From the day you qualify as a personal trainer, the hunt for sales begins. For many selling personal training may be a new and slightly daunting experience. Few of us would have ever sold our time and expertise before.
If you are lucky you have someone to help guide you to making your first few sales and showing you how to talk to prospective clients. There is nothing quite like signing up a new client though.
In contrast, when you aren't making sales it can be really demotivating. You can feel helpless and worried about your future and desperate to fill your diary.
A massive frustration is when no one is buying through your personal trainer website, especially when you are relying on this to earn a living.
Having a personal trainer website is often seen as the best way to acquire new clients. However it doesn’t always work as well as you expect.
The main reasons we see a website not attract new clients for you comes down to
- Not enough people visiting your website.
- Your message and offer(s) on your website
Most people focus heavily on trying to get more people to visit their website. Often spending money on advertising, then getting frustrated when these adverts don’t work.
In almost every situation we have seen there are some major reasons potential clients aren’t buying from your website.
1. You are trying to sell Personal Training pt.1
When someone visits your website, they may genuinely be interested in your services, and be looking for exactly what you do. You may be the perfect personal trainer for them but committing to a potentially highly priced service without ever seeing or speaking to you may be a little uncomfortable for them. The first step in their relationship with you will rarely if ever be handing money over. You would be much better off trying to encourage them to take the first step towards working with you. Probably some sort of consultation, or trial.
There is a much lower level of commitment required for them to take a small step than stump up and buy directly from your website and much less trust required.
2. You are trying to sell Personal Training pt.2
Very few people actually want a personal trainer. What they want is the the results that personal training will give them. In fact you may even argue that their desire goes even deeper to the feeling that the results will cause them to have.
Talking about personal training may not be nearly as powerful as talking about what your potential clients want to achieve, how they want to look and feel. The impact that personal training will have on them.
3. An exciting & interesting message
Many personal trainer websites list the same old boring things they can help with. Fat loss, toning, muscle building, rehab, sports conditioning, to name a few. Very few people will want all those things. Often they will be looking for someone who is speaking directly to them. Someone who is really offering to solve their problem, or guide them to achieve their goals.
If your message is not specific then it may not speak to the visitor and it won’t excite them causing them to leave.
Have something you specialise in, don’t be afraid of having a niche. You will be surprised that having a clear niche doesn’t always turn people off that don’t fir in the niche. It does massively impact and increase the response from those who are looking for your specific service.
4. Too many options
There is a saying that if you give people too many choices they will make none. Having too many different personal trainer packages, and offers will simply confuse them and lead to inaction.
Instead have a clear concise offer. Yes, you may offer other services but you can probably tell them about these once you speak to them.
5. No call to action
It’s simple if you want someone to do something on your website you will probably have to spell it out for them. Giving clear instructions on what to do is key. Fill in this form, or enter your email in the box may seem like unnecessary advice but you will be amazed how effective it can be.
When you combine clear instructions with explaining the benefits of taking action, will elicit a much higher response rate from visitors
6. Talking about the sessions & equipment
I’m afraid in my experience people aren’t excited about working 3 x 45 mins HIIT sessions, with KB’s, TRX, and resistance bands. For most this will seem like a foreign language and potentially turn them off your service. Visitors to your personal trainer website will be looking for the benefits and the reasons why they would do or use these things.
Speak clearly about the benefits that the features of your service will give them. For example we use resistance training to build muscle, which increases metabolism and increases how much energy your body burns.
7. Not offering something for free
Visitors to your website may not be ready to make a decision or take action the moment they visit. They may want to weigh their options up, they may be busy, they may just be looking around. This is your chance to offer them some great bit of advice or something that they could receive in exchange for their email address.
Giving something away in exchange for an email address allows you to build an email list of potential clients. These people have given you their email address and permission to send them messages so you can build your like know and trust relationship with them. It means you can make them offers, and invite them to make the first step towards working with you andeducate them about what you do.
As you can see the key to having a personal training website that actually builds your personal training business is to have clear messaging about who you help, how you help them and what you can help them achieve.
Offer a limited choice of what they need to do next, to make sure they don’t get confused. Avoid speaking in ‘Personal Trainer’ language. Use the words that you hear them use and talk about the benefits of training with you.
Offer something for free in exchange for the visitors email address. Then email them after to make sure they understand what you do, answer any questions and tell them about how great you are.