It's pretty safe to say that the way personal trainers offer their services to potential clients has been flipped on it's head due to the global pandemic we're living through at the moment.
This will have a knock on effect in terms of encouraging personal trainers to make a leap and offer their specialisations and skills to both an offline and online audience. You can have both pieces of that pie!
Many Fit Pros currently have a lot of time on their hands due to clients being either locked down, or not having the confidence to physically meet other people in fear of contracting the virus - which leaves both parties frustrated due to lack of money and lack of routine.
Very few Fit Pros have a plan b which enables them to continue generating a consistent income, especially now when there are so many people at home, directionless in terms of a fitness schedule and have absolutely zero accountability to do exercises on their own. In fact, many Personal Trainers still don't have their own web presence!
Fit Pros Have Been Leaving Money On The Table
There are actually many Fit Pros who either have absolutely zero online presence apart from a Facebook/Instagram account, or own a 'website' which actually does more harm than good in terms of trustworthiness, messaging and overall client pulling power.
This is one of the areas that Personal Trainers will need to make adjustments on when the storm passes to prepare for new opportunities which will be available. It's important that you should not just rely on one 'thing' when it comes to generating an income.
For those who solely rely on Instagram or Facebook, what do you do when you post something they don't like and they ban your account? This happens more often than you think (and happened to someone I know recently), and the amount of time you have spent building up a following has been wasted and ultimately lost.
You want to ideally be taking people away from 3rd party platforms such as the aforementioned social media, and onto your own piece of property where you have total control of your visitor's experience
Reevaluating how you can pitch your PT services
Having a branded, digital offering really gives you unlimited capacity to serve your clients in some way shape or form - be it attracting physical clients to your facility, or utilising the power of online courses to service numerous customers wanting to exercise and be healthy on their terms, in their own home.
This is the way the World is heading, and certainly the way it currently is due to COVID-19. More and more people are learning from home; albeit without a real choice at present. But if there is one thing that this pandemic has taught me, is that people have the ability to be just as productive work wise from home as they are from an office, and are able to manage their time accordingly
This means that sneaking in a workout from home via an online course for a good percentage of your ideal customer instantly becomes an viable option for them - many top personal trainers are making a killing with online courses (some I have spoken to up to £2000,00 per day) and have systems dialled in to funnel as many people as possible into their branded course platform.
Many of the top personal trainers who have all the bells and whistles have been taking advantage of the digital market place for many years and have nurtured their email lists and Facebook groups over a period of time, built up trust and introduced their courses to their followers; which resonated with them and made them commit.
Whether you want an online course or not (I highly recommend you have one in some shape or form), you really need to be building a following off a 3rd party platform and instead focus on building an email list which you can build trust with and repeatedly market your products to at absolutely no cost.
You may have heard the expression "the money is in the list" - this refers to the amount of names, email address you have managed to capture on your website! With all things being equal, the bigger the list, the more money you will make! If you only take one thing from this blog, make sure you START GROWING A LIST
For personal trainers who don't want an online course
Building an online course is not for the faint hearted of course! The trainers making the £1000 and £2000 plus per day didn't just wake up one morning, slap something together and then laugh their way to the bank.
It takes many months of content planning, recording, video editing and of course the whole setting up for a course and sales pages to start seeing huge results!
Not everyone wants to commit to producing an online course, maybe it's a time factor...or perhaps its a confidence issue...there are many intrinsic and extrinsic reasons for someone not wishing to pursue their own online course - they may just prefer working on a one-to-one basis
And that's fine of course, but working one-to-one and 'exchanging time for money' will never give you the freedom we all desire as human beings.
But the minimum you should have if you're only wishing to working with private clients is a web presence which is designed to funnel clients in your locale onto your email list, build value in the back end and take on new clients that way.
Once you start building trust and your prospects become familiar with your training methods, your exercise knowledge, your fitness expertise and more importantly, your passion for results you'll quickly see more people register an interest in private personal training - which means more bookings if you do the follow up.
If you do not have a conversion focused website (or any website at all) you really need to start reevaluating your reasons why! Investing in a website which actually helps you acquire clients will be one of the best investments you could possibly make in your business!
As I touched on earlier, it's important your website actually works for you instead of simply being a static presence just sitting there doing nothing. It needs to be constantly generating leads for you. Sadly, I see so many PT websites which fail to do the basics of prospecting.
Future proof your Fit Pro business!
Things are tough right now for personal trainers, but they will get worse for you if you bury your head in the sand and do not start laying the foundations for the opportunities which will come out of this. Fix any leaks in your current business model, adapt and future proof your operations.
I am developing a free, step-by-step "Build Your Brand" online course which will take all fitness professionals through the process of building a website which focuses on generating new business; be it online or offline clients
I think if you're running a business, you need to understand the basic digital marketing principles which will enable you to scale your business. Most good things start with your website and finish at your checkout - with my course I will help you get all of the basics right!
This course is not only primed for personal trainers, but also great to yoga teachers, box gyms, MMA gyms and anything in between really! It's designed to help you grow! 👇👇