How To Do a Personal Training Consultation in 7 Steps

Now more than ever, the internet is flooded with fitness professionals all trying to get more clients for their fitness business. The market is overwhelmed by people offering fitness services for free, and you may feel this creates uncertainty for your personal training business.

​​For some, this means panic, but for you, it's an opportunity to hone one of the most critical skills a personal trainer business owner can have: master the consultations.

1. Get to Know Your Clients

Understanding your clients better than ever will be essential to selling your fitness services to them. That involves more than a basic understanding of your "ideal avatar". Researching the demographic and understanding the reasons why they've hired you will be crucial. So will understanding what their life looks like outside of that hour you spend together in the gym: their family unit, hopes, fears, what they have tried before - and what that didn't work for them. 

To get a full understanding of this, you ask them. You might do this formally using a survey, you might do this by merely having a conversation, but a deep understanding will be your goal here. Listen to the answers they give you. You're looking for quite personal information here, so don't be surprised if the answers they give change over time, and they're prepared to provide you with more details as they get to know you better.

2. Speak Their Language

In the fitness industry, often we are trying to solve problems at a superficial level. For example, often clients will approach us with requests about six-pack abs or being confident about taking their shirts off on holiday. 

Clients may come to us asking to look like they did on their wedding day - 30 years ago. It's for us to realise that it might not be about how they looked in that photograph, but how they felt on the day. What they are looking for is the connection with their husband, feeling desirable again. 

It may be that they don't fully understand the depth of the problem themselves, in which case making a note of the language they use to talk about it will be important, and using their words when you speak to each other about their goals. 

To do this, try to probe more in-depth about what they mean. Questions like "why would this be important to you?" or "how do we know what success looks like for you?" will show them that you're looking to connect with their motivation. Having clarity on this themselves can improve their focus if they lose motivation. 

3. Find Their Barriers

Rare is the client who arrives at the gym with no pre-conceived ideas about what we do. They have probably tried other methods to solve their problem - with varying degrees of success.

Frequent attempts at fixing the problem could have been juice cleanses, detoxes, shake diets, fitness programmes cut out of magazines, fitness classes or even other coaches.

"What have you tried in the past to achieve your goals?" can be a useful question to get some insight into how proactive your prospect has been. If they have a big long list of things they've tried and been unsuccessful with, their pain point is likely to be significant for them. You may have to overcome the belief that this is unlikely to work for them and demonstrate how things will be different with you.

4. Empathise With Your Client

You can demonstrate your professionalism as a personal trainer. You understand the steps which must be taken for your prospective client to achieve the fitness goals they have set for themselves, and how you are the person that's going to be able to guide them through it.

It's vital at this stage to show your prospective client that whatever mistakes they have made in the past - falling for clever marketing tricks, or looking for a quick fix - none of that is their fault. 

If you have a unique mechanism for them to achieve their goals, this is the time you explain it. For example, if you coach a niche such as professional athletes. 

5. Create a Realistic Goal

At this stage, you'd discuss the terms of working with you and would be goal dependant for the client and their budget. 

It might involve the delivery of an online programme, and weekly video calls to check-in. It could be three in-person sessions each week for the three months before a wedding. It might be that they set aside 3 hours a week to work on meal prep. 

Whatever the criteria are to the successful outcome, you outline it here and make the expectations clear. You'd explain what the client would be responsible for, as well as what you're responsible for to accomplish their goal. 

6. Demonstrate Competency

In an online market place this might involve social proof, so be able to show reviews and testimonials from previous clients, maybe including photographs. The clients must be similar to your current prospect so that they can relate and start to believe in their capability of achieving their goal.

It could involve regularly emailing your mailing list with stories about people who have achieved the same results that they want, and the steps they took to get there. 

It may involve the demonstration of your unique mechanism if there's something that you use that no one else in the industry does.  

7. Offer A "Silver Platter" Solution

​The final stage involves making an offer to your client to invite them to begin personal training with you. Lots of people forget this stage or do a poor job because they get nervous about talking about money, and then don't make the sale. 

Don't look at it just as a making money problem. Instead, see it as you can help someone, and you're shying away from your responsibility if you don't make an offer. You are in the fitness industry to help people if you can, and they've already come to you for help. So you must do so if you find that you can. If you look at it this way, you'll become more comfortable with the sales part.

Here you show your prospective client that you've got the exact solution for their problem, designed explicitly with their issues in mind. You're handing it to them on a "silver platter". 

Wrapping Up

To conclude, know that when people are asking you about personal training, they have all but made up their mind that you are the person that they want to help them. People buy into personal trainers far more than personal training. Only you can be you for your clients. 

Your job in that consultation is to make the process as simple as possible for them - not to put hurdles in their way.