This is a question i grapple with a lot. For the sake of my own career and to ensure I remain effective as a coach for most of the people who choose to train with me.
It’s clearly not just the gym or equipment. There are plenty of successful online coaches such as Ben Bruno. They don’t have the largest or most spec’d out gyms.
It’s not size of community alone. Else Cult would be renowned for outcomes and not just ubiquity, pricing and variety.
It’s not results alone. Else bodybuilding coaches will be among the richest people on the planet.
It’s not exercise selection. Powerlifting and bodybuilding gyms are filled with knowledgable exponents of both those sports but far from packed gyms.
It’s not cueing. Every coach is convinced the way they coach an exercise is unique and better than the rest.
And god knows it’s not degrees or certifications. There are plenty of client-starved sports science and CSCS grads out there.
There’s the coach’s body language and voice for a start. Whether we like it or not, clients need to like you and enjoy being around you. Since they will have to be around you and listen to your advice, cues etc.
There’s how the coach communicates their exercise choices, frames them with respect to your goals and constraints, ensures you are benefitting from training and gives you enough attention as you train. And there’s the training outcomes clients were not aware that training could produce. But you make those choices for them and have to frame them in ways that are interesting and engaging.
There’s no way around the idea that to be an effective coach, you have to be an interesting, knowledgable and a thoughtful person. You have the read the room you are in to tweak your message and service without diluting it’s effectiveness.
And that will mean you can’t appeal to everyone. You have to make choices and communicate them distinctly. And not everyone will like what is served or how it is served. And you need to make peace with that as a coach.
