Previously I wrote about two business reasons that personal trainers should exercise together.  They pertained to practicing delivering your message to clients.  But, away from the actual training sessions lots of other items maintain their importance when running a business.  Personal trainers are entrepreneurs who struck out on their own with a professional goal.  Unfortunately, when you are a “one-man-show” you have no one to turn to when questionable situations arise.

 

“Problem” clients

Every personal training client is unique.  That is indisputable.  While you may be able to put clients into some basic buckets; athletes, seniors, general fitness.  Everyone has their own characteristics, preferences, injuries, and needs.  Even the most experienced personal trainer hasn’t seen it all yet.  There is always something new around the corner.  A healthy client who suddenly develops a condition or injury, another has a new extreme sports goal you haven’t trained anyone for yet.  These are times when you want to have a conversation with a colleague.  If you are unfamiliar with a condition or injury, you need to seek out others who may have experience they can share with you.  You want to be able to deliver for the client, so they don’t leave you for another trainer.  Conversations that can’t wait to schedule a sit down over coffee.  Which, given the nature of the business, setting up a meeting is hard to do.  However, you know that trainer is going to be working out on a given day and everyone can use a buddy.

 

Billing issues

Hey, they happen.  Even with the clients who are always on-time with their payments for their next package of sessions.  You never even have to say anything and the payment as in hand on time.  What if they forget and you get two to three sessions into the next package?  You wonder how to broach the situation and bring up the question.  It’s never been a problem before.  At this point, it’s nice to ask another Manhattan personal trainer if and how they have handled similar situations.  It’s important to have a strategy to remind and prod clients when necessary.  Plus, if it is practiced in its approach, your confident when delivering the message.  When you are confident, your clients are more inclined to hear your message and get it taken care of quickly.

Promotions

It’s hard to know what kind of promotion works best and when to use them.  Sure, you can schedule promotions around holidays and school breaks like the bog box retailers, but you also have to know what works best.  Speaking with other personal trainers about promotions they have used to either attract new clients or to incentivize existing clients to buy bigger or enhanced packages is an important part of growing your business. This is the perfect kind of conversation to have during a workout.  The workout gets the creative juices flowing and the idea of making more money just gets you excited.  You’ll be maxing out your weights and revenue in no time!

Trends

Fitness is an ever-changing industry.  While there are many products that are trying to take the place of personal trainers, which is not completely possible, many of these products can enhance your business.  Talking to others about things they are planning for their personal training business can help you stay on top of new trends in the fitness industry.  Whether the trends have to do with wearables, online training, or small group training it is always good to seek out the opinions of others who are also trying to build successful personal training businesses.

If you are looking for new clients right now, then let new clients find you.  Add your NYC personal trainer profile to NeighborhoodTrainers today!