What makes you the personal trainer that clients come to see? You’re a personal trainer in a market saturated with probably dozens of local personal trainers.

What sets you apart?

If you don’t have an answer to the question, you might want to spend some time thinking about it. And for your reading enjoyment, here’s one idea.

Visions of Sugarplums Danced in Their Heads

You guide clients in their exercise regimes. You motivate them. You help them meet your goals.

If you’re good, you might even tell your clients what to eat. And if you’re anything like me, you’re probably recommending a high quality, organic, raw, sprouted rice protein shake with almond butter and flax seed oil, and a steaming cup of organic, fair-trade coffee for breakfast.

Duh. Isn’t that what we all want for breakfast?

Here’s the thing: your clients are not personal trainers. If they were, they wouldn’t need a personal trainer. With that in mind, you have to step back and think like a client instead of a personal trainer. The majority of your clients are motivated by their goals.

They have a vision of their final state. But they also have visions of sugarplums dancing in their head. And by sugarplums, I mean beer, wings, and chocolate. Read more…

Have you ever thought of marketing your fitness business to Seniors?

This niche could fill in all of the “dead-time” in your schedule. Of all the market segments in the fitness and personal training industry, there is one group of people that will work their schedule to fit yours – Senior Citizens.

Retired seniors in particular have a lot of available time, particularly during the day. Enterprising personal fitness trainers can fill in the blanks in their schedule of corporate training sessions, fitness classes and one-on-ones with the busy executives by offering special classes for retirees, classes that are tailored for their needs and physical limitations. Senior classes could be put together to fill in mornings and afternoons, when most clients are still at work.

The seniors market will run the gamut from fit-as-a-fiddle to couch-potato-with-health-issues, but programs may be devised to achieve their fitness goals. Most seniors will appreciate low-impact exercises and those that don’t overextend their arthritic joints, but there will be those occasional very fit septuagenarians who have been athletic all of their lives. These folks will have maintained some semblance of fitness and are capable of handling a more strenuous regimen. The only cautionary note is to warm them up first, then get them stretching before launching into the program.

Marketing to Seniors

Some of the means of marketing to seniors are through many of the organizations that cater to that crowd. Also, it may be possible to establish a relationship with assisted living centers to provide morning and afternoon sessions for their residents. Not only will you be building your business during normally unproductive hours, but you will be performing a service for these aging people as well.

Special Considerations for Senior Fitness

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If you’re trying to grow your client base, word-of-mouth advertising may no longer be cutting it. It may be time to take your marketing to the next level. Assuming you’re already familiar with the marketing basics, which are: (1) providing a solution to client problems, and (2) offering that solution at a price the customer is willing to pay, your job now is to raise customer awareness of your offerings. You know that you offer the most desirable personal training services in the area, but you can’t build your client base if potential customers don’t know it, too.

Raising Awareness among Potential Customers

This is where a market analysis would be helpful. You only have so many advertising dollars to spend, and you want to get the most bang for your buck. You do this by targeting the most effective advertising media for your specific business. You have to think like a customer: If you were looking for a personal trainer, where would you go to find one? Would you conduct a Google search? Check the Yellow Pages? Would you spy a flyer on a bulletin board in your local gym and snag a tear-off phone number?

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You’ve done all the traditional marketing. Your name is in the yellow pages, the white pages, and the yellow book. You have a website, so you’re on the Internet. You even paid for a big sign in front of your business that stands out among its neighbors. But most of your competitors have done these things, too, so it’s time to apply some innovating thinking to your marketing strategy.

And when it comes to creative fitness marketing, it’s not so much where you advertise as how you advertise.

Gaining Competitive Edge

Forget the phone books. Don’t pay huge sums for big partial- or full-page spreads, because very few people use them anymore. If you want to hit a large audience, you’ll find it online. You’re already online (or you should be), so it’s not a matter of where. It’s how you sell your services.

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So maybe you’re not new to the world of personal training. In fact, you may have been successfully performing services for your local community for years, and you’ve been making decent money at it. Your business has grown through word of mouth, and you’re at capacity. You couldn’t possibly take on another client, even though it breaks your heart to say, “No.” It breaks your heart, not just because you’re missing out on that income. But let’s face it, you have a passion for fitness, and a struggling soul is asking for your help. You want to help.

When You Have Reached Capacity

Believe it or not, you can help this client reach his or her fitness goals, despite the fact that you’ve reached capacity. You could do it one of two ways. You could refer the client to a friend or acquaintance in the personal training community, one who you know will provide the same quality service that you would provide. Or you could hire another trainer to work for you, who can pick up this client and any new clients who come along. The latter alternative has the benefit of lining your pocket.

Next Steps

If the idea of growing your business is appealing, the next step is to hire that employee. If you know someone who would love supplemental income, and who, in your opinion, would be a good personal trainer, then you’re good. Work out an arrangement with the person as to how much you’ll pay per hour, per session with the client, or on whatever basis you both agree is fair. Hiring requires the same negotiation savvy that you’ve demonstrated in the process of growing your existing client base.

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So, you would like to dip your toes into the world of personal training. Maybe you lost your day job, and as the fitness nut you are, it occurred to you that your skills might be marketable. Or maybe you have already tried the path of working in the fitness business and found that you are proficient at it, but you’re tired of working for someone else. If you’re in the latter category, you’re in better shape to start up and market your new business. If you’re in the former, you may have some work to do. Either way, these basic fitness marketing principles will help you get on the right track.

The Recipe for Fitness Marketing Success

The basic principles of marketing are the same in any industry. Successful fitness marketing follows the same model that the likes of Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and Wal-Mart have followed for decades. The recipe begins with providing customers with a solution, offering the solution at a fair price, and making the customer aware of your offering.

1. Provide a solution to a customer demand or problem.

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If you want to do something well, you learn how to do it. You’d think it would be easy to get clients when you’re doing the best job you can do for them. The professional attitude isn’t what attracts clients, though it helps you keep them. How you market yourself closes the deal.

Beginning a business takes time and it isn’t easy to do. It’s easy to get bogged down in money and tax issues. Take a step outside yourself and think about the importance of marketing yourself.

Show your excitement.

First, make sure your excitement about what you do comes through. People respond to the positive feelings and energy. Your business depends on you.

Don’t be afraid of a no.

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Successful marketing is all about branding your personal trainer business. Your personal trainer business brand depends on who your target market is. Who is your ideal client? These are questions you need to answer in order to develop a solid marketing plan.

Defining Your Ideal Client

Defining your brand starts with identifying who your ideal client is. If you already have a client base, consider which clients you enjoy working with most. Why do you prefer them? Which do you enjoy the least, and why? Chances are, you prefer the clients who show up for their scheduled appointments, take your advice to heart and follow it, and pay in full and on time. In other words, your ideal client is reliable and serious about his or her fitness goals. If your ideal client fits another description, that’s fine; you should work on a market plan that targets your own ideal client. This post will focus on attracting reliable clients.

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As we approach the High Holy Day of Healthy Living Commitments (otherwise known as New Year’s Day), you should be taking advantage of it by rolling out your New Year’s fitness marketing strategy. If you don’t have a strategy already in place, you only have a few days to get one together.

Opportunity Knocks But Once A Year

New Year’s Day is the single-most golden fitness marketing opportunity, and once it’s gone, it’s gone. You have to wait twelve whole months before that opportunity knocks again, and you’ll spend at least the first six kicking yourself for missing it. Your task is simple: target the vast population of people making New Year’s resolutions to be fit in 2010, and help them keep their commitments to themselves. As it turns out, lots of people make the resolution to be fit every year. Unfortunately, fewer people actually keep the resolution. Fewer still keep it for more than a couple of weeks.

The good news is that many resolution-makers have steady paychecks that they’re willing to spend on some assistance meeting their goals (or, as I like to call it, the kick in the a** they need to get off their butts and exercise.)

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During this festive holiday season, folks everywhere are setting aside their personal fitness goals in lieu of cookies, pumpkin pie, and curling up by the fire watching all-day showings of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation on the AMC channel. It’s cold outside, people in Maryland are still snowed in, and nobody wants to go for a walk in the neighborhood, let alone hit the gym. ‘Tis the Season of Joy! And for many, there is joy to be found in sugar, fat, and lazy days.

Ah, but for most, there is still guilt.

Shoppers Looking for the Perfect Gift

Yes, indeed, this is the Season of Guilt. How many times have you heard people remark that they shouldn’t be eating this, or they should be exercising, and verbally throwing in the towel? You have probably heard at least one friend hold a conversation with herself that sounds something like this:
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