What does it mean to be professional?

July 12, 2012
Categories: Customer Service

I love watching exposes on T.V. where they hire guys to fix an air conditioner that is perfectly fine except it’s not plugged in. Inevitably they have a sweaty grossly overweight man come in and explain that your flux capacitor is broken. Out pops the “Eyewitness News Gotcha Team” and for the first time in 25 years the AC man has a new experience…he is exercising by having to run away from the cameras. So what could this possibly have to do with you and running your facility?

Yesterday during a webinar we talked about the importance of hiring a professional firm to help with your search engine optimization and creating profiles for local search engines. And we got an odd question back…what do you mean by professional? And thus the image of the AC guy…and what you need to be doing to make sure you are running a professional organization and professional team.

In an effort to create less work for myself, I decided to put it into a quick reference list.

• Service – Do you and your staff have the knowledge and education to provide your members with a level of excellence?
• Certifications – It’s not just enough to say you know what you are doing, it helps to have a a third party validate it. There are dozens of certifying organizations in our industry. If you want to look at the latest and greatest, consider SmartFitness. They have created a whole online university for the fitness industry.
• Timeliness – You know how you know the cable company isn’t professional? Because they tell you they will be at your house between Arbor Day and Labor Day and still show up late. No a professional organization values their time and their clients. Check-in is fast and efficient. Personal trainers always show up on time (we can’t always say the same for the clients), classes start AND end on time.
• Appearance – One of the reasons I love this industry is that you can’t exercise in a suit. But that doesn’t mean you can wear torn sweatpants and your Bon Jovi T-shirt from 7th grade. Go ahead and invest in some nice shirts for you and your staff.
• MoSo – This is more technology but I can be a bit self-promoting here. If your software was built more than 5 years ago (not when you bought it but when it was built) then you should be upgrading.

So, other than professional degrees, it seems that a professional is someone who exhibits professionalism…They present it to you in how they act, how they look, and how they communicate their expertise. If they can do that, they are worth trying out for the job. Of course, if they can score you sweet tix to see Bon Jovi in concert, it might be worth it to give them the business anyways.