Often the biggest battle for a Personal Trainer is generating prospects or leads to buy into them and their services.
Here are 20 ways to generate leads applicable to both seasoned or brand new Personal Trainers.
1. Graft – there is no substitute for getting out there and just speaking to people. Have the intention of helping as many people as possible and once you have built rapport offer them a trial session.
2. 10-foot rule – engage and interact with any customer within a 10-foot radius of you at all times. A simple smile, ‘good morning’ or positive comment goes a long way.
3. Always be ready to talk to people about what to do. Have your 30-second elevator pitch ready at all times. It's also a good idea to come up with a unique title for when people ask what you do. If you say I’m a fitness trainer or a PT people presume they know what that means. Try 'I’m a life changer' or 'I'm a transformation specialist'. When they ask what that is you need to be ready to WOW them.
4. Complete a member survey or give away in the gym and online in return for email addresses. Building your email list is essential.
5. Train hard at the gym yourself – no one wants a trainer who doesn’t push themselves. ‘Walk the Walk’ in front of a warm market of prospect clients!
6. Use what we call entertainment training for the last 10 minutes of your fat loss sessions. Gym members will notice – you are ‘always’ in the spotlight.
7. Run a seminar in the gym/studio/local hall - be the expert.
8. Run mini clinics and Q&A sessions to showcase your knowledge & expertise.
9. Run body fat or posture assessments on the gym floor. Great way to generate meaningful interactions and find out more about individual goals.
10. Offer something back to collect email addresses and then build value, e.g. offer email series on fat loss or muscle building or a free recipe e-book.
11. Conduct lunch and learn workshops (at offices or corporates) or local community seminars on subjects such as back pain, fat loss or whatever your specialist area is.
12. Offer group training. Every PT should do this. Group training allows you to build a community and enables you to have a package to help those who can't afford PT or don't like the one on one environment.
13. Always give away lots of value. Advice, e-books, taster sessions.
14. Use joint ventures. Partner with businesses or other PT’s to sell your product to their audiences.
15. Run a charity boot camp. Write a press release about how you are on mission to help the local community get in shape (check out where your city is on the obesity stats lists). Pick a charity and donate all takings to the charity.
16. Join forces with local wedding shops, beauty salons, sunbed shops etc. Allow them to use your services as an upsell so if someone buys their deluxe package they get some free PT from you.
17. Build your team of professionals. Set up relationships with chiropractors and physiotherapists etc. where you cross-refer business to each other.
18. Join a networking group. This is a great way to get new leads. In many groups the members of the group are also responsible for finding you business!
19. Utilise social media to validate your services. Social proof is key and showcasing results and feedback will put your services at the front of peoples minds.
20. Have fun! This should be number 1 in reality, enjoy the process, us personal trainers operate in a fun environment, we should never not have a smile on our face!