Being a personal trainer sounds like an ideal career. Manage your own hours, choose what you want to learn, wear active wear all the time, stay fit and meet amazing people. The thing that stops people from living their PT dream is their inability to get new clients. It’s my mission to help small businesses get more clients so they continue working as a personal trainer.
The first of the five tips is face to face clients. Before you build your online fitness business work with people face to face. I learned a lot from working face to face with people. I would listen to people from all age groups and all walks of life. A woman in her 50’s vs a guy in his early 30’s is focused on different things. They say things to you one on one that they just wouldn’t say online. Because of this there are things that you pick up on people in person that you just don’t learn online. People who are looking at getting into personal training now are are looking to bypass this step because they have heard you can make more money on-line, however in person training sessions are a golden opportunity to learn so much about people.
You learn your demographic because you need to understand their problems. Most people will sit down in the consultation and says, oh, I’d like to be a little
bit fitter but when you really get to know that person five sessions they are more specific and say things like “I’ve had a sore back for the last 2 years but I’ve gotten use to the pain or I donate blood because my heart skips to many beats per minute. These little things that you learn from your clients in person. When your client comes in and you just sense they’re a little bit off, they’re exhausted because their child is unwell you can adjust the training schedule. As a result, people stay with you longer because they get all these little instances of you understanding that person.
One of the biggest things that people overlook from not wanting to work with people in person is how many ideas you get from your clients. I’ll never forget one of my first clients said I know it’s kind of embarrassing, but I don’t really understand macros. In a good way It made me realise how specific I need to be when training people and how much time I need to allocate explaining clearly.
The more time you can spend clearly communicating the more you’re setting yourself up for success. So don’t overlook in-person mastery. Imagine in-person mastery being like the foundations you’re building to build a skyscraper.
Number two, time management. When I was living in New York I attended a motivational course and some people arrived half an hour late. They gave the usual excuses as to why they were late – the traffic. The presented said it’s not that you couldn’t arrive on time it’s that you didn’t want to get here on time. My presentation isn’t important to you. He then said if a million dollars was given to you for arriving on time you would have found a way to get here on time. The way you have shown up here today is how you show up in life – late and full of excuses.
You should be on time to every single session but also you should be showing up for business meetings on time. If you have a meeting with your web developer show up on time, your bank manager, show up on time. Start showing up on time for all of your appointments. As a personal trainer you are representing your business all the time and how you show up says a lot about your business.
Time management brings us to the schedule. In the beginning, you should pretty much say yes to every single session you can. But very soon you should start actually trying to allocate session times that people attend. You have a 6 AM client, you have a 7AM client, then you have an 8:15 and a 9:15. Then you have a half hour break, and you might have an 11 and a 12-training session. Whatever the hours are make sure you are organised, so you don’t feel like you are in chaos. If you feel like your workday is in chaos you run the risk of missing training sessions or getting clients times wrong. If people sense you are unorganised you will lose business. There are going to be too many gaps in between clients especially when you first start the important thing is not to forget your clients and keep on track of who has cancelled a training day because of sickness and who has rescheduled. Managing your diary is extremely important.
Set boundaries for your hours it will help create the demand for your businesses you can do that quite soon then that means you’re spending les time in the gym more time at home and more time working on your business. Don’t be a slave to the hours thinking that they need to accept every session accept time change for your clients.
Number three Prioritise one of the first traps that people fall into is thinking that they should be working for free rent the majority of gyms that do this are getting you to work for minimum wage. As a personal trainer this is the last thing you want to do. You change your clients an appropriate amount of money for your knowledge and expertise. Charge people a large amount of money for your knowledge and expertise you don’t want them seeing you doing minimum wage work like cleaning the toilets. It doesn’t look professional, and they may question why they are paying you the amount they are.
Presentation matters. When you are first starting out you may not have the money to invest in the latest workout clothes but make sure you are well presented. The best workout wear you can afford, a good haircut and the nicest car you can afford. Personal training is a superficial industry, and people are going to judge you on how you present.
Have the nicest contact cards made up and ready to hand out to people. People constantly approach me when I am in the middle of a training session with clients. It is a lot easier to quickly hand them my contact card than it is to find a piece of paper, get a pen and write my information on it.
Number four network. Attend meetups. I got my first clients because I was part of a running club. As we were running, we would talk about what we all did for work. When people found out I was a personal trainer we would talk about the importance of strength building for running and those people became my clients.
I attended talks free talks on nutrition and at the end of the talk when everyone was chatting, I would mention I was a personal trainer, people would ask me for my card and sure enough those people would eventually contact me for training sessions.
I worked for free for a friend who had a stall at a Mind Body Spirit festival. She was a massage therapist who specialised in back pain but when people who visited her stall found out I was a PT they asked for my card.
Number 5 – Online presence. Having an online presence is important. When you are first starting you might not have the money to build a website, but you can start on social media. At first building a social media presence will feel overwhelming and time consuming but it will pay off in the end, however it will take time. I see a lot of people in all businesses start social media pages and they post initially but then they stop because they can’t see a return on their time. However, if you are consistent, it will pay off in the long term. The posts should be informative. Simple tips, maybe a link to a free e-book you have written. Some people aren’t in a position to pay for a personal trainer when they first start following your page but by posting consistently and having a consistent following when people can afford a personal trainer, they are more likely to choose one they have been following on social media.
Through social media you can build an email client list and from there you can do mail outs advertising your business.
