10 Tips For Personal Trainers To Improve Client Retention And Income

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1 10 Tips For Personal Trainers To Improve Client Retention And Income Copyright free share and distribute as you please 1. Firstly you are not a personal trainer. Yeah, I know your brain has a hard time with that one. You possibly even have it printed on the back of your shirt so what do I know. I know about perception and value and that is enough. If you work in a gym you may well be called the personal trainer and you run people through programs in a conveyor belt system with some degree of freedom if you a freelance. For those of you brave enough to go solo, stand alone and set the example you are certainly not personal trainers. You do not just give people a training session and see them next week. By adding value to what you deliver and changing the perception from a personal trainer to (whatever you decided to call yourself and market yourself with) you can raise your game to the next level. Personally I am not a huge fan of the term life coach. However, in some sense what personal trainers do is unravel problems for people by being there to listen and give advice. You will be surprised how many times you have helped someone that was not looking for a 6 pack, or a meal plan, just by giving them some of your time, knowledge and insights from experience. 2. So if you are not a personal trainer then what are you? That is the beauty of self discovery and exploration. You are whatever you want to be lifestyle coach, performance consultant, fitness mentor, health transformation warrior, guru of the high clan of unstable lifters. Whatever it is, make it fit what you do rather than limiting yourself to the term personal trainer. It may take some time so just jot down things you currently do and know and a list of your qualifications and see what patterns emerge. You may find your passion is in something else that you are very skilled in and have seen appear in coaching sessions as you much prefer helping people work through current problems and issues they have.

2 3. You do not sell training sessions, or blocks of sessions. Stay with me on this one. People need to have a big commitment for an investment that will change their lives. Having no commitment by drop in sessions and pay as you go is wasting your time and theirs. Having a block of 10 sessions is better on the commitment front, but you want them to commit more than that. You want them to invest in custom packages for 3 6 months that will guarantee dramatic transformations in their body composition, health, wellness, fitness, strength, mobility and confidence. While you can certainly get them to lose weight (fat to those who know you market what they want and give them what they need) I am sure that you will only dent their fitness levels and everything else with just 10 contact hours and sessions that are buffered with a preparation and a cool down. Packages give the freedom to charge what you are worth, get the clients you want that are extremely serious and want long term change as a fast-track option and you will earn more for working less. 4. Grow your packages and ask for help. As soon as you can, get some quality team members on board and fast. With the digital era firmly upon us, everyone is just next door and available. If you offer 6 month lifestyle transformation packages then have a nutrition consultant Skype them within the first week to get full details of their eating habits and produce a tailored meal plan for them. You have now given your customer what few trainers have to offer a support team of professionals dedicated to their health goals. People feel very special knowing that you have their back and that they have a support team. The consultant may only have 2 x 30 minute sessions with them and then design a meal plan as a basic package inclusion. Whatever this costs make sure it is reflected in the package and make sure that you let people know you are so much more than just a trainer helping them lose weight. If you want to market yourself to the affluent and sports professionals then this is a step in the right direction be the professional you wish to attract. 5. Make them accountable and offer support. One of the most important factors that determine whether or not people stick to a new routine, or fall down, is support. Accountability is a great way to keep in contact with your clients more regularly and

3 let them know you are there for them as they move from crisis to control. It could just be 2 x 5 minute weekly check-in calls to see if they had their breakfast, completed their task list and remembered their evening meditation. They will hugely respect you for taking time out of your busy schedule to hold them accountable. They have invested in themselves by investing in you to provide a solution to their problems. Over-deliver and you will be referred to everyone. 6. Learn about mindset and understand people they are your customers, referrals, marketing, advertising and source of income. We are not talking self help and the latest fix your life kindle guide. We are talking the real stuff like rapport, open ended questions, beliefs, limiting language, affirmations, how they motivate (negative or positive) and everything else that makes a person tick and do things. Your clients will become a bit suspect if you turn up in a blanket, chanting, and sipping lentil soup, so make sure you understand where mindset fits in with that you do in a professional role. You get people to move from a place of self inflicted suffering (for the most part) to self-control through various linguistic commands, physical demonstrations, persuasion, motivation and other verbal and non-verbal techniques. The more you understand how powerful these are the more clients you will have, the greater the success rates and the more your phone will go for the right reasons. 7. Outside of your professional role as a trainer there are 2 things which will grow your business and income further so put some time and effort in to them Produce information Present information Based on your experience, the patterns you see, the knowledge you have accumulated and your qualifications you probably have a lot of good information that will be of great benefit to the public. Remember your target audience you are not pitching to the academics and international coaches. You are educating people that still believe crunches give them a 6 pack, fat makes them fat and magic pills and potions actually work because someone with abs said so on the advert.

4 You have sufficient knowledge to produce a kindle guide, a DVD a PDF covering various things and even workshops and seminars for a bigger reach and expansion of what you do. The info you then produce and sell in multiple formats gives you credibility and expert status and you can present that info in various formats, such as seminars, webinars, masterclasses and grow your list. 8. Get yourself a website and get online. A worrying number of trainers do not have a website or a social media presence. Get yourself a basic site and understand it is a large, digital business card not a place to sell. In fact, if you are a trainer then you actually do not want anything on there that people can buy. You want a welcome video explaining who you are and what you do. You then mention that you have some amazing free gifts for these lucky people just for entering their name and in the box to the right of this video. Your funnel has begun and your autoreponders will slowly send them out whatever it is you promised on the video a nutrition guide, a home workout plan, a 10 tips to achieve greater flexibility. Just think of what you are reading now. You have survived up until point 8, are over 1000 words in and I still have your attention. The great thing is I actually have nothing to sell you from this and it was just an idea I had while looking at how a lot of coaches struggle in the industry. I will be very transparent here. If this gets shared as a decent resource on social media and a few thousand people end up seeing it and instantly have things they can do to grow their business, then me offering a free webinar to them would be a no brainer. If on the webinar I then mention I am either running a mentorship program for increasing your income and social media presence, or that we have a program running for 10 trainers where you will learn all of this and more, with coaches to support you then I am sure a few people would sign up. This is how it works start doing it. You are welcome.

5 9. Social media get on it and make a presence. The main 3 for most of you will be Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Facebook set up a page for you, or your business, and populate it with good stuff simple. Become a known and respected resource for good info that people can understand, follow and learn from. That is social media. You can also link them all together for SEO backlinks which would take at least 20 pages and they would have changed the rules before we finished. Twitter very simple rules here 40% of your efforts are presenting good info 30% are retweeting good info from other sources who may then follow you 30% for letting people know what you do and selling if you will YouTube video is king. Get very busy making tutorials, how to s, guides, basic train at home programs. Let people know that you know your stuff. All of these 3 are great for SEO and building your profile and can all be interlinked more maximum exposure. There are many more, but you want a laser instead of carpet bombing. 10. Play a bigger game. We are all here for pretty much the same purpose to help people by using the gifts that we have. While training 15 clients each week may be great, you are not doing yourself and your greater audience any service playing small. Fine tune your material and set up a seminar for the public, get out of your comfort zone and rent a studio with a receptionist and employ trainers to do what you do so you can get on with the next project. The climb never finishes as the journey is always more important than the destination. If you have achieved a big goal then it is time for the next. You are always learning and growing and always looking to expand what you do to help more people to help themselves. The ripple

6 effect is that they now lead by example and impact the people around them and so the education continues. Dare to dream big you might just achieve it... This resource is completely free and also free from copyright. Please distribute as you please and through social media as I am sure that it will be a great help to many people who are stuck. If one person learns something from this that changes their life then it has been successful. Respectfully Stephen Aish MSc Please feel free to contact me I do exist steve@thestrengthacademy.com