The Italian

Today I did a free introductory session with an Italian guy. By Italian guy, I don't mean Italian-looking or Italian ancestry, I mean Italian as in he just moved to New York from Northern Italy. My own ancestry traces back to Italy so I have a weak spot for my ancient brethren. From the neck up, this recent migrant did not disappoint, he had dark hair, dark eyes, good teeth and a nice light perma-tan. Below the neck it was a different story, this guy was a fixer-upper.

For the record, the guy pictured on the right is pretty much perfect pedigree Northern Italian and he's included here in this post just because I think it's important with a fitness themed blog to keep your mind focused on the prize you win when you work out intelligently and diligently - and that prize is a smokin' hot bod like that.

Back to the story . . . Something about The Italian's accent made the session more fun than usual for me. Couple that with the fact that he hasn't worked out in 6 months and you have an hour or so of making him feel muscles he's not felt in a long, long time. Those are the types of sessions that are really fun for me because it feels more like teaching than anything else and when you just meet somebody they're pretty open to trying anything and everything.

Things were going along great, I got a pretty good assessment on him, his abs were burning, his arms were a little shaky, and I gave him a nice good stretch at the end. It was a storybook session and I was stoked - 3 of my main clients are out of the country and I needed to generate some new biz. In perfect scenario form, as we fished up he started talking about "our next session."

In order to have a next session however he has to buy a package. That's the part of the free session I hate the most - I mean yeah, training seems expensive but the value is pretty hard to beat. I pretty much never talk about selling anything because I find it annoying and offensive. If they want it (and after trying me out they usually want it) then they'll come to that part on their own.

My Italian buddy was talking about what days would be best for him to train and I just kept listening, waiting for the right moment to talk about session packages. Eventually, I just come out and ask him if there is a big event (other than just bathing suit season) for which he wanted to get into top shape. Yeah, there was. He wants to get ready for his trip back home to Italy to see his girlfriend. Alright, that's perfect. With 20 sessions he'd be well on his way. I slipped out the pricing sheet and he looked at me as if I had 3 heads or that he had to poop really badly. "What's zis? I thou a trainer is included with gym." At that very moment I knew it wasn't going to go my way. Regardless of how badly he wants and needs a trainer, he was seriously blown away by the fact that you pay for a gym and you pay for a trainer. That led to a discussion about New York City's prices, Starbucks, and George Bush. So there it was, a good 90 minutes down the toilet -- and I made zero dollars today.