Training Mature Adults: A Value Perspective

Posted by Steve Hochman on Tue. Mar. 4th, 2014

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Guest Post by Cody Sipe, PhD

Training mature adults effectively is about more than just meeting their physical needs. If you want to grow your business with this gigantic market then it is critical that you understand who they are. What makes them tick. What appeals to them. What repels them. What they respond to. What characteristics they look for in a facility or in a trainer.

Getting them to train with you involves more than just having a personal training certification, creating a slick flyer, having a great name or tagline, or giving a big discount. Like with any other target market you’ve got to be inside their heads. Most importantly it is vital that you understand, appreciate and then appeal to their core values. If you want their business you need to earn their business.

Here are some key values that you can use to appeal to potential mature clients:

Family

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Mature adults love their family. They want to be able to spend lots of quality time with them. They worship together, eat together and play together. The Boomers are often called the “sandwich generation” because they end up caring for their aging parents and supporting their adult kids and/or grandkids at the same time.

In fact, a large percentage of them financially support their adult children. Those that are grandparents are especially fond of their grandchildren. Grandkids are the apple of their eye. They would do almost anything for them. And they would do almost anything to be able to spend time with them.

You want to appeal to mature adults then appeal to their sense of family. Tell them how your program will help them to play with their grandchildren, explore Disneyworld with them and climb the bleachers at their sports competitions. Show images of families and grandchildren spending time together. Talk to your current clients about their families and grandchildren. Give them an opportunity to brag a little. Have times or events where they can bring their families to the facility so they can see where “grandma” and “grandpa” work out.

Socialization

This might seem obvious but it is important to both recognize and utilize this fact. We use small group personal training because it provides a great avenue for socialization. Clients that exercise together in groups of 4-6 develop great relationships. The group provides great support to one another and helps them to stay accountable for exercise. It can be challenging, at times, to corral the conversation and keep everyone exercising but they have a great time and the session flies by quickly.

Highlight the relationships that exist between members in your facility. When they come to check out your facility introduce them to some of the other clients. Highlight your clients in your blog emphasizing your relationship with them. Communicate how your program can help them stay socially connected.

Spirituality and Faith

As people get older and travel through mid-life their spiritual and religious beliefs typically deepen and become more meaningful. Faith becomes even more important than in their younger years. Whether or not you have a deep faith or not doesn’t matter. A large majority of mature adults do. Sometimes what you don’t do is just as important as what you do. Read the rest of Training Mature Adults: A Value Perspective

Posted in Boot Camp Business, Fitness Business, How To Start a Fitness Boot Camp Business, Personal Training Business by Steve Hochman | No Comments

3 Ways to Improve Your Fitness Boot Camp Marketing Plan

Posted by Steve Hochman on Wed. Feb. 26th, 2014

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Improving your fitness boot camp marketing methods should be a top priority if you’re looking to grow your business. Plain and simple. If you’ve owned your boot camp for a while now, then you probably have a few tricks up your sleeve for gaining a few new clients here and there, but if you haven’t taken the time to create a solid marketing plan then you’re leaving thousands of dollars on the table. Money that will allow you to hire the staff you need to give you the freedom you want as a business owner. Money that will go to your competitors if you don’t up your fitness marketing game. So let’s get to it!

Have a Planmplan

Okay, so the best way to improve your fitness boot camp marketing plan is to actually have one. Why is having a marketing plan in place so important? Well, for one- it lays out your budget and ensures that the money you’re spending on marketing is done wisely and appropriately.

A good fitness marketing plan should include things like knowing your target market and ways to reach that market (strategies) and goals that you’d like to achieve within a given timeframe. Another benefit to having a marketing plan is the fact that you can track what’s working and what isn’t, which is something that all boot camp owners really need to pay attention to. It’s all too easy to lose focus when you don’t have a plan so crafting one will ultimately keep you on the right track. And keep a steady stream of clients coming through your doors.

Stop with Traditional Marketing

One of the best ways to save money on marketing is to go ahead and call it quits with newspaper ads, print ads, and direct mail marketing. Unless you’ve got the budget and don’t have to think twice about it (because “traditional” type of marketing is pretty expensive), then you should switch your focus onto other methods that will give you a better return on your investment like email marketing and marketing through social media.

Both extremely cost effective, email marketing and marketing your boot camp through social media is definitely the way to go in today’s fast paced world. Don’t have a Facebook Fan Page set up for your boot camp yet? That’s your very first step. Promote it to all of your clients to build a little buzz. People love showing off so start taking pictures of sessions and post them to your page to show what a fun experience working out at your boot camp really is. (Get your client’s permission first, of course.) Share inspirational quotes and any tips or tricks you may have for losing weight and watch your Fan Page grow like wild fire. Read the rest of 3 Ways to Improve Your Fitness Boot Camp Marketing Plan

Posted in Boot Camp Business, Boot Camp Marketing, Boot Camp Strategies, How To Start a Fitness Boot Camp Business by Steve Hochman | No Comments

Tips for Arthritis that will Boost your Business

Posted by Steve Hochman on Fri. Feb. 21st, 2014

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Guest Post by Cody Sipe, PhD

If you are going to grow your business and learn how to be a personal trainer with the exploding population of older adults then you need to quickly learn how to deal with osteoarthritis. It is the most prevalent chronic condition among older adults and by far the most common complaint that we get from clients. Arthritis has a major impact on functional abilities and is one of the primary causes of disability.

It is also a painful condition that takes a mental and emotional toll on those suffering from it. Just think about constantly having to take NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) or other pain killers because your joints hurt all the time. Pain is a downer that can suck the joy out of the things we love to do. Traveling. Playing with grandchildren. Taking a walk with a spouse or friend. Hiking. Almost anything.

arthritis

Frankly, I think it is a major pain in the butt (or the knees to be exact). And I know because I already have arthritis in my knees even though I am only in my early 40’s. If I play a game of pickup basketball…watch out. I know that I probably won’t be able to get off the toilet the next day because my knees hurt so badly. For our clients just daily activities can cause major arthritic pain. The joints that are most commonly affected include the knees, hips and spine.

It is also one of the major reasons older adults are fearful of exercise. They think that since daily activities bother their affected joints then exercise will make it worse. In their minds this is confirmed when they go out and do something active and they have to “pay for it” with pain and inflammation the next day or two. In actuality regular exercise eases joint pain and increases function. But most older adults don’t understand that so they tend to avoid exercise altogether.

If you’re getting ready to take your personal trainer certificate and don’t know how to train mature clients with arthritis effectively then you won’t keep them. They will leave and your business will suffer!

Recognized recommendations for arthritis include:
· Using low or no-impact cardiovascular exercise modalities such as swimming, biking or walking
· Avoiding high-impact activities such as skiing and running
· Performing resistance exercise using higher reps and lower weight for the musculature surrounding the affected joints
· Extended warm-up to make sure joints are well-lubricated before exercise (which may include a hot shower beforehand)
· Weight loss if the individual is overweight or obese
· Use of NSAID’s to manage pain and swelling
· Avoiding exercise if joint during periods of active inflammation (joint is red, hot and swollen)

Tips for the Trainer

Appease their Fears and Concerns: The fear of pain and injury is often still present even for the ones who decide to hire a personal trainer. They may doubt their own abilities or may have had negative experiences with exercise previously. If they are scared then they are not going to give you a good effort and thus they are not going to get the results they are after. Let them know what to expect with an exercise; how it might affect their arthritic joints; and how you will modify the exercise if it bothers them too much.

For new exercisers it can be very helpful to let them know how to warm-up properly and what to do post-exercise to minimize pain and discomfort. Communicating effectively will build their trust and confidence in you as a trainer and increase your credibility as an authority while reducing their stress about the potential dangers of exercising.

Decrease Depth: I find that decreasing range of motion of exercise movements can really help clients perform them successfully while minimizing discomfort. On movements such as squats and lunges this means decreasing the depth at which they work or decreasing the height of their step. For some there is a critical range of motion beyond which their pain or discomfort increases significantly. This is true for me. I have learned that performing leg movements to about 75 degrees of knee flexion is about all I can tolerate and still work at heavier loads.

Once I go beyond that range it becomes very uncomfortable for the day or two after the exercise session. Determining an appropriate range of motion for your client is often a process of trial and error which includes diligence on the trainer’s part to ask the right questions regarding post-exercise discomfort and discernment to know when an exercise needs to be modified or removed.

Be Methodical: Therefore, do not implement multiple changes simultaneously because you will not know which change was problematic for the client or it was the sum of all changes that caused them discomfort. For example, you increase the load on a lunge (by having them hold dumbbells) and increase the depth of their lunge and have them step onto a balance pad all in one session. The client comes back saying that their knees really killed them the next day.

Since you made three changes in one session you really don’t know if the issue was increased loading, increased range of motion, decreased stability or a combination of 2 or more of these that caused them so much discomfort. Manipulate the most important variable first and once that has shown to be tolerable then manipulate the second variable and so forth. Read the rest of Tips for Arthritis that will Boost your Business

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Tips for Marketing a Fitness Business Better

Posted by Steve Hochman on Tue. Feb. 18th, 2014

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Ahh… marketing. Often called the “lifeblood” of any business- and it’s completely and totally true. Without marketing, clients don’t know you exist and how can you grow your personal training business if your potential clients don’t even know you’re out there?

But for a lot of us, the marketing gene just doesn’t come naturally. We’ve spent most of our time on learning the best techniques to help our clients lose weight and look great, which is exactly what we should be doing, but owning and operating your own business means that there are other skills you need to learn and master. Marketing is definitely one of them.

Marketing a fitness business doesn’t have to be complex or that expensive (there are tons of free and low cost marketing strategies for you to roll out here on this site). It does, however, have to work in order for you to see a return on your investment so learning the ins and outs- the do’s and don'ts of marketing is incredibly important for growing your business.

Taking the time to learn more about marketing is what will help you grow your fitness business into the six or seven figure business that it was meant to be. The business that you, as a hard working fitness entrepreneur, deserve.

So, if you’re in need of a little fitness marketing boost to get more clients in the door then listen up! These five tips will have your business booming in no time.

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Specialize, Specialize, Specialize

Okay, so if I could only give you one single piece of advice for marketing it would be this: pick a target market and stick to it. That’s it. This one little thing will help you harness more earning power because you’re not generalizing- you’re specializing and those who specialize in a specific market are able to charge more without having their clients bat an eyelash.

Another reason why you’d want to specialize and pick a target market is because your marketing message will come across a whole lot clearer, allowing you to speak directly to those you are trying to serve. And that is what will get you more clients. Clients who are excited to give your boot camp or personal training a try because you were able to speak their language.

Sometimes deciding what niche to serve is tough because, as a personal trainer, you know you can help just about anybody lose weight, tone muscle, and improve their overall strength. So picking just one group to market to seems like you’re shutting everyone else out, but in order to earn the big bucks- you got to find the one market that you can help the most.

One way to figure out what market you might serve best is to take the time to really think about your style of training. What interests you the most when it comes to training people? Who would be your ideal client? When you’re able to narrow it down, think about the problems that your program would solve for this market and make that your message.

For instance, busy moms have a tough time getting their workout in so if you have a program that whips them into shape without making them spend hours upon hours working out then that’s your market and your message.

Get Online

Get your business online and do it now if you haven’t already done so. Having a web presence is so important for growing your business nowadays that if you’re not online and using all of the social media sites that are available to you, then you’re probably leaving thousands upon thousands of dollars on the table and who knows how many clients out in the cold.

If you don’t have a website yet, then that’s okay. You can still utilize Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Google+, and any other social site you can think of as a placeholder until your site it set. Read the rest of Tips for Marketing a Fitness Business Better

Posted in Boot Camp Business, Boot Camp Marketing, Boot Camp Strategies, Fitness Business, Fitness Marketing by Steve Hochman | No Comments

Hit ‘em With a Stick – Use Perturbations to Train Balance and Core Stability

Posted by Steve Hochman on Thu. Feb. 13th, 2014

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Guest Post by Cody Sipe, PhD

Almost all mature clients need to include training for balance and core stability in order to improve activities of daily living, reduce risk of injury and prevent falls. There are many ways to train these specific areas, and you should learn some of them if you want to know how to be a personal trainer that is well rounded. One method that is effective yet seldom used is perturbation training.

Reactive and Proactive Postural Control

Postural control is by definition the ability to control the body’s position in space in order to control the center of mass relative to the base of support and to maintain the appropriate relationships between the body and the environment. There are two basic types of postural control: reactive and proactive. Reactive postural control is the ability to recover after an unexpected perturbation (i.e. push, pull, shove, slip, trip, etc.).

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For example, when a person is bumped unexpectedly from behind they must react to the perturbation quickly and appropriately if they are to remain upright. If the bump is strong enough then it might also require the person to take a compensatory step in order to keep from falling.

Proactive (or anticipatory) postural control is the ability to modify postural control before a perturbation occurs in order to maintain stability. In essence, the person knows the perturbation is coming and reacts in order to be able to keep from being destabilized by the perturbation. For example, when a person sees that a person is about to bump into them then they change their posture accordingly. Typically this means that they lower their center of mass, lean in the direction of the coming perturbation and tighten their core musculature.

Both reactive and proactive postural control is important to train because while there is definite overlap between the two there are also distinct differences. Reactive postural control relies heavily on somatosensory information coming from touch and proprioception. Perturbations that are unexpected turn on proprioceptors to a much greater degree than perturbations that are expected. However, how quickly that information is processed and then turned into appropriate compensatory muscle activation varies.

The point of training older clients using perturbations that are unexpected is to teach their nervous system how to react quickly and effectively when their postural control is challenged. Individuals that cannot react quickly and appropriately will lose their balance because their center of mass will get pushed outside of their base of support or will cause their spine to flex. This increases the chance that they will trip, fall or become injured.

Proactive postural control relies heavily on visual information to estimate the force parameters such as direction and magnitude in order to scale an appropriate response. When a person sees that, for example, a person is about to bump into them they quickly determine how to change their posture or take an evasive action in order to either absorb or avoid the perturbation. Experience in similar situations helps the individual to determine what kind of response to make.

Multiplanar Core Stability

It is the primary purpose of the core musculature to stabilize the spine and keep it in neutral position during human movement – activities of daily living, recreational activities, sports, work tasks, etc. This requires counteracting forces in the sagittal, frontal and transverse planes…and many times multiple planes simultaneously. Sometimes this is unexpected and sometimes it is expected thus the need for including perturbations that challenge both reactive and proactive postural control. Read the rest of Hit ‘em With a Stick – Use Perturbations to Train Balance and Core Stability

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Why Now’s the Time for Starting a Fitness Boot Camp Business

Posted by Steve Hochman on Tue. Feb. 11th, 2014

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The fitness industry is a pretty amazing industry to be in. It’s never stale or boring, it’s constantly changing and evolving and the more it does, the more us personal trainers can benefit from it. The biggest change to the fitness industry in recent years is the popularity of group personal training, and if you haven’t caught on yet… now’s the time.

Starting a fitness boot camp business is a whole different, but much easier, ballgame. For starters, the startup costs for one-on-one personal training centers are usually a lot higher than boot camps due to more equipment being needed and more square footage being needed to house all of it.

They’re typically a lot harder to market too because most people still see one-on-one personal training as something only affluent people or celebrities can afford. And they’re kind of right. With a one-on-one personal training business, you do end up charging a lot more- and you should. Your time as a business owner and a personal trainer is precious and you absolutely deserve to charge what you’re worth, however, if your target market isn’t the affluent or celebrities then it’s a tough business model to grow.

You have a lot to consider when thinking about opening any kind of business, so why choose something that’ll be a headache to get off the ground?

Boot camps are phenomenal at leveraging your time, your money, and your resources. That’s part of the reason they’re popping up in every major city across the US and beyond. Fitness classes are nothing new, but there’s something about a boot camp that really catches the attention of people from all walks of life. They’re fun and exciting and boot camps beat the hell out of going to a gym and running on a treadmill.

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Recent studies have shown that group personal training methods are excellent at getting lasting results. Most people struggle with losing weight because they don’t have a big enough support system behind them encouraging them to continue their healthy habits. What’s great about starting a fitness boot camp is the fact that your clients will get to know and like each other, eventually becoming each other’s network of support.

They’ll look forward to coming to boot camp because they’ll get to see the friends they’ve made. Boot camps are so much more engaging, and if you can show your clients how fun exercising in a group is, they’ll keep coming back for more and refer you to their friends and family in the process- giving you even more business.

Creating an environment where your clients can connect and socialize with one another will ultimately grow your bottom line and your tribe of dedicated clients.

Better Marketing

Like I mentioned before, who can really afford their own one-on-one personal trainer without being rich or famous? Even if personal training is more affordable now than it’s ever been, it still seems like a major luxury for people- and that makes it hard to market.

With boot camps, you have all sorts of free and low cost resources to market your boot camp with. Lots of them are available here on this site. You can roll out the Free Saturday boot camp method or the Human Billboard method for starters. Partner up with local business and offer them free boot camp in exchange for them promoting your business.

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Besides getting an opportunity to help more people, the biggest reason you should consider opening a fitness boot camp business is the fact that you can earn more. Way more. We recently took a poll of over 100,000 fitness professionals in the industry and the results were astonishing. The personal trainers who concentrated on group personal training in 2013, made at least TWICE and a half as much as those who only ran one-on-one personal training businesses.

Think about it like this, when you lose a client in a one-on-one personal training business- that’s a good chunk of money. It hurts your pockets and now you have to go out a find someone to replace them. But when you have a booming fitness boot camp business up and running, it won’t matter as much because you’re having lots of people paying a little versus few people paying a lot.

Posted in Boot Camp Business, Group Personal Training Strategies, How To Start a Fitness Boot Camp Business by Steve Hochman | No Comments

Personal Trainer Certification – Why Muscle Power Matters

Posted by Steve Hochman on Thu. Feb. 6th, 2014

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Guest Post by Cody Sipe, PhD

Muscle power is an essential element of physical function and a component that declines very rapidly with advancing age. In fact, although many of us are obsessed with muscle strength, studies show that muscle power declines earlier than muscle strength in mature adults and that it declines at a faster rate. Many activities of daily living, such as stair climbing, walking uphill and quick acceleration, rely on adequate power making it a critical component to address in a functional exercise program.

Most of the focus should be on improving lower body power (which is explained in greater detail in the Functional Aging Specialist Certification- a personal trainer certification that focuses on functional training strategies) but upper body power is also important. Even a task as seemingly mundane as opening a heavy door requires sufficient upper body power along with core and lower body stability.

weights

Unfortunately, the traditional “way” of training upper body strength isn’t the best for improving power. Consider the typical seated row on a selectorized machine. For one, since the weight stack moves against gravity performing high-velocity movements are a little tricky and can be somewhat dangerous. When a high speed movement against resistance is initiated a lot of force is generated in order to get the weight stack moving. After the weight stack gets moving then momentum takes over and very little force is needed during the latter half of the movement.

So really high force at the beginning and very little force at the end.

Secondly, there is basically no core requirement because the chest pad on the seated row stabilizes the trunk artificially which does not mimic daily activities. There is no external trunk stabilizer when a person opens a heavy door or starts a lawn mower. Trunk stability must be accomplished through co-activation of the core musculature.

Thirdly, the traditional row is performed bilaterally (using both arms simultaneously). Again, this doesn’t really mimic daily activities which are typically performed unilaterally (one arm). And even if it were performed unilaterally the chest pad would stabilize the trunk anyway eliminating most of the core demands.

In addition, what we typically consider “power lifting” (moves such as snatches, cleans and jerks) is not typically appropriate for the older client. Now I will be the first to admit (and I teach people) that the older clientele is very diverse and there may be some that could do these traditional movements. However, there are very, very few that could. So when we talk about training for muscle power we do not mean traditional power lifting.

If we really want to perform upper body power rowing movements to prepare for activities of daily living then they need to be performed:

· Unilaterally (to create sagittal and transverse plane forces)
· In a stable stance position (to create ground reaction forces)
· With no external trunk stabilizers (to activate core musculature)
· With equipment that minimizes or eliminates momentum

An exercise that I use often with clients and we teach in the Functional Aging Specialist Certification is the 1-arm standing row in a semi-lunge position. Our preference is to use the Keiser Performance Trainer, the Keiser Functional Trainer or resistance tubing. Not everyone is going to have access to Keiser equipment but it is ideal for performing power movements because it uses pneumatic (compressed air) resistance. Read the rest of Personal Trainer Certification – Why Muscle Power Matters

Posted in Boot Camp Business, Boot Camp Marketing, Boot Camp Strategies, Fitness Business, How To Start a Fitness Boot Camp Business by Steve Hochman | No Comments

How to Retain Clients to Maximize Your Personal Trainer Marketing Budget

Posted by Steve Hochman on Tue. Feb. 4th, 2014

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One-time clients aren’t going to help you continually grow your boot camp or personal training business. Sure it’s nice to see someone get results, but it’s not so nice when they leave to try and maintain their new-found results on their own. You’ve worked hard to get these clients into your program, but when they end up being one-timer- you’re left to fill the hole with a new client and that means hunting down a new one.

Knowing your client retention rate goes hand in hand with your marketing because if you aren’t keeping track of how long a client stays with you then you won’t be able to maximize your personal trainer marketing plan and its budget. Although there are lots of resources out there for free and low cost marketing strategies, but it’s still time consuming and requires some investment.

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Losing a few clients here and there is only natural, especially if it’s because someone is moving out of the area or some type of emergency occurs. But if some of your members aren’t showing up on a consistent basis or they disappear altogether, then you’ve got to figure out why.

Get to Know Your Members

You may feel like this has nothing to do with marketing, but getting to know your members is a great way to build up your word of mouth reputation- and there’s not much advertising that can beat that.

From the very first client you sign on to the 100th client, you (and any staff that you hire) should be concentrating on building a solid relationship with them. By taking the time to get to know your members and showing an interest in them, they’re more likely to be upfront with you if they’re having any issues instead of just dropping off the face of the earth and avoiding your calls. If you’re noticing that a big percentage of your members aren’t renewing their agreement, then something is wrong and you need to know- and fast.

Start by constructing a short, but well-written questionnaire that includes a limited time coupon in a friendly email and send it to past clients who didn’t renew with you. Be sure to leave a space for them to leave comments and pay close attention to the answers you receive. This is where you can take major action, especially if their making the same complaint.

Listen to what they’re saying and offer what you can to get them back. Offer nutritional support if they’re not seeing the results they want, or change up the exercises if they’re finding them boring. Up the energy of the place if that’s what it takes. By giving members what they want increasing your client retention rate- you’ll build up your “word of mouth” and save tons on traditional fitness marketing.

Show Them Love

Be generous with your members, show them that you appreciate their business by incentivising their hard work from time to time. Host a silly costume contest or hold a theme day at your boot camp or gym and get everyone to dress up. It’s a lot of fun and it’s a great way to bring everyone together. Give the best dressed a gift card to their favorite restaurant or half off their monthly rate to show that it pays to participate. Read the rest of How to Retain Clients to Maximize Your Personal Trainer Marketing Budget

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How to Overcome Objections When Selling Personal Training Programs

Posted by Steve Hochman on Thu. Jan. 30th, 2014

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Dealing with objections in sales is never easy, especially when you are selling personal training programs. It’s just not fun to hear “no thank you” after you’ve spent time with a prospect, explaining all the benefits and features of your training program… why it’s important to exercise… why they should take their health seriously… how being fit affects other areas of your life in a positive way… blah, blah, blah and so on.

Your prospect already knows this stuff. They know it’s unhealthy to be overweight, they know that diet and exercise are vitally important in healthy living, and they know that if they don’t change then what ever issues they’re dealing with might get worse. Your potential clients don’t need to hear all this from you- and it’s not your job to explain how awesome exercise really is.

The trick is to get right down to it and figure out why they haven’t made that change for themselves yet. Sometime people just need a push in the right direction- and that’s where you come in.

Some of your prospects might have been overweight for years and are just now seeking the help of a personal trainer. Others might not be overweight, but they lack energy to get through their day without loading up on tons of caffeine. Others may have been athletes when they were younger and want to get back into shape. Some may have never even exercised before and aren’t really sure of how to start.

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So, if you find yourself dealing with a lot of objections when selling your personal training packages, then that’s step number one. Find out what drives them.

Why They Say No

Why do people say no when buying a product or service that they want? Simply put, there’s a lack of these four little things: need, urgency, trust, and the most frustrating of all- money.

One of these four objections are at the heart of every single “no” you hear, so if you get good at identifying which objection your prospect is using then you’ll be much more prepared to overcome them. Each objection is important to understand because they all require a different way of handling the issue.

Here’s how to handle a lack of…

Need

Basically, a prospect or potential client has to have a need for your services, which is probably likely because you’re selling personal training- and everyone needs to exercise. But not everyone feels like they “need” to pay for a fitness program to help them exercise.

One way to overcome a lack of need is to sell your prospects on results. Not the mechanics of getting there, but what they’re going to get if they stick with your program. The outcome. By focusing on the value and the outcome of your program, you’ll create a need for it. But if you focus too much on features like the square footage of your gym or the exercises they’ll be doing if they sign up, you’ll lose their interest and devalue what you actually do.

Urgency

This objection is usually the one that drives personal trainers crazy. They go through all this trouble to figure out someone’s needs and they finally find it but the timing isn’t quite right. They may have even said something like “I’d love to, but it’s not the right time for me”.

Chances are, if this is someone’s biggest objection, then you probably didn’t demonstrate the impact of your solution well enough. What you offer has to be a solution for a problem that you’re going to help them solve. And if they’re not really ready to solve that problem, it’s up to you to show them that they are- with your help, of course.

Taking time to figure out their needs will really help you in this step, and if you listened well enough then you can use a lot of what they said to make a big emotional impact. People buy with their hearts- not with their brains… so it’s important to create a sense of urgency when sitting down with someone.

Ask open ended questions that forces someone to give up a little information about themselves. Questions like, “What bothers you the most about the extra weight?”, “How do you feel when go shopping for new clothes?”, “At what point in your life did you feel the best?”, “How is your energy level throughout the day?”. Really pay attention to their answers so you can refer back to them and help them decide that now is better than never.

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You’ve heard us say this a billion and one times, but it’s so incredibly true: people have to know, like, and trust you before they’ll buy from you. That’s why referrals are the perfect potential client because they already trust that you can get results- or they wouldn’t have been recommended by someone you train in the first place.

Exposure is one awesome way to build up your know, like, and trust factor. Start making Youtube videos of home workouts and share them on your business’ Facebook Fan Page. Write helpful articles on health and fitness and send them to your email list. Try submitting one of them to your local newspaper. Write case studies on your best, most transformed clients to show that you really know your stuff. Read the rest of How to Overcome Objections When Selling Personal Training Programs

Posted in Blog, Boot Camp Business, Boot Camp Marketing, Boot Camp Strategies, How To Start a Fitness Boot Camp Business by Steve Hochman | No Comments