7 fitness business myths debunked

January 21, 2020     /    Personal Trainer Websites    /    Liam Thompson

It is important to create a website that not only looks attractive, but also performs by helping you get more members for your fitness business. Here are 7 common myths about building a website for your fitness business busted wide open. How many of these are you doing at the minute and what can you change to get more members to join your gym or facility.

Myth 1: A Web Designer Is the Best Place to Get Your Fitness Business Website

We've all been there at some point in our Fitness Careers or at least I know I have. It all starts with the decision to get a website built for your training business and true to logic you hire someone who builds and designs websites.

Maybe its even your girlfriends younger brother who's a whizz at computers, or a client who you train for free in exchange for the website.

It seems like the logical thing to do at first and why wouldn't it be?

Most web designers will do a great job and create a great looking site for your fitness business, but usually they have the same fundamental flaws because designers think about how sites look and not how they work from a marketing point of view.

Web designers are arty people who like the look and feel of things. That's why they became designers. Designers, not marketers. They usually forget to take into account the reason most fitness businesses want a website. Usually it's to get more members, and how a site looks has absolutely nothing to do with this.

Myth 2: Your Website Should Be About You

If you have been in the fitness industry for as long as I have, then you will know that it's full of ego's. Big egos. The majority of fitness professionals see their website as an extension of that. They see it as an opportunity to list their qualifications, show off their six packs, share videos of them throwing up after their last beasting training sessions or proudly showing off their chicken and broccoli Tupperware lunch.

This is OK if you want to train hardcore people or gym rats, but the majority of people will be turned off and even intimidated by this. The truth is, most people looking for a personal trainer probably hate exercise, are embarrassed by their bodies and hate the thought of working out in front of other people. The last thing they want to see is a trainer pulling a six pack selfie in front of a mirror. Also your clients don't actually care how many qualifications you have or how may reps points you have gathered this year. They just want to know if you can help them and they want you to show them.

Your website as a fitness professional should be about the client, not you. It should showcase how you can help solve their problem and include testimonials of clients who have similar problems that you have helped in the past. This is called social proof and is one of the main reasons people will trust you to help them.

Myth 3: Listing Your Prices on Your Website Is Crucial

The most common question we are asked by fitness professionals is, “Should you list your prices on your website?” Some trainers and gurus will say “Yeah“, some will say “No way Jose“, but here is my take on it.

If you are training low end clients who are shopping on price or running pay as you go classes (which you shouldn't be) then by all means list your prices. If you charge more for your services then you should only show your prices after you have demonstrated value. Value first, price second. If you can demonstrate enough value then generally the price will not be an issue.

Myth 4: Training Anyone Who Wants Training

If you want to be successful in the fitness industry, you have to have your own niche. Being the go to person in your town who specializes in training brides to be, or 40-45 year old company directors who want to lose their beer bellies and de-stress makes it really easy for you to market your services.

If you only take one thing from this post today, it's that you need to have a niche. It automatically puts you in your own category away from other trainers and means you have no competition and you can charge higher fees.

Think about it. Would you rather be a £30 an hour personal trainer or charge £500 a month as a bride to be weight loss coach? The bride coach is just an example but if you think about these brides might be in a serious panic about fitting into their £5,000 dress in time.

How much do you think dropping a dress size or 2 is worth to them?

Myth 5: Personal Trainer Websites Should Sell Training

Probably the biggest mistake most new trainers make, especially if they worked in a commercial gym is that they try and sell training and they try and sell it by the hours.

As a personal trainer you have to sell what people are buying, and its not training! People do not want training.

So now that we understand that people are not looking for training, they are looking for you to solve their problem, they want the result of the training, so sell them the result and how they will feel when they get the result. Include nutrition, maybe even mindset coaching if you are aiming for weight loss, package it up into 12 week packages and charge your clients monthly. It means when you bring a new client in, they are investing in a results based package and you have them for a client for a minimum of 3 months.

Myth 6: Google Will Send Me All the Personal Training Clients I Need

Just putting a website up there and expecting the phone to start ringing is a pretty unrealistic expectation. There is no guarantee to getting it high enough on Google in any case, and unless you live in a big city with lots of searches for personal training, then focusing on Google will be a massive drain on your resources and a huge waste of your time. (You can use Adwords anyway).

Did you know that most small towns don't have enough searches for personal trainers even on Google to make this a worthwhile task.

The truth is, once your site is built is when the real work begins. You need to find out how to get your site in front of your potential clients (currently Facebook ads are the best way to do this). That's exactly why you need to learn how to drive targeted traffic to your new website, its why you have to get content in front of people and then market to them

Myth 7: You Should Copy What Your Competitors Are Doing

This is another huge error, because generally you have no idea how your competitors is doing. You don't know their stats and how many new clients they get from their websites. Copying others is a case of the blind leading the blind. DO your own research on what your target market want and learn to write persuasive sale copy that sells to them.

If you want more info on what we do here at Internet Fitpro click here to check out our Personal Trainer SWAT Website System

 


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