankle. Come over here let's do some mobility exercises for your ankle. It's gonna take us about five minutes then we're gonna try that squat again. Now the reason why that's important is when you have issues with ankle mobility when you try to do exercise like squats sometimes that causes knee pain and low back pain. Does that ever happen to you? Yes it does. Come over here let me show you something. Then we do some ankle mobility movements then we go back to the squat. Let me have you try it again. Does that feel different? Yes it does. Can you see how doing this kind of stuff is gonna make the workout

so much more effective for you? Yes I do. Imagine doing that throughout the entire assessment with different movements. At the end of 30 minutes, this person is thinking to themselves, you know what you're talking about, you can really help me in ways I didn't even imagine. I thought I was here to lose weight, which you keep telling me is gonna happen,

but now my knee pain's gonna be gone, I feel better, and you're so much different than what I thought. What I thought a trainer was is you just know exercises and you motivate me. Now I realize you're so much different than what I thought what I thought a trainer was you just know exercises And you motivate me now. I realize you're incredibly valuable How easy is it gonna be to sell this person a hundred dollars plus a session? Not hard at all and the closing percentage goes to the roof the best part about this is like you can be a

Relatively new trainer and and start to practice this and get better and over time once you've been doing this for a long time Just like anything else you get really good and when you get really good at this you soon will be able to Look at the way somebody walks They squat down one time and you're gonna be able to predict the things they can do they can't do and it is unbelievably powerful when you can predict where that person probably had surgery or what bothers them on their body without them telling you based off the way they move.

There's nothing I've ever done as a, the only thing more powerful than that in my opinion is a client who I changed their life who referred me another client. Yeah, there's nothing more guaranteed. That's the only nothing more guaranteed. That's the only more guarantee. Like if I change Suzy's life, she lost a hundred pounds and she's telling the world that she could have done it without me and I get one of those clients come in and they're like, hey, Suzy told me I got to come train with you and man you changed her life, like sign me up. Like that's about as easy as they can get. The next is

assessing people on that level. Yes. that there's nothing more powerful other than the Referral of the person you change their life Than doing a deep good assessment where you can teach people Enlighten them on them on their body on either things they had no idea about or they had no they didn't know why I got so many people like yeah I've got this clicking in my shoulder or I've got this people are like, yeah, I've got this clicking in my shoulder or I've got this nagging hip pain or my knee always bothers on the left side and when you can help them understand why that is, oh man. And in majority time show them some improvement in 15 minutes. Yeah, it's a mind-blown. Absolute

done deal. Okay, so we just talked about the assessment, how to do any assessment in a way that makes your value look skyrocket essentially. We have a webinar coming up, that's gonna be on June 3rd, you go to trainerwebinar.com. This webinar, this webinar, I'm gonna teach you how to sell training. So at the end of this assessment, you've done all this stuff,

now we gotta go back, I'm gonna present my packages, I'm gonna present training, how do I present it in a way to where I get no objections? And you hire me that's what's happening On this webinar. It's June 3rd. Go to trainer webinar Calm sign up. It's totally free. It's at 4 p.m. Pacific. I can't wait to see you guys there Thank you for listening to mind pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body

dramatically improve your health and energy and Maxim maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes maps anabolic, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other

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