Experts Vs. "Hack-sperts"

by John Izzo, NASM-CPT, PES

What makes an expert? I have always been leary of that label because MY definition of an "expert" is to be all-knowing...meaning "is finished learning because everything that can possibly be known is learned".

I like to think that I am contstantly learning and growing

...as a trainer

...as a professional

...and as a person.

Within the last few years, many fitness professionals are being considered "experts" without really being challenged or held accountable for their track record (meaning how much success have they have had transforming clients & athletes?). You see "fitness experts" everywhere: TV shows like Good Morning America, Ellen Degeneres, The View, and those hilarious info-commercials. Why does the public accept these people as so-called "experts" or what I like to call "hack-sperts"? ? Is there rippling muscles, 6-pack abs, or tight glutes?

Well...alot of it is marketing...and like most careers, its also who you know.

Years ago, fitness professionals didn't know how to market themselves. You see, trainers relied on fake tans, rolled up sleeves, and wearing shirts 2 sizes too small to become recognized. Back then, trainers didn't have marketing expertise and prowess. They relied on their bench press numbers and weekly trophy girlfriends to advertise that they, yes, were the trainers of the gym.
 

About 2002,  along came the infiltration of marketing/business savvy parasites into the fitness field....

Yeah...this is what "they" did:
 

They weren't really experts and weren't really good enough to see themselves in the field long-term, so they found a way to make money so they can spend less time training and more time sitting back and "pimping" out REAL fitness professionals. They found "marketing strategies", which they called niches. Suddenly, almost overnight, every single fitness niche that can be imagined was being marketed...some were good...some worked...but some were just plain stupid. The internet became the 'mall' of these marketing schemes. So, everyone thought they were "capable" of putting out a product because their marketing guru did a great job of motivating them (or what I like to call 'blinding' them) and its easier to hide your discrepencies behind a computer monitor.

Within the last 2-3 years, the industry has seen an influx of un-experienced, un-skilled, and un-committed trainers. I'm not saying ALL...I am saying a good few are more keen in marketing themselves or they're products, and less keen in designing an exercise program for your 53-year old mother or kid brother who plays lacrosse.
 

My wish and my intent is to inform (not educate because I don't consider myself an expert in marketing, but do think I have x-ray vision sometimes) the customer or client regarding these marketing schemes that steal thousands of dollars and kick REAL trainers in the "nards". Recently, I was on a forum that erupted with disgust regarding a free product that marketed experts. Obviously, the free product is designed to submit e-mail addresses to increase the seller's mailing list (a marketing tactic). Why couldn't honesty been practiced here? So, I decided to enlighten those on how to become an expert, according to today's fitness marketing practices:

Here's how you become an "expert":

1.) Hang out with people that know less than you do
2.) Lift heavier weights than everyone else or look better
3.) Continuously use old pics of your "big lifting days" to market yourself
4.) Know someone in the field who is good and "latch" onto them.
5.) Conjure a group to support your product or articles
6.) Continue to nurture that group with free testimonials/edits/products
7.) Get everyone in your group to REPEAT constantly your product/articles
8.) Ask your "group" to supply them with something to enhance your product so they begin to feel they are on the same level as you, this furthers their positive opinions of you which provides more support (i.e. marketing).
9.) Go with whatever is HOT and whatever everyone else is saying because they must be right because its alot of them!
10.) Start to believe your own BS

I think the last one is the mantra of these "marketing experts". If you tell a lie enough times...it almost becomes truth. And when hundreds and hundreds of people are eating the lies they are fed, it becomes reality. Gosh, almost out of something from "Escape from New York".  [END]