19 Tips for Building and Running a Successful Personal Training Business

Building a fitness business takes more than working hard and hoping your business will grow. Just as you train each client to meet their specific fitness goals, growing your business takes intentional actions and focus.

In this article, we'll be looking at 4 crucial areas of your fitness and business and give you ideas on how to ensure all of them are performing well.

The Fitness of Your Business

Personal trainers don't always realise that achieving business goals can be accomplished by using the same methods for accomplishing fitness goals. So, let's look at 6 things you can do to keep your business progressing towards success.

#1. Set Goals

To see the big dreams you have for your fitness business become a reality takes planning and goal-setting. Think about where you'd like to see your business in 6 months, 2 years and five years. Your long-term goal might include a team of trainers working for you, owning your own studio space, or opening branches in other cities. With your goal in mind, plot out practical steps that you can take to reach that goal.

#2. Find and Use the Right Tools

Just as equipment helps your clients become stronger, the tools you need for building your personal training business are the ones that help you retain current clients and attract new ones. You can keep clients by offering an excellent client experience and exceeding their expectations. Attract new clients with a well-designed website and online presence, get referrals from gyms that you may work with and create a solid marketing strategy.

#3. Ask for Testimonials

Your best adverts are your happy clients. Clients who feel stronger, healthier, and fitter since they've been working with you become walking testimonials that attract new customers. Capture their stories in images, videos and words, then get their permission to feature them on your website and all marketing channels.

#4. Focus

Consider specialising in a specific area of expertise. Communicate your speciality clearly in your branding, on your website, and in all your marketing plans. Finding your niche helps attract the clients that are most likely to resonate with your work and become loyal regulars.

#5. Incentives

Attract new clients by running incentives. Offer free fitness assessments, bring-a-buddy bonus classes, or training specials such as for every 10 group sessions, get the 11th class free. Rewarding your new clients and your regulars in ways like this builds loyalty, keeps engagement high, and creates a buzz of excitement around your business.

#6. Team

Has your business grown too big for you to manage everything solo? Growth often requires hiring additional help. Consider the benefits of adding team members to your business with complementary skills to yours. Understand your strong points and the challenging areas for you and hire someone with opposite strengths. For example, if studio admin, such as keeping track of payments, is the worst part of the job for you, you might want to hire an assistant with strong admin abilities.

Staying on Top of Fitness Trends

About 49.9% of people go to the gym at least twice a week, but many others are interested in getting in shape. Keeping up with recent fitness trends is essential if you're a personal trainer looking to cater to these audiences. Read on to learn some of these trends and how you can implement them in your facility.

#7. High-Intensity Exercise

High-intensity interval training (HIIT) is still pretty popular these days because clients can pack a lot into shorter time. This, along with high-volume resistance training, is the best way to ensure your clients feel challenged workout by workout. Just ensure their body is conditioned and ready to cope with the demand.

Some awesome intense activities include:

• Mountain climbing (on an actual mountain or a climbing wall)
• Time-under-tension strength workouts
• Sprints
• Powerlifting
• Airbike
• CrossFit

Almost all fitness enthusiasts can fit these activities somewhere into their workout regimen.

#8. Recovery Zones

While exercise is required for building strength and size, the period after a workout is when muscles alter and adapt. Because of this, many training facilities are creating "recovery zones" where people can access special recovery equipment. Such equipment may include mobility sticks that aid in stretching and beds with high-pressure water massages.

You don't necessarily need to offer this to all members, either - this is a money-making opportunity as well as a brand differentiator. Let people pay an extra $10-$20 per month to access the recovery zone.

#9. Wearable Tech

About 1/5 of American adults currently use wearable fitness trackers, and these devices are only getting more personal and powerful in this coming year. Smartwatches, digital pedometers, and even Oura ring small enough to fit on your finger are blowing up this year.

These devices can help your clients to measure their fitness progress so that they can create personalised workouts. Encourage your trainees to invest in one of these devices or provide a station where they can rent one while exercising. Wearing a fitness tracker yourself can also help you to avoid burnout, so give it a try as a trainer, too!

#10. Trainer-Client Relationships

One of the best fitness trends in 2022 for your audience is you! Those interested in working out are increasingly enjoying one-on-one sessions with experts in the personal training industry. They take guided classes to help them build muscle and meet their fitness goals.

Many gym-goers prefer the intimacy of a one-on-one connection with a personal trainer. It helps them to get motivated while engaging in expert-curated personalised workouts. Understanding your impact on these audiences can help you build brand loyalty while also giving trainees the best possible services.

Marketing Ideas for Personal Trainers

Did you know that about 76% of Americans look at a company's online presence before talking with their professionals? This means that your personal training business needs to harness the top marketing strategies available if you want to get people through your door.

Here, we will discuss some creative marketing ideas that will inspire action.

#11. Invest in Local SEO

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a process where you use specific strategies to make your site more appealing to Google crawlers. These bots then index your site and push it up in Google rankings assuming that you cultivate a reputable and relevant online presence.

Local SEO is an SEO campaign tailored to a local audience. You use 'near me' keywords or those with city names to target those close to you. You also should claim your Google My Business page and enter location demographics into your ad campaigns.

This is a good idea for personal trainers because you want to find clients in your area. Fitness businesses tend to require clients that can visit their physical facility. Local fitness enthusiasts are the goal.

#12. Develop an Email List

Email lists are a top acquisition asset for personal trainers who want to spread the word about their business. Create a solid lead magnet and place it onto the relevant pages of your website with your email marketing list integrated. This will get people to sign up so that you can frequently send them training tips, promo codes, and fitness-related blog posts, as well as your promotions.

#13. Advertise on Social Media

Social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram let you reach many relevant consumers with targeted ad blasts. Twitter's tagging system lets you display all posts in relevant hashtags, making it easy for people to find them. You can also follow similar pages to yours to try building professional connections.

Facebook and Instagram have a great pay-per-click (PPC) ad system where you can design an image-based advertisement. You can then upload this ad to the site and select your target demographic's age, gender, income, location, and more. The PPC ad will show up on the feeds of people within these demographics to learn more.

#14. Encourage Referrals

Referrals are a great way to get more local clients interested in fitness. If you're already working with a client who is smashing their fitness goals, the chances that they have friends with similar interests are high. You can offer a free session for both parties if one person refers another. This will give you the chance to make an in-person impact on more people.

#15. Enticing Promotions

All types of online marketing are a great way to take your business to the next level. However, you want to bring real-world benefits into each marketing campaign. 

Offering a free ebook or fitness subscription for those who sign up is a great way to engage more audiences. People will feel like they're getting an immediate tangible benefit and choose your personal trainer brand over competitors.

Build Your Fitness Brand

The market for personal fitness trainers is projected to grow 39% over the next 8 years. This is significantly faster than the average across all industries, so you must remain competitive.

#16. Create Core Brand Values

Developing your business mindset is essential for success. This means determining your fitness-related speciality, focusing on results for you and clients, and being flexible. It also means creating a vision to work towards and a mission that you want to accomplish.

Make sure that your vision is broad and provides you with a long-term endgame for what success means. Your mission should be narrower and discuss what you want to do for your clients more precisely. Put both statements on your website for transparency.

#17. Keep Your Logo Memorable

Your logo is one of the most critical facets of your brand. Besides your fitness business's name, it's the first thing people will see when they go to your website. It is also the first thing potential clients will likely think of when they imagine your services.

Keep your logo minimalist and memorable. This means using simple shapes and only one or two colours. Be sure that the logo is also relevant to fitness - this will make sure that you draw in relevant audiences.

#18. Use Image and Video Content Online

Did you know that 73% of clients are more likely to invest in a service after seeing a video about it? This is especially true of fitness businesses that focus on movement and activity. You want to grab the attention of action-oriented audiences, and using videos that showcase people moving around and getting in shape is a great way to do this.

You also might want to convey relevant metrics-based data on your website with simple, highly-readable graphics. These can be still infographics or short animations. Discuss your success rate and give other quantifiable data about what makes your fitness coaching strategy effective.

#19. Keep Your Website Compatible With Mobile Devices

People invested in fitness are often on the go, meaning that they don't readily have a laptop to browse the web on 24/7. They probably use their smartphones even more than others within the half of Americans who primarily go online with mobile devices.

Make sure that you boost brand awareness with a mobile-compatible web layout. You might also want to design an app, especially for existing clients to use. This would make it easier for clients to access their fitness goals and workout plans.

Conclusion

So, there you have it, 19 relevant tips in four areas, including marketing, branding, coaching methods and business management, that you can apply straight away to grow your business in 2022.