Dorian Chase

Marketing7 min read

A Simple Formula To Attract Your Ideal Clients [Free Template]

How To Find Your Niche and Stand Out As The Ultimate Authority

I get asked all the time…

"How do I get more leads?"

"How do I get more clients?"

"How do I stand out from all the other personal trainers?"

The solution to these problems stem from the same foundation actually. I’m going to walk you through a simple exercise that will help you avoid dangerous pitfalls 98% of trainers make and how you can stand out and ahead of your competitors.

True to form, devoid of fluff, let's cut to the chase...

Sales start with leads, but not all leads are created equally.

While leads are the life-blood of any business, it isn’t only about sheer numbers, it’s about quality too. What good is a 1000 leads from ex-military men when you specialize in female baby boomers? Nothing directly to you.

Instead, how would you like to have a steady flow of high quality relevant leads that have a high chance of turning into ideal clients?

How about being able to attract the perfect clients with advertising that actually pre-sells, pre-qualifies and increases conversions in potential leads? Then to sweeten it up even more, have your advertising deliver a positive ROI as well?

"Well hmm, let me think about that.." said no one.

Okay then before you do ANYTHING for your business, read on because I will reveal a highly effective, yet easy to use marketing tool and formula that will dramatically change the way you approach your business and attract your ideal clients. Said the whole world.

Drum roll please…

The #1 thing you must do before anything else...

Define your TARGET MARKET.


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Let’s face it, you ARE different, you are BETTER, but it’s not working out the way you dream. You’re starting to wonder how are you ever supposed to stand out amongst the sea of other personal trainers when everyone is saying the same things?

"Lose weight!

"Burn Fat!"

"Build Muscle!"

"Lose 7 pounds in 7 days for $7"

You know what I’m talking about…

This is a sure fire way to have clients only compare rates and force you into a race to the bottom.

Ick. Squeezing the life force out of you every day…

You’re probably also wondering...

"how can I raise my rates and charge what I'm actually worth?"

It’s painful to drop prices just to get or keep a client when you know your true value is easily double or triple what you’re charging. Slavery comes to mind. Okay, that might be a touch strong or maybe not depending how much you may do for your clients…

The key is to be strategically different.

"No kidding! but how?"

Elevate from a general personal trainer to a specialist trainer.

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It’s actually hurting you by being perceived as a general trainer…

You’ve heard the phrase "Jack of all trades, master of none." Masters get paid more and that's what I want for you.

It’s pretty simple when you break it down, people respect the knowledge of specialists over generalists and prove it by paying more.

Think about it this way: There are doctors that are general practice and specialists. General doctors have to know about the entire body, while specialists know deeper information on specifics parts, like a cardiologists for your heart or urologists for your kidneys. It’s been said before that generalists get paid, specialists get rich.

People expect specialists to be better, thus cost more.

In other words, people expect to pay more for specialists.

This is the position you want to be in!

"BUT My Training Style Works For Everyone, I Don’t Need A Target Market…"

Wrong!

Look, you and I both know there is science behind getting fitness results whether someone wants to lose weight, burn fat or build muscle. You can help anyone with the proper fundamentals, so why should you limit your offerings to a certain target market?

I understand, I’ve thought that too.

Why not help everyone that needs it and can afford to pay for your services?

It’s actually not good for you, the longevity of your business or your clients.

If you take a closer look at your client base, you’ll discover there’s a pattern of certain people who:

  • Actually do what you tell them and get results
  • Are genuinely fun to work with
  • Spend more
  • Don’t barter on price
  • Re-sign over and over
  • Give you great referrals and speak highly of you to their friends, family, coworkers, social media. They are your personal billboards.

You know the clients I’m talking about. You probably have a few in your mid right now which is great. What’s more, there is a deeper pattern between these clients where they will often have common demographics, values and motivational drivers.

Conversely, if you compare this group with the other types of clients you may have had or still have that are toxic, lazy, excuse makers, and/or try to nickel and dime you all the time or generally make you feel uncomfortable, you’ll find they don’t share the same profile as your core group.

So while you theoretically could train everyone...

...wouldn’t you rather build an entire roster of all-star clients perfect for YOU?

"Heck yeah!"

Then you want to focus all your attention on attracting the right people and repelling the wrong ones.

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What makes a client choose one trainer over another? It’s not about price and if it is, they are the wrong client anyhow. You want to work with the perfect clients, so you should be seen as the perfect fit for them.

The best way I’ve found to define your target market is to start with what makes YOU unique.

  • What is your background in training modalities, athletics, etc. that make you and your training style unique?
  • What are your passions in health and fitness where you love to continue learning?
  • What are the characteristics of clients you like right now; and those you don’t like as much?
  • Who are the people you get the most results for?

Then you want to be specific on this and not just ‘professional people that want to lose weight’. Instead, start drilling in on your micro-niche by segmenting things like:

  • Male
  • Female
  • Age range
  • Marital Status
  • #/Age of Children
  • Location
  • Occupation
  • Job Title
  • Annual Income
  • Level of Education
  • Fitness goals
  • Life goals
  • And on…

So we could turn "professional people that want to lose weight" into "busy IT professional men ages 30-45 that want to lose 10-30lbs so they look better in suits, feel stronger and have more energy for higher work performance."

See the difference? Now we’re on to something.

Next, we want to take this another step to further define your target market.

We’ll do this by creating a single person profile of your ideal client. Marketing lingo calls these Customer Avatars, Customer Persona, Right Person, and Ideal Client Profile which is a better fit for us since we call our customers clients.

An Ideal Client Profile helps tremendously and is the foundation of any business.

Besides being clear on a target, it helps you visualize an actual person when you are writing up ads, landing pages, blog posts, social media or content for your website. You can write as if you are talking directly to them showing how you know them, understand their situation and have the solution to fix their problem.

To make this easier for you to define your target market, we created a custom ‘Ideal Client Profile’ template designed specifically for personal trainers. Download right now for free and use immediately.

This template will help you avoid 98% of the pitfalls other trainers make.

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You see, when most businesses and trainers talk about "target markets" it tends to be worthless. It’s often far too general like "busy moms" or "professionals that want to lose weight."

The problem here is that the niches are still too broad and general failing to drill down to one specific person. This negates the most important part of converting actions and sales - understanding the psychology of your client.

This is critically important if you want to sell anything.

You’ve probably also heard this one before: 'if you try to attract everybody, your business attracts no one.'

Well enough of that already...

…because you’re reading this and have a chance to set yourself apart from your competition.

The HIGH majority of trainers do NOT do this which is your major advantage.

Take it right now.

Effort is wasted when you spread a wide net trying to attract any and all people. The more you can target a well-defined audience with laser focus, the greater success rate you will experience from lead generation to closing the deal.

There you have it, when you know all this target market/ideal client profile stuff, THEN you’re ready to start marketing and selling people into your program.

Download the ‘Personal Training Ideal Client Profile Template’ for free here.

Fill it in and print it out for easy reference whenever you sit down to write ads, landing pages, your website, blog posts, social media posts, etc. All of your messaging should be succinct and consistent for your now defined target market.

Key Takeaways

  1. Define your target market by starting with what makes YOU and your training style unique. (Yes, you do have specialties and backgrounds that make you different..)
  2. Be seen as a specialists, not a generalist in order to make more money by charging what you’re worth, never compete on price with other trainers and attract the type of clients you actually want to work with.
  3. Create an Ideal Client Profile of one person using the included worksheet (download here for free).
  4. Attract your ideal clients through laser focused psychological messaging that talks directly to their symptoms and pain points.
  5. Let me know your newly defined target market in the comments below!