Don’t get stuck in the moment, always be looking forward.
Chasing your own tail will NOT make you a Profitable Personal Trainer
Our very nature sometimes has us chasing our own tails, now that you are aware, don’t. The other day I had a discussion with one of my key employees, he’s taking on a larger role in the company, a role he’s becoming very inspired and passionate about. Within this role he has really been striving hard to take steps to rapidly develop himself and its working.
Recently after returning from a personal development weekend he was eager to bring back what he had learned and apply it for the good of the company, unsure of how to do that he chose to discuss what he thought was a good plan with me. Now any time someone takes initiative it’s never a bad plan, Ready, Shoot, Aim is almost always the best answer. However our nature seems to be to chase our own tail, rather than looking forward to how we might develop the future we work backward and apply new knowledge to old problems often never really allow ourselves to take leaps and bounds forward.
By this I mean as you learn from this blog or within your work days many new ways to improve your business don’t get stuck in the trap of fixing and restructuring something that might be working ok in an effort to make it perfect. You are much better to look past that as to how you can continue to develop your system so that as you grow the problem is corrected forever more through growth and the application of that system. Failure to do this has you forever looking for perfection while the world speeds on by to which you will never keep up.
- Focus on your top 5% delegate and outsource the other 95% as much as possible, this is difficult but keep trying.
- Duplicate as soon as possible, find great people and begin to give them responsibilities. This can be a service trade or your first employee but two can accomplish much more than one, make it work for you.
- Schedule your time and always start with the hardest thing (or thing you least want to do) each day. You will get more done and look forward to each day as it only gets easier.
- If you’re a solo trainer think long term, you will never have the life you want always working IN the business, schedule time you need to work ON the business.
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8 Steps to Becoming a Profitable Personal Trainer
If you want to become a member of the elite, a fitness marketing specialist, someone who can sell personal training with ease, a truly profitable personal trainer than you best pay attention to the following:
1) Stop doing 60 min sessions, switch to abbreviated training either a 45 min session or better yet a 30 min. If you think you can’t get a client an effective workout in 30 minutes you are not alone, I felt that way too but just trust me and do it. 60 minute personal training sessions are counselling sessions that will burn you out fast and keep you broke. 30 minute sessions allow you to appear to be cheaper than your competition while in reality you can be more expensive on a per hour basis. Your clients will find them easier to schedule and will be able to afford more of them which overall means their results will be better.
2) Don’t sell packages of personal training sessions, sell the lifestyle. No one loses 40lbs, corrects hypoglycaemia or lowers blood pressure in 10 sessions. You want clients that are serious about adopting a new lifestyle and the need you more than ever. Do yourself and them a favour and make it easy, sell ongoing monthly training packages not packages of sessions. (Ideally using EFT.)
RnR is an important part of being a Profitable Personal Trainer, Wendy and I like to get away any chance we get, our May long weekend was spent at Radium in BC.
3) Utilize sincere selling. Care about your clients and prospects, when you meet a new client use an extended meeting to get to know them, to learn about their goals, fears and pain. Ask them questions that stir emotions about why the need to make lifestyle changes. Your job is to make them feel as though you are saving their life because potentially you are. The more focused and aware you become about their needs the more they will fulfil your financial needs and with far less resistance.
4) Increase the value. Your job description when it comes to client appointments can be summarized in two words: service and value. Provide killer service and always find ways to provide more value: ie. Valuable additional content in the form of articles, newsletters, strategic business partnerships and discounts, tele-seminars, paper system materials.
5) Ask everyone for a testimonial, social proof will be better than any advertisement you can ever dream up, take before and after photos and videos and ask for testimonials often from every single client.
6) Always be building your list. Use public speaking, opt-ins, Facebook ads, classifieds and special free programs to constantly create an influx of new leads.
7) For each new step document the system. Longevity becomes about time and task management. As each new spoke of the wheel begins to turn document the system so it may become a repeat process. If you do not have anyone in your network to delegate to you will eventually but only if you have systems to teach. Take it from me, I failed to duplicate 4 times before I succeeded because I didn’t have documented systems.
8) Don’t forget to take time off and relax, get away from the business of personal training and do something fun. I hope you had a great long weekend!
When Systems Fail
Milo my calculator operator could hardly believe the results either.
The following is an example of why it’s important to always remember to not only be a strong leader but an effective delegator. Sounds easy but do you truly know the difference between delegation and abdication?
Yesterday was one of those days you really wish to avoid, but once you get past the frustration you are reminded of the value of failing forward. Yesterday was budget day at One-to-1 Fitness. Our first quarter has appeared to be every bit as successful as many months before, (with the exception of a little bit of a lull in March that many of you might also relate to.) However where sales and receivables appeared strong our bank account cash flow just seemed like it wasn’t totally adding up. The difference, well it was fairly significant, more than fifteen thousand dollars between our accounting records and our facility records. Certainly a significant amount over only one business quarter and enough to unravel any budget you have in place and are attempting to follow. Where did it go? How did this happen? What kind of problem were we facing?
Over the last three years at One-to-1 Fitness we have made it a habit to make each decision as though we’ll have to face the same scenario a hundred times or more. Than as we apply the solution it’s carefully documented as a step-by-step process and added to our operations manual. Every aspect of the business is treated the same way from the trainers and their responsibilities through to sales and administration. It can be trying at times but it is what has allowed us to go from 100 appointments a week to routinely over 500 appointments per week while maintaining a high level of customer service.
So unfortunately a planned budget meeting scheduled to last an hour now became a full scale nine hour audit lasting well past midnight, of sales and close outs. After hours of frustration, calculation and remembering why I never wanted to be an accountant I discovered all sorts of user errors in handling payments and refunds. Thankfully a number of them were data entry but after a gruelling evening about $3000 still remains unaccounted for. What would you do?
Well I thought about it for a while and then reminded myself that this was truly my fault, after all we had put what we felt was a good system in place but I had neglected to review it at regular intervals to ensure its accuracy. Key individuals will need to be reminded that it is their responsibility to make good decisions and point out areas that are not functioning correctly, as I have now reminded myself but as the captain it’s my job to review the systems and correct or adapt them as needed for better function and accuracy. And that is the difference between delegation and abdication. If your goal is to be ultra successful become comfortable with delegating and outsourcing as much as you possibly can so you can focus on your top 5%. Just be prepared to take responsibility and immediate action when things some time go astray.
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