What’s in a name anyways?

Quite often I receive questions from new personal trainers wondering how to decide on a name for their fitness and personal training business. The truth is when it comes to fitness marketing and selling personal training a catchy name means very little. I learned this the hard way so you don’t have to.

When I began personal training I went through the same dilemma, and for some reason I loved the name Fitness F/X, which naturally was taken so I had to settle for Cabel’s Fitness F/X. I was fortunate that at the time people were just really getting online and one of my first few clients insisted I need a website and as luck would have it www.fitnessfx.com was available.

Now here’s the thing, you and I, we’re not Nike, we’re never going to have a swoosh of our own. We simply do not have the millions upon millions of dollars to spend to develop a known, recognizable symbol like the swoosh. You and I we have to work smarter, we have to think about what exactly Average Joe and Jane are doing right now.

Average Joe and Jane likely just got home from work or are relaxing after dinner after a long day of office duties, running after the kids and chores. A thought crosses Jane’s mind, she came across what used to be her favourite pair of jeans in the closet this morning and they didn’t fit when she tried them on. She just never lost all the baby weight she gained during her pregnancy and tonight she’s feeling a bit down on herself about it. Joe well he’s being working 50 hours a week trying to do the best for his family, after years in the office he’s finally moved into that new position and is home to his family at a reasonable time. Life is good financially they are comfortable and can enjoy some of the finer things, one problem though, his belly sticks out further than his chest and his wife just never looks at him the same way much anymore.

Jane and Joe respectively grab their laptop or iPhone and not wanting their partner to really know their insecurities think maybe it’s time to figure what they could do to get back into shape. What do they do?

The go to Google and they begin typing in things like, “fastest way to lose weight” “best weight loss diet” “workout program for weight loss” and of course “personal trainers in (insert your city name).”

Do you happen to see Cabel’s Fitness F/X anywhere in there? Nope, me either. So neither Joe or Jane ever found my website or me, but I bet quite likely they would have found LA Weight Loss, Jenny Craig or a Profitable Personal Trainer that really understood how to attract clients. If only I had named my business Personal Training in Red Deer…..hmm you may notice now in spite of my studio being named One-to-1 Fitness our website is built on www.PersonalTrainingRedDeer.com and you will never ever hear me refer to www.Oneto1Fitness.com even though I do own it.

So by now you should see the actual name of your business doesn’t really mean much when it comes to selling personal training, fitness marketing and putting yourself in the place people will actually find you.

Now it’s not bad at all to have a catchy name, I would suggest one that is gender neutral and leans toward the first thing you think most people think of when they think of getting in shape. This was how we selected One-to-1 Fitness; it was our idea of a catchy way to instantly describe what we wanted to be known for.

If you are just starting your business though, don’t spend a lot of time or money on this endeavour it’s just not time for that if you are determined to become and ultra-successful Profitable Personal Trainer.