Personal Training Business Tips



Local Personal Trainer Dominates Real Estate in a Depressed Market

At least this is what I believe the headline would be if I ever decided to sell real estate. Right now my wife are building our one-off-the-dreamhome-home and are in the process of selling our current home in a very depressed real estate market. We’ve been fortunate, since we purchased our very first home we have always worked closely with an office known to be Red Deer’s top real estate team. What has been interesting is talking with our real estate agent about marketing and comparing that with our own successful fitness marketing strategies. There are many similarities. I believe, in many ways, selling a $3000-$5000 personal training program is similar to selling a half million dollar home. The tools and steps needed to be successful in real estate, in my opinion, are quite similar to sucessful fitness marketing in our own depressed market.

1)      Identify, enhance and affirm prospect emotions – Both personal training and buying a home are incredibly emotional decisions. In either case you must listen and communicate effectively with your prospect. Identify their needs allow them to get in touch with their pain or fears of the decision that they face and provide the correct affirmations that allow them to decide your solution is THEIR answer. This doesn’t mean you should be insincere or manipulative, in fact quite the opposite the more honest and transparent you are the more effective your fitness marketing will be.

2)      Provide value when none is expected – Every week I continually share content with my faithful subscribers, every week I share that same content with people on Facebook, Twitter and in person. People have come to know me as an expert within the fitness field, in many cases, long before they ever considered ever using any services that I’ve offered. (Needless to say when they did discover they needed those services they came to me.) You can advertise to create top of mind awareness or you can earn it by being the person that always GIVES the answers to the questions you didn’t even know you were asking.

3)      Form strategic alliances – If you want quality leads and customers get them from people with similar quality lists. By being the person that gives the answers via content you earn influence over your readers who will trust your suggestions of other services. Imagine if other similar businesses were comfortable suggesting you to thier lists? Of course there is instant credibility and opportunity for business growth for both. 

Let’s face it generally personal trainers are still many years behind when it comes to effective fitness marketing. I truly believe if I moved from personal training to another service or sales industry I could be just as successful in record time, no matter the market conditions, just by using the same steps, systems and concepts. So can you!



There’s Plenty To Go Around

It may be hard to believe but I think you should get to know not just the complimentary businesses in your area but also your competitors. (The in-direct ones anyways and  even the direct ones that you feel have the same level of integrity and commitment to our industry as you do.)

I remember way back when I first began personal training I was always nervous when a new trainer popped up. Truth is though, the more trainers there are the more awareness there is to personal training and ultimately the more targeted, warm prospects there are. When we opened our studio I recall having that same feeling of butterflies when our first competitor appeared, but well three years and many competitors later here we are and our business is still growing out of control like the clover was in my yard earlier this year.

flintstone_carSince forming my mastermind group and getting to know my coaching clients I see even more value of having a business relationship where there is nothing to fear in sharing your trade secrets. When I first decided to offer coaching I swore I’d never take coaching clients in my own market (currently I have 2). However even that worry was for nothing, I am watching them poise for success and by supporting and endorsing each other it’s just making all of us grow faster.

Meet the other businesses in your area, offer them value and work together to increase the volume of your marketing funnel. There’s plenty to go around and the moral of the story is that speed is required for success and a flintstone car goes better with more than one set of feet.