Get More Personal Training Clients

101 Ways to Attract New Fitness and Coaching Clients and Keep them Longer

 

You want more clients. You need more clients. You want to help more people. These are the most common thoughts of trainers and coaches. But, if you don’t know how to get new clients, it can be frustrating./p>

To get a steady pipeline of clients, you have to invest time in building relationships, networking, and marketing your training/coaching services and business. In this post, we’ve covered a whopping 101 strategies you can use to get new clients starting RIGHT NOW.

You may be familiar with some of these at a glance, but read through because we’ve included helpful advice, resources, and tools that can help you become a successful trainer or coach. Get ready for some surprises!

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BONUS: More free training to help you grow your training and coaching business. 
Each of these free lessons comes with video as well:

a) 3 free ways to get more coaching clients

b) 9 ways to make money as a NESTA Certified Personal Fitness Trainer

c) 10 side hustles in the fitness industry
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1. Let Everyone Know What You are Doing:
All your connections should know about your work. Let people know about your accomplishments without being arrogant. The more your connections understand your work, the better they will be able to help you access opportunities. This applies both online and offline. Don’t waste your social media profiles. Let your Social media Profile bios, taglines, and email signatures state exactly what it is that you do (and for who). Avoid too many irrelevant posts. They make it difficult for customers to find you. People will direct opportunities to you when they see that you are valuable and helpful.  This does not mean boring your friends and connections by pushing your services endlessly. It just means that they should know about what you do and your significant accomplishments. 

2. Let Your Clients Say What They Think About Your Service: When your work with a client is coming to its end, make it a new beginning. Set up a meeting with the client after finishing your work to hear both, positive and negative feedback. Giving time and attention to your clients’ opinions and recommendations will reinforce your relationship. They will also find themselves more comfortable to deal with you in the future knowing that you care about getting better and satisfying your clients.

3. Go for Quality Over Quantity: If you are thinking about getting involved in organizations for the sake of building relationships, avoid spreading your efforts widely. Choose one or two that you can be heavily involved in. This will help you to build a better network.  Look for people you can have quality relationships with. People who can give honest feedback, and receive it. People who can challenge you and be challenged by you. Openly appreciate them for their work.  Build relationships with other coaches whose work you admire. Networking with competition has numerous benefits. You can share valuable information with each other and maybe even find ways to collaborate.  Believe it or not, a lot of coaches and trainers get clients who are referred to them from other coaches and trainers. But don’t limit yourself to your industry entirely. You still need people in your circle who are not necessarily coaches or trainers. 

4. Have a Sellable Idea: The most important element in the training/coaching/consultancy market is having a sellable idea. While marketing strategies are important to determine the success of a business, financial muscle in marketing is not necessarily a critical factor.  Even with little or no marketing budget, one can operate a business as a coach as long as they have viable ideas, skills, and are willing to learn. Determination in consultancy especially for a firm with little or no financial muscles is key because it requires that coaches in such firms work hard against the stiff competition of large firms. Currently in the corporate world, having finances makes work easier where firms can hire specialists to their work such as marketing. This, however, does not mean that small firms have no chance in the industry.

5. Clarify Your Mission: It’s crucial from the outset that you have a crystal-clear vision of what you want to accomplish in your chosen niche with your clients. Think about the values you live by, and how they reflect in the work you want to do. Ask yourself, “What kind of value, in particular, will I provide to my clients? Which specific aspects of their lives will I improve? Why is it important to me that I can give this kind of service to them?”

mission-statement-for-personal-trainers

Admittedly, it will take a little bit of reflection and soul-searching on this one, but it’s worth it. Having a clear mission-vision based on your personal values will make it easier for you to figure out which type of people you want to connect and work with. That way, you can better target the audience you want and get quality clients walking through your door.

6. Branding your Approach: Brand your approach towards your clients. For instance, If you offer a weight loss plan, instead of calling it “weight loss session” try coming with a small abbreviation or a fun new name that feels flashy and attractive. Not only does this feel more appealing to clients but it is also easier for them to remember and share with a friend or referral. Make your approach unique. Why is it different?

7. Creating a Hyper-Focused Niche: Having a hyper-focused niche can help you target a specific client and can help you become an authority quickly. For example, if you are working with senior citizens on how to make body muscles strong clarify it on your website. This will attract the people and they will get to as you are offering their choice of service. This also helps in making people clear to what extent you are professional as you have mentioned your specific field of expertise.

8. Ask for Referrals – Don’t Wait for Them: Too many trainers and coaches just wait for referrals to fall into their lap.  Instead of waiting, open your email and find two happy clients, who haven’t sent you referrals yet. You are going to email them right now asking for a referral. Don’t beat around the bush or leave it open-ended, and always keep it short.

9. Post Several Posts Per Week that Relate to Your Coaching/Training Business: If you are a life coach, make each post about things people can do to improve their lives that corresponds to your philosophy. Don’t be afraid to share posts or articles from other sources you think people may enjoy, though try not to share from your competition. You may also write long-form blog posts on your site and share these on your various social media channels as well. Make sure you open the permissions to allow others to share them with their timelines or feeds or retweet to their followers. This can be how you get new followers and eventually customers.

10. Create a Message that Sets You Apart: You need to know how to introduce yourself, knowing how to tell the world about the worth of what you do, that you are different from other trainers, coaches and personal development professionals, and why they should choose you.

11. Gather Email Addresses For a Mailing List: Each time you write a new blog post, email information about it to your email list. To get people to sign up for your email list, you have to offer them something, like a book. A short e-book about some aspect of what you do for people, even tips for living a healthier life, will provide value and make people more eager to give you their email address. Companies like Active Campaign provide subscription email services that are typically free (or just pennies) for businesses below a certain number of subscribers and weekly emails. If you’re just starting out, that would be a great way to enter the mailing list segment. 

12. Follow-up with Lost Clients: Go through your email and find clients you lost 2+ months ago. Send them a follow-up email asking how their health or fitness journey is going, and if there is anything you can do for them. This can lead to a small project or even spark a new conversation about working with you again. If not, you’re still putting yourself on their radar and might see some referrals coming your way.

13. Follow-up with Your Network: Browse through old email conversations with colleagues, connections & people you’ve spoken within the past, who could be a fit for your services. Follow up with each, asking what they’ve been up to and how you can help.

14. Run an Ad Campaign: Facebook ads and Google Adwords are great ways to advertise your business to prospective clients. Both platforms let you set a small daily budget for those that are cash-strapped or want to test the waters. Facebook ads easier to use than Google Adwords, which definitely has a steep learning curve if you’re new. 

15. Start Blogging: Blogging is an amazing way to build relationships and become an expert trainer, coach or consultant. Start by blogging about topics that tie into your services, and will appeal to prospective clients.  Make sure you set up your blog for Google Ranking

16. Write an eBook: Write an eBook that can help solve a business challenge or create value for your prospective client. Any time you write a book, you become an authority.

17. Go for a Low Competition Niche That Has Huge Potential to Grow: There are many niches to choose from, but in order to get more business and consistently, too, make sure you opt for a niche that has high demand, but low competition. Don’t go for those niches that are saturated and pay less. Too much competition ultimately leads to a pricing war where each trainer is trying to beat the competition by under pricing, which ultimately makes everyone suffer.

18. Ask your client why do they need your service and their expectations: Even if it looked obvious, give your clients the space to express their actual concerns and their expectations from using your service. This will give you extra time to think about the best offer you can make, and thus, the best first impression.

19. Guest Blog: Find blogs that your prospective clients read and ask to guest post on them. You should write about a topic that fits within the blog, but also something that readers will get tons of value out of. Guest blogging is great because you can share your expertise and grow your brand by tapping into someone else’s audience. There are opportunities on a site like Fiverr.

20. Generate Leads: Generating leads consists of finding prospective clients that could benefit from your services and coming up with a plan to reach them. Always keep this in your mind.  How many different ways can you generate leads.  Write them down now.

21. Use Twitter Search: Twitter search is a powerful way to find real-time tweets from people and companies looking to hire or that need help. Be creative. Try different search phrases and you’ll discover some great potential clients and projects. You can also chime in on popular topics and become the “go-to” expert on that trending topic.

22. Network Online and Offline: Instead of sitting behind the computer all week, plan to go to a meetup or a conference, where your prospective clients may be mingling. Complete a LinkedIn profile with up-to-date information and work samples. Import your contacts and connect with as many people in your network as possible. Share your blog posts, website and other interesting content directly to your LinkedIn news feed. How many different ways can you network with people who need your service?

23. Transform your Mindset: Sales (especially when you are selling yourself and your services) do not need to be daunting, especially when you have a blueprint to follow. Ditch the sleazy car man stigma and lack of confidence. You got this! Confidence is intriguing to everyone….. not to be confused with arrogance.

24. Identify Your Ideal Client: It’s much easier to see to people who are ideally suited to the fitness, nutrition, or coaching program you have created and are offering. Who are they? Where are they? What is there biggest problem you can solve? Why is your service unique/better? How can you communicate with them?

25. Set Persuasive Pricing: Smart pricing is crucial to your successful selling. If you get this wrong you may have a long uphill battle. When you price your program and service properly the entire sales process will easier and smoother. You can start with a 1-time irresistible offer when gets them in the door.  Then, move them into a long-term higher monthly recurring payment plan.

26. Start by Establishing a Small Client Base: Starting with a smaller client base will give you the opportunity to test your processes and gain some real-world training experience before you start to scale larger. You can start by tapping into your existing network and social media. When you have established a great rapport with your first few clients, you can ask them for referrals.

27. Learn how to Confidently Approach People: Striking up a conversation with strangers can be daunting, but it is a really effective way of generating new interest and bringing in new clients especially if you are based in a gym or studio.

28. Writing a book, even one of 200 pages or less, can be used as a marketing tool: You know about your business better than anyone. A book about what you do and how you do it, along with a few tips to motivate the curious, can make you look like an expert in your field. After all, only experts write books. You can either write the book on your own from scratch, utilize your blog posts to string a book together, or partner with a service such as Scribe can help you make your book. Keep in mind, the biggest buyer of these books may be yourself to give to people.

29. Be on Demand: Share your expertise and skills on marketplaces like Clarity, Liveninja or Google Helpouts. These sites have a lot of people to choose from, so consider giving away a few free sessions, to build up your profile. 

30. Create a Course: Create a course on Udemy to tap into a large audience of students and prospective clients. You learn how to do this as part of the training in the Online Coach Training course.

31. Productize Your Services: Productized coaching is a powerful way to create recurring revenue and get new clients. With productized coaching, you bundle your training, coaching or consulting services into a “package” that the client can purchase for a monthly fee. Best of all, you’re creating predictable, recurring revenue.

32. Capture Leads: In order to establish trust and build up a relationship with visitors, you can try to capture their email by giving something away. Give visitors a white paper, a free 30-minute training or coaching session, or even a step-by-step guide, in exchange for their email.  This system helps you.

33. Write a Playbook: A playbook is a great way to attract new clients, as it provides detail on your process, how you work, and how you can help the client. 

34. Start Co-working: If you work from home, consider co-working at least once a week. Co-working spaces are great for meeting like-minded individuals and becoming part of your local community. You’ll build up strong relationships and be a go-to for people at the co-working space. Learn more. Earn more. Share more.

35. Go on the lecture circuit. Book a room at your local library or motel/hotel. Put the word out that you’ll be giving a talk on a subject related to your business. Mention that the first 50 or 100 participants will receive a copy of your book if you have written one. A book makes you look like an expert, and books make the best free prize for attending. You may end up with more customer conversions through the book than through the lecture. If your lectures prove popular enough, you may be able to charge admission to your talks. Need help mastering your speaking skills?

36. Always Offer Advice and Help: A long-term strategy to bring in new clients is to help people who are connected to your prospective clients. Offer ideas, intros, feedback, thoughts or help them in any way possible with their challenges. This is a bit different than following up with your network, mentioned earlier, because it’s an ongoing process. You might not close a client or get referrals immediately with this strategy, but it’s a proven tactic to build relationships and win new business over time. Be in the service of others.

37. Send a Handwritten Letter: If you’re looking to land a new client and really want to get their attention, try sending a handwritten letter. Write and send a letter that focuses on solving their problems, and also include an easy way to reach you. People will remember this!

38. Utilize Industry Networking Sites: Almost every industry has networking sites that bring the community together. These sites are an amazing way to grow your brand and land new clients. 

39. Answer Questions on Quora: Find questions on Quora in your industry, and write thoughtful answers. Fill out your profile and link to your website, so people can learn more about you. Be sure to not just spam your website around Quora. Instead, build up relationships with people and be helpful. Quara also gets ranked well on Google!

40. Get Press: To get press for your business, you have to come up with a unique angle that would be appealing to publications and their audience. Don’t pitch your services and company, instead act as an expert on a certain topic.

41. Create a Presentation: Create a presentation and upload it on SlideShare and Speaker Deck. The possibilities are endless, and creating an engaging presentation will bring in traffic, social shares and new leads. Make sure you give them a good reason to contact you.

42. Write a Guide: Write a guide on a specific topic that you have expertise in. Your website is a great place to distribute your guides, along with your personal network and on social channels. Creating a guide is a proven way to drive traffic, capture leads, and become an authority on a topic.

43. Write a Case Study: Case studies show prospective clients your results and success with a particular project. A case study usually covers the client, challenges, process, and results of a project or engagement.

44. Be Extremely Personal: If you’re replying to a job ad, or cold emailing, it’s a good idea to be personal to stand out against your competition. Being personal takes time, but it’s likely to help you stand out and close more clients.

45. Speak at Industry Conferences: Attending conferences is great, but you should also try speaking at them. Find conferences in your industry and reach out to an organizer about speaking. Pitch them on topics you’d like to speak about, and back it up with your skills, expertise, experience, website, blog and more. 

46. Make Creative Business Cards: Business cards can be an effective marketing tool if executed properly. Yes, they still work when you do everything else correctly.

47. Have an SEO Strategy: Search engine optimization is a great long-term strategy to drive targeted traffic to your company website. You won’t see overnight results with SEO, but with a sound strategy in place, you can drive traffic over time and convert visitors into paying clients. 

48. Writing Articles and Blogs: The best thing to get clients to like your online training or coaching business is to write innovative articles and blogs that cover the best of information and describes your experience in the field. Being a certified coach you have to reflex it into your articles that you are the real deal. Make your articles and blogs show your experience and confidence. When you will publish all of your written articles reflecting all of your experience people will get attracted to your work and will contact you through different resources. This is an effective way to get clients into liking your coaching business. Also, make a list of renowned websites and contact the person in charge of their content that is published on a daily basis and present them your work and get it published. When someone will stumble upon your work they will try and get in touch with you and will be converted into paid clients. Ask questions and solve problems your clients want to read.

49. Engaging SEO Content: As you would be running an online business you are supposed to be having a website so that people can search for your services. Having a user-friendly decent interface will definitely come in handy for you as it would attract a lot of people. Having a website, you also have to do some work on it on how to get more customers and for that, it is really necessary that your website stays on top of the search results so more and more people can interact with you making it easy for them to approach you. 

Now staying on top of the search results will require you to get your website optimized through SEO this definitely helps in keeping the website user friendly and gets you a lot of organic traffic making it easy for you to get paid clients and as your website is on them you can also expect a lot of people to be coming to you for your services.

50. Engaging Social Media Platforms: One of the best ways to get clients is to engage with them on social media. There are many different social media platforms you can utilize including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and man more. Engage with people there. Set up your profile or page and let people know about yourself and your services. Have conversations with them. Tell them your story, let them know about your work, and attract them to your coaching business. Engaging in long and informative conversations with your clients will help you demonstrate your fitness expertise. This can be a game-changer as they can become your permanent long term clients. Try to answer every question and engage them in informative conversations as much as possible.

51. Having Family and Friends as Wingmen: Well it’s basic and obvious that when you start a business the first thing is to let your family members and friends know about it. There are many huge businesses that started from scratch and their first clients were family members and friends. At first, let them all the details about your business and let them acknowledge you. When it’s done they will then share the information with their connections such as their work employees, friends, and people they meet in daily life. This can become a source of help for you to grow your business and get clients. It’s human physiology that they prefer a known service over an unknown so hearing from a person they know will definitely come in your favor.  Moreover, studies show that people usually get their first clients from the people they know.

52. Keep up with the Yelp, Google Reviews, and other sites’ user reviews for your business. Responding to reviews, especially bad reviews, will show potential customers that you care about those who use your services.

53. Sending Daily Emails: You have to be in contact with people in order to make them your clients. As you are running a business try utilizing all your assets. Send daily emails to all the contacts in your list. Studies have shown that people interact with email more often than their chat boxes. 

54. Utilizing Cross Referrals: There are many different professions that work with clients who want to improve their health, diet, wellness, and fitness. Try reaching out to these professionals such as chiropractors, nutritionists, physical therapists, and much more. Introduce yourself and build a working relationship with other professionals and when it feels appropriate, you can ask them to refer their clients to you.

55. Partner with Agencies: Partnering with an agency is a great way to bring in new clients. Which companies can do the connections for you?

56. Building a Community: Having a large community that praises you and accepts you for who you are is a great asset. Moreover, people with the same ideals as you are in such communities that make your work easier. Create a Facebook fan page and post daily updates of your ideas and share your blogs on the page. This will get them to further understand your concepts and what you are offering. The first impression on everyone will get them to be your permanent clients making it easy for them to take your fitness and coaching classes.

57. Add Testimonials to Your Website: Potential clients will look for reviews from your previous clients. Your current clients have worked long enough in the gym with you and they know your skill set and expertise well. Also whenever you work with a new client, you should ask them to leave you a review. You can get photos, written stories or video testimonials.  More is always better.

58. Explain Clearly What You Offer: Explain in detail what you will focus on, what you will do, what they will get as a result, and how much you charge. Being direct will give your client a clear vision about what will happen and what shall they expect. How do you solve their biggest problem? Talk about that.

59. Distributing Brochures and Business Cards: As a certified trainer or coach, you may want to get yourself some professional business cards or brochures. Distribute them to your local area. You can also go to yoga studios, chiropractor labs, and well-known general physicians and ask them to place a stack of your business cards on the front counter so that whenever people interact with them they will get a glance at your business card. Reach as many people as you can weekly.

60. Offer Value for Free or Share Freebies: At times people do not even know that they need the services of a coach this is where coaches have to make use of psychological persuasion to impart the realization of a coach’s need in their lives. At times offering people on one 15-20 minute session as a freebie or offering to solve a minor issue free of cost adds value and prestige to a coach’s services which often result in successful clients and rapport building as well. These valued experiences lure clients towards the coach.

61. Discount Packages: Offer different discount schemes and price packaging to your clients. This will serve as a way to attract more clients. Offer packages like” buy 4 packages get 1 free”. This is a great way to attract new clients and it will also help convert existing clients into long-paying loyal clients. Price packaging is very important as it makes it easy to sell your services to the clients. Make sure you still earn what you are worth, and figure out how to convert clients to long-term higher-paid programs.

62. Partnership with Other Businesses: Consider setting up partnerships with other health and fitness-related businesses such as a vitamin and sports supplements store or place which sells home gym equipment. Partnering with these businesses provides an opportunity to leverage your marketing services. These businesses can refer your services and you do the same for them while offering a small percentage of each referral.

63. Utilize Online Personal Training Software: For many trainers and coaches, personal training software like the one offered by gymGo is a good choice. Online personal training software should help you train clients more effectively and efficiently. If you choose to use a software platform to help you train and coach clients you want to make sure that the platform you choose has a strong customer support team that can quickly answer questions and help you solve any problems. Online personal training and coaching software can be a valuable tool to create, deliver, and maintain your coaching services. The more clients you have, and the more complex your business becomes, the more you and your clients will rely on the software to keep in touch and stay on track.

64. Be Genuine: Last but not least be genuine in your dealings with your clients. Don’t try to act like someone you are not. Be true to your personality and show everyone your true colors. Fake = FAIL

65. Offer Workshops on Your Specialty: You can do them in person anywhere, as long as you make them where your potential clients are or can assist, or you can also make them online through webinars. Workshops can help you get visibility and have an “expert” mark. And, if you do them in person, this will help you register the event with pictures and content for your website or a personal blog, helping you show you are a relevant professional.

66. Try to make the Online Experience as Personal as Possible: Offer Skype consultations, phone calls, Facebook support groups, and any other type of communication that will benefit your clients and make them feel fulfilled. Do you give everyone a custom program? Do you make sure the plan fits each client’s specific goals? If you want to be successful, you can’t just offer the same service as everyone else. This goes for any business, not just online coaching. You need to have something that makes you different. As a trainer and coach, you are in the business of “results.” Your clients are not going to care how amazing your programming is if it doesn’t provide the results they are looking for. Remember, the best program on paper is not always the best program in practice. Build a relationship and connect with clients on a deeper level. Get to know them, really dig into each client and try to find out what they really want and deliver that.

67. Open up Communication: Coaching and training clients online can happen in countless unique ways but the starting point always remains the same: your goal is the focus on improving the health of your clients. The way you set yourself up as an online personal trainer will dictate the ways you can make money online. It also will determine the number of clients you can have.

68. Create At-Home Workout Programs and Online Resources: An at-home program for a client won’t look the same as something you would create for an in-person client. Now is not the time to come up with crazy new exercises that your clients can’t figure out. The best program is the one that makes people feel successful and the one that they will actually do consistently.

69. Not Every Post Should be a Promotion: In fact, only about 10% of your posts on social media should be a promotion of some type.  You should focus more on educating, information, discussing, and facilitating lessons to your audience.  Show you care. Actually, care. Help people. Oftentimes coaches or trainers say, “I don’t know what to talk about on a video!”  Well, you just need to be creative.  Think of the last 10 great questions a client asked you.  Those are 10 video topics.  What are the last 10 eating/food-related questions you were asked?  Those are 10 video topics.  What are the last 10 exercises you did for yourself and why? Those are 10 video topics.  What are the top 10 discussions related to your niche in a discussion group? Those are 10 video topics.  Your ideas never end.  You just need to implement it. Focus on adding value first!

70. Comment on Blog Posts: A lot of great things happen when you start commenting on relevant blog posts in your niche. Let’s say you’re a personal fitness trainer looking to get more clients online. You want to train via Zoom, Skype, Google Meet or FaceTime from the comfort of your home, so you’re looking for tech-savvy, busy people interested in doing the same. Do some research on competitors in your niche, and start reading their blogs. Find out which blogs rank high in Google searches when you type in relevant keywords like “online personal trainer” or “virtual fitness trainer.” Comment on popular blog posts your target market is likely to read. Read the comments of others to make sure the people “hanging out” on the blog are, in fact, members of your target market. Respond to other’s comments and start conversations with prospects on the blog. Leave a link to your website so others can find out more about what you do. By commenting on relevant industry-specific blog posts, you’ll start to develop relationships with prospective clients, drive traffic back to your website, and increase your visibility to those searching for the exact services you’re offering.

71. Get the Most out of Facebook (And All Your Social Media): This is a great place to start because you already have friends and family who can share your information with others that you may not know. You can post information about what you do, share your products, and also post motivational quotes.

72. Facebook Testimonials: Another great tool to utilize is to post testimonials from any current clients you have. This is a great step to increasing personal training sales.

73. Facebook Business Page: You can also create a separate Facebook page for your business, depending on the number of clients you have or as you continue to grow you may want to create an additional page.

74. Facebook Boosted Posts: Facebook also has the option to boost your posts, this is advertising you will need to pay for. By boosting your posts to a target audience (i.e. people who are interested in fitness, weight loss, bodybuilding, etc.) more people will see them.

75. Facebook Groups: Invite friends and family to be a part of this group and advise them to add other members that they think would be interested. In this Facebook group post everything that is related to nutrition and getting in shape. Also, encourage questions and discussion among the members. This discussion makes what you are doing more real to potential online personal training clients.

76. Do a weekly Facebook Live video: Follow the same principles of the YouTube video. Just do one thing differently.  Get to the action and create more movement/interest immediately. Some people have success with shorter videos, and others do better with longer formats.  Experiment.

77. Twitter: Twitter is one form of social media that is an incredibly strong option for promoting your personal training business and reaching a wide range of potential clientele. All this method involves is writing lots of daily tweets and posting them to your feed, making sure to look for trending tweets and hashtags to maximize the popularity and engagement of your posts.  Your posts should discuss how amazing your business is, as well as offering free facts and information that would normally be offered as part of one of your training sessions. With this, clients will get a taste for how knowledgeable in personal training you are and may want to pay for a session to find out what else you know!  Twitter moves fast so scheduling your posts will be helpful on this social media site. Connecting with other people who have the same niche as you will help you to see what they are doing to get online personal training clients and increase their personal training sales online. It is easy to build up your following on Twitter and it could get you in touch with more potential online personal training clients.

78. Instagram: While Twitter is fantastic for sharing information about your business, Instagram is a fantastic social media to use alongside it to provide authenticity and visual stimulation for your potential customers. Instagram works in a similar way to twitter but involves users uploading images rather than text posts. This would allow you to post promotional images and videos for your business, as well as posting images displaying how fantastic your personal training services are e.g. showing before and after images of your past clients (with their consent of course). This method is amazing because it requires almost no time to do, with many apps allowing you to schedule posts to upload through the day, even if you aren’t on your phone at the time. If you are really stretched for time, you could pay a social media manager to upload daily posts for you and ensure that your business is being promoted effectively online!

79. Stand out as an expert using the LinkedIn content platform: LinkedIn has become the hotspot for eager, paying clients who are seeking training and consulting. You have a chance to get in quickly now before it fills up like the other networks. The difference with LinkedIn in comparison to the other major social networks is that the other platforms have “friends” or  “followers” whereas LinkedIn has connections. There are different levels of connection; and depending on how close of a connection you have with someone, it will allow you to interact with them in different ways. For instance, you can only send private messages to someone who is connected to you at the 1st-degree. This ensures that the closer a connection, the more likely you are to build a professional relationship. So the more people you are able to “meet” through LinkedIn and build that first connection, the higher your odds of landing another client are.

80. Use Pinterest and Promoted Pins: If you’re not using Pinterest marketing, you’re missing out on one of the most powerful social media tools for coaches and trainers – especially those who work in the health and wellness industry. Health, fitness, exercise, and personal growth pins are consistently rated among the most popular on Pinterest. That means they’re shared the most among Pinterest users and result in the most click-throughs to the pinner’s website. If you have a Pinterest business account, you can get access to promoted pins. Promoted pins will allow you to start getting your content in front of more and more targeted pinners using the Pinterest marketing advertising model. Promoted pins are a Pinterest marketing opportunity similar to Facebook ads or sponsored tweets. Once you’ve chosen action-based, visually appealing content, you’ll have the opportunity to promote that content to the pinners most likely to fall within your target market.

81. Using YouTube to Attract New Clients: Just like Facebook, attracting new clients using YouTube can be a daunting task. However, you can start with the ‘start small and grow big’ strategy. Create a profile picture that is 800 x 800 pixels and a channel banner that is 2560 x 1440 pixels. Make sure to write something as an introduction in your ‘About Section.’ Let people know what services you are offering as a trainer or a coach. Connect your other social media platforms with your YouTube channel and do the marketing of your videos or services using those channels. Create a featured trailer for your channel. This will help your audience learn more about you and your training or coaching programs. Never upload a video without including keywords. Keywords help YouTube users in finding your videos. Include tags and categories with your uploaded videos. YouTube will suggest your videos to people who are viewing similar content.

82. Sell Your Personality: People want to know you are approachable and that you can relate to whatever journey they are going through. They want someone who can not only guide them but also motivate them and be there for them if they need any type of help. You want to come across as highly motivated, energetic and passionate about what you are doing.

83. Stand Out from the Crowd: You will want clients to know that you offer personalized plans just for them. Making your client feel special is a great reason for them to choose you over the competition. Clients want to know you care about them and that they are not just a number. They want to know you will be there for them and adjust their plan as they get better and reach their goals or if something isn’t working you will change the routine for them.

84. Offer Discounts and Run Promotions: A great way to encourage people to choose you when looking online for personal training is to offer discounts and run promotions. A lot of people want to take the leap and hire a personal trainer online but they are unsure of paying a lot of money upfront for something that could potentially not be for them.

85. By Systematic: Quality relationships and connections don’t happen by accident. Have a system in place for keeping in touch with people. Use a spreadsheet and calendar to keep up if you like. You might want to talk to some people once a week and others once a month. Putting all your valuable connections in a spreadsheet will help you to remember to get in touch with them at least on a quarterly basis.  It is impossible to connect with everyone at the same level and in the same way. There are people you will meet in person on a weekly basis. Others you will talk to on the phone. For some people, an occasional email will suffice. This might mean once a month or once a week, depending on how close you are with them. If you are not close friends or family, it does not have to be a lengthy conversation or a lunch date. An occasional email or phone call will be good enough. Ask people for advice. online activities like blogging and participating in Social Media should compliment your offline networking. Don’t do anything that can hurt your personal brand. Build meaningful connections. Stick to your message. Guest post on other coaches blogs. Feature on other trainers YouTube videos. Interview them on your own blog. Do joint lives on Facebook. You might even participate in each other’s Facebook groups

86. Patience Pays: Quality connections are not made overnight. Be content to see slow progress sometimes. The goal should not be to make a connection in order to close a deal. It should be much bigger than that. Aim for strong, mutually helpful relationships with people that actually challenge you.

Building trust takes time.  Don’t approach people with ulterior motives. Be happy to give value upfront without getting anything in return. Making friends with someone because you need a favor from them next week will not work.  Work on becoming more valuable to the people who are already in your network before trying to add more people to it. 

87. Don’t Be Self Conscious: One thing that makes social interactions infinitely easier is when we focus more on making the other person comfortable than on our own selves. Don’t worry about whether people will like you. Instead, focus on doing what you can to make them comfortable.

88. Speak to the Public: While using social media to find clients for your personal training business does have numerous amazing benefits, it does also have its drawbacks. For a start, not everyone in your local area has access to any form of social media, which could mean a large portion of your potential client base aren’t even seeing your promotional tweets and Instagram posts. Because of this, it can be very beneficial to go out into the area in which your personal training business is based and speak to those you know live locally and who may be interested in taking part in personal training sessions. All this method requires is a bit of confidence to start talking to complete strangers about your business, but once you start you won’t be able to stop!

89. Remember Old School Techniques: Some old methods of marketing are still best. Write a hand-written note to a client thanking them.  Then, kindly ask for referrals.  Because it is rare to receive a hand-written letter, people take the time to really enjoy it and appreciate it.  You will stand out in their mind.  And, they will be grateful.  And, they are more likely to refer others to you. Here’s more on old school marketing techniques that still work.

90. Use Questionnaires: One way you could make the most of your time out in your local area is by asking members of the public some questions. These questions can cover anything from their own personal interests in having a training session to what they would want from a personal training session if they were to attend one. This will allow you to get a strong idea of who is interested in personal training sessions, as well as what your potential customers want from your sessions. Furthermore, this is a fantastic opportunity for you to be able to pass your contact details to those who show an interest.

91. Posters and Information Packs: Many members of the public may not have time to talk to you and answer a series of questions, they have their own days and goals to worry about after all! By creating a poster or information sheet you can quickly hand customers, you offer a friendly, quick way to give potential clients all the information they need about your business, as well as your contact details. This allows these potential clients to read this information in their own time and contact you without the feeling of any pressure or stress.

92. Added Bonuses and Special Offers: Sometimes all a client needs to be drawn into your personal training business is an extra offer or bonus that they gain from using your services. It is important that you not only offer one or more of these special offers but also communicate what amazing benefits can be gained from using your services to your potential clients. 

93. Loyalty Rewards: One amazing way for not only finding loyal clients but also ensuring that these clients keep coming back to use your services is by offering various loyalty rewards. This can include some form of loyalty card that offers a session for free or an extra benefit such as your personal number or email for round-the-clock advice and support.

94. Free Training Sessions: To coax potential clients into your personal training sessions, you could offer free training sessions. Firstly, this ill help push clients who are unsure about whether using a personal trainer is a good idea towards using your services. Furthermore, if the taster sessions you offer are good enough, this will lead to many of those who attend your free sessions to attend many more of your sessions afterward, not only bringing you clients but also bringing loyalty to you and your brand.

95. Keep “On Brand”: Keep your colors, fonts, logo, messaging, and likeness consistent over time.  Yes, we know it takes time to create.  Once you have it down, stick with it. People grow to understand – even at a first glance – that it’s your business doing the post/email/promotion.  Think of Starbucks. Could you take a 1-second glance at the storefront or the counter and know you are at Starbucks?  How about Walmart or Target? What about the Apple store?  In reality, I bet it would only take 1/10 of a second for your brain to register any of these brands.  Why?  It’s all about conditioning our subconscious mind with consistency, colors, smells, thoughts, ideas, and feelings.  This is why you must be consistent over time with all your marketing efforts.

96. Focus on your existing clients: All too often, we focus on getting new clients.  If we would just keep our current clients happier, we could also reduce marketing costs and efforts and likely do even better with our businesses.  We certainly hope you see all of our new efforts here at NESTA/Spencer Institute in regards to making your relationship with us even better. This is why we are doing more for you each week.  We’ve increased our video content on YouTube, and have dramatically increased the blog content as well. We want you to be happy and find us a great resource for your career.  Think of ways to give more to your current clients/customers so they are even happier.

97. Get out in your Community: If you have a physical location (brick and mortar business), you need to attend local events, carnivals, parties, grand openings, Chamber of Commerce events, and charity fundraisers. If you have an online business, you need to be active in the online communities related to your business/niche. Remember, be active in communities where you will find clients, not just communities/events where there are other people like you.

98. Create Shareable Content: What do we mean with this? This strategy consists in creating content that is related to your client’s problem, and start sharing it in your blog, website, Facebook group, and any other social media, both organically and with paid ads, so you can reach more people. You need to prepare a guide, video-class, live session, webinars, challenges, or the content you want about tools and exercises to help your clients solve their problems and move it to reach a more significant number of people. To do so, you can invest in advertising, share it on your Facebook groups, ask your friends to share it, etc. That way, and you’ll start gaining visibility and make people from other circles know you, calling their attention and making them potential clients.

99. Building on Your Strengths: It is important to understand your strengths and your weaknesses as well so as to help you know what clients to target. All members of the team should make a commitment to keep the clients on board. One should aim at getting better on their capacity to perform all around.

100. Spending Time with Potential Clients: It is easy and efficient to appeal to clients by spending valuable time with them. Hang out with ideal clients and selling the idea of how your coaching can change their businesses. This gives one time to detail their specialty and also factor in the specific requirements that each client would desire. Showing the potential clients that they need you is vital and one can achieve it by explaining how you would drive each person to achieve their goals.

101. Offer Value Upfront: Speaking of value, this is something you need to have right out the gate before you can ask people to support your business. To do that, you’ll have to deliver some value first so that prospective clients will be interested in what you have to offer. There are plenty of platforms to create value, such as a blog, YouTube channel, podcast, and various social media platforms. Whether you’re a Brain Fitness Coach, a Life Strategies Coach, or a Health and Wellness Coach, you can offer free advice on your topic of choice and position yourself as an expert in your field. Not only will this improve people’s lives before they’ve even invested a dollar, but also give you the credibility you need. So If they believe in you, they’ll believe in your coaching business, too.

Getting Started

Ready to start your training career? Check out this list of fitness careers that let you follow your dreams which includes what it takes to start a career in personal fitness training. This is your most affordable and fastest way to become a highly qualified personal trainer.

Is your re-certification coming up? Learn more about earning your CEU credits. You can find the full list of CEU courses here.

Remember, NESTA and Spencer Institute coaching programs are open to anyone with a desire to learn and help others. There are no prerequisites!

That’s it for now. Take action!

NESTA | Spencer Institute

PS: Click here to see many helpful business/career resources

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