Personal Trainer Marketing

I was on a coaching call just this morning when a coaching client said something profound. He said, “I’ve decided to set a goal to help people in my city lose 15,000lbs over the next year…” and then he went on to explain what he thought that meant in terms of how many people he had to train, etc.

Do you have a purpose? Mission? Or goal?

You too should set your own purpose, not only because as trainers we are methodical, goal and task oriented and that this helps us determine what the steps are to realizing that goal…it’s much bigger than that.

Your mission or goal is a critical component of your personal trainer marketing strategy, it will speak to people, it will create validation and it will provide an acceptable reason for solicitation of many forms.

Let me try to explain…

Recently I’ve been discussing website opt-ins with a lot of my coaching clients, talking about the difficult task of ensuring site conversion or opt-ins are as high as possible. Using the “3 Week Home Fat Loss” product has been a proven performer as a low barrier opt-in. This product provides tremendous value and multiple points of contact to build a relationship with the prospect. Additionally it meets their measure of validation for the “try before you buy” mentality. But even given all of that many people (myself included) will see through it; they know if they put their email in that box they’re likely to be subjected to other contact and ultimately a sales process.

Let’s face it consumers these days are skeptical, really skeptical; I mean if you doubt this just go look in the mirror. Now there’s now way to completely break down this skeptical solicitation barrier that we all have completely, but we can improve our chances of getting through with a measure of consistency with a validating mission.

 If your mission is to help people lose 15,000lbs this year…

…this is the reason for your 3 Week Home Fat Loss course, because you know you need to influence people at home.

…It’s a good reason to ask for my help to refer people to your course to help you reach your goal.

…it’s a great reason to have a sale next month, or run a 3 week metabolic makeover short term program to enhance your community weight loss statistics.

…it’s a great reason to approach local businesses to “help” you achieve this noble community effort and host a lunch and learn for their staff/customers.

…it’s the reason you email your list multiple times per week to educate them about health, fitness and weigh, loss.

Having that defined purpose speaks to your audience, it becomes the “reason” for many of the things you do. In turn this enhances your expert status and gives you further credibility with them when you deliver an offer, and ultimately a slight better chance that they may accept it or better yet promote it.

It only takes minutes to think of a mission and minutes more to implement it. Got to your Facebook page and announce it, write a blog post about it, give it a static mention in your newsletters and even add it to your email signature.

This small aspect of your personal trainer marketing strategy won’t change the face of your business tomorrow but it will give everything else you do a small boost in effectiveness.

If spending minutes today can make you the hero of your community for weeks and months to come AND ultimately creates more sales isn’t it worth it?

In order to profit as a personal trainer, you need to sell more than your time. If you only sell your time, then you will always be locked at the same income level. You can sell more than your time by a change in your perspective. For example you need to think of yourself as an advisor and information expert in the area of personal training and diet. When you think from this perspective, you will have many other ideas that you can put into action, and which will bring in profits.

There are a number of simple ways that you can create and sell products alongside your personal training sessions. One of the easiest things that you can do is to just record a session with a current client. You will need to get the permission from the client and inform them about your intentions.

During the video session, you can demonstrate exercises and how to perform them correctly by instructing your client. You can also put them through a workout that people could then follow at home. It is a good idea to choose a client that is average, so that people can see themselves duplicating the workout and the exercises.

Plan out the training program before you shoot the video to ensure that everything flows more smoothly. The video can be completed in less than one hour. It will then take another couple of hours to edit the video and add any copyright terms that you want. This is a very simple method of creating a product.

You can also create a short report that you sell from your website (as a download). This is a great idea as you can advertise your personal training sessions throughout the report. The report does not need to be very long. In most cases, people prefer a short and straightforward report that can be read and applied.

There are a number of other very good ideas that can be used for personal trainers. You can create a set of training programs that walk people through a month of training. You can tailor these programs for people who want to lose weight, those that want to gain muscle, those that want to increase their fitness levels or people that want to improve their performance in a certain sport.

There are many ways that you can create information products as a personal trainer. The more products that you have available to sell on your website, the more money that you can make. You can refer certain clients to specific products that you have created.

Thinking of yourself as an information marketer, instead of a personal trainer that sells their time for money, is a huge leap forward in your business. If you follow this type of business model you will soon increase your income and attract more clients.

You can still train personal clients as you currently do, but now your business will have many other avenues of income. This will give you a much broader reach than most of the personal trainers in your community. You will soon become the most well known and most sought after.