The first and most important rule of how to get clients as a personal trainer is that you have to be great at what you do. You simply have to be a great personal trainer and get amazing results for your clients. From there if you want to grow your personal training business, you can put some plans in place based around marketing and advertising your services.

Take Advantage of People Who Already Know Who You Are

I bet that you already have a network of people you know either on Facebook or personally who want to either lose weight or get fit. These are people who need your help so why not reach out to them and offer to help them. All you have to do is reach out to people you already know with an offer. You don't have make it complicated.  In fact you should keep it pretty simple. and offer something like  a free 1 week personal training (or group personal training trial).

It could be:

1. Friends
2. Family
3. Past and current personal training clients
4. Your email list (if you have one)
5. Your social media followers and Facebook friends.

Get a Personal Trainer Website That Gets More Clients

Does your personal trainer website pass the 10 second caveman test?

One of the biggest challenges that personal trainers have is the inability to get their messages across on their websites in a way that makes people want to work with them Too often they use confusing words and images that don't fit with who they want to work with. If there is one thing we know about people who are confused or don’t understand what you do (and how you can help them), it's that they will go elsewhere to get what they are looking for, which means in your case other personal trainers.

That's why we came up with the “how to get clients as a personal trainer” caveman test for your personal trainer website.

It's super simple and takes about 10 seconds to do. Imagine you showed your website to a caveman who had no idea what you did for a
living?

Can they answer the following 3 questions?

1. Is it clear what you offer in a language that they understand?
2. How will your offer or service make your clients life better?
3. What do they need to do to buy it or get started? (The Call To Action)

Throw in some social proof  such and before and after pictures and testimonials. Add a lead magnet to collect email addresses and you will already be head and shoulders above  most other personal training websites when it comes to attracting a steady stream of new clients.

Getting your personal trainer website right, means you will have people lining up to work with you.

Use Online Video to Get More Clients as a Personal Trainer

Here is a simple task for you to do today.  I want you to record a 2 minute video using your smartphone camera and live stream it on your Facebook page, your group or your personal profile.

Don't complicate it. Just introduce yourself, tell people what you do and how you can help as a personal trainer. Maybe tell them  why you are different to other trainers and what you stand for. ie what you believe in etc

Finish the video with a call to action and invite anyone watching it to get in touch.

Once the video is done you can then upload it to your YouTube channel and embed it as a video blog post on your website.

AT the time of writing this Facebook is giving a lot more coverage to live videos as opposed to posts and pictures.

Get More Referrals From Your Current Personal Training Clients

You can easily implement a referral rewards program and remind your current personal training clients about it on a regular basis.

Back when I owned my personal training business I used to reward clients who referred a new member to our bootcamp. This was generally 50% off their next months membership fee.  It worked out around $50 per referral and if they referred 2 members we rewarded them with a free month.

On top of the referral rewards, we would occasionally run a referral competition and offer prizes. This would include things like a meal out for two people or a voucher for a clothes shop.

You don't need to over complicate this either. You can encourage your clients them to bring their friends for taster weeks and taster personal training sessions.

How to Get Clients as a Personal Trainer by Blogging

The most successful personal trainers regularly produce content for their potential clients. You can use regular blog post on your website (just like this) and distribute it using your social media channels.  You should also email it to your email list if you are actively building one. (and you 100% should be doing this as well)

You can write a “How to” or information blog post on your website around 500-1000 words in length. Exactly like the one you are reading right now. “How to get clients as a personal trainer”

Try and answer the questions you get asked the most from your clients (ask your list what they are struggling with and what they would like to learn the most about)

ie: “How to control what you eat when you're stressed”

or

“5 super effective exercises for faster weight loss”

etc etc etc

Infotain: Tell stories and use as much media within each post as possible (e.g. pictures, videos, etc.)

Once you have posted your blog make sure you share it with all your social media channels.

Attend Local Networking Events for More Clients

Schedule a meeting at a local business networking event

One of the things that many personal trainers should be doing more of is getting out from behind laptops and phones and meeting  real people.

Business networks like BMI are a great place to meet potential clients and build your own network:

Attending Local Networking Meetings

Networking Step#1

Find your local networking organizations and meeting by going into the Google and searching for the following phrases:

• “Networking in ____ (your town)”
• “Business Networking ____ (your town)”
• “Wellness Networking ____ (your town)”
• “Health & Wellness ____ (your town)”
• “Health & Wellness Fairs ____ (your town)”
• “Fitness Fairs ____ (your town)”

Networking Step#2

Join as many networking groups as you can and attend as many networking meetings as possible. Bring your business cards and free trial giveaways to exchange with as many other non-competing business owners as possible. Plus you should socialise and be friendly.

How to Get Clients as a Personal Trainer by Working on Your Relationships

You should put plenty of effort into working on your relationships and don't get sucked in by the marketing gurus promising 6 figures. This is really important if you want to build a successful and thriving fitness business.

Everything we do at Internet Fitpro and in my other businesses, is based on finding and nurturing relationships. We've grow our Personal Trainer Website Business to multiple 6 figures this way. By relationships, what I mean is adding value and building trust instead of using  some sleazy marketing tactics.

Wouldn't it be great if there was a magic sales funnel, a Facebook ads formula or a secret email template that will explode your fitness business into the magical 6 figures and beyond.

The fitness marketing gurus would love to convince us that there is, but they are all wrong. It took me a long time and tens of thousand of dollars in investing in mentors and products to figure this out.

A costly mistake because they don't exist (except in gooroo products)

Yes funnels and emails and headlines and Facebook ad strategies are important, but not in isolation and not without one ingredient.

So what's the secret ingredient?

It's relationships.

Your website, your emails and even your ads for your fitness business or personal training business should all be designed to build and grow relationships. To nurture them, just like you do in real life Seriously, think about it. There isn't a magic sales funnel system for making friends or magic chat up line for picking up women that works every time. People either like or dislike you because of what you stand for and what you have to offer.

Running a personal training business or any other business for that matter is just like that. Want to find out more about having the right conversation and building relationships in your business, then check out my book The Clarity Project on Amazon.

Reframe Your Business To Sell More Personal Training

I posted this in our Free Personal Trainer Facebook group a while ago when someone asked me for my best tips on having a bootcamp or group training business. I've expanded on it a bit for you here.

1. Charge more than your competitors, it will make you stand out as better quality
2. Sell on results not session or weeks, people want results
3. Don't call yourself a bootcamp, have a system or name (my bootcamp was called a fit-camp and our system was the Faster Fat Loss System
4. Have a low barrier to entry trial offer and make it easy for people to come and try you
5. Have a defined target market and know them inside out (so so important)
6. Don't be afraid to turn people away who are not a good fit.
7. People come for the results and stay for the community so create a community.
8. Make people feel special, reward them for hitting milestones.
9. Invest in acquiring clients and know how much a client is worth to you.
10. Name your workouts so that people talk about them, we had one called the terminator. It was a progressive workout with increasing time and decreasing rest.
11. Give your clients t-shirts. They will wear them with pride and it will make them feel part if your club.
12. Charge them monthly by card or Direct debit
13. Give them a welcome pack and most of all inspire them
14. Reward them for progress