There are FIVE crucial steps to being successful as a Personal Trainer
AND EVERY TRAINER WHO IS SUCCESSFUL DOES THESE 5 THINGS
Let’s quickly run through them -
Step 1. When you first meet a prospective client, seek first to discover what is wrong
It doesn’t matter whether you are a doctor, a lawyer, a therapist or a personal trainer, the starting point is to create space and spend time asking and listening to your prospective client!
Far too many Personal Trainers start with their story and make their marketing all about them. If you want to be successful, focus first on your client!
There is a skill to develop here but as we ask about what a client has done before, why it is they think they struggle, what they truly want and what help they feel would genuinely assist them to achieve their goals, we not only build trust but both parties become increasingly more aware of what it is that is actually wrong, and can conclude that another "quick fix" will NOT likely be the answer.
Step 2. Diagnose the cause
Having listened and understood, we must now use our experience and expertise to reflect back what is actually the issue and in collaboration with our prospective and soon to be client, help them appreciate what the problem is but also how important and potentially exciting it will be to remove it.
This step is about helping a client recognise how they will prosper through the right course of fitness and nutrition intervention. This step is about working together to agree what the main issues, in fact, are and that they need addressing.
Step 3. Discuss a way forward
We only need offer 2 or 3 solutions OR clarify the relevance of our signature program to our prospect's situation and ask whether this would indeed solve their problem. We need to ask if this would help them feel AMAZING as opposed to feeling lethargic, confused, unhappy and frustrated - like they feel at the moment.
We never need to sell. We never need to compete on price, and we never need to worry about whether we will make a success of being a professional trainer when we abide by these steps and, crucially, are the real-deal fitness professional in the first place – that is we actually know what we are doing!
Step 4. Deliver a world class service and make clients say wow!
This is where trainers often fall down. If you become a personal trainer and are only really taught to pass exams, these steps won't work since you won't be able to fix the problem.
If you end up lacking in practical delivery skills, this system falls down because you won't know how to fix your clients' poor posture, faulty technique, weak core or patterns of emotional eating (for example).
If you possess any kind of uncertainty in your ability to motivate, guide, train and support your clients to achieve precisely the results they desire, you will never attract clients to you.
Clients have enough doubt of their own, you need to be their rock, their certainty and source of confidence - otherwise you will join the masses who fail. And this is, in fact, why so many do indeed fail. They are simply not good enough.
This is a serious profession and being fit is not the prerequisite. In fact, one’s fitness isn't terribly important at all. Sure, one needs to role model healthy behaviours and a positive outlook on life. But the real skills are those of being able to keep clients motivated, to create simple-enough programs so that clients can keep up, to guide nutrition so clients can actually make lasting lifestyle change, teach correct form, correct poor posture, facilitate ownership and foster accountability so that clients change for good.
These are the skills of a successful trainer and they don’t come with an ordinary PT course without significant practical training.
But assuming you become a GREAT PT and are the real-deal, and you do indeed deliver a world class service, you ultimately achieve one thing – you solve their problem!
Step 5. Solve the problem and ask for testimonial
At the end of the day, and please take note of this final step, you do not sell Personal Training. You do NOT. Personal Training is a commodity, not your product. People don’t buy Personal Training from you, when you follow these steps – they buy a SOLUTION!
And when they buy a solution, not personal training, you will not need to be the cheapest PT in town to muscle into the marketplace. You will not require years of experience in a gym to distinguish yourself.
When people find what they are looking for, guess what?
Yep, they STOP looking!
If you have the skills and the underpinning knowledge to ensure clients the result they seek, you will genuinely possess precisely the tools you need. When a prospective client discovers a SOLUTION to their deeper problems they will pay. They will commit, and they will stop looking for cheaper options.
Darren T
We ignite passion, inspire success and help people imagine a future they can get excited about - www.eifbemore.com