How Personal Trainers and Coaches Should Think About and Use Technology

In the technological revolution that has brought new trends, such as fitness apps, on-demand training, and smart exercise equipment, it seems that many independent trainers are being left out.

Most people marvel at new fitness startups, like Mirror.  For example, who doesn’t know at least one friend, coworker, or family member who has jumped on the Peloton train. We see more and more people counting on new tech instead of new trainers who are better equipped than ever to deliver a high-quality, goal-oriented personal training service.

Many trainers are old school. They focus on the wrong things, acting more like salespeople trying to make a quick buck than personal trainers dedicated to giving their clients an easy, convenient, and effective experience.

Whether you’re just starting or you’ve been at it for years, fitness technology has created a fiercely competitive landscape for personal trainers. But technology has also made it easier and more affordable than ever for you to provide incredible experiences for your clients.

Never before has it been easier to market and sell your services, schedule training sessions, accept and process payments, and enhance your clients’ workouts.

Changing Your Mindset

You don’t need a sophisticated and expensive studio management system or marketing platform that’s going to chain you to a computer. We all know that many of your clients can find you through word of mouth and social media.

As personal trainers, you need to focus on technology that leads to increased profitability and technology that’s going to simplify and improve your business by reducing administrative work and enhancing your client experience.

You can think of technology in terms of how it is used to enhance or improve two of your processes:

1. Client-facing processes

Your client-facing processes includes regular tasks like scheduling, making and processing payments, marketing and sales, facilitating virtual assessments and consultations, as well as the actual training experience.

2. Back-office processes

Your back-office processes and tasks are often critical for running your business such as accounting and bookkeeping, marketing and sales support, maintaining insurance and business records, and more.

Whether you’re an independent trainer or you run several gyms, using technology to simplify and integrate these two types of processes as much as possible will set you apart. Modern clients expect these processes to be convenient and intuitive. So the technology you use should help you meet and exceed those expectations.

Using Tech to Start Online Personal Training

If you’re super passionate about changing lives, it is much easier to reach people online.  As an online or virtual personal trainer, there are more options for clients of when and where you can meet with them. You can be with clients all around the world and still work from the comfort of your home.

Just like homeschooling, people didn’t realize all the technologies and opportunities that were available with online coaching and training until they needed it as a new business model and reality.

Online personal fitness training takes many forms. It can be a collection of streaming videos that are live or pre-recorded and shared through a platform or app like Zoom. It can include live training and coaching sessions offered in a variety of ways. There are even some hybrid training where coaching is blended with in-person and online training.

Now it’s your turn to take action. Did you know that most fitness careers don’t require formal education or a degree?

Getting Started

Learn more about the variety of fitness industry careers. There is always something exciting about earning a new training or coaching certification and applying that new knowledge of how you train your clients. This also helps you hit the reset button.

Check out 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 recertification coming up? Learn more about earning your CEU credits. You can find the full list of CEU courses here.

If you are ready to start your online personal training or coaching business, don’t forget to learn more about our online coaching course. You will also really enjoy this very comprehensive training course called Online Expert Empire.

There is always something exciting about earning a new training or coaching certification and applying that new knowledge of how you train your clients. This also helps you hit the reset button.

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

Thanks for reading!

The NESTA/Spencer Institute Team

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