When personal trainers are building their business, they have a tendency to do a lot of talking. After all, a good personal trainer believes in his or her services and wants to share the excitement with clients and potential clients. Sometimes the fear of not knowing what to say, or saying the wrong thing, will cause a conflict for the personal trainer.  While it is important to relate to your clients, don’t forget that part of relating is actually asking good questions and listening.

What is a good question? You will have questions that evoke a simple yes or no answer. Ask those questions because they are important. But a really good question gets the client talking, not just answering.

Instead of asking, “How was your day at work”?” say “Tell me about your day.”  Your client will likely fill you in on the day’s events which will help you determine the stress level of his or her job.

The more your client talks, the more you will learn about him or her. That knowledge will help you gauge the perfect plan of action for each client.

Once you begin asking the good questions, the ones that don’t evoke a one word answer like “yes,” “no,” or “fine,” you have the responsibility to actually listen. Unless you are really listening to your clients, you are doing them and your business an injustice.

Since our society tends to focus so much on building the speaking skills of our leaders, we have not given adequate attention to developing listening skills. Listening requires just as much work and practice as speaking!

Read more…

To be successful, you’ve got to have a plan. This is true for anything in life, but especially in your career as a personal trainer. After all, without a plan, how will your clients meet their goals?

Without a plan, you may as well be planning to fail. What bride reserves a church and simply shows up the day of her wedding expecting it to all be ready for the perfect ceremony? Kids’ birthday parties even have plans. It’s simple: you do not get the results you want unless you work toward them. So, know what you want and develop a plan to get there.

How, though, do you make sure that your plan is more than a mere wish or daydream?

Start by looking ahead. Where do you want to be? You have to know your destination so you can effectively map out your path.

Likewise, the second important aspect of your plan is to know where you are now.

Read more…

Sincerity is a virtue. You cannot fake sincerity. As a personal trainer, you will need to be sincere with your clients.

Sincerity refers to genuineness and honesty. Your clients need to know they can trust you. If you are not sincerely trying to help them reach their goals, they will be able to detect it. Their story of dissatisfaction could spread rapidly and you business would suffer.

Do you need to work on your sincerity? Try these steps:

1. Be the real you. This may seem difficult if you are working toward building your own self-confidence or self-esteem. So many of those exercises tell you to imagine your goal has been met and begin to live like it has. That’s not deception – that’s positive thinking. When your clients know that you are working toward a goal yourself and they see your positive thinking in action, they will know that is a part of the real you.
    
2. Volunteer. Do something to help out, not for a reward or favor. Giving happily without expecting a reward or recognition is an act of sincerity. You can learn a lot about other people (and yourself) by offering your time to a cause.
    
3. Believe in what you say or do. Your passion will shine through!
    
4. Resist the urge to be perfect. When a client asks a question, resist the urge to add a little sugar coating to your answer. One aspect of sincerity is spontaneity. If you take time to think of just the right wording or worry about political correctness, you will sound fake or overly cautious. You will lose your sincerity.
    
5. Be welcoming – but know that you are welcoming people, plus the possibility of exposure. If your actions are not sincere, you will be exposed as a phony. That’s never good for business! When you genuinely open up to others, they will seek you, as in the “Law of Attraction.”

Read more…

All business owners must struggle with time management. In a personal trainer’s business, you are also dealing with the schedules of your clients. While each of us usually has a plan of attack for our daily lives, few of us actually know how to leverage our time.

Many people are conditioned to work by a list. Some are required to do so. We know that at 8:15 a.m. we have a meeting, followed by clients at 15 minute intervals from 8:30 until noon; an hour for lunch, then afternoon activities broken down until 5 p.m. when we go home. At home, there are usually chores associated with dinner, getting kids ready for bed, etc.

That’s a schedule. It is not a very effective leverage of your time.

When you leverage something, you balance it. It’s important to have a healthy balance of your time.

You cannot make improvements in your own balance if you have no idea where your life is on the scale. You will have to evaluate where you are now.

Journal your time for several days, preferably a whole week. At the end of the time period, look to see how much time you spent with family.

• Did you enjoy a hobby throughout the time?
• What did you read?
• How much exercise did you get?
• Did you read anything during the trial period?
• If so, was it for work or for enjoyment? 
• How much time did you allow to work toward a personal goal?

Read more…

It’s no secret that a major key to success as a Personal Trainer Business Owner is learning how to market yourself.But if you think that you need a bachelor’s degree in business in order to market your personal training business successfully, think again.

Some of the best business leaders out there today don’t have a degree in “marketing”; instead, they’ve learned that self-confidence is the greatest secret weapon towards attracting top clients and striking important deals for your business. Not sure if you’ve got the stuff? Here are a few tips that’ll have you standing tall and your business seeing more green:

Stand Up Straight.No, your mother didn’t make me write that.Body language experts have long known that good posture – straight back, chest out, head up – conveys a direct message to your audience: what you have to say is important.If your body exudes confidence, your clients and business peers are guaranteed to sit up and listen.

Read more…