Retention of Personal Trainers

Want to become a successful personal trainer? A career as a personal trainer is an interesting one. It’s also one of the easiest jobs to jump right into without too much expensive or extensive education. However, there is a reason why some personal trainers are more successful than others. To become a successful personal trainer, you should invest time and even some money on personal development.

Your commitment to professional and personal development will go a long way in setting yourself up for a rewarding career. What’s more, you won’t be able to help your clients become fit if you aren’t committed to the process. Below are some tips to help you stay in the game and remain focused as you move towards the goal line.

Know that It’s Important

As a passionate personal trainer, you obviously love the X’s and O’s of this profession. You want to have answers at your fingertips when your clients ask you how many sets they should be doing. You also want to be able to pontificate with each other on the virtues and vices of energy development strategies. Being a growth-centered professional will give other people the reason to feel connected to you.

Network

Networking is the key to success of any career. Therefore, if you build a strong network, you have a much greater chance at becoming successful. As a personal trainer, take every opportunity to shake a hand. While it may be difficult to balance both a healthy lifestyle and socialization, you can use your own drive and passion for fitness as your business card. This means that you have to change your body by living a healthy lifestyle. Some of the best places to meet potential clients are local clinics, fitness expos, wellness fairs, workshops, and other business events.

Build Relationships

It’s important to build relationships with potential clients, and it shouldn’t be a complex task. You can start by asking them about their lives, their families, or their passions. While it’s important to remain a professional, talking to your clients will help build trust. Trust will create long-term clients, referrals, and business opportunities.

Education and Certification

Most successful personal trainers don’t have degrees in the industry. However, a personal trainer certificatewill set you apart from other personal trainers. Formal personal trainer development training will give you an opportunity to learn from the best personal trainers in the industry. While it will cost money up front, it will pay off eventually.

Tips for Client Retention

Focus on Your Client

Personal trainers are people too; therefore, they need time to use the bathroom, eat, and even make a phone call. However, if you do any of these activities during personal training sessions, it will lead to a disconnection between you and your clients.

Ensure that you build in enough time between sessions to devote your full attention to your clients. Additionally, don’t shuffle your schedule too much. Consistency is one of the best ways to build relationships.

Produce Results

If a client has come in to relieve low back pains, lose 10 pounds, or get ready for a 5-mile run, what will happen when your client achieves these goals? If you haven’t set the next challenge or goal, chances are that your client will move on. To retain your client, you should plant a seed of what they should do next without losing focus on the original goal.

Letting your clients know that there are other possibilities that lie beyond their initial goal will increase the chances of remaining loyal. Training without expressing your intentions is a recipe for dropping out.

Be Flexible

When time or money becomes an obstacle for your clients, you may have the choice to retain part of your client’s business or not. However, having alternative training sessions such as program design or fewer sessions per week, or a hybrid of the two groups provides a lasting solution for your customers.

Track your Client’s Inactivity

Canceled sessions may be beyond your control. However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t help prevent one missed session from turning into multi-week lapsing in training. Every time you come into an agreement with a client, ask yourself the expected frequency of training and the reasonable number of days that the client can go without coming in for training.

Think of it as an inactivity session and your client shouldn’t exceed this threshold. When they do, you may start reaching out to them until they schedule their next session. This will prove to your client that you care about their training and you hold them accountable for achieving their goals.

Bottom Line

It’s easy to become a personal trainer, but becoming a successful personal trainer isn’t. To succeed as a personal trainer, you have to invest more in personal development. What’s more, to become a better personal trainer you will have to keep learning and invest in formal education. Visit PT Academy to get certified!