Tips for personal trainers: Add value and don't be cheap!

There seems to be a scary word be used at the moment which is "The Economy" I get the impression sometimes like a lot of personal trainers seem to have given up on gaining more clients or even retaining their existing ones because of the economy! I personally don't tend to watch the news or read newspapers for two reasons, the first is that it is a hive of negativity, the second reason is that I don't believe that it is any of my business!

This brings me nicely on to my point. I don't think we need to be scared as personal trainers of the climate but we do need to understand a few things. The concept of adding value is becoming more and more important in today's world. What I mean by adding value is that people will still spend money but perhaps people need to see more value in the service we provide

It is my personal belief that the days of the one on one trainer walking round the park with a client twice a week for a chat may be coming to an end! This means that we have to work harder and smarter to gain and retain personal training clients. In truth, this has always been the case but now I believe clients are becoming more demanding and want to see more for their money!

I believe we must now be 100% focused on every session and make sure that we are adding value at every turn, this is even if a client has been with you for eight days or eight months, I heard a great quote once which said "Only the paranoid survive" Very true I think!

When it comes to pricing, the concept of adding value becomes more important again. We have to give clients an initial incentive to try our training, particularly if we are attracting people to us. What I do believe we need to do is panic and start dropping prices and potentially devaluing what we do. As personal trainers, we need to take great pride in what we do and respect the fact that we can change people lives. I personally don't believe that being cheap gives out the right impression about the journey we take people on. I believe by focusing on adding more value we increase our credibility and don't devalue what we offer. It is easy to lower prices but not so easy to provide better service!