Growing a Personal Training business

I am often asked by Personal Trainers from around the country about how to achieve the best possible results with their clients and grow their business. The answers lie within the education you chose to base the quality of your programmes on.

Quite simply, if you chose not to invest your time and money into further education having qualified as a trainer, you can expect your business to fall by the way side. With many reputable sources out there, it can be difficult trying to choose the path best suited to you and your business.

Having a background in sport and exercise is also an essential part to maximising results and growing a successful personal training business. Many people will take comfort in the fact that you have physical achievements and will link this to you being able to help them achieve more out of training with you. I go along with the principles of practicing what you preach! Being an example of what your clients are aiming for is a positive start to attracting people to take you on as their trainer.

Having said that, there is a lot more to achieving results than being an avid exerciser yourself. I see this a lot. Many PT’s believe that because they have a physique calved out of stone or have competed in the Olympics; people should be queuing up for their services. It doesn’t quite work like that i’m afraid. You have to be a people person and a good communicator!

When I work with Trainers who want to take their business to the next level, I always ask them which type of clients they enjoy working with most? Is it men, women, how old are they, typically what are they looking to achieve, which clients instinctively listen to what you have to say and which clients have referred them business?

You need to know the answer to all of these questions. These will help you chose a path of education and cement a direction which will allow you to attract more of the right type of clients best suited for you. The best trainers in the world all know exactly who their typical clients are. They know how to attract them, they know how to keep them and they know exactly how to get results with them. Your website, blog posts, newsletters, marketing, free seminars all need to be aimed at your target audience all of whom want to achieve the same sort of results.

Once you have identified a trend of which type of clients you get on with and have achieved your best results with, you are now in a position to take your business to the next level by specialising in achieving something specific with every client of yours.

If you look at the industry leaders, they all have a very specific system when it comes to achieving results. They all know exactly which type of people they are targeting and therefore they have different client bases based on their training model and the education that goes with it.

There is no such thing as a successful ‘all round and general trainer’. If you do not invest in your education, you will become one of these and your business will fall off. Once you have decided upon which angle of education and training best suits you, it is your job to go about targeting the people who you want to take through your model and grow your business with.

Fundamentally, everything I have mentioned about creating a system and working towards specific results is the only way to establish yourself as an expert and grow your business.

The point in which you know you have a good system and a reputation for achieving results with the right people is when your clients are willing to travel to come and see you specifically. Great results create referrals and before you know it, you are in demand. This positive business cycle is essential for any Personal Trainer to get to grips with if they are serious about growing a business and getting the most out of the industry.

This way, you are not reliant on other people supplying you with clients, you eventually become self sufficient as you establish yourself as an expert with a reputation for achieving results. Influencing athletes, celebrities and the media about your results driven system is the next step to growing your business and establishing a brand. I’ll save this section for another time.

This is a simple overview of the business model in which I use to help Personal Trainers from all over the UK get better results with their clients which in turn grows their business. If you are a Personal Trainer or are thinking about becoming one, my PT plan will give you the tools to take it up a gear, get the right clients onboard and achieve better results all round.

Written by Dave Fletcher

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