personal trainers - how to find the clients who will give you money

Personal Trainers: How to Find the Clients Who Will Give You Money

By Gervasio Da Gloria

Gervasio Da Gloria is the author of multiple fitness books, such as; Discover the Secret: Making Money as a Fitness Professional and How To BOOST Your Personal Training Income: 100 Ways To Sell Your Skills Working Fewer Hours and The Personal Trainers Price Tag How to Use Your Price to Increase Your Value and Get More Fulfilled Clients. His experience has inspired him to show personal trainers innovative ways to boost their income by working fewer hours. Currently he is delivering workshops nationwide for personal trainers – the first of its kind – for those who want to understand how to sell and market a personal training business. He is contactable on Gervasio@justfit-­‐ training.co.uk or www.justfit-­‐training.co.uk

Personal Trainers: How to Find the Clients Who Will Give You Money Gervasio Da Gloria ©2013 www.justfit-­‐training.co.uk

How is it possible that being a good personal trainer is not good enough?

Becoming a personal trainer is a great career choice and usually it is a path that leads many people to experience satisfaction, recognition and joy; things that we all need to live healthy lives.

A noticeable fact is that almost all of the new starters within the fitness industry face a choice of becoming either employed or self-­‐employed. Some choose to become employed while others choose to become self-­‐employed because they want to gain control over their freedom, and earn as much money as possible so they can make their biggest dream a reality; to open their own fitness studio.

The problem that most personal trainers face when they start is that they have been trained to perform their job as an employee and not as a self-­‐employed individual. If you think and make decisions like an employee, being on your own becomes an agonising experience. This is the number one reason is why being a good personal trainer is not enough for you to attract more clients and make money within the fitness industry. If you want to excel then you must be more than just a good personal trainer. You must learn how to sell and market your personal training business.

As you become more involved in the fitness industry there are so many things that require your attention, such as managing your client’s schedules, keeping them motivated, tracking their fitness plan and their fitness progress, showing them how to eat healthily, keeping on top of their a food plan, managing the money they give you, and presenting your service to existing and new clients.

You also need to know where you want to take this business. However, lack of time is one of the biggest problems, which makes almost all new starters and even veteran fitness professionals constantly feel overwhelmed by how much they have to do and how little time they have to do it.

As a result, most dedicated personal trainers tend to focus on all of the technical aspects of the job rather than how to market themselves better, how to sell themselves efficiently and also how to look after their money. This means that they tend to struggle, give up and leave the industry with all sorts of bad feelings, blaming marketing for their failure.

Being self-­‐employed requires discipline and self-­‐motivation along with other easy-­‐to-­‐acquire skills. If you become aware of what to expect and how to perform your chance of success will be greater.

So Let Me Ask You: What is your number one job in your personal training business? To attract more clients. Imagine if you have all this knowledge in how to train clients but you don’t have clients to train. Chances are that your personal training business will go nowhere.

By applying the strategies on this report, you will learn the 10 easy and fast ways to attract more personal training clients for free. Once you master these skills your money problems will vanish and your gym or health club can become a reality.

Personal Trainers: How to Find the Clients Who Will Give You Money Gervasio Da Gloria ©2013 www.justfit-­‐training.co.uk

When I ask personal trainers “how do you market your personal training business?” I often get one of these responses. “I teach group exercise classes that will give me more clients” or “I am creating a poster and flyer and will deliver copies door to door”. If that is how you are marketing your personal training business you are probably putting in far too much effort, time and energy.

How do Personal Trainers Find the Clients Who Will Give Them Money?

Did it ever occurred to you that you can use what you are doing now to let people know what you do and make it easier for them to spread the word about your personal training business? I can assure you that if you use the methods outlined on this report it will attract more personal training clients, you will make more money and you will work less. I trust that you have what it takes to make your personal trainer business grow. So it’s your responsibility to demonstrate your abilities by taking action towards the right marketing methods.

1. Personal Training Testimonials

How do you tell people how good a personal fitness trainer you are? Do you give them a free demonstration of your fitness service? Do you ask them to do a fitness test? Do you show them how you can help them? All of the above are valid, but what about using some of the people who you have helped with your personal training service and ask them to tell others how good you are?

When you use testimonials to market yourself as a personal trainer, it will blow personal training price objections out of the way. It helps to create a natural identification with your potential clients: “That’s me!" In addition you use testimonials to reinforce all of the promises or claims that you make.

Whatever you promise to do – reduce body fat, improve stamina – you need your customers to feel fulfilled. If you do this then, as Jeff Borrows said, “Your results will spell PROFIT”. To maintain this profit, you need to monitor your clients’ satisfaction. On other hand, you can implement the Disney World marketing principle, which is to do what you do so well that people can’t resist telling others about you. Following this principle gives you marketing leverage. A lot of leverage.

2. Offer Personal Training Gift Certificates

Personal Trainers: How to Find the Clients Who Will Give You Money Gervasio Da Gloria ©2013 www.justfit-­‐training.co.uk

It is a well-­‐known fact that people are constantly looking for new and unusual gift ideas. Do you have any idea what you could offer your clients to attract more personal training clients? It seems obvious, but it is underused methods of marketing by almost all personal trainers as a great way to build their client base. Why? I had a chance to interview about a hundred personal trainers, asking if they use this method as a form of obtaining or attracting more clients. You will be surprised by the response. Out of 100 personal trainers only one reported to me that he actually uses gift certificates to attract more clients.

In reality gift certificates are not solely the domain of department stores. There is more and more proof that gift certificates work in virtually any business. They work extremely well in businesses like personal training where these methods have never been used. Gift certificates work their magic most when a personal trainer like you markets their availability, especially at gift-­‐ giving times such as Christmas, Valentine's Day, birthdays and Mother’s Day. Still, they work all year long. If you let your personal training clients know what you are offering them you won’t need to do much upfront work because the gift certificate will do the work for you.

3. Make It Easy For Your Personal Training Clients To Connect With You.

I remember once at a fitness convention I was exhibiting at I had a chance to talk with a famous presenter. She is an author who has written some books in how to become a self-­‐employed personal trainer. You wouldn’t believe that after her presentation I asked her for her business card and she told me that she didn’t have one with her at that moment, and that the ones she had at home or at her office were not up to date. Surprisingly, many personal trainers are in the same position.

My advice is not to let this happen to you.

When I ask personal trainers if they use social networking, most of them simply tell me that they use it to connect with friends and family. They are not aware that social networking, like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, can be used as a marketing tool to generate more personal training clients for free instead. If you are not using social network for your fitness business, you could be missing an opportunity to get more clients and make more money.

Make it easy for your potential clients to form a relationship with you, even if that relationship is as simple as following you on Twitter, your blog, Facebook, etc. This won’t cost you a penny but it will help you spread the word about how well you are doing.

4. Offer Money Back Guarantee For Your Personal Training Session.

Personal Trainers: How to Find the Clients Who Will Give You Money Gervasio Da Gloria ©2013 www.justfit-­‐training.co.uk

As hard as it is to believe many personal trainers avoid giving their clients a money back guarantee, simply because they are not sure if they can deliver their promise. As a result, they miss an opportunity to get more clients. Can you remember the last time you went to buy something; this could be clothes, a car, food, or a book? What really motivated you to buy it? Was it because you were interested in the offer or because you had a guarantee that reassured you of your purchase?

It’s more likely to be both. A guarantee is your way of removing any feeling of risk on the part of your prospect. If you make this method part of your personal training business, you will be surprised how many clients you will attract. Here is the trick. Do not simply guarantee “satisfaction". Instead, guarantee in detail what that satisfaction will look like to your clients. And remember, the longer the guarantee, the better. If it’s a lifetime guarantee, people figure out there's no rush-­‐ but it will attract lots of clients for you as a personal fitness trainer without a doubt. Even if someone tries to claim their money back: the amount of clients you attract will be more than the number of clients who ask for their money back. If you want to be ahead of your competition, I urge you to make use of this method from now on.

5. Have Your Personal Training Potential Clients Call You.

“I am looking for a personal trainer I heard about from a fitness Magazine. Are you still taking more clients?” What would it be worth it to have people calling you to train them? If you enjoy writing and want a tonne of credibility this is the way to go about it. When you write a column and publish articles for fitness magazines it gives you this kind of credibility.

In your column you should give valuable information that will be in the best interest of the readers, you’ll be establishing yourself as the authority in your field – since everyone knows that columns are written by experts, you are writing a column, so you must be an authority.

If want your personal training business to expand to another level you must not only focus on training the people who you meet, because this act will be keeping you busy it will be limiting your growth. This is like when you exercise your biceps muscle; if you only train it with a barbell all the time, its growth will be limited. But if you train your biceps with many different pieces of fitness equipment, I am sure you would agree that it would grow faster. So the same happens to your personal training business. If you start to share your knowledge and your opinions with fitness magazines and newspapers, for instance, it will attract a larger client base as well as set you apart from any other trainers out there.

What Will Happen When You Share Your Experience Your Knowledge?

• • • • •

You can sell other products rather than just one-­‐to-­‐one.

You become recognised as an expert in your field rather than just a personal trainer The clients who can give you money will find you.

You will diminish the resistance price, changes and any other challenges you faced before.

The best of all is that your bank account will flourish.

Personal Trainers: How to Find the Clients Who Will Give You Money Gervasio Da Gloria ©2013 www.justfit-­‐training.co.uk

6. Take your PT Business Online and Build a website

Most people in today’s modern world receive much of their information electronically through television, radio, and the Internet. One thing that I noticed is that most people who are interested or concerned about their health and fitness are also aware of the benefits of using technology to get access to the information they need. Nowadays, when people are looking for information Google seems to be the first source they go to. Therefore, it makes good sense for you to make your marketing work for you 24/7. By making use of technology like the Internet and your website you will be able to market your personal training business effortlessly. Your website can take the form of an electronic brochure, with articles and other credibility builders. People who are interested in you will check it out. Nowadays you can even create a website for free from word press, blogger, Tumbler and so on. There is a celebrity personal trainer who once told me that his only method of attracting personal training clients was through his website. I was impressed by his efficiency and his market strategy.

I couldn’t recommend this technique enough. Every personal trainer, especially those who are self-­‐ employed, should have their own website to market their business 24/7, so that when they wake up in the morning they only have to focus on what that love to do the most. Then they won’t need to worry if they will have clients to train or what will happen if the client doesn’t show up and pay.

Having a website can minimise your stress level and increase your satisfaction level. It allows you to post articles and client results, receive online payments and show your testimonials. I can assure you that if you have a website you can do almost everything. I really mean it; EVERYTHING. Get one and you will see what it can do for you.

7. Ask For A Personal Training Referral

Can you recall your last purchase, how you heard about the product or how you went about making a decision? “A friend recommended you”. Word of the mouth is the most effective form of marketing. It sounds simple but not many personal trainers actually work hard to encourage word of mouth. They don’t ask for a referral that enables them to grow their fitness business with less effort.

If you want to become a successful personal trainer, you must develop a referral plan into your personal training business and stick to it. When you start to ask for referrals you will begin to amass a list of new clients for free. And each one can give you another list of three referrals. All you have to do is ask. My suggestion would be for you to make this extra easy for your clients to refer you to their friends and family. You can start by asking them face to face or on a single email offering your service for their friends and family for a free session. Of course, when they refer you thank those people who supply them.

Why should a personal trainer use referrals for their training business? Many studies show that: Personal Trainers: How to Find the Clients Who Will Give You Money Gervasio Da Gloria ©2013 www.justfit-­‐training.co.uk

• • • •

94% of consumers regularly give advice about products or services they have purchased and they are satisfied with it Referred customers were both more profitable and loyal than normal customers.

Referred customers had a higher retention rate and were more valuable in both the short and long run.

Referrals cost you less than advertising your personal training business on magazine, newspaper or even with fliers.

8. Make a plan to do something new every week to get more clients.

Many people have good ideas and the only thing that stops them from becoming a successful personal trainer is that they do not take action based on their ideas. There is an old saying that “if you don’t use it you lose it.” The same will happen to your ideas. You can have the best idea in the world, but if you won’t take action you will never know how good you could become.

My suggestion is that you make a list of the things that you want to act on, and again, just write them down. That list can end up being your marketing plan and it’s as simple as writing a list. The goal of making a list of things you will act on is to help you to become better at marketing. I am not saying you will become a better personal trainer. Why? If you look around the best personal trainer is not really the one who is attracting more clients. It’s the complete opposite as he is the one that is hungry to get more clients as well as struggling to pay his bills. If you became a marketing student and combined these skills with your personal training abilities I have no doubt that you could not only double your personal training income but also generate more business. I challenge you to become more valued in your community. And I challenge you to create a better marketing outreach program than the one you have. If you do-­‐ they will call you. And that call is HOT! It isn’t easy. I am giving you answers here that may take you time to perfect. But once you do, you will always be in a leadership position, and you will have created a law of attraction to yourself.

9. Show Trade Offs:

What are the benefits your clients will get when they train with you? Most of your clients will pay more when the trade-­‐offs are explained to them. They tend to understimate the benefits of using a personal trainer unless you quantify them. This method will give you a tremendous advantage because for many personal trainers it seems obvious that all clients know the benefits of having a personal trainer, but it is often beneficial to remind them. This means that we can save time, avoid frustration, disappointments and delay results and, best of all, get out of our comfort zone. Once you incorporate this trade off into your website and posters, I can reassure you that you give will be attracting more clients and helping them achieve more than they thought they could. You will be going the extra mile, which will give much more in return.

Personal Trainers: How to Find the Clients Who Will Give You Money Gervasio Da Gloria ©2013 www.justfit-­‐training.co.uk

10.

Be Different.

The main idea behind being in the business of personal training is to be different, to be unique, to show your abilities and not to be like any other personal trainer out there. Although we all learn the same methods of helping our clients to achieve their results, somehow we are different.

Price discounts can be seen as a great way to modify customer behaviour. Most personal trainers, especially when they have just started, tend to use discounts to bring new customers through the door. When doing this, it is important to keep in mind that offering a discount is a form of selling.

On the other hand, from the customer’s point of view the discount makes sense. They have been trained to expect that the more training sessions they buy, the cheaper the price will be. For most people, they are happy to have a discount for the services they buy from you. However, the important thing to be aware of is that when you offer a discount, you are taking the focus away from value and placing it directly on your price. Offering a price discount has the advantage of bringing customers to your door, but it also takes away your ability to maintain a higher price. Therefore, be aware that any price reduction can damage your price integrity in the long term.

Here’s How to Find the Clients Who Will Give You Money Go online to our http://www.justfit-­‐training.co.uk/Downloads or to Amazon and download this ebook: The Personal Trainer Price Tag: How to Use Your Price to Increase Your Value and Get More Fulfilled and grab your copy immediately (this is the fastest way to achieve results.) http://www.justfit-­‐training.co.uk/Downloads I urge you to act on this opportunity today, right now, while it is fresh in your mind.

Sincerely, Gervasio Da Gloria Personal Trainer Business Coach Innovative Ways To Boost Your Personal Training Income Working ONLY Fewer Hours https://www.justfit-­‐training.co.uk/

P.S I would love to hear from you and how this strategy worked for you. Please email me at Gervasio@justfit-­‐training.co.uk if you have any questions in relation to your personal training business, please feel free to email on the address above. I will be more than happy to answer any of your questions.

Personal Trainers: How to Find the Clients Who Will Give You Money Gervasio Da Gloria ©2013 www.justfit-­‐training.co.uk