You're attracting new clients to your personal training business and steadily expanding. In many ways, things couldn't be better.
Your business is growing. That is worth celebrating!
With a successful personal training practice, you are well on your way to getting your fair share of the $60 billion Americans spend on fitness and weight loss every year.
Unfortunately, many of us know the bad news. Keeping your personal training clients is just as important as attracting them in the first place.
This has nothing to do with the skills and marketability of any personal trainer. The sad truth is, many clients new to personal fitness have trouble sticking to their routines.
You can show them proper form on a number of unique exercises, motivate them like a champ, and provide valuable coaching. But even with all that effort, you can may your client list dwindling.
Personal trainers need a strategy to keep your clients coming back for more.
Creating attainable goals is the answer. Without goals to reach and push beyond, your clients may become despondent and stop training.
On the other hand, if the goals are too difficult to achieve, your clients may become discouraged and leave as well.
Return clients are important for every business. Personal training is no different.
Don't let your clients slip away. Develop attainable goals to keep them coming back for more!
We can help. We've developed a list of 12 attainable fitness goals to use with your clients.
Let's keep them coming back!
1. Limit Attainable Goals
You and I know the value of personal training for our clients. Clients stay motivated, achieve goals, and receive expert advice when they regularly meet with a personal trainer.
It's up to us to keep them coming back regularly. The first achievable fitness goal to set up with clients new to fitness has to do with how many goals you set in the first place.
Don't hand your clients a huge list of fitness goals to get them started. It's too likely to be overwhelming and discouraging.
Pick a small handful of attainable goals. Maybe use two or three to start.
Once you work your way through the first few, you can sprinkle in some more. We all know that being a beginner to personal fitness can take some time.
By using a few goals at a time you'll be meeting them and pushing past them together. The feeling of beating goals will keep your clients coming back for new ones.
2. Personal Training Attendance
One of the simplest achievable personal training goals to achieve for clients is regular attendance at personal training. Your meetings should provide the cornerstone of fitness for their entire routine.
Plus, this training goal can help your training effort if used correctly. Reward your clients for loyalty, and you will be rewarding them for their fitness efforts as well.
Too many trainers try and sell a 10- or 20-pack of sessions right away. This might be great for your bank account initially, but it doesn't always keep your clients coming back for more.
How about after 3 sessions the 4th is half price? Then after the next 5, the 6th is half price, and so on.
Obviously, you can use any numbers and discounts you'd like. But start small and build.
As with every aspect of a newcomer's fitness regimen, recognizing and rewarding personal training attendance means starting with achievable goals.
You will be creating a financial reward system and an achievable fitness goal. Your new client showed up on time for 3 sessions in a row without rescheduling!
Get creative with all of these goals. A certificate or additional reward can keep them coming back.
3. Get Positive
A reward or certificate will keep your clients coming back. But so will positive reinforcement.
Surgeons, kids, and people of all types have been proven to be motivated by positive reinforcement. Sometimes more so than money.
While positive reinforcement means giving a reward for things well done, it also benefits from creating a positive mindset.
How can trainers do this?
With the example above, you can reward a client for "making 3 sessions in a row."
Don't ask that they "Don't miss any sessions."
Be positive and the goals will be more rewarding to reach.
Rather than saying to your clients "lose weight," how about "gain a thinner waist?"
Getting positive makes goals more achievable and rewarding.
4. Walking for Attainable Goals
All of us needed to know how to walk before we could run. Setting walking durations, frequency, and lengths can create attainable goals for your clients that are rewarding.
An attainable goal for a client new to fitness can be as direct as:
"I'd like you to walk three days a week on the treadmill for at least 10 minutes."
Giving clients tasks they can do, and do well at on their own, will begin building their confidence.
5. Increase Protein To Diet
One of the biggest enemies to newcomers starting a fitness regimen is carbs. They often are so full of unhealthy and unnecessary calories, they don't have the right nutrition to build muscle.
Encourage them to eat more protein.
This will probably not require supplements for newcomers, but picking one small and achievable goal in their diet will help. Your clients will be thinking about nutrition differently.
6. Short Road Race
A short road race is an attainable goal, but often for new people, they can take too long to prepare for. We want your clients to meet their attainable goals quickly and successfully to keep their momentum moving.
But, based on your initial fitness assessment you may find a local 5k is achievable in a short period of time.
For other new clients who are comfortable running or jogging, you may set an attainable goal of faster performance. Again, beware, you are just getting to know this client.
If they are new to fitness it's important not to do too much right away. Let's keep them motivated instead.
Something like increasing water intake might be a more attainable goal for a newcomer.
7. Measuring Water Intake
Remember, these goals need to be simple, achievable, and rewarding.
And, we want them to be positive.
A great achievable goal to start your fitness clients with is drinking more water.
We all know the health benefits of increasing water intake. And nothing could be more important than newcomers drinking more water when they are just getting started.
Drinking more water can help new clients with their diet. It can also decrease sugar intake from sodas and other unhealthy drinks.
Encourage your new clients to go a week drinking 8 glasses of water a day. Like all of the other goals here, you can build as you go.
They can even track their water intake using a journal or popular fitness apps.
8. Reward Recording Progress
One of the easiest ways clients get discouraged is that they don't see the results.
We are so close to our own bodies, and our own progress every day, it can be almost unperceivable.
Health experts have long understood that tracking fitness progress was essential to meeting goals. And, recording progress is a huge help to maintaining a fitness regime.
You can help your clients by making recording their progress an achievable goal. As with basic personal training, you can reward them for tracking their progress.
Tracking progress is a tool as important as proper cardio and using the right form when performing exercises. Teach them how to record progress by rewarding their achievement.
This can include taking photos, using an app, or using a journal.
As with positive reinforcement, focus less on "Losing weight" and more on "Completing weigh-ins." Reward your clients for consistency in recording their check-ins.
With newcomers, 10 days in a row of reporting is a major milestone. You can purchase them a personal journal, give a t-shirt, or post their progress to social media with their permission.
Each of these rewards can help the branding of your business and help your clients feel motivated.
They are recording their progress accurately in diet and exercise. You are helping them set the foundation for lifelong fitness.
9. Strength Goals
These are very simple and attainable for newcomers. They can be as manageable as "Increase bench weight by 5 pounds in 2 weeks."
Pick a body part, a weight, an exercise, and a duration. Then measure away.
10. Consistency With Strength Training
Just as you want to reward consistency with cardio, attendance, and nutrition, reward consistency with strength training.
11. Target Calorie Intake
This one is important too. Rather than cutting calories, you can encourage your clients to reach a daily calorie intake goal.
As with water intake, this can be measured in their journal or on a fitness app.
You may even want to set a target caloric goal of a specific food type as a goal. Remember, the smaller and more specific the better when setting attainable goals.
12. Teach Them To Set Their Own Attainable Goals
Remember, a great personal trainer helps prepare their clients for lifelong fitness.
By the end of the 1st month, you can ask your clients to come prepared with a list of 3 of their own personal attainable goals.
Working with them to set small performance measures will teach them how to build confidence on their own. Teach them how to set goals and then work with them to reach those attainable goals.
Getting Beyond Their Goals
You've helped your clients reach their goals. How about yours?
Are you a personal fitness trainer who needs help as an independent business owner? We can help you market your skills and get clients.
Plus Xerofit can save you time and money. Online training is huge and we can help with every aspect of online training.
Your personal training business can't wait another day. You need to able to take your fitness clients to the next level.
Create an account today and let Xerofit take your business to the next level.