Ask An Expert

Gaining new clients can be easier than you think!

Creating a short-term challenge through your business is a great way to bring in new clients and keep existing clients motivated.  Fitness can be a hard sell but introducing a FREE short term challenge may actually be beneficial as it has a very low barrier to entry. You may hear that giving away services for free devalues your business, but we must remember that fitness can be a very hard sell for the majority of the population.

The following tips to run a free short-term challenge can actually be less work than you think.  All you need is an email list of prospects and daily challenge emails!

The physical nature of personal training is one of the many appealing benefits for those of us who become trainers.  However, the downside of relying on our body as a primary tool to do our job is that we only have one, so if we break it (literally!), it could be out of commission for a bit.  Luckily, there are a few ways we can work around injuries that prevent us from being our typical physical selves and help us continue to provide value to our clients. 

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Just because we can’t demonstrate an exercise, doesn’t mean we can’t have someone else step in!  There are many quality videos and websites with exercise tutorials from established professionals that can be shared.  As you are programming your client’s session, have a few links to these videos pre-downloaded and ready to use as needed.

A big part of helping our clients achieve their fitness goals is keeping them healthy, injury-free, and motivated to maintain this lifestyle.  Clearly, we all know the importance of strength and conditioning when programming for our clients; however, how often do you take a look at the bigger picture and identify areas of opportunity beyond specific sport or strength training?  Whether your clients are runners, hockey players, or weekend warriors, cross-training is an important component of an effective and comprehensive fitness plan.

ACE defines cross training as a “type of training that is characterized by variety and the use of different exercises and equipment”.  Even simple program design changes such as altering intensity, movement patterns, or exercise order, can also be considered cross training. The type of cross training each client engages in – and how often they do it – will look different for everyone based on their specific goals and their current program.

How do I get personal training clients?

It’s a question I heard every time from trainers.

A full-time personal trainer needs 15-20 clients to work 30-40 hours/week considering that the average clients train 2-3 times a week. What other business do you know only needs 15-20 customers? Building up relationships with your clients is the only way to succeed. They love you, not your gym. You must take responsibility for your business and yes, it’s your business even if you work for somebody else!!

I have two rules for success. These two rules have been applied in my career for the past 20 years:

I believe that one of our roles as trainers is to stay current with all of the latest fitness research and trends.  However, it can be tough trying to choose which trends will have staying power.  New trends are constantly emerging, which is great because it gives trainers a chance to engage with our clients in a new way.  Through our expertise, we can determine the right trends to help our clients safely and successfully reach their goals.  Below are three fitness trends that I feel will be sticking around for a while… 

Wearable Fitness Trackers

In this day and age, technology is at the forefront of most industries and fitness is no exception.  In just a few short years, wearable fitness tracking devices (such as Fitbit, Garmin, Jawbone, etc.) have surged in popularity and for good reason.  They are accessible and fun to use, easy to wear (the most popular styles being wristbands, watches or clip-on), plus they give you give real-time statistics to help keep track of otherwise hard-to-measure health data on a daily basis such as heart rate, steps taken, flights of stairs climbed, total  distance covered, sleep, and more.  

I train a couple of older clients during the time my co-workers train a few groups of younger athletes. The groups love to listen to louder pop/rap music that can sometimes be inappropriate in the eyes of my older clients. Do you have any music suggestions that can please both parties? If not, what is the best way to go about this? 

Musical preference is so subjective.  Genres and songs that motivate one person to work out could very well sound like pure noise to another person.  Luckily there is enough musical variety to appeal to everyone’s taste but combining that under one fitness center roof (and one music system) takes a bit of creativity and compromise. 

Working out can be difficult. It can be challenging to find time because of work, kids, your spouse, and/or other commitments. When you seem to have time to exercise – you may be rushed and lack the energy to perform a workout to the best of your capability. Yes, working out has the potential to NOT be fun. I guess that’s why they call it “working out” and not “hanging out.” However, as they say in life, perspective is everything. We as human beings WILL make time to do what we want to do, although, how do we find the motivation to exercise especially when there can be a million reasons not to workout? What are the magic words I could give someone to reenergize their love for exercise? Additionally, what’s the one tip that I would give an unmotivated client to reach their fitness goal?

Hi FitPro Family,

TrainerLisa here and I hope your business has been rockin’ so far! In this Q&A, I’d going to address some of the best things that YOU can do (as the Fitness Professional) to aid your client’s success outside the gym!

Although your client’s success is determined by their personal commitment to their workouts (with/without you), as well as their nutrition, it’s equally as important to give your clients some great tools to help them when they’re not with you, including when they’re on vacation, out of town, on a business trip or just can’t make it in to see you for whatever reason.

These days, more and more people understand that there truly is a mind-body connection.  The power of positive thinking can really go a long way towards improving the physical state of our health.  Along the same line, negative thoughts can block any success or progress by distorting our views of ourselves, which brings about self-doubt, lack of confidence, inaction, etc.  Life is meant to be lived moving forward though, not backwards.  It’s easy to be happy when life is going great… but if your client is going through a tough time emotionally, it can be difficult to see past those mental blocks.  Here are some strategies they can utilize to push forward and get back on the path to physical success. 

Ah, cardio. We all know it’s important to do. Some of your clients may even fear cardio just as much as you or any other trainer does. However, cardio doesn’t have to be unexciting, tedious, or even dreadful for your clients to reach their fitness goals. While there’s no “best” cardio exercise for your client to perform, the better choice would be choosing an exercise that your client can perform based upon their fitness levels with correct form. There are a multitude of creative cardio methods to create fun, challenging, and effective workouts for your clients during your sessions together.

Enclosed below are three different methods to get your client’s heart rates up while hopefully keeping a smile on their faces…