Have you heard the saying "If you've got it, flaunt it"?
Today's post is about how to present your relevant fitness credentials; your certifications, books you've read, sporting achievements, photographs, testimonials, insurance policies etc. in a snappy sales presentation folder.
Before deciding how you're going to present this information, we have to look at what kind of platform you have to display from.
Whether you have your own sales office, are an online personal trainer, if you present at a community desk in a fitness center or maybe you're a mobile trainer and your sales presentation space is a park bench; there are some awesome ways to demonstrate all of your well earned (and expensive) expertise without having to say a word.
Become transparent with your education and experience.
You should be proud of all of your achievements and you need to show that in the quality and organisation of your sales presentation folder.
Most of the time your clients and prospective personal training clients won't have a clue what your certifications mean; ironically, the more you have, the more likely they are to assume that you know what you're doing.
Here's what I did and it worked a treat:
If you don't currently have one; get yourself a nicely finished presentation folder with clear plastic sleeves.
Print an exciting first page. This is the first page in your folder and it should be full color, have your logo and slogan and I had a picture of me training a client.
Your second page is your contents page. It can be as simple as a list in order of what is in your folder.
Third page I put a very brief bio with all of my credentials listed down the page. This is your me me me page and there's only one of them for a reason; the rest of your folder is what you can do/have done for your clients.
Then I went in the following order:
Copies of my main certifications
Training photos (One page)
Media exposure (any articles I've had printed, any posters of events I'd sponsored; things like that)
First aid certification
Insurance cover letter
Training photos (One page)
Testimonials (I had four from varied clients all of which agreed to let me have potential clients contact them if required).
Training photos
Sundry courses I'd undertaken like business and massage etc.
NB: I didn't put my rates in my sales folder, instead I kept them in a sleeve to take out once I had dragged out and met all of their objections.
For courses that you attend that don't have formal certifications or accreditation points associated with them; these are still important so you need to make some kind of mention to them in your presentation material.
It could be something as simple as a photograph of you participating in the course. For example, if you take a one day program on core strength exercises; ask a colleague to take a photo of you on a ball or something; action pictures in a group environment always look great and create a convincing conversational reference.
Got Books?
If you have an office available, get a bookshelf and fill it. Nothing looks as good as a library full of relevant reading material (leave your awesome Twilight collection at home). You can also loan books to your clients on specific subjects or just leave them as reference and display.
If you're a mobile or online personal and carrying around your bookshelf isn't your idea of a good time, create a virtual library by making a list of relevant reading material with a brief commentary on each book. The blurb also supports that you've read it.
Present your certifications proudly and give your testimonials pride of place and keep them up to date. I always found it beneficial to leave a client with my sales profile or in my office for a few minutes to give them an opportunity to scan through my professional portfolio. People are inherently curious and information holds much more value when they discover it for themselves.
1. Some accreditation bodies have created a media driven myth that personal trainers earn incredibly large amounts of money and people considering this career path justifiably want some kind of clarification
2. Fitness professionals in the industry want to know what the going rates are just as any other employed or self employed person in any other industry.
As I was sifting through my feeds and things this morning I came across this great article/report (link can be found at the end of the post) on the American Council On Exercises' (ACE) website demonstrating how much personal trainers and fitness professionals earned in 2010.
From what I've seen on other blogs and websites around the Internet and based on advertised salary rates on job sites for fitness professionals; this seems like a pretty accurate estimate of what's being or could be offered/earned if you chose a career in the fitness industry.
I also feel that the estimates are quite similar to what trainers and fitness professionals outside the US are earning (relative to the converted dollar); if not at the very least it will provide you with a good guide to compare different career paths.
Before we get into that, here's 6 interesting conclusions also taken from the article:
1. The average salary rates for full-time fitness professionals has increased by 19% since 2005
2. The top 5 states/territories (U.S) reporting the highest annual income for fitness professionals includes the District of Columbia, Rhode Island, Oklahoma, Kansas and Maine
3. Only 40% of fitness professionals feel that the recent financial crisis had a negative impact on their businesses
4. 69% of fitness professionals are paid an hourly rate
5. Over 1/3 of all fitness professionals work 21-40 hours per week, with 10% working over 40 hours
6. 51% of personal trainers work for a club/fitness facility while 49% work independently.
The ACE article states that to obtain the following figures, nearly 3000 fitness professionals were surveyed across the United States by an independent third party research firm.
Average Salary For Personal Trainers And Fitness Professionals In 2010:
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Salary Vs Education And Certification 2010:
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Salary Vs. Education And Experience 2010:
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Most Popular Fitness Jobs 2010:
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A quote from another article I wrote about this subject which I also feel sums up the elevator pitch of My Business Is Fitness is:
I found these figures quite interesting, particularly the 'experience verses education' chart as it seems that the older a personal trainer is, they're earning less.
This could have something to do with an 'old school' approach to marketing or it could be related to their pricing structure; however the positives I see across the board is that the fitness industry is alive and well and still a potentially very rewarding career for those of you willing to show initiative.
Was there anything in particular about these results that struck you as interesting?
Are you earning less or more that what has been displayed or are you on track?
With Christmas right around the corner; now is the time to start planning and implementing your holiday season personal training and fitness center promotional strategies to take advantage of this often difficult but very lucrative spendthrift market.
I've listed 20 promotional ideas that you can sift through and hopefully find a few that will suit your niche market and/or demographic.
1. Gift Certificates:
Whoever invented gift certificates was a genius, however I rarely see personal trainers offer these simple, yet very easily produced little cash cows.
They're a great way for your clients to introduce your services to their friends and family, so design a variety of packages from one session to 100 if you like.
2. Speaking Engagements:
Try holding a free 'christmas healthy eating' seminar at your local fitness center or gym. Talk about things like how best to get through the overindulgent period in a healthy way etc. Hand out business cards and flyer's etc.
3. Go To Your Local Library And Sneak Business Cards In Relevant Books:
Look for books about weight loss and the like and place your gyms or personal training business cards in them. Even better, run a promotion in conjunction with this 'mystery prize' promotion.
4. Hold A Competition:
It doesn't really matter what the competition is about, but offering some free personal training or gym membership as the prize always generates some interest.
You can also diversify depending on your skills; offer a weight loss prize, a muscle gain program prize or even a nutrition prize. The more you offer the more potential leads you can generate.
5. Spend Some Time Adding Your Business To Local Directories:
Are you listed on the Google Business Directory or Foursquare for example?
6. Press Release:
Is there something interesting about your business that you think the media or public at large would be interested in? If you can come up with an original concept or angle for a Christmas promotion, present it well and send it out to your local media.
7. Print A New Year Calendar:
It doesn't have to be anything too flash or expensive. Put a few healthy tips and quotes on there and hand them out methodically.
8. Print A Christmas/New Year Newsletter:
Again, fill it with helpful hints and bonus offers. Find some affiliates to co promote with and do a letter box drop.
9. Send Out A Christmas Email Blast:
You should have a database of all of your current and past clients and members. Like your newsletter, fill it with quality content and send it out.
10. Trade Shows:
Are there any trade shows coming up? The beauty of the fitness industry is that there is almost always an angle to align yourself with every other industry. Book a table and get your information out.
11. Christmas Cards:
Sending Christmas cards to current and past personal training clients or gym members is 'welcome' mail, meaning that most people open it and read it. Thank your existing clients and offer your past clients and members a coupon and make them personalised.
12. Cross Promote With Similar Businesses:
Speak to your local health food store, physiotherapist, respected massage therapist or sports store about offering a 'complete health and fitness gift pack promotion.
13. Take A Short Course:
It doesn't even have to be fitness related. Take a short small business course; not only are you increasing your business knowledge and skills, you're sitting in a room full of potential clients.
14. Walking Billboard:
Once you've decided on your Christmas promotion, get a few t-shirts printed up with your branding and the promotion information on them.
15. Update Your Blog And Or Website:
How long has it been since you wrote a new article or publicly thanked your clients and or members? It doesn't have to be a masterpiece, but get up some fresh content.
16. Offer A Cheaper Alternative To Your Regular Services:
If you normally charge $50 for a half hour session, try running a $30 fifteen minute training session. Sell it by explaining that the fifteen minute session will focus on specifics and not include cardio time etc.
17. Put A New Christmas Focused Video On YouTube:
Like your Christmas newsletter, do the same thing but a video version. Hints tips and solutions for maintaining all the hard work that your clients and members have put in over the past 12 months.
18.Update Your Social Media Pages:
Start a stream of Christmas focused Facebook and Twitter posts. Obviously direct them back to your blog or website but try running two or three each week up to the holiday period.
19. Update Your Testimonials Page:
Testimonial pages on blogs, websites and even in your sales presentation material are probably the most viewed items. Get some updated ones from clients who worked with you last Christmas and how you helped keep them on the straight and narrow.
20. Offer A Guarantee Promotion:
These are often tricky so plan your guarantee carefully. Don't over promise, but make your service more appealing than anyone else.
I hope that this is a timely post for you guys and gets your mind ticking over for how you can prepare for the upcoming Christmas period.
Traditionally; personal training businesses, gyms and pretty much the entire fitness industry suffer over this time unless you implement some sound, inexpensive strategies to make sure you stand out and come through a winner.
So what do you think? I genuinely appreciate your feedback, so please leave me a comment down below with questions, thoughts, or feedback. And please share this post with your Twitter and Facebook friends by clicking on the share buttons at the top of the post.
'Seven Personal Training And Fitness Business Myths Revealed' is quite a mouthful to say, but I'll tell you what isn't, BANKRUPTCY!
There's so much bad advice, lies and myths floating around (generally provided by people that have never been in business) that it's not surprising that so many fitness businesses fail. We're surrounded by 'experts' who dish out advice and guidance and they all claim to hold the secret to making millions of dollars.
You may have heard the following seven myths, you may have even given them as advice with the best intention (I know I've been guilty of following a few of them over the years), but in our industry, they simply don't ring true.
In no particular order, here are seven of my favorite fitness business myths revealed:
1. Having more clients is better than having fewer clients.
Would it be better to have 30 clients training with you once a week or 10 clients training 3 times a week?
The money might be the same, in fact it may be slightly less with 10 clients because you offer them a better payment structure, but having a stable long term business is the key to longevity.
With fewer clients you are able to provide a more personal service and last time I checked, we're in the business of personal training.
2. To be successful you have to be first.
Don't get me wrong, first is good, but what do you have to base your marketing, forecasts and projections against?
The other reason first is not always best is quite simply because maybe there's no opportunity for success. Other fitness professionals may have studied the demographic and made calculated decisions that business in that area, that gym simply wasn't viable.
First is good, but only through thorough research.
3. To be successful, you have to be cheaper.
I see price wars everywhere I go and yes, you may get some initial growth for your business, but if you're in this game for the long run, under cutting competitors is career suicide.
Have you ever had a client that when you first sat down, the first thing that the rattled off to you was everything that hasn't worked for them?
"Weightwatchers didn't work, Jenny Craig didn't work, Body For Life didn't work"; let me tell you, you don't want these people as clients because in one month, they will be adding your name to that list.
When you're cheaper you're perceived as lesser quality and the client roster you put together will reflect that.
You'll be stuck with a diary full of transient clients that have no intention of forming a business relationship and you will become the 'next thing that didn't work'.
4. I'm a good personal trainer so I should open a studio/gym.
And I'm a good cook, so I should open a restaurant? It doesn't matter how good a personal trainer you are under someone elses payroll, business is no joke.
I'd been a personal trainer for 5 years before I went into real business for myself. I'd managed gyms, studied business at college and let me tell you, I still wasn't prepared for half the surprises that pop up.
Training clients actually became a luxury for me, because it was the only time I could take my focus off the accounts, the cleaning that needed doing and a thousand other things most people don't consider.
5. The customer is always right.
If the customer knew everything, why did they hire us? Training clients doesn't stop on the gym floor. You have to groom them into your way of doing business, when you need to be paid, when you're available to train them.
Don't let your customers/clients run your business.
6. It's a cool idea. Everyone will love this!
Laser discs were a cool idea, leg warmers were a cool idea but where are they now? Cool ideas are just that without extensive market research and a hefty promotional budget.
7. We're good friends. We should work well together/We should form a partnership.
There's another saying along the lines of "never go into business with friends or family."
Being friends is not a reason to go into business with someone. What do you each bring to the table, what unique skills can be applied by each party?
Many friendships have been ruined by going into business partnerships when both parties bring exactly the same traits. Two awesome trainers will not make a great business. If you look at going into partnership with someone and your strength is training clients, look for someone with massive business experience.
These myths shouldn't deter you from going into or staying in business, but hopefully they give you a bit more insight and motivation to reflect or reconsider your motives and realise how much responsibility really is involved in any successful business endeavor.
I once sold a personal training client a used car. While I'm not in the habit of selling used cars to friends (because they always come back to bite you), my client practically insisted that he buy it.
If you're like most trainers, you want to make some good money, you may even have the six figure fever that I see all over the place. So how do you get there and not have to train clients 12 hours a day, 7 days a week?
Sell your clients stuff!
The biggest problem with selling your clients stuff is figuring out what stuff to sell them without looking like you're just trying to get more money out of them.
Successful selling is about relationships and timing.
I'm sure you've heard of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and other fancy ways to pick up on signals, but the real trick, the highest converting sales are those made when you simply provide or suggest a service or product when your client asks you for it.
I've always enjoyed sales and product promotion, I enjoy it more than personal training clients actually and is why I've directed my career in the direction I have.
The biggest kick I get from selling something to someone is seeing them get value from my suggestion. I've never sold a product or service that couldn't provide the buyer with a good experience, be it, to make them more money or help them achieve a goal of some description and I'm convinced that's why my clients continue to buy from me.
Look for quality products and service providers that are in line with what your clients may seek a recommendation from you to buy.
Some places to start are:
Massage therapists
Physiotherapists
Nutritional products
Naturapaths
Clothing
Footwear
Recommending a product or service is not sales, especially if you believe in it 100%. I'm a strong believer in referral kickbacks, but that's a different article.
Think of the BIG picture!
Give your clients freebies. Go above and beyond your call of duty as their personal trainer and give them all the information you can. Don't hold out on anything for fear that they'll go elsewhere, they'll only do that if you don't help them.
Trainer trust is different to seller trust.
Your clients trust you; in the gym they do what you say when you say as long as they're achieving their health and fitness goals; but the minute you open your mouth and try and sell them something, they back up and suddenly, even trainer trust can be damaged because it can appear that your motives have been compromised.
On the other hand, if a client asks you for something, then that's a different ball game all together. You want the situation whereby when you actually do want to sell them something, they'll embrace it with open wallets...I mean arms.
What can you sell them?
Do you have a goal to produce your own products, set up an online personal training service, write a book or even get involved in affiliate marketing? If the answer is yes then this is where all that hard work will pay off.
Why ruin a relationship for a few measly bucks?
I see trainers sell their clients protein powders and other concoctions and make maybe five or ten dollars a hit and nine times out of ten, the client doesn't really want or need it anyway.
You're better off sending them somewhere else and making a few bucks as a referrer, that way your reputation stays in tact. If you have a studio or gym then this situation is a little different but either way you have to avoid the hard sell.
To put this into perspective, let's look at one of the masters of this principle, Anthony Robbins. That guy helps everyone; he goes on television giving away free advice, goes on free tours to help people "take action" and appears to genuinely want to help people get their lives together.
Then he pops out a new product and two things might cross your mind:
You almost feel obligated to buy from him because he gave you so much great information for free.
If the information he gave away was so awesome, imagine how good his stuff must be that I pay for!
This stuff works, he has the castle, helicopter and private island to prove it!
Selling products to your clients is a great way to increase your bottom line; repeat sales are a great way to secure your financial future. Take care of your clients and when the time comes for you to ask them for a sale, they'll buy.
How many times have you given your clients a meal plan and never actually attempted to prepare or even tasted some of the foods that you encourage them to eat?
It's debatable, but would you agree that any weight loss or weight gain goal is more than 50% nutrition? Personally, I would say it's close to 80% nutrition 20% exercise, but let's not get into that today.
When I first started handing out calorie controlled meal plans, one meal I was suggesting was tuna, pineapple and sweet potato baked patties; and yes they taste as nasty as they sound. I was eating them, but I'm not my target market and even I thought they tasted disgraceful, so why on earth would my clients eat them?
More recently, I was speaking to a friend of mine who's a vegetarian and her personal trainer insisted that she eat chicken three times a day or else she will NEVER achieve her goals (I still shake my head at that one).
You and I both know that the training is the fun part. While I was competing in bodybuilding, I loved getting up early to do cardio and then heading back to the gym for my weights session; but it was the 6-10 clean meals through the day that were the most challenging, both in preparation and in taste.
What's good for the goose is not always good for the gander.
Our clients aren't health and fitness enthusiasts like we are. Poached chicken and green beans three times a day is not an appealing alternative to what our clients are use to eating so you need to be a little more resourceful and imaginative.
Your clients expect results, but if you try and change their lifestyle too dramatically (at least initially), they're going to look elsewhere for an easier remedy to their perceived weight problem.
Of course this doesn't apply to every client. Some will do anything and everything you tell them to without hesitation, but unfortunately, there aren't enough of those gems to sustain a fitness business.
How can you use nutrition to increase your client base?
It's as simple as letting potential clients know that you are flexible and accommodating to an individuals needs and tastes.
Most of the time, personal trainers focus on their extensive experience of different exercises in their business promotion. How many times have you seen an advertisement claiming specific nutritional expertise?
Put yourself in a potential clients shoes who is looking at two advertisements for a personal trainer. One ad says:
"Lose weight fast with my awesome bootcamp!"
and the ad next to it says:
"Lose weight fast with my awesome bootcamp and complimentary nutritional programs specific to your goals and tastes!"
Who would you call?
The market has changed; people are more aware of their own nutritional needs than ever before, whether they adhere to them or not.
Four that come to mind are:
Vegetarians of varying vegetarian ism (some eat fish etc.)
Celiacs: Gluten free clients
Fructose intolerance (the latest)
Lactose intolerance
Use this new found consumer awareness to your advantage and research and prepare meal plans specific to this market. Prepare the meals yourself, see what they taste like, how easy they are to prepare? Try and keep all recipes between 4-6 ingredients to make your options viable and convenient, but most importantly, let the world know of your new found 'expertise'.
While most fitness accreditation bodies do offer a personal training business module in their syllabus, you can never be too prepared for the real world of small business and frankly, the powers that be can't and don't cover ever aspect you NEED to consider before you're unleashed onto the community with your new credentials.
The following list of 50 considerations are a veritable check list that both budding personal trainers and established fitness professionals should tick off if they're serious about making a long term, financially rewarding fitness industry career.
If you can confidently respond to everything in this list, relative to what type of fitness professional you aspire to be or business you plan to run before you get started, or even now if you're already working in the industry; your chances of success will increase significantly.
Let's get started!
1. Determine Your Start Up Costs:
Have you seriously considered how much running a small business is going to cost you? Besides the obvious expenses of equipment and rent, have you factored in rudimentary costs like petrol, phone and Internet connection?
2. Support:
Do You Have The Support Of Your Family? This can be extremely important to consider before you dive in to a new career. Without their blessing, you may find yourself on the sharp end of financial discussions.
3. Hire A Local Personal Trainer:
Hire the most popular and successful personal trainer in the area that you will be working, if for only one session. It's up to you whether you tell them that you're opening shop next door, but it's better to know your competition than second guess.
4. Ask Yourself If You Have The Entrepreneurial Ability To Start Your Own Business Or Whether You Should Be An Employee:
One of the first things to consider before you make the decision to become a contract personal trainer or employee. Do you have the drive to market yourself, to perform all of the mundane tasks that employee trainers are oblivious to? Running a business involves consistent hard work, determine whether you're up to it.
5. Make A Budget And Overestimate Expenses:
Make a business budget and stick to it. Most small businesses fail in the first 12 months because of miscalculated budgeting. Be realistic and also very tight with your money. Prepare for the worst but expect the best.
6. Start A Blog:
No matter what type of business you're operating, start a blog. It doesn't have to be fantastic or mind bogglingly beautiful, the important thing is to start getting some information online immediately.
Besides training with your biggest competition, you should research their marketing and promotional approach. Notice if anything has been repeated because that's a clear sign that it was a successful promotion and you should look to build on that. The best thing about established competition is that it gives you an opportunity to study what does and doesn't work in your niche and then make it better.
8. Run A Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising Campaign:
Run a trial advertising campaign on facebook. Target your market specifically, put a cap on your daily expenditure and evaluate your click through rate. Tweak your ad slightly over the course of the campaign and find out what attracts the most attention. If you receive zero clicks, you may need to reconsider your strategy all together.
9. Train At Surrounding Fitness Centers:
This will give you an indication of the type of community you're working in. It will also give you a better idea of what your competitors are offering and how you can promote your point of difference.
10. Write A Brief Mission Statement:
100 words or less. This should be your answer to the question "What type of business are you operating?". If you can't answer this simple question confidently and briefly, than you're committing personal training business suicide.
11. Create A Client Avatar:
Spend some time visualising and writing down everything you can think of that describes your target client. From their hobbies to their age and gender, when you have a specific market in mind, your marketing and promotion dollar goes much further.
Equipment for a personal trainer consists of more than a pair of focus pads and an exercise ball. Have all of your forms like branded program cards, pre-exercise questionnaires and office stationary ready to go.
13. Buy Some General Equipment:
Buy yourself some boxing gloves, focus pads, cones, a skipping rope, light dumbbells and some other small pieces of equipment. Keep them in a designated gym bag to enable your service the freedom to go outside and so you don't have to rely on the gym for everything you may need
14. Introduce Yourself To Neighbouring Related Businesses: Beauty therapists, sports stores, gyms, hairdressers:
Take the opportunity to go and meet the owners, managers and staff of businesses that you may be able to offer collaborative promotions with down the track. Build a relationship, don't let your first point of contact be asking them for something.
15. If Beginning In An Established Fitness Center, Introduce Yourself To Your Future Colleagues:
If after your course you 've already selected the club you will be operating out of, go by before you commence work and meet your future colleagues. Shake every ones hand from the receptionist to the general manager so when you start you can get straight down to business.
16. Prepare Some Generic Calorie Controlled Meal Plans:
Have a list of meal plan ideas ready to go which you can easily modify for your clients. Include vegetarian and gluten free meal plans to compliment the variety of clients you want to attract.
17. Source And Practice Making Healthy Recipes That You Can Recommend To Future Clients:
This is perhaps so obvious that no one ever does it. If you're putting together some generic meal plans, TRY THEM! The low calorie recipes you find online may be difficult to prepare or even worse taste disgusting. Never recommend something to your clients that you wouldn't eat yourself if you were in their shoes.
18. Create An Exercise Glossary:
This is very simple, but again often over looked. Create a list of exercises for every body part and every level of fitness. You don't need thousands, but having a list of exercise suggestions prior to designing a client program can save you hours of time.
19. Train At The Gym You're Going To Work From:
Along with visiting the gym you're going to be working from, begin training there. Get to know the equipment, where the locker rooms are, operating hours, everything you will need to know before you start work.
20. Market Research:
Spend an hour at your gym/new gym at different times of the day: You don't have to train, you could just go for coffee next door but see what happens first hand first thing in the morning, during the middle of the day and in the afternoon. This will give you an opportunity to see what kind of clientele your potential gym attracts and to check out the viability of running a successful personal training business. Is it too busy, not busy enough, is it just filled with students etc.
21. Register A Twitter Account:
Get a twitter account up and running and brand it. This will be a business account; so how much you drank on the weekend has no place here. This twitter account will be for updates, congratulations, tips and tricks and timetables.
Like your twitter account; this page is strictly business. Use it to network within your industry and to inform clients of business news. You can post videos here, run competitions, all kinds of things.
Go to any domain seller, (I use Godaddy myself) and register your personal training business name. Again, even if you're not starting your site yet, you need to lock it down or at least a version thereof.
25. Compare Insurance Providers:
Get quotes for income and health insurance. Your accreditation body should offer you a good indemnity and liability package for your clients, but don't forget about yourself.
Over the next few weeks, stop spending money on garbage. Save, save, save, you never know what you're going to need or what emergencies may come up. Have some money put aside for anything.
27. Buy Work Clothes:
Buy some work sneakers, shorts and socks. If you're going to work from a club, find out what the uniform is and put in your order.
28. Prepare Promotional Material:
For your launch you should consider what type of promotion you're going to run. You only get one shot at this so take your time and do your research before you spend any time or money.
Welcome to the world of business ownership and taxation. Once you have your ABN you can now register for GST.
32. Research EFT Providers:
There are quite a few companies offering EFT and direct debit systems for fitness centers and personal trainers. Shop around and get the best deal for your structure and growth forecasts.
You will probably receive your first year subscription as part of your graduation, however see what else is out there. Stay abreast of upcoming continued education courses and industry trends.
Speak to your bank about the most appropriate account for your new business. Will you need a business credit card, merchant facilities etc.? Negotiate the best rates and don't be afraid to shop around.
36. Write A Business Plan:
You can find business plan templates all over the net and in most Microsoft office packages. Write a brief plan that you can add too as time goes by.
It doesn't have to be mapped out to the day, but definitely put together a viable calendar of activities that you are going to attempt to run over the first 12 months. Remember that your budget will be extremely tight so plan accordingly.
A lot of the time these associations are free to join, otherwise there may be a small annual fee. Not only are there networking opportunities, you will have access to business tools that you may not be aware of.
39. Find An Accountant With Fitness Industry Experience:
Ask colleagues who they recommend for taxation issues. Accountants who have worked with personal trainers and other fitness industry professionals will have a better understanding of what you are able to claim and the taxation laws governing our industry.
Are you a sole trader, company or partnership? Study the difference and set up your legal entity accordingly.
41. Don't Quit Your Day Job:
While I encourage you to visualize success and be confident that your new career in the fitness industry is going to set you up for life, it is far too early to think that you are going to be inundated with clients in the first few months. If possible, reduce your days and hours progressively over time to accommodate your growing business but for now; personal training is a part time job.
42. Don't Hire Any Staff:
It's way too early to even consider hiring or subcontracting any staff at this stage. You're on your own, so get use to it; at least for now.
43. If You Have Social Media Accounts. Clean Them Up:
If you have a Facebook profile, expect your new colleagues and clients to want to be friends with you. Clean out any drunken pictures and derogatory comments that may effect your reputation. People are fascinated by social media, you can either use it as a virtual resume or a career time bomb.
Here's a video (with some downright lovely music) on how to make a SWOT analysis, using Microsoft Word and Excel:
45. Create/Determine A Suitable Workspace Away From The Gym To Complete Administration Tasks:
Create a space in your home that is strictly for business, be it planning, doing paperwork, making calls it doesn't matter. When you are here you are not to be distracted and you need to let your family and friends know this.
46. Develop A Life Plan:
Why Are You Becoming A personal trainer or business owner, what do you want to achieve? What are your dreams, where do you want to be in five years? Know the answers to these questions and you can get there.
47. Expand Your Network:
Get out and meet people, hand out business cards and shake some hands.
48. Ask Yourself If You're Skilled To Complete All Peripheral Tasks:
Filing, answering phones professionally, book keeping, stock control. You may need to take an administration or small business course to teach you the fundamentals of organising and implementing effective procedures and systems.
49. Come Up With A Unique Business Name:
Make sure it makes sense. Don't make up words or try and get technical, just consider using your name plus 'personal training' or 'fitness center' or any other combination of fitness keywords.
50. Get A Logo/Brand Yourself:
This isn't as hard or as expensive as you may think. Search online for cheaper alternatives and you should be able to get a professional logo made in all art formats for around $50.00.
Rest assured; I haven't created this list to frighten you off or to make things seem more complicated than they really are, in fact if I wanted to do that I could have made this list 1000 things you need to do.
This is just a reality check to remind you that beginning your personal training business, studio or fitness center is not as simple as getting certified and opening the doors. With preparation and planning you can get your business off on the right foot from the very beginning and climb the ladder of success in record time.
If you've been involved in the fitness industry for a while now, you know very well that you can't please everyone all the time.
If you're new to the personal training business, you might as well be prepared for those special clients that no matter what you do, are never happy with their results.
What do you tell your clients that are dissatisfied with how their personal training program is coming along?
Do you:
Put their poor results back on them?
Take responsibility for their lack of results?
Change the subject?
Tell them to go somewhere else?
Ideally, this conversation should never come up and if you play your cards right from the get go by making a few small adjustments to how you present your service; it never will.
There are a few obvious, but often neglected good business practices that you can apply to most aspects of life; for the sake of this article however, I'll describe why it's CRUCIAL for you to implemented the following into your fitness business.
Never Over Promise:
You're not a miracle worker and don't think that because you may have had some success transforming lives that your system is fool proof. Take the time to analyse every clients goals and abilities thoroughly before making ANY guarantees or claims.
Deliver What You Say:
The old saying 'do what you say you're going to do' comes to mind. If you tell your clients that you're going to provide them with nutritional advice, provide it. If you tell them that you're going to give them complimentary extra activities, deliver.
Put Responsibility On Them:
Your clients need to be absolutely clear that training with you two days a week and not following up with their own exercise and good nutrition is NOT going to give them the results that they expect. While you can provide all the information in the world, if they continue their poor eating habits and lethargy outside of your sessions, they will never achieve anything worthwhile.
Don't Let Clients Dictate Your Sessions:
I would expect that you've prepared a detailed and unique program for each of your clients from the start. It may include resistance training, cardio, boxing activities etc and you may also incorporate a 'client's choice' session every once in a while. Your clients are going to find some activities more enjoyable than others and naturally want to do them. Also, they may not see the value in everything you prescribe because they may not 'sweat' and consider the session a waste of time.
"Don't let clients bully you into straying from what you've prepared."
Again, provide them with information from the start and even a brief itinerary of what you have designed and why you've incorporated certain activities into their program.
It's not unreasonable for our clients to expect results; that's why they pay us; their perception and the reality of what they CAN achieve is your responsibility to inform them from the start.
If you don't adhere to these business practices already, implement today.
Something to think about:
If you're clients ever complain to you about their results or what you've promised them they can achieve and it's wrong, can you imagine what they've said about your service to friends, family and work colleagues...
When you sell your personal training packages, what exactly are your clients buying? Do you sell them sessions or do you sell them a formula for a health and fitness lifestyle?
This article is about how you can impact your client's lives every single day for the rest of their lives; not just for a few hours a week.
Put yourself in the average Joe or Joanne's shoes for a moment, better still; think back to the first time you ever walked into a gym.
You probably had no idea what half of the equipment was or what you needed to do, let alone what to expect from the staff, but you had a crystal clear picture of what you wanted to achieve.
Your experience as a fitness professional tells you what your clients can expect to achieve, in what kind of time frame and by what means; so why not openly share that knowledge and get your clients involved in their own wellness journey?
Ask yourself; do your clients even know how to eat right and what kind of exercise is best going to compliment your personal training sessions...probably not.
"Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand." - Chinese proverb
Many trainers are reluctant to educate their clients for a variety of reasons; but imagine if you went to a dentist to fix your teeth and then they didn't tell you how, or give you information and instructions to make sure they don't fall out. It's not like they're threatened you're going to take that information and start fixing your own teeth.
The reason you go back to your dentist year after year is because they care about your well being and that's the kind of relationship you need to create with your clients.
One of the best ways, (well, I'm going to offer three examples) to encourage your clients to live a healthier lifestyle and to help them achieve their goals faster is to give them as much information as they can carry.
Give your clients nutritional guidance: I'm not talking about a generic 'eat this-lose weight' generic print out. Give them regular handouts specific to their nutritional habits and goals. You don't have to be a dietitian to ask your clients what their likes and dislikes are and then to source healthy recipe options for them to incorporate (a quick google search will give you hundreds).
Give your clients a training program to take home: Some personal trainers feel threatened to give their clients too much advice on how to exercise because they fear it will make them redundant. This couldn't be further from the truth. Your clients want to know that you care about them and are encouraging them to exercise outside of your sessions. Incorporate exercises and activities that compliment your training sessions and make them aware that they should consult with you before straying outside of your suggestions.
Give them homework: Ask your clients to collect things that motivate them, or to cut out recipes that they'd like to try. Ask them to find an activity that they'd like to participate in like a fun run or bike ride. You could easily do these sorts of things for them, but it is more effective if they are involved in their own experience. I found the best way to do this was to make up a small check box list for them to take home, source the information and tick the boxes.
Your clients should leave every training session exhausted and enlightened. Give them value for their money and something to talk to their friends and family about and watch your fitness business grow.
People dive into the personal training business for a variety of reasons. Some for the love of the lifestyle, some to share their knowledge of health and fitness with the world and some to make the magical 'six figures' salary.
Six figures is such a broad and cliched phrase that doesn't really mean anything, though it is a measurable goal and that is what being in business is all about. For the purpose of this article however, let's assume that you have a goal to cross that golden $100,000 line, but unfortunately, are falling short.
If you're not making six figures, here's 6 possible reasons why:
1. Not Doing Enough Work:
Personal training is a full time job. When you're not training clients, you should be marketing and promoting your business. You are your business, without you it's nothing, without marketing yourself and your abilities you're greatly limiting your earning potential.
Owning any business involves a LOT of hours and a lot of responsibilities that many people forget or fail to implement. Training clients should really only make up 50% of your time at best, spend the other 50% developing your systems and infrastructure.
2. New To The Industry:
This one speaks for itself. A lot of people go into business with the preconceived notion that they're going to automatically become successful overnight. While for a very very few select people this may happen, for the rest of us, it takes time and hard work.
Have patience and work hard; the money will come over time if you follow a plan and consistently put in the hours.
3. You're Not Very Good:
You have to be realistic with your own skills and experience. You may be a fantastic personal trainer, but lack the business knowledge necessary to market and sell yourself. On the flip side, you may be a terrific business person but a lousy personal trainer and your clients don't achieve results.
The great thing about these two scenarios is that you can fix both of them. Spend some time identifying your weaknesses and then spend more time improving them.
4. Wrong Market, Wrong Location:
If you're target market is the affluent, then you need to be marketing where these people will see your material.
I placed an advertisement in a veterinary clinic in a very well-to-do neighbourhood and it was one of the most profitable pieces of A5 paper I had ever spent 47 seconds creating.
Choose your location specifically to attract the market that you want to attract. If it's overweight housewives, think about where they would want to train. Besides a convenient location, consider what else they may need to be comfortable.
5. No Identity:
If your niche is too broad - trying to cater to every client with every goal, then you should look to specialising in an area where you can establish yourself as an authority e.g. specific weight management, rehabilitation etc. That way you will be recognised as the best at what you do and can charge a rate reflective of your expertise.
6. Poorly Or No Structured Financial System:
Firstly, if your not very good at collecting or asking for money then you will not make any money. Your time and experience is incredibly valuable, so never be afraid to get paid.
As The Joker says: "If you're good at something, never do it for free".
Also, make sure you have financial facilities available. You need to have a means to collect payments from credit cards and POS. You need to create an EFT facility, if you can't conveniently collect money, how do you expect to earn money?
If you've ticked all of those boxes and you're still not hitting six figures never fear, I have plenty of other ideas why which I'll cover in later articles. In the meantime, review yourself and your procedures and see if any of the points I've made ring true.
Pull The Six Figure Trigger (I don't know what that means)!
A personal training business is a living, breathing machine that needs to be monitored and tended to constantly.
No business coasts along, it's either growing or dieing and you need to be honest in your assessment of this situation.
Would you agree that the goal of your operation should always be improvement, either by developing the size of your company or developing your skills within it to better serve your clients?
In an ideal world, achieving both would be perfect.
Here are 10 quick tips to strengthen your personal training business NOW, rather than later:
1. Set Goals: Set short term and long term goals for your fitness business. The long term can be anything you can dream of, the short term are your means of achieving them. Try and imagine where you want to be in 12 months, what you would like to be doing; that might be to step away from training clients all together to focus on developing an online presence or maybe to become an industry speaker.
2. Better Your Selling Abilities: Sales are an integral part of practically every industry, none more so that the fitness business. Register for a course, read a book, take action and watch your conversion rate explode!
3. Get To Know Your Strengths And Weaknesses: Exploit your strengths and develop your weaknesses. You may be a fantastic trainer, but a lousy business person, or vice verse.
4. Monitor The Industry Trends: Read the fitness industry publications, subscribe to keyword RSS feeds, read blogs and pay attention to comments that consumers are making. Compare your business model and structure to what is happening and what is predicted to happen.
5. Practice Your Presentations: Practice your presentations with your friends, into a mirror, on a video camera. Have a system that is ready to go at all times; you never know when you'll need to make a sales presentation and nothing looks worse to a potential client than if you're fumbling around looking for your presentation material.
6. Monitor Your Business: Take notes, make spreadsheets and record everything. To grow, you need to be able to recall and compare information. For example:
How many clients you have
How many phone calls you receive
How many walk in enquiries
Hits to your website and blog; where are they coming from?
Promotion statistics/results
7. Use High Impact Marketing: Always be marketing and promoting. Make your plan each year, but don't be afraid to improvise. Look to collaborate with other businesses and seek out inexpensive opportunities.
8. Implement Best Practices: Learn from the best, increase your knowledge and don't waste time trying to reinvent the wheel. There are plenty of resources out there to tell you the most efficient route for your business and I almost guarantee any problem you face, someone else has already faced it and written about how to solve it.
9. Stay Motivated: Keep yourself juiced, the best way to do this is through goal setting and planning. If you have staff, keep them juiced, find out what motivates them, you would be surprised to know that financial reward and incentive programs come a close second to appreciation in the eyes of employees.
10. Know When It's Time To Take A Break: You're no good to anyone if you're over worked and exhausted. Find a balance for your friends, family, your business and most importantly take time for yourself.
Please leave a comment if you have any further suggestions, or quick tips for a fitness business.
I like Quentin Tarantino; I like his movies, his attitude and his drive. He makes me excited about his work through his unbridled enthusiasm and he looks like he could be my next door neighbour...albeit the creepy one.
Anyway, my movie channel was on earlier while I was making dinner and there was an interview with Quentin about his latest film Inglorious Bastards and like always, he was on point and now I'm convinced that this film is the greatest movie ever made.
So I got to thinking, If Quentin was a personal trainer and he had the same energy and passion for health and fitness as he does for film, do you think he would be successful? You better believe it!
I did a little research on Mr. T and discovered a few interesting factoids which only supported my theory that he has qualities that a personal trainer could relate to and if used strategically, create a thriving and unique fitness business.
But first; watch this video so you have an idea what I'm talking about when it comes to his unwavering passion about his work and industry:
Man Of Many Talents
Looking over Quentins career, he has tried his hand at just about every avenue of the film making industry and uses these skills to oversee a movie from start to finish.
He also openly admits that he doesn't try to reinvent the wheel, that he has stolen material from every movie ever made to create his, which I relate to a personal trainer using tried and tested exercises, programming and nutritional support to help a client achieve their goals.
1. Diversification: Quentin is a man of many talents, he is first and foremost a director as well as an accomplished writer (did you know he was an uncredited re-writer of Crimson Tide and The Rock), actor and producer for both film and television.
A personal trainer should follow the same mindset in order to maximise potential income. Learn all you can about the industry and where you can create new streams of revenue.Try your hand at group fitness or write an ebook to sell.
2. Innovation: His films, while they may not be the digital spectacular of an Avatar movie, are always perfectly timed and cast to perfection. He switches things up at the right time and uses transitioning to keep the audience interested and challenged.
Take your clients on a fitness adventure. Every workout should lead into the next and the outcome is the result of carefully scripted sessions and innovating programming and support.
3. Consistency/Branding: You can generally spot a Tarantino influenced production fairly quickly by the content and structure of the film. Not only that, he often uses familiar faces in a lot of his films. Samuel L Jackson has appeared in 4 of Tarantino's films.
You too should be branding not only yourself but your service. Stay consistent with your basic training platform only changing enough to inspire and inject a hint of surprise to your clients workouts.
4. Self Belief: If you watched the interview above I don't need to remind you how passionate Quentin is about the work he does. Stand by your work and what you want to achieve. Believe in yourself and defend your decisions, if you're ever wrong admit you're wrong but always know that you gave everything 100%.
And in closing, as the great Tarantino says: "I want to top expectations. I want to blow you away."
With 3 phone calls and 45 minutes work, I drastically reduced my personal training/fitness center's EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer) expenses, saving almost $5,000 per year in fees and charges and I'm going to tell you how.
If there's one thing that's critical to any businesses success, especially small business; is you have to find ways maximize your earning opportunities and minimize your expenses and/or outgoings.
I'm talking about unnecessary expenses that may have been utilized originally for convenience or maybe you had a lack of specific knowledge, but it's time to re-evaluate what you really NEED and trim some of the fat to put the money back in your pocket.
"It's all good and well to create a six figure personal training or fitness business, but if it's costing you over half of that to operate, then you're wasting a lot of time and money."
The best way to do this is to make a list of ALL of your businesses outgoing expenses and analyze how many of them are for convenience or comfort rather than actual money making tools.
You might be surprised at what you come up with and it may prompt you to make some phone calls to service providers and re-negotiate your financial relationships.
I was nervous the day I sat down with my calculator. I knew my costs were much higher than they had to be and it seemed like such an effort to pull things back into place, but I had to take charge of my business.
The first thing I noticed was my EFT charges. Per transaction the amount seemed insignificant but on a monthly basis it converted to hundreds of dollars.
What also occurred to me was the ratio of credit card debits verses direct bank account debits. Credit cards made up almost 40% of the total membership which obviously contributed significantly to the amount of fees I was paying.
Like most businesses, I had my own point of sale (POS) machine for paid in full memberships and other purchases which I was paying for regardless if I was using it or not, so why couldn't I just use my own merchant facility for these monthly credit card debits and cut out the middle man?
I decided to encourage my members and clients to pay their monthly debits by credit card, offering them discounts or other rewards and I would simply record their details in a spreadsheet that had their card number, billing date, debit amount and membership term.
As existing credit card members terms came to a close, I would cancel their EFT contract and flip them over to my system.
All I had to do was each 1st, 15th and end of month was look at my spreadsheet and manually debit each card. It never seemed like a chore because it was all money for me and collecting money is never a chore.
I obviously kept the EFT company on board as over half of my membership and client base preferred direct debit from a bank account and eventually I was able to negotiate a much more respectable fee structure.
I remember the first time I ever spoke to an EFT representative; I was all smiles, It felt like I had a real business on my hands and it blew my mind that I would get payments every month, just for opening my doors.
In hindsight, I should have spent more time researching my options and opportunities, but in the end I developed a very simple system that literally saved me thousands of dollars.
You may have noticed it yourself; clients aren’t very imaginative when it comes to making up excuses why they’re not renewing with you.
Think about a time when you had to RSVP a function or event and at the last moment decided against it, you simply saw no value in what was on offer. You probably made up some long winded and over detailed explanation that falls back to time or money.
You can expect the same kind of reasons from your client, but there are ways to handle those last ditch objections and counter their concerns in order to save that business.
In my experience; the real story, the truth motivating a client to not renew or to simply disappear off the face of the earth, more often than not has absolutely nothing to do with time or money, it is generally one of the following:
• They’re not achieving their goals • They have found a new personal trainer • They don’t like the way you’re training them • They don’t feel like you listen to or care about them • They simply don’t like you
Don’t take the last one personally; you probably didn’t like them either.
As I mention regularly on My Business Is Fitness, personal training is a relationship industry. We are selling ourselves to the general public as health and fitness professionals and what we are representing is an optional luxury for many of our clients.
If not handled carefully and professionally, your clients will leave you no matter what kind of relationship you believe you have with them and from my experience there are some obvious tell tale signs to keep an eye out for.
This post is actually an excerpt from my ebook which I am just finishing up and in it I describe many of the indications your client will give you that they're about to move on...
I wanted to call this article '4 Free Personal Trainer Marketing Ideas', but that would sound like I was just giving you some free advice, which I am, but cheap keeps things realistic because there are always associated costs with marketing and promotions like petrol, time, electricity, Red Bulls etc.
1. Sponsor a charitable event with your services.
A decent sized event like a marathon or bike ride for charity will likely generate a lot of exposure in the local media as well as posters and flyer's being plastered all over town. When you're a sponsor your logo should be stuck on there somewhere and it won't cost you anything except your time for a few sessions.
2. Write fitness articles and submit them to blogs as guest posts.
I'm a blogger and I know how hard it can be to find enough time to write and publish articles consistently.
Most bloggers are more than happy to accept guest posts if the articles are related to the bloggers niche. Contact some of your favorites and offer to send them a guest post which you will be able to incorporate your business information into and get your work in front of a whole new audience.
3. Use Facebook and Twitter.
Luke from Revolution Personal Training (@revopt) has a fantastic twitter profile, which he regularly updates with timetables and last minute information for clients and potential clients.
The trick with twitter is not to spam too much, because after a while people will begin to just glaze over your tweets and your account will have no value.
Facebook on the other hand is a great tool for updating all of your personal training information, adding photos, testimonials, pretty much everything you can do with a blog. The great thing about a facebook profile or fan page is that you can go out and find people to become fans, unlike a blog or website where you have to rely on SEO and other factors to bring your audience to you.
4. Organise a competition.
If you run your personal training business from a gym or fitness centre, organise a competition where the prize is several training sessions and maybe some other items like gift certificates or vouchers from neighbouring businesses or associates.
It could be as simple as a short questionnaire or quiz asking entrants for their favorite exercises or simple and healthy recipes. They leave their contact details which gives you the added benefit of a new and updated list of potential clients.
There are literally hundreds of inexpensive ways to promote your business, which is good for me because that gives me plenty of opportunity for follow up articles. In the meantime however, give these cheap marketing ideas a try and let me know how you go below...yo.
