Pinocchio, The Personal Trainer That Lied

Is making money more important than service in your personal training business?

If you are running your own personal training business, then I would assume that making money is one of the reasons that you are doing it. There does however seem to be an increase in strange marketing tactics that are designed to hook clients into things just in the pursuit of money. This stems from a few things I have seen in recent weeks such as weight loss guarantees and one that said “burn 900 calories in 30 minutes” (on what planet exactly?)

In my opinion fitness marketing can be quite exploitive at the best of times. A lot of the weight loss companies and diet companies are really looking for ways to make money. The actual result the human being on the other end of things gets is actually not too important. The biggest challenge that we face in the fitness industry is that the world is getting fatter and unhealthier, this carries risks in the fact that some people then want quick fixes and easy solutions. If we just pander to this because of marketing, how are we really helping?

The Eternal Struggle of personal trainer marketing

I have written before about personal trainers who just read a book on marketing and then start throwing up loads of words and phrases without any real substance behind it. This is not the way to do it in my opinion as client’s base service on service and not on empty promises. In a world that is lead by marketing messages, I have to know what I am doing in order to attract client’s in. There is nothing wrong with a “hook” or “irresistible offer” as long as you can back it up.

If you can’t back it up then don’t lie. This grates on me beyond belief, it really does. People need help in this world so please stop lying. The classic is “calories” A couple of my bootcamp members went to a class and at the end, the instructor said “you have just burnt 700-800 calories” seriously on what planet? I tell my group that they burn 300-350 tops but leave stronger, fitter and more metabolically active. There is no need to lie just to keep people coming back, if you can deliver a clear and honest result, people will come back.

People remember numbers and people are looking for quick fixes, if you commit to a weight loss target without any chat about expectations or current ability levels, you leave yourself wide open for bad reviews and poor retention. You will have a better business with better retention and better service than just flooding the place with new people and hoping some of them stick.

Here is what I recommend, the first I would do is at least read one book on service. Tom Peters is great. This will help you get a concept of service deliverables and help cement long lasting relationships instead of just trying to find new ways to generate new business

If we use large corporate gyms as an example, you may have heard that they are struggling financially. I put this down to the above points, like the example I gave earlier on about weight loss guarantees. If you are a one-on-one personal trainer, you don’t have the same luxuries that a large gym has and can sink very quick if you don’t get this right.

In conclusion, little bit of rant but seriously let’s stop lying and start helping people by being honest. If everyone achieves long lasting results, we will benefit from reviews and referrals and not a constant flow of new clients and disappointed existing one’s.