How does a fitness trainer gets a client? This question is asked not only by beginners, but even by experienced trainers, since clients are money, and there is never a lot of money. What’s curious, trainers’ education and training programs often don’t include such important disciplines as influence, persuasion, and sales. Knowing how the human body is structured and functioning is just as important for a fitness trainer as how to be able to sell your services and make money on your knowledge. In this article, we’ll try to figure out how does a fitness trainer gets a client if he doesn’t know anything about sales and doesn’t have specific knowledge in the field of influence and persuasion. We’ll talk about what should always be done, what always works and what’s always available to each of us.
How does a fitness trainer gets a client
First of all, according to the established tradition, I remind you that this article is a logical continuation of a series of articles about the profession of a fitness trainer. For the most complete understanding of the topic, I also recommend you to familiarize yourself with the articles “Who is a fitness trainer“, “Job description of a fitness trainer“, “How to become a fitness trainer“, “Myths about the job of a fitness trainer“, “How to get a job fitness trainer” and “Job interview for a fitness trainer“. Now let’s continue.
Well, you have coped with the task of getting a job of a fitness trainer (which we talked about in the previous article). The next task of a fitness trainer is to get a client. A safe bet at the start of your career is constant communication. With everyone. With the staff of the club, with the service personnel and, first of all, with the clients. With free clients, with clients of other trainers, with the trainers themselves. Greet, meet, communicate, find out, ask, advise, consult and so on. Try to make friends with all the visitors of the fitness club, find out how they are doing at work, how they feel, how their children are doing at school. The most important thing here is sincerity. You need to take an interest sincerely, without falsehood. You really should be interested, otherwise, any person feels deception very well, and if you try to wriggle into favor and get into trust, they will most likely try to avoid communication with you. For a fitness trainer to get a client, means first of all to communicate. Be sincere and not intrusive. Be in the right place at the right time. If possible, keep everyone in the gym in sight. As soon as you see that the client is experiencing difficulties, be right there and give him a hand or at least an advice.
TIP. People do not always come to the fitness club for the result. Often they come to quarrel, make peace, find friends, look for a soul mate, kill time, get away from problems, update photos on Instagram, feed posts on Facebook, be in trend at work, and so on. A fitness trainer is in many ways a psychologist. Your task is to understand for what purpose the client came to the club, what disturbs or worries him. This is the answer to the question – how does a fitness trainer gets a client. It often happens that the trainer for the client is the ears. The result is not important to the client, but he will not tell about it, he will buy personal trainings in order to tell you that the boss is a fool at work, that his wife is brainwashing him, that the children are bad at school, that the mother-in-law wants him to buy her an expensive lawn mower, and so on.
This is the specificity of the profession of a fitness trainer – selling personal trainings (sessions). Each personal session with a client takes time, so, more specifically, the trainer’s task is to sell his time. If you want to chat – pay me for my time, if you want to meet that brunette over there – pay me for my time, if you want me to tell you something, or if you want to tell me something – pay me for my time. Within the walls of a fitness club, you are a trainer and the trainer’s job is once again – to sell his time. Your time is worth money. It means that if a client wants to borrow your time, he has to pay for it. It is as simple as that.
How does a fitness trainer retains a client
For what else is a fitness trainer valued by the management, besides the fact that he knows how to sell personal trainings? – For being able to retain clients. And here everything is also extremely simple. From a management point of view, each client is a source of income. If a client leaves, he will spend his money somewhere else, and surely, it’s not profitable for the business. Your task as a trainer is to provide the client with such a level of service that will satisfy him so that he continues to go to this club and continues to bring him profit. I repeat – give the client what he wants, be interested in him and keep in touch. Lead the client, track the result, take measurements, and make photographs. The client will feel that he is needed, that he is cared for. This will make you unique to him. Such a client will stay with you for a long time and will no longer want to train with anyone else. So, it turns out that to get a client is just as important for a fitness trainer as to keep him. If it seems to you that getting a client is already a big deal, then in fact, this is only half of the deal. You still need to try to make sure that he doesn’t go away from you to someone else.
TIP. Even when you are on duty at the gym, don’t take your smartphone or a tablet, or even a laptop with you. Despite the fact that the duty is often boring, and as a rule, no one from the club’s visitors turns to you, you don’t need to turn yourself off from the outside world by staring at a mobile device. First, the employer doesn’t approve such behavior and may warn you. Secondly, don’t forget where and why you came to work. You won’t be paid for playing on smartphone.
Here’s another tip on how does a fitness trainer gets a client. If you still got the duty hours, follow the following rule: if you can’t change the situation, change your attitude towards it. Don’t wait for people to turn to you, but turn to them first and start a dialogue. Most of the visitors are shy people and will not come up to you even in case of need. Your task is to be the first to break this barrier and make contact with them. As a trainer, you know more, which means that in any exercise that the client does, you can find mistakes, which are your direct responsibility to correct. Sociability is your key to sales.
Conclusion
So now you know how does a fitness trainer gets a client. Don’t be shy, fight shyness, remove fear and stiffness, and strive to increase your soft skills through constant communication. The secret of success for a fitness trainer lies in continuous communication. On the duty, don’t sit in the corner, don’t stare at your smartphone, even if there’s only one person in the gym at that moment – go to him and start talking. Your time will pass faster, and perhaps this person will come to you for help. And in the best case, he will also advise you to his friends, relatives or acquaintances. But this is certainly not all that a beginner fitness trainer needs to know. We continue the topic and in the next part of our series of articles, I will tell you about the secrets of the job of a fitness trainer.
Felix Palmer – author of the blog crusfit.com
Leave a Reply