Personal Training Business Tips

Fear, Doubt, Lack of Motivation, This Ever Happen to You?

Fear, Doubt, Lack of Motivation, This Ever Happen to You?

Published by on August 14, 2012 | 3 Responses

I’ve been trying to write this post for a short while, it’s been hard to get the words out for some reason but I think it’s needed from what I am hearing from many fitness professionals.

%image_alt%Ever feel like you’re in a funk? Like yesterday you knew exactly where you were going with your personal training business and today the whole thing feels like a house of cards about to tumble? Have you ever felt so paralyzed with fear about hiring a new trainer or that next big promotion?

Not too many people know this but my 7 Figure business almost collapsed, a couple of times, or whether that’s absolute truth or not that’s sure how I felt at the time. In fact I’ve rarely spoke about it to anyone until now. I guess that’s what a perfectionist does when his confidence is shaken; he waits until it’s restored to really talk about it.

But whether it is disaster or just a funk I think the feelings are the same and I think it’s a natural cycle in your personal training business or any business. We’re all control freaks at heart, we’re methodical, analytical, task and goal oriented, and demand to be at our fighting performance ALL THE TIME!

%image_alt%I hate the word motivate, what we really do is inspire people to change and that in turn inspires us. Motivation is a by-product of inspiration and comes after action is taken not before, this is why we can’t motivate anyone, not even ourselves. We must first be inspired by the vision or idea of the outcome, in other words we have to have a goal. But then of course it’s not that simple either, I mean do you really understand your goal and does your goal fit you personally? What I mean by that is I think as people we all become distracted by what we “think” our goals are “supposed” to be. For instance in our world today financial means is sought after by everyone, it’s a deep root in our culture, wealth brings opportunity, options, material objects and most importantly freedom. But are you really attracted to money and financial success? For me personally at times it feels like it and then more often than not I realize it’s not the money but the freedom and bigger still the sense of ACCOMPLISHMENT.
That right there is the mother of all things, when I doubt everything I try to focus on that simple fact. As a teen growing up I struggled with self-esteem and self-worth and as a result the sense of accomplishment is emotionally very important to me. If I’m in a low it’s, more often than not, because that basic sense or need is not being fulfilled.

I suspect with personal trainers world wide some measure of this holds true for most of us just because our series of behaviors are so similar; but if that isn’t the case for you what do you feel it is? If you can’t answer that with absolute certainty I’d totally suggest you take 20 minutes to sit in a quite place and separate yourself from everything and just think about it. Oddly the two places that this seems to happen the easiest for me is doing cardio and taking a shower (ok maybe you didn’t need to know that.)%image_alt%

 

My point of all of this is it’s normal to be in a funk, and it’s going to happen again so how are you going to deal with it?

Here’s what I’d suggest…

1)   Take 20 minutes to really consider what inspires you, or what is the one word emotion that describes what inspires you every single time.

2)   Review your historical progress, we’re often frustrated by a lack of growth or change only because we don’t realize how rapidly or how much we’ve already grown.

3)   Set goals but most importantly break them down to small, very comfortable, goals that you can achieve in a day or a week it has to feel not so bad.

4)   Get out of dodge often! Seriously I find if I don’t take a week break from my business every 8-12 weeks my productivity deteriorates to almost nothing, fear and procrastination begin to rule. (I even see this in my trainers and encourage them to take emotional breaks from clients.)

5)   Finally and most importantly, look at your giant “to-do” list and sift through it to find the one thing that really excites you, that you can do or work on right now and won’t take more than today or a couple days to complete. Something that will drive your business forward, put everything else aside and attack it. Re-ignite your inspiration and ultimately motivation with an immediate sense of success and accomplishment (exactly the same as you try to do for your clients.)

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How-to Launch a Profitable Semi-Private Training Program

Published by on August 7, 2012 | 1 Response

Let’s face it one-on-one training is on it’s way out. Sure it makes sense for special situations and injuries but for major profitability in your personal training business an effective semi-private and/or group personal training program is essential.

There’s no doubt that the aspect of community makes semi-private and group training even more desirable to the consumer, so what are you waiting for? And if you already offer it are you doing it right?

Semi-Private and Group programs can be the ultimate leverage in your business but I’ve found a lot of fitness professionals are shooting themselves in the foot when they set these programs up, watch this quick video and learn how I suggest you setup your semi-private and group programs in an effort to ensure the most effective personal trainer marketing.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/uhh7tqgDacg[/youtube]

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How-to Suck as Many New Leads From Your Website as Possible

Published by on July 18, 2012 | 1 Response

Just this morning I was reviewing a website change for one of my coaching clients, a new website offer to generate more leads for their training studio and bootcamp. As I was writing the email response it dawned on me how often I’m discussing this same thing with many fitness professionals, it seemed the ideal topic for today.

We’re all in a position where we need our websites to convert in the best way possible, it has to produce the maximum number of leads there’s no if’s ands or buts about it. The question is what offers are best for your website?

I think the larger your operation (particularly with multiple locations) the answer to this varies slightly, but I think the majority of you are one location owners, a situation where every potential prospect counts.

By now you may have tried free reports and things of that nature to build your list and realize they are dead. You may have tried $1 trials in an effort to get payment information from the get go to ensure conversion, well in most cases as some of you may already know, consumers have figured this out. No one wants to enter their credit card online more than they have to and especially not for a buck, if you doubt this just go look in the mirror and ask yourself about this.

Now higher value trial offers are often used to cross this perception gap with the trial usually for 1-2 weeks or some short term, which makes perfect sense for us but does it for the consumer?

Finally there is the classic request a free consultation opt-in that some are for and many are against. So what should your website opt-ins and offers look like? Well here’s my opinion and the logic as to why.

The Free Consult

Yes it’s old, sure you can say it’s no-obligation, no-risk, no-pressure but of course no one is going to believe you, heck you wouldn’t believe someone if they told you. None the less this is still my go-to offer and here’s why…there are actually people that will visit your website that are just genuinely interested in your service. If you’re like me I know that the best chance I have of helping you become my client is if I can meet you face to face, show you that you will be comfortable, learn about your goals, and explain the program options for you to make it easy. Therefore the consult is my most wanted response and the best option for those that are serious about taking their fitness future in their hands and finding the best available solution.

The Free Option

Next because of all the super SEO tactics many of us now employ (and the understanding that content is king and with all the great information we make available) we’re ending up with a lot of website traffic of people that are just cruising around looking for answers. The answers they’re seeking are not necessarily your services; they’re not there yet.

These individuals are just looking for a solution to a personal problem or pain, they’re not in the shape they want to be in and they don’t know what to do about it. Who’s to say that exercise is the best answer for a woman’s “saddlebags” the latest infomercial might have them believing it’s fat loss cream, pills, supplements or standing on their head!

The best way to convert these visitors is first with information, your flare and opinion hopefully on their matter of pain. These people are not likely ready to jump in the pool and meet with you to discuss spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on training, they don’t trust you (and if they did they’d sign up for the free consult.) This is why we need something free they can access that allows them to get to know you with no risk obligation or worry.

A lot of people are still using free reports, ebooks or something of that nature (in fact even I was until recently.) Truth is I don’t know about you but ebooks and optins of that nature really haven’t seemed to be that effective for growing my list recently.

I encourage you to over deliver, my favourite offer presently is the 3 Week Home Fat Loss course. I can’t take credit for this as it came about as an idea on a coaching call with a client sometime ago. When he first implemented it the response was crazy, more than a dozen opt-ins over night with no promotion and without a huge traffic base, since I’ve seen others successfully apply it as well. But here’s why I think it works so well.

It gives the visitor real value and no obligation whatsoever they never have to contact you again and could unsubscribe tomorrow is they wanted, it also allows me to develop a relationship with them over time (especially if you use video which you should) and honestly educate them that the magic is in the accountability and support that comes from our continual service. The result is hopefully that you gain their trust in fully automated way and that you lead them to contact you for the help they will inevitably need.

The Low Cost Trial

Many have tried various forms of a low cost trial, these opt-ins are great because they come with payment information that automates the whole sales process and EFT growth, unfortunately it takes a lot of traffic to really experience the magic of this process. The trial amount is important, and again just simply ask yourself what you fell comfortable with. A $1 trial is useless in my opinion, no one wants to put their credit card information online for a measly buck. A higher amount is likely better for that reason is that it needs to provide significant value to the customer yet warrant or somewhat justify the risk of sharing secure information. Quite often I see 1-2 week trials, but if we’re to consider our own consumer behavior for a moment perhaps a 4 week trial might convert better. We want people to come in, feel the love and sign up, but our consumer’s BS metre picks this up a mile away, in turn the consumer wants an opportunity to buy a ‘kick-start’ time period where they can then proceed and do it on their own. You and I both know people can’t get in shape in 4 weeks, but likely 4 weeks is just enough time for them to feel it would give them the ‘kick-start’ they’re looking for, in turn this should significantly increase the opt-in rate.

These three offers should be represented on your website for every visitor to see, hopefully you understand my logic as to why it should be these 3 offers and how to present them. It won’t always work but it should help to optimize your website leads over time.

The real magic is that the offers are being presented to meet the perception or needs of three distinct visitor groups and each situation provides a specific measure of value for that audience, it’s this synergism that I believe makes these three opt-ins so powerful.

On a final note…

Where these opt-ins are located on your website is equally critical. Two of the three, or all if possible should be located above the fold. They should be placed in the right hand column because of the natural direction our eyes travel when we read a page.

Because most of us use a banner at the top of our page as the visual introduction the Free Home Course opt-in should be located on the right side of the banner. It’s the lowest barrier offer that should be immediately appealing to the largest segment of our audience.

Your Free Consult should come next, it should basically be placed on the right side at the top of what I call the content header. Essentially just below your site header many people will have a content zone (or you should) this is best space for a video but text and the like can be useful. At any rate it’s here that your visitor will first become engaged, if they like what they see their eye’s lead them to your most wanted response.

Finally the low cost trial should be lower on the right side, possibly in part above the fold but it likely doesn’t matter as much. This audience has to make an active decision to purchase they will have spent enough time on your site to validate that decision, as long as this opt-in is clear, stands out and concise they’ll find it.

That’s my take on effectively generating more leads from your website based on the simple logic of how we all think as consumers. Hopefully it makes sense, this is working well for many of my coaching client so I know it can work for you.

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Dealing With Competition

Published by on July 9, 2012 | Leave a response

It’s normal at first to fear or be frustrated with increased competition. Our immediate reaction to increased competition is one of self-doubt or scarcity. The only way increased competition can hamper your ability to succeed is if you choose to acknowledge or give into these fears and become reactive to them.

 

If you stay focused on your plan and continue to drive your business forward increased competition almost always enhances your ability to succeed by creating greater awareness and ultimately a larger audience for your products and services.

 

As many of you may know I own and operate a very successful training studio in a small city (total population under 100,000) but what you may not know is that within a 4 block there are more than 12 fitness related businesses including: 2 training studios, a Crossfit gym, Jazzercise, 2 Pilates studios, 2 weight loss centres, 2 martial arts studios, a public gym and a Kettlebell gym. Additionally there are also more than 6 complimentary businesses including an organic market, physiotherapy clinic, 2 massage clinics, 2 spas and more. In all you could say this is the fitness district.

 

Let me also mention we are the most expensive out of all our competitors by a significant margin, in fact one of my primary competitors tends to focus on this very fact thinking it is an advantage. Personally I’d rather always be the Ferrari than the Ford.

 

Here are my tips for making competition a non-factor:

 

1)   Always provide more value to your community than anyone else. By this I mean be a star educator. Use your blog, website, lunch and learns and writing for local publications to always be the top expert in your area that gives away as much free information as possible. The more you give and the longer you give the more deep routed your credibility will be in your community. Things like fundraisers and community events also contribute to this positioning.

2)   Create systems that allow you to efficiently handle the same situations over and over with great efficiency as you grow. The better and more consistent your customer experience is the more you can stay focused on business growth.

3)   Create highly leveraged situations and tremendous additional value. By being more expensive we can afford to provide random and unexpected gifts to our customers. Why not send people meaningful birthday gifts? This can be as simple as asking their favouriote author, store and Starbucks or Tim’s on their initial client info form. Or by using semi-private and group programs you can leverage 1st month and ongoing VIP discounts to create immediate unadvertised value for new prospects.

4)   Avoid last minute marketing. Most personal trainers I know are engaged in a constant feast or famine cycle. The don’t promote until they desperately need clients and then freak out when they have too many. Set a calendar even if at first it’s just choosing special dates and holidays (like birthdays, anniversaries and special dates) for set promotions and targets. At first this seems difficult but just think how difficult it would be to train your clients without some sort of goal to work toward.

5)   Most importantly take up a Ray Kroc (if you didn’t know he was the founder of McDonalds) mentality, work to always “create faster.” One thing is certain, if you are growing your competition will make the same mistakes you likely did when you started. You will first attempt to copy or duplicate the ideas of someone you believed more successful than you. At some point to truly succeed you will need to find your own voice, when you do stay focused on your own ideas and continually create. Be the leader, followers react which is never as powerful as the person that takes action in the first place.

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An Update to an Old Idea to Become the Local Expert

An Update to an Old Idea to Become the Local Expert

Published by on July 3, 2012 | Leave a response

%image_alt%Wouldn’t it be great if you could have all the complimentary businesses in your area acknowledge you as a local expert when it comes to personal training? Wouldn’t it be great if you could borrow their credibility to quickly enhance your own?

Maybe you can. With a little persistence this tidbit of personal trainer marketing Kung Fu might allow you to be elevated to expert status in no time, even in a brand new market.

Step 1: Ask yourself who has my customers? Make a list.

Start by jotting down all the different types of businesses that have customers who might likely also use your services. Some examples might be chiropractors, hair stylists, massage therapists, maybe coffee shops, spas, estheticians and so on.

Step 2: Google these businesses in your area.

For example I might Google ‘Red Deer spa.’ In large cities make sure to narrow it down to your suburb or urban area. You might even ask your list as direct referrals are always easier to work with or approach.

Step 3: Create an interview.

That’s right, we’re going to contact these people and if all goes well we’re going to interview them. Choose only 3-4 meaningful questions and the more these questions allow them to toot their own horn the more successful your interview is going to be. For example if I were interviewing a chiropractor I might ask:

  • What are the biggest benefits of chiropractic for a person just starting to exercise?
  • Why do you feel chiropractic enhances exercise?

You see where I’m going? These questions not only make the chiropractor sound great but they also lead him to endorse you without even likely realizing it.

Step 4: Contact the community leaders.

Remember the need for nice. Contact the top ranked local businesses for all the categories you’ve chosen. Explain to them how you are a local fitness professional, how you’ve heard great things about them and ask if they could spare 5-10 minutes for a brief interview that you are going to share with many local individuals.

Now a few people may say no, but many will say yes.

The ideal situation is to interview them on camera, a simple Flipcam or even a newer smartphone will do. Make sure and introduce yourself and at the end of the interview I’d mention their website and finally to also check out your website for more information.

If they won’t make time for a video interview see if they’ll do a phone interview and use a conference line like www.FreeConferenceCall.com or a Skype app to record the call. You can have the audio easily transcribed for the next step at places like www.elance.com or www.odesk.com.

Step 5: Post the interview on YouTube.

Make sure to name the video file on your computer the same as the keywords you searched to find the business. (ex. Red_Deer_Chiropractor.flv) In the description include a link to your website and a description of the video using the keyword string. Enter the keyword string again in the tag field.

If they wouldn’t make time for the video interview but you were able to complete a phone interview or an email interview post this interview on your website with meta tags for the keyword string as mentioned above.

Videos will quickly appear in the search results.

The Big Bang!

So here’s the deal, videos should appear in the search results very quickly, try to send as many people as you can from your Facebook friends and your mailing lists to watch and like the videos so they rise even faster.

Now hopefully in days to a few short weeks when someone searches ‘Red Deer Chiropractor’ your video will appear above, below or near the link for the business you interviewed. Most people will watch a video first and you’ve now done that business a huge favor (and naturally one for yourself also.)

By interviewing them and posting it as a fitness professional you’ve effectively provided them a third party endorsement that should enhance their image with their customers, and at the same time you’ve created an introduction for yourself, and a link to your website for all of their customers to see.

Do this for enough different businesses and soon you will be the talk of the town. Common sense personal trainer marketing domination at it’s finest!

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Your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) and Your Personal Training Business

Published by on June 19, 2012 | Leave a response

If I asked you, “what do you do?” Could you explain concisely or would you stumble and have to think about it? If I asked you right after, “and how are you different?” Could you explain that equally as effectively?

I mean let’s face it there are lot’s of personal trainers and fitness professionals. Nearly all promise results, promise to personalize things for their clients and offer follow up and accountability. But really what’s different about you?

Being able to identify and communicate what makes you unique will instantly brand you with credibility.

For instance, my private facility One-to-1 Fitness offers one-on-one, semi-private and small group personal training services. Nothing too unique about that, however our USP or unique selling proposition goes more like this:

One-to-1 Fitness is an exclusive private fitness centre, there are no memberships. Our personal training services feature up to 2 hours of specialized assessment and movement screening. This allows us to develop specialized personal programming specifically for you based on the results of the assessment. Additionally One-to-1 offers individualized weight loss coaching through our exclusive branded nutritional coaching system Your NewTrition™.

Both descriptions are true but one is much more descriptive in terms of setting us apart from our competitors in a way that clearly demonstrates how we are different. We’ve even taken further steps to separate ourselves with trademarked and branded programming giving us an even clearer unique selling proposition.

When this USP is targeted toward your customer Avatar it gives you synergistic leverage for attracting new clients. If you were going to hire a coach say for martial arts how would you select one? Wouldn’t you ask people you know for referrals and/or try to learn why one might stand out or appear better than another?

Combined with social proof and a solid risk reversal your USP is your chance to brand yourself to better identify with your customer Avatar, a critical component to the success of your personal training business.

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How-to Develop and Use a Customer Avatar to Get More Personal Training Clients

How-to Develop and Use a Customer Avatar to Get More Personal Training Clients

Published by on June 14, 2012 | Leave a response

%image_alt%If you want more personal training clients and don’t have a defined customer Avatar this article is absolutely step one for the future success of your personal training business.

When I first started as a personal trainer I would hear from successful business owners all the time that I needed to know my niche but for some reason I really struggled to understand what it really meant. Maybe because I was analytical, methodical and task oriented I insisted on overthinking what it meant to know my niche or my customer avatar, I struggled for a long time as a generalist. Because I didn’t know specifically how to communicate to my Avatar getting more personal training clients was slow, difficult and unpredictable. I seemed to think I needed to understand demographics or that I was looking for people with a certain income and things like that. I didn’t understand why it was important to know where these people hung out, what activities they enjoyed, what items they might purchase, what their hobbies, fears, goals, and favourite thing to do on Sunday was.

Over time I really began to understand that using demographics and local statistics was only a means of validation for confirming my Avatar. You see it’s a very important two-step process and for the longest time I was hung up on step two and had never really completed step one.

You need to be able to close your eyes and see your Avatar in front of you, give them a name. The stronger the image the more you can identify with them. Imagine talking to your spouse and a local politician though at times we might debate that both conversations may carry a political tone I can almost certainly guarantee the language used in each conversation will never be similar.

Once you have described and written the story of your Avatar every word, image, offer and idea pertaining to your services should be presented in an effort to speak to them. You might think this sounds ridiculous, I know I did, but it will completely set you apart from your competition. The effectiveness of your marketing will significantly increase and you’ll still continue to attract those outside your Avatar, often with a greater credibility because you are now looked upon as a sought after expert. If this still sounds weird you’ll just have to trust me, but I can guarantee at some point you will realize this is one of the biggest steps to creating a successful personal training business.

Below is one of my favourite examples of a customer Avatar by one of my former coaching clients.

Adam business owner  (39) +, +

%image_alt%Name: Adam  Age: 39
Single, No Kids, Wants to have a family FAST
Main Problem Area: Belly, Abs, Low Energy Tired
Income: 150 to 250K/year
Training Experience: Beginner, Never consistently
Biggest Fear: He is never going to find  a quality women  that finds him attractive.
Frustrations: Loneliness, Constantly gets distracted from his diet and training, skips meals.
Biggest Motivator:  Become more physically attractive to women, have more Energy so he can make half a million $, No more belly so he can be more confident around women. 6 pack Abs, toned biceps, Ripped Chest
Personality: Social, Talkative, Questions every thing, Leader

 

Adam is 39 years old, he is single and he has a successful real estate business. He has been working for himself since he was 18 years old.

He lives in _______________________ and usually spends most of his days in front of his computer at his home office or at various coffee shops and clients places.

Adam is single and has been in 3 longer relationships, he wants to have a family as soon as possible. He feels tired and his energy is low especially after lunch and he is not happy with the way he looks in front of the mirror. He wants to look good and wants to get rid of his hanging belly fat.

He is always in rush, He is financially well off and makes an average of 150K per year income and he only has to support himself but he is very motivated to get to a half a million dollar income like some of his friends.

Adam has tried weight training before but always gets too busy to be able to stick to his program, he knows he wants to have a nice body but other things constantly take up his time and other important things always come up. Though he doesn’t remember much about how to weight train, he is confused about what to eat and how to train, how long cardio should be and doesn’t have time to research this topic. He’d like to just hire someone who he can trust to do this for him.

Adam goes out on weekends with his friends to lounges and friends places, he likes hockey.

Adams biggest fear is that he is going to be single for the rest of his life and that he is not going to meet high quality women who will like him for him. Adam Is lonely, he knows he can get rid of his belly he is just looking for an expert to guide him one he can rely on and commit to.

He loves the idea of having more energy so he can do more work, make more money and, to increase his confidence with women.

Adam wants to make sure that his trainer is on time, professional, produces results. He does not want to waste his time or money and most importantly he wants to LOOK GOOD FAST, he wants his results tracked he wants to be shown that this plan is working and that he is becoming fitter, looking better and more girls are starting to notice it.

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Personal Trainer Business Tip: Time Management.

Published by on June 5, 2012 | Leave a response

Look if you’re going to be an entrepreneur than you are going to mull over how to better manage your time, frequently. Everyone has different ideas and you will need to find what works for you. This week’s personal trainer business tip is all about successful time management.

First, focus on what matters and learn to delegate more of the things that don’t.

I don’t know about you but I’m a control freak, and I find just about every trainer fairly new to the industry is too. I don’t think you can help it, if you could you’d likely be a terrible trainer. I mean we need to set tasks, move people toward their goals and stand ridged toward the actions needed to reach that goal.

It can be daunting and lead to massive procrastination if you have a gigantic “to-do” list in front of you. The first thing you should do is circle the things that have a direct and immediate impact on creating more revenue for your business. These things include stuff like: writing classified ad copy, developing new high value trial programs, they might even include study and knowledge to make you a better trainer early in your career. What they don’t include is things like graphics for your website, maybe not even website content though this could be argued, things like billing, etc. Though all these things need to be done the sooner you can entrust them to someone else’s hands the sooner you will find your business growing. You don’t necessarily even have to be able to afford to pay someone it’s quite common to find one of your best clients and offer to do a trade for a few hours each week. Soon they can be booking appointments for you, handling some aspects of billing, scheduling and more.

It may take you a little time to get comfortable with this, it did me, but the purpose of this post is to expose you to the idea and get you thinking in that direction. The more you think about it the easier it will become and the sooner it will become a reality.

Next, get yourself a whiteboard. Divide your whiteboard into two sections; priority items and general items and ideas. Move 3-5 of the most pressing items to the priority column and always start there. Don’t overwhelm yourself with more than a few priority tasks at a time. Each time you sit down to work start with the priority task you are most interested in an effort to gain some momentum to lead you in to the other tasks. The moment any task is complete, cross it off your list. The feeling of achievement of completing each task delivers the same kind of satisfaction that reaching any other goal does. The resulting physiological response to your brain will only make it easier for you to begin on your next task.

Soon you’ll find yourself excited to see all the crossed off lines on your whiteboard and as your completing each task it will undoubtedly lead to the next series of items that must be completed to continue to drive your business forward.

Additionally whenever I’m travelling or away from my office I go a step further. I record my 3-5 priority items on a 3X5 piece of paper and keep it in my pocket so I can keep this process going.

Don’t waste time on electronic lists and gizmos, these are just distractions that will take time and concentration away from things that matter. Stick with fast and simple and stay on task.

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