Find insightful information for certified personal trainer professionals looking to improve their personal training business as well as the fitness and health of their clients.
As a fitness trainer, it can be difficult to get new clients if you aren’t well known in the fitness industry. One of the most effective ways to get new clients is spreading the news about your business through word of mouth. When you train your clients, and they achieve good and fast results, they’ll be more likely to spread the word and inform everyone they know about your business and expertise.
Word-of-mouth marketing creates a relationship of trust between you and your clients, and you can leverage it by asking your clients to tell their loved ones about any new promotions or programs you’re offering.
Here are the ways word-of-mouth marketing can help you grow your fitness business.
What Is Word-Of-Mouth Marketing?
Word-of-mouth marketing, also referred to as WOM marketing, is a marketing tactic that relies on the consumers to spread the news about a business and its facilities. Typically, when a client uses the product or services of a company, they’re likely to form an opinion about it. If they have positive experiences with the services or products, they’ll likely mention it to their friends, family, coworkers, or even acquaintances they see rarely.
This helps organizations gain more clients and expand their business. In modern times, companies use testimonials and reviews to reach those people that might not be directly associated with the client. As a result, the word spreads far and wide, and businesses get a higher influx of customers. In the fitness world, it’s especially important because people tend to be skeptical about choosing their personal trainers as their health and wellness rely on them.
In What Ways Does It Help You Grow Your Fitness Business?
Word of mouth marketing has numerous benefits when it comes to the fitness industry. That’s because the industry is crowded with trainers that offer subpar training and people need to utilize a lot of resources to find a credible trainer. Therefore, when they come across a trainer that’s trusted by their friends and family members, they’ll likely register for their services.
Here are some other benefits of word-of-mouth marketing for personal trainers.
Reach More Clients
The most obvious reward of good word-of-mouth marketing is the business acquires more clients. A single client has the power to grab the attention of several prospective clients, so they become interested in your fitness business. If the client is a trusted friend, colleague, or family member, the chances of new clients joining are quite high. On top of that, if your training center has good facilities, along with helpful staff, prospective clients will be more inclined to join your fitness center.
But that’s not all; using a genuine testimony of a single client is also a great way of reaching people not directly associated with the client. You don’t have to convince them to sign up for your business. Instead, all you have to do is convince them to take a look at their facilities and see how things work around your gym.
New Clients Develop Trust Easily
When you get clients through word-of-mouth marketing, the chances of them developing trust in your services are higher. That’s mainly because these clients have already seen progress made by their acquaintances and friends as a result of joining your gym. Most of the time, when people are skeptical of services especially related to fitness, they’ll see slower results.
That’s because they don’t put 100% percent effort into their workouts as they still have doubts regarding the services and results. But with word-of-mouth, clients are more eager to get started and see results, so they put in a lot of effort.
It’s A Never-Ending Chain
The best thing about getting clients through word-of-mouth marketing is that you don’t need to go out of you way to keep the chain going. All you need to do is maintain the standards f your services and maintain your facilities. The new clients that join your gym or training center will spread the word to newer clients once they see some results for themselves.
This chain will continue when the new set of clients sign up for your membership. As a result, you’ll save a lot of money on marketing, and over time, you’ll develop a good reputation in your community and the industry.
It’s Cost-Effective
It’s no secret that marketing for any business is quite expensive, but with fitness businesses, you need to run a lot of marketing campaigns just to get a few more clients. Word-of-mouth marketing doesn’t require you to spend thousands on marketing campaigns. This is why this form of marketing is quite cheaper.
All you have to do is ask your clients to spread the word or post testimonials of your clients n your website or social media. Both of these things cost next to nothing. So, in the long run, with WOM marketing, you save a lot of money which you can use to expand your range of services or add more facilities to your training center.
Higher Customer Retention
Customers acquired through word-of-mouth marketing are generally more loyal because they join your services after hearing good reviews directly from their acquaintances. This is why these customers are likely to stay with your business for longer periods and become loyal customers. Once that happens, these customers become the backbone of your business and a reliable source of income.
Not to mention they’ll be useful in bringing in more clients as well. In addition to that, once you maintain a dedicated clientele following, it’ll be easier for you to establish a name for yourself in the fitness industry and grow your business.
If you want to start your fitness business or become a certified personal trainer, check out W.I.T.S Education. W.I.T.S is a training institute that offers several courses in different areas relating to fitness training. Some of these courses include certified personal trainers, youth fitness instructor, senior fitness instructor, and fitness management.
Besides that, W.I.T.S is the only institute that is accredited by the NCCA and offers college credits to students enrolled in their courses. The courses have online classes along with hands-on in-person labs to give students the required practical skills. These training labs are located all over North America to facilitate the students. Check out their courses and enroll today!
Personal trainers offer a lot more than just workout training. They are responsible for balancing a physical workout and a healthy diet. A personal trainer needs proper training before they start working.
Unlike other fitness certifications that focus on one aspect of fitness, a personal training certification covers all areas related to fitness. These include exercise, catering to people of different age groups, and dealing with clients with different health concerns. That’s why when developing exercise programs and diet plans, personal trainers need to look at multiple aspects of their client’s lifestyle.
Now, as the fitness industry is merging with the wellness industry, these personal trainers are required to pay attention to nutrition as well. To help expand their expertise, certified personal trainers are getting specializations in nutritional or wellness—these specializations, such as the one we offer at W.I.T.S. Education will enable them to broaden their horizons and take on more challenging clients.
Who Is A Nutrition Specialist?
In simple terms, a nutritional specialist is a professional who is responsible for helping their clients maintain healthy lifestyles through smart dietary choices. Nutritionists are normally certified by a board or a governing body before being allowed to practice their skills. In training itself, these nutritionists go through several courses ranging from fitness to medical nutrition so they can cater to the needs of each of their clients.
Once certified, these people can work with people suffering from obesity, high blood pressure, heart issues, cholesterol, and even diabetes. Some nutritionists can go beyond this and can even develop diet plans for people with chronic illness and allergies.
How Can Nutrition Specialization Help You As A Personal Trainer?
As a personal trainer, you can prescribe special exercises to people depending on their physical needs. With the addition of nutritional education, you’ll be able to go a step further and help people maintain good physical health as well as a good diet. Here are some areas you can work with after getting a nutritional certification.
Create Better Diet Plans
Normally personal trainers are responsible for assessing the physical health of their clients and then developing a general diet plan for them. For clients with dietary restrictions or non-lethal allergies, trainers can also make special diet plans. But they can’t offer help beyond that as they aren’t trained to deal with specific medical conditions. With a nutrition certification, they’ll be able to get an in-depth understanding of their client’s health condition.
This will allow the trainer to create diet plans that are unique to each client’s health needs. Not just that, but for clients with chronic diseases, the trainers can work with their doctors to come up with diet programs that won’t harm their health and allow them to reach their fitness goals faster.
Give Nutritional Advice And Guidance
Besides developing diet plans, a personal trainer can also guide clients. For example, if the trainer is working for a fitness center and training a few different clients, it is possible that they don’t pay for the full service. It could also be that their gym membership doesn’t cover diet plans. In this scenario, a trainer with nutritional education can give advice on specific diets. They’ll be able to help people who have specific medical conditions and allow them to reach their fitness milestones faster.
Can Help People Of Different Age Groups
The biggest benefit of a nutritional certification is that a personal trainer can cater to a wider range of clients. Instead of training young adults, trainers can help kids as well as senior citizens in staying on top of their health. But both of these demographics require strict adherence to a diet that may be out of the expertise of a regular personal trainer. A certified nutritionist, however, can handle such requirements.
In the case of senior citizens, their diet is more of a lifestyle if they suffer from any health issues. On top of that, their old age puts a lot of restrictions on their body in processing certain foods. So, they need a diet plan that works with their age any medication they need to take while helping them get fit.
What Type Of Nutritional Specializations Can You Take?
A full-fledge nutritional specification may not be possible with just a certification unless you have prior education in it. However, you can opt for certification that covers the basic requirements of becoming a nutritionist through the specializations mentioned below.
Medical Fitness Specialization
Medical fitness certification allows trainers to take on more challenging clients. These clients have a history of chronic health issues that need serious attention. That’s why they can’t work with regular trainers. A medical fitness specialization will allow you to devise diet plans, workout routines, and identify problem areas to help clients reach their fitness goals. You can even identify medications that’ll help them manage their illness better and work with their physician to evaluate their health status and the extent of their illness.
Lifestyle Wellness Coaching
A wellness coaching certification covers broader areas related to health and fitness. You can work with your clients on improving their general lifestyle to include healthy habits that’ll improve their health. You can easily create exercise programs, diet plans, lifestyle guides to ensure your clients live a more fulfilling life.
Lifestyle coaching focuses on mental as well as physical health, and you’ll be required to help clients reach a peaceful state of mind through exercise and diet. With this certification, you’ll be able to review in-depth each client’s lifestyle and determine areas that need improvement.
If you want to check out some more courses from W.I.T.S. Education like group exercise instructor, senior fitness instructor, and youth fitness instructor; check out our catalog of certifications. W.I.T.S. is a fitness training institute that has state-of-the-art training centers all over North America. Our institute is the only one that offers NCCA accreditation and hands-on in-person training labs.
The institute focuses on giving its students practical skills and not making them book smart. Our unique learning method involves online as well as physical lessons. If you have any queries, feel free to reach out to us.
The fitness industry is becoming quite dynamic and is constantly changing. As a result, trainers need to keep up with the new trends in order to maintain their clients. At the same time, new trainers can use these changing trends and jump-start their careers. In the past few years, the gap between the fitness industry and the wellness industry has shrunk, and many fitness specializations are mingled with the wellness industry.
Fitness trainers with a background in the medical field can take advantage of this unique position in the fitness industry and become medical fitness trainers or fitness nutritionists. Similarly, certified personal trainers can become wellness coaches or weight loss specialists.
With institutes such as W.I.T.S Education, it has become quite easy for trainers to get additional accredited specializations that’ll help them broaden their career prospects. Whether they want to work for a gym or start their own business, these specializations can help them achieve their goals.
Job Perspectives In The Fitness World
Despite the pandemic, the fitness industry has remained afloat and is constantly thriving. This happened mainly due to the industry’s fast adaption to the changes caused by the pandemic, such as online learning and certifications. A major part of the fitness industry has been occupied by wellness and lifestyle coaching as a lot of people needed to get back on track after the extensive lockdowns.
Not just that, but many new career paths have opened up for fitness trainers. They are no longer constrained by the options of working at the gym or becoming personal trainers. Today many established and new fitness trainers can further their careers in different fields related to fitness, such as group fitness, senior fitness, and even youth fitness. Not just that, but many fitness training centers and gyms have started offering these pieces of training to their clients.
As a result, fitness trainers get a lot more options to work than before. Their changes are increased when their certifications are accredited, and they can also get higher paychecks. So, in terms of job perspective, now is the best time to enter the fitness world, make a name for yourself, and advance your career.
Why Should You Take Special Specializations?
Specializations help you further your career prospects as well as let you offer diverse services to your customers. Your clients can get a higher level of service that considers their health and fitness. Instead of basic exercises and weight loss, your clients can now opt for wellness coaching that takes care of their fitness and health needs.
Besides that, specialization plays an important role in setting yourself apart from the rest of the trainers, which means lesser competition and a chance to reach more clients. General trainers are good for the gym, but when people pay extra for their fitness, they demand special services. You can only deliver these if you have the relevant certifications. In addition to that, you can combine your extensive knowledge from different specializations to deliver a truly unique workout and wellness routines to your clients.
Last but not least, specializations allow you to generate more income. When you offer special services, it’s given that you’ll charge more for them. The attitude of people towards fitness has changed drastically in the past few years. They are willing to pay extra for special services that can help them reach their fitness as well as health goals.
Which Specializations Can You Take?
The fitness and wellness industries are quite broad and therefore offer many options to prospective fitness trainers to work with clients on a more personal level. Specializations offer in-depth knowledge of specific areas, and you can combine this knowledge with your knowledge of fitness training. This combination allows you to offer a wider range of services that can tackle different problem areas of your clients.
Some certifications require a medical or nutritional background, such as medical fitness trainers and nutritional trainers. As a personal trainer, these certifications allow you to turn your fitness training into full-fledged wellness coaching. Here are some of the top specializations you can take today!
Medical Fitness Specialist
Medical fitness is an emerging field in fitness work that skillfully combines physical movements and exercises for people that suffer from chronic health issues and disabilities. As a medical fitness instructor, you’ll be responsible for analyzing each client and developing a fitness plan based on their individual needs. The plan would include physical exercise as well as a diet that can help people suffering from such conditions to improve their health.
You’ll also be required to coordinate with medical professionals to find the best course of action to improve your client’s health. Aside from that, you’ll need to monitor the client’s progress and modify your exercise and diet plans accordingly. Medical fitness courses teach you how to plan exercise routines, understand chronic conditions, and treat them properly using fitness.
Lifestyle Wellness Coach
Wellness coaching is considered vital to the overall long-term health goals of your clients. The basis of this certification is to create an exercise program that is geared towards mental and emotional wellbeing in addition to physical. As a wellness coach, it’s your job to create innovative ways to help your clients reach their goals while staying on top of their health.
Wellness coaching can be taken by medical professionals, occupational therapists, massage therapists, and health coaches. Your diverse background will aid in strengthening your career as a wellness coach. You’ll be able to make exercise plans, diet plans, and other activities that help your clients reach a peaceful state of mind.
Senior Fitness Specialist
Fitness is not the same for everyone; health, age, and physical limitations play a huge role in changing the fitness requirements for each individual. Among such are senior citizens that struggle the most to reach their fitness goals because of the lack of options for trainers. This is where senior fitness comes into play. As a senior fitness instructor, it will be your responsibility to identify age-related changes in the bodies of your clients and adjust their fitness routines accordingly.
The specialization will teach you how to assess the fitness of each individual client and design exercise programs for each of them. You’ll also be responsible for developing short and long-term fitness goals for them, keeping in mind their health and fitness. You’ll also need to take into consideration the behavioral changes that can affect the older population and devise strategies to overcome them. This will help you keep your clients on track.
Youth Fitness Specialists
Youth fitness is extremely important to help the kids improve their cardiorespiratory fitness, strengthen their bones and muscles, and avoid obesity and other health issues from a young age. These fitness techniques keep in mind their mental health as well and prevent or reduce the symptoms of anxiety and depression. As a youth fitness instructor, you’ll be required to develop age-appropriate exercises for the kids, check their daily diet, and modify these exercises based on their progress. Due to the different growth levels of kids, it’s impossible to make a single plan that’ll work for everyone. The exercises and subsequent diet need to match the growth rate of each individual.
Group Fitness Instructor
In simple terms, group fitness instructor specialization allows you to conduct group fitness classes. The common exercises included in group fitness are aerobics, yoga, stretching, muscle conditioning, and exercising. In this type of fitness, you’re responsible for developing an exercise routine that will be followed by the entire group. The important thing to keep in mind is that this routine should be developed based on the needs and fitness level of each client. You’ll also be responsible for creating programs that include different exercise formats such as cycling, kickboxing, sports training, and gym classes.
You’re supposed to lead these group exercises as well as monitor the progress of each member of the group. You’ll need to make changes to the routines to ensure everyone is on the same page fitness-wise.
Nutrition Coach
A fitness nutrition coach is different from a fitness instructor because they help people overcome their health issues through diet and nutrition. They are responsible for developing healthy diet plans for people, keeping their health and fitness level in mind.
As a fitness instructor, a nutrition coach certification will allow you to monitor the physical as well as the dietary requirements of your clients. Instead of targeting exercises, you’ll be using nutrition as well as exercises to help your clients live a healthier lifestyle. Not just that, you can expand your expertise to different age groups and deliver age-appropriate health plans to your clients.
Fitness Management Specialization
If you have all the necessary certifications and want to start your own fitness business, you’ll need to learn how to manage it. Fitness management training allows trainers to tackle key issues related to business. These issues include membership purchase and client retention, offering trial memberships, developing programs to capture a wider range of clients, recruiting staff and purchasing equipment, and managing risk and legal liabilities.
All of these things are hard to come by without any proper knowledge of running a fitness business. This is why a fitness management course will help you understand the legal and management related aspects of your fitness business
How To Pick Your Specializations?
To pick a fitness specialization for yourself, you need to consider a few things. The first would be the age group of clients you want to train, the kind of training you want to offer, and the trends in the fitness industry regarding specializations. Once you’ve decided which one you want to go for, it’s time to pick an institute. W.I.T.S. Education has an excellent range of fitness specializations to choose from. The following are the few things you should keep in mind before settling on a specialization.
Your Preferred Age Group?
Age groups play a huge role in fitness specialization. If you are an aerobics instructor, your clients are likely younger. The same thing goes for youth fitness. These days, one of the most overlooked groups, the senior citizens, is taking a keen interest in fitness. That’s why the prospects of senior fitness specializations look great. There’s a shortage of credible trainers, and the market is huge.
On the other hand, youth fitness is an emerging field as well. Because of the pandemic and the new schooling rules, children don’t get to do as many physical activities as they used to. AS a result, parents have turned to trainers to ensure that their children are getting the proper physical training to keep up with their growth rate.
Your Educational Background
If you have a background in the medical field, such as a nutritionist or occupational therapist, medical fitness is perfect for you. This certification has a few prerequisites that are needed before you can begin the course. With your background and qualifications, you can easily take the medical fitness course and expand your expertise. Not just that, but the earning potential in this field is high too because people are willing to pay good money to find great trainers.
Your Preferred Interests
If age and educational background aren’t your main points of focus, then maybe you should select specializations based on your interests. Ask yourself what do you like about the fitness industry and specialize in that. For example, you might like leading groups exercise sessions, and you have the potential to become a good group fitness instructor. Or you might want to manage gyms and fitness training centers; then you should opt for the fitness management specialization.
The Trend In The Fitness Industry
Currently, the fitness industry is merging with the wellness industry. Workouts are no longer about reaching your ideal weight or building muscles rather, a vast majority of people want to get into fitness to improve their health and mind. As a result, there are many specializations you can take that combine the wellness industry with the fitness industry. These courses will help you develop exercise and wellness programs for your clients.
If you’re looking to get a quality education to further your fitness career, take a look at the certification offered by W.I.T.S. Education. W.I.T.S is a fitness training institute that offers general fitness training courses as well as unique specializations that set you apart in the dense market. Some of their special courses include the medical fitness trainer course, senior fitness instructor course, and youth fitness instructor course.
These courses allow you to expand your services as a fitness instructor and make a name for yourself in the industry. Not just that, but these courses also increase your chances for employment. W.I.T.S Education has a unique learning method that involves online lectures as well as hands-on in-person training labs that are not offered by any other institute. Their training centers are located all over North America. Check out their courses or reach out to them today to learn more.
If you’re one of those people who consider fitness as a way of life as opposed to considering it just a hobby, then starting a fitness business can be beneficial to you. To run a fitness business, you need to be passionate about fitness itself. Throughout your journey, you’ll encounter countless hurdles and hardships that’ll require you to work for less money, work overtime, and be patient for the results.
If you’re truly passionate, you’ll pull through in the times of adversity, and if you aren’t, you won’t be able to make a name for yourself. Starting a fitness business isn’t as easy as starting businesses in other industries. With those businesses, you need to work hard for some time until you’ve established yourself enough. After that, the business runs smoothly. In the case of fitness, you need to constantly work harder and stay at the top of your game.
If your customers aren’t happy with your level of fitness and performance, they’ll leave for competitors. You’ll need to keep learning new trends through courses or training sessions such as the ones offered by W.I.T.S. Education. Only then will your business establish itself, and you can enjoy the fruit of your hard work and passion.
How To Become A Fitness Trainer?
If you’re passionate about opening a fitness business, surely, you’ll be at the top of your fitness. But just being fit and healthy isn’t enough to become a personal trainer, especially if you’ll be responsible for the health of others. The first thing you’ll have to do is get proper certification, that’ll solidify your case and will help you get your first few clients.
In order to get a certification, you’ll need to match their prerequisite requirements. Some require you to have a high school diploma, while others want a college degree or at least that you be enrolled in one. Second, you’ll also have to check the kind of certifications they offer. The fitness industry is huge, and hence there are several courses you can take. To become a personal trainer, you need to take courses that’ll cover all aspects of personal training and teach you different fitness routines.
The courses last from 3 to 6 months, depending on your level and the institute’s requirements. Some may even take longer if you’re a novice. After finishing the course, you can work with a well-known fitness center or gym to get professional experience. Customers like trainers who have industry experience. Only after doing that will you be able to find clients who would hire you.
How To Turn Your Fitness Passion Into A Business?
After you’ve established yourself as a personal trainer, you’re now ready to step into the business world. However, even qualified trainers struggle to take their business off the ground. What you’ll need is to create a brand image for yourself that’ll attract clients and help you scale. Here are a few things that’ll help you solidify your business and help it grow.
Find Your Desired Niche
Even though personal trainers are skilled in many different forms of exercise, it’s still a good idea to start with a niche. You can pick a niche based on what you like the most, but it’s a good practice to research the industry trends and figure out which areas have the biggest market capitalization options and the predicted market growth. For instance, senior fitness and medical fitness are emerging fields with lots of room for development and market capitalization.
Similarly, you can find niches that spark your interest while still being attractive from the business point of view. Besides picking a niche industry, it’s better to determine a demographic you’d like to work with. For example, if you want to train women only, or youth, or even senior citizens. That way, it’ll be easier for you to grow.
Give One-On-One Training
Don’t expect your business to take off at once just because you’re passionate and have the required qualifications. In the beginning, you’ll face many setbacks, so it’s better to start small. You can start your business by scheduling one-on-one training sessions. This is the best way to start getting clients. Clients like trainers who pay attention to them and make themselves available.
Once you’ve got a few clients under your belt, you can now start thinking about getting some more. The easiest way is to ask your customers to recommend you to their family or friends. Word-of-mouth is still the most popular form of marketing. You can even offer them exclusive family and friends discounts.
Establish A Clientele
If you’ve been successful in getting clients through word of mouth, it’s not time to invest in a marketing campaign. You can try the traditional way by asking potential customers to sign up for free classes and training sessions, or you can post about your services online. Your marketing campaign strongly depends on your chosen demographic.
If you choose to work with young adults, it’s important to market on social media, but you’ve chosen to work with adults or seniors, you’ll need to apply methods that are relevant to that age group such as newspapers and TV ads. Through this marketing tactic, you’ll be able to find clients outside of the determined customer circle that’ll allow you to tap different areas of the market.
Establish Your Credentials
A good way to attract new clients is to display your credentials and let them speak on your behalf. Your credentials don’t need to be strictly related to your niche. For example, if you have experience in running marathons, you can train people for that as well. People from all age groups part take in marathons, and this will give you a good opportunity to expand your services.
Additionally, you can even display any specializations or certificates you already have to strengthen your claims. You can even display positive client testimonials that’ll give your business a more organic appeal that would surely attract more customers.
Get Extra Certifications
Once you get enough traction with your business, it’s time to work on the expansion. You need to start with yourself. If you’re a certified personal trainer, it’s better to get some additional specializations to add more credibility to your skills. You can take courses related to wellness or medical fitness to broaden your scope of services.
Not only that, but you can collaborate with other fitness centers and offer special courses that focus on different factors like personal training with medical fitness or group exercise training. One more you can do is hire a specialist from different fields. Like you can hire a yoga instructor or an instructor for Pilates.
Expand Your Niche
To grow your fitness business even further, you’ll need to start expanding your niche at the right time. Many people wait too long to expand and lose to their competitors or new businesses. There are two ways you can expand your business. First, you can expand to other niches like weight training, weight loss, maternity fitness. Second, you can find untapped markets within your niche.
If your niche is senior citizens, you can start offering nutritional advice or organizing marathons. If you can’t figure out where to expand, it’s always a good idea to study your competitors’ business practices and find out how they have managed to expand.
Find More Customers
With business expansion, your operational costs will increase as well. You’ll need additional clients to fund the business to keep your profits steady. Generally, your expanded list of services will attract clients on its own if you have made a name for itself. But that doesn’t mean those clients will be enough to keep the business afloat.
You’ll need to offer additional discounts or free trial training to get potential clients interested. You can also schedule visitations around your fitness center and show off your equipment and facilities. Impressive equipment and services are a solid way to bag more clients.
Give Online Lessons
Online lessons are the hottest trend in almost all industries; the same can be said for the fitness industry as well. Many fitness trainers are expanding their clientele by offering convenient and easy-to-access online workout sessions. The sessions can be of two types; pre-recorded video lectures that clients can access anytime they like and make their own schedule and workout plan to follow them.
The other type involves on-demand live training sessions where instructors can interact with clients one-on-one or give training to multiple people at the same time. This type is a bit more demanding, but it allows trainers to be more involved in their client’s fitness, and they can even monitor the progress more closely as opposed to just sharing recorded sessions.
Market Yourself On Social Media
If you’re going towards the route of online lessons, it’s important to market it just right. Social media is a great way to share your work and upload trial video lessons to get potential clients interested. Your social media page can act as your portfolio, and customers can look up your services, read client comments, and even see the latest discounts and pieces of training conveniently.
Not to mention that social media is the most popular method of getting young customers to try out your services; if your page has enough testimonials and a good brand image, people will most likely be interested in giving your services a shot.
Establish A Better Training Facility
With so many services being offered and a huge number of clients to be managed, your training facility must have enough capacity to give clients a relaxed atmosphere. While we know that gyms are commonly loud with people doing different kinds of workouts and the machines being constantly used. However, no one wants a crowded gym.
People want to be able to work out in peace and have a bit of personal space to feel comfortable. If your gym can’t offer that, then it’s time for an upgrade. That doesn’t necessarily mean s you need a new facility; a good remodeling job can add a lot of extra workspaces as well.
Learn Some Fitness Management
It’s easy to keep track of your business when it’s starting out. You won’t need a lot of people to manage it; a few software would do the trick. But the story is completely different once the business starts to grow rapidly. Because you’re the person that’s responsible for all the training your clients get, you’ll dint it hard to keep up with the work while managing the business.
With a fitness management certification, you’ll learn methods to effectively keep the business on track while cutting down your workload. You’ll also learn when to hire more staff or outsource some of your work to maintain a good flow.
Tips On Setting Yourself Apart
Here are a few additional tips on getting even more business after you’ve finished all the steps mentioned above.
Create A Unique Brand Image
In this day and age, setting yourself apart is the most important thing. Previously, businesses were focused on offering the same services as their competitors to maintain a steady supply of customers. But now, it’s all about being unique and different. Your logo, theme colors, interior, and marketing tactics should use the same themes and tone to appear homogenous. Make it a point to make your business be known through your brand image. If people see your adverts or social media posts, they’ll instantly know it’s from you because of your brand image.
Target Under-Served Areas And People
There are a lot of groups that are sort of barred from the fitness industry for being too difficult to work with. Such as people with chronic illnesses or disabilities. But with the developments in medical fitness, trainers can now work easily with these people and help them attain their fitness goals. You, too, can capitalize on this untapped market and grow your business.
Turn your passion into a viable business with W.I.T.S Education’s fitness management course. The course will you all the basics about managing a fitness business, including marketing tactics, how to get clients, and managing risk factors. W.I.T.S Education is a training institute offering multiple fitness-related courses such as youth fitness courses, senior fitness courses, and personal trainer courses.
Through W.I.T.S, you can get NCCA accreditation for the courses you complete. In addition, W.I.T.S is the only institute with state-of-the-art practical labs in different parts of North America where students get hands-on physical training. Besides that, the institute also has online classes for courses to give students an easy learning outlet. This allows students to find good employment opportunities at leading fitness centers. Take a look at the course or get in touch today!
To stay relevant in the fitness industry, one has to keep up with the client’s requirements and the changes in the industry. Personal trainers are at a higher risk of losing clients if they don’t attain the latest qualifications. That’s mainly because a lot of clients like to try the latest fitness trends. When Pilates workout routines went viral on social media, many people jumped on the trend and hired professionals to help them get started.
The same goes for every trend in the fitness industry. Clients want dynamic trainers that can handle all of their needs. While learning complex forms of workouts like Pilates isn’t easy for busy trainers, they can expand their expertise beyond regular fitness training by taking courses and specializations that give them more credibility.
Here are some of the courses you can take as a personal trainer to grow your business and gain more clients.
Who Is a Personal Trainer?
In simple terms, personal trainers are instructors that help people accomplish their health and fitness goals. Trainers are responsible for designing exercises and fitness programs such as workout routines, understand nutritional choices and helping clients set long-term fitness goals. These goals are there to help clients become better versions of themselves physically. These goals can be related to weight loss, muscle gain, toning, strength training, and health management.
The reason people prefer personal trainers is because trainers can pay attention to the individual needs of a client and develop fitness plans based on their strengths and weaknesses. All of this makes it easier for clients to achieve their fitness goals which would not have been possible without trainers. Moreover, trainers plan routines based on their client’s needs.
Some clients are fitness enthusiasts who need extra training, while some need basic exercises to help them get started. Commonly, personal trainers can incorporate different exercises in their planned routines. On the other hand, some trainers are specialists, such as bodybuilding specialists or sports nutritionists, who only work within their field.
The Benefits Of Getting Specializations
Getting specializations in new fields of personal training opens many doors of opportunities for personal trainers. You’ll be able to offer various services to your clients, turning first-time clients into loyal customers.
For example, if you specialize in nutrition, you can assist clients with specific dietary requirements. This makes it easier for you to cater to clients with different medical and nutritional needs. Apart from that, you’ll also get a better salary, because people generally pay more for specialized services.
Knowing multiple forms of workouts enables you to create routines for your clients, mixing different forms of exercises. This is especially helpful for senior clients and those with special medical needs. Similarly, you may be approached by athletes to either train them to help them maintain their strength through nutrition or performance enhancement workout routines.
Some Popular Courses and Specializations
The fitness industry is quite broad and diverse, meaning there’s a specialization course for everything. Depending on your background, you can go for medical fitness and nutrition, or if you’re into weight loss, you can specialize in training and toning programs designed to help clients lose weight healthily. Or you can help bodybuilders and enthusiasts with weight training and core strengthening exercises.
In a nutshell, there are countless specializations and specializations within them to help you move forward in your career. Here’s a list of some of the most common and general courses you can enroll in.
Group Fitness Instructor Course
For some clients, the idea of working with a group of people with similar goals seem to be more appealing. It helps them interact with others and feel less insecure about their current fitness state. As a result, these clients hire group exercise trainers. This is because they monitor individual progress and performance and plan exercises that fit each member’s needs. Group exercises can include regular fitness workouts to yoga, and Pilates.
You may ask why you need certification to train a group when you already know the exercise? Managing a personal trainer group is different from simply getting a few people to exercise together. Trainers need to learn how to monitor individual members’ health, progress and figure out how to incorporate new exercises that help everyone.
Weight Loss Specialization Course
Social media and influencer culture motivate people to lead a healthier lifestyle. This includes losing weight and slimming down, but most people don’t know how to lose weight healthily and resort to poor dietary and eating habits that harm their health and do nothing to help them lose weight. Connecting with Registered Dieticians with a degree speciality can help these clients lose weight while staying healthy.
These trainers are educated on different aspects of weight loss, such as the client’s health, diet, B.M.I. ratio, and ideal body weight. These aspects help them design nutritional plans while considering the medications and such for their clients. The result is that helps them lose fat and build their muscles.
Health and Nutrition Course
Health and nutrition courses use a holistic approach to help different clients attain a better lifestyle. The course teaches trainers how to improve and change their client’s nutritional habits and compel them to make better and healthier choices. These training lessons are also great for trainers dealing with clients with chronic health issues or allergies. These trainers ensure that their clients incorporate healthy eating and workout habits into their lifestyles. Sometimes, they work in the capacity of wellness coaches to help their clients achieve a healthier body and mind.
Corrective Exercise Specialization Course
Injuries that result in bad body and muscle movements require trainers that can help correct these defects. These trainers need a deep understanding of anatomy to apply the right techniques to fix their client’s movements and imbalances. As a trainer, you’ll need to assess the health and extent of movement of your client and develop exercises and stretching techniques that help them relieve pain and improve their condition.
These exercises improve the client’s mobility and posture.
Bodybuilding Specialization Course
Bodybuilding is one of the most popular fields in the fitness industry after weight loss. In the past, bodybuilding was mainly preferred by males, but women have taken a keen interest in the mainstream bodybuilding industry. A lot of trainers get female clients, but the problem is that they need different training and diet to build muscles.
As a result, many institutes have developed courses that help trainers give the best training to male and female bodybuilders, keeping in mind their physical requirements. Bodybuilding specialists are in high demand because there are a lot of risks involved in achieving the desired muscle mass.
Youth Fitness Specialization
If you like working out with kids or are interested in improving children’s health, then this specialization might be for you. Children are at a higher risk of developing health and fitness issues that stop them from living their lives to the fullest. The number one emerging issue with today’s youth is obesity. Early-stage obesity in children can cause many lifelong adverse effects on their health.
However, the main issue with kids is that they need a dynamic approach. The one size fits all formula doesn’t apply to them. Their growth and health are different from each other, and that’s why youth fitness instructors are trained to understand these things and improve children’s health.
Senior Fitness Specialization
Just like kids, seniors also need customized fitness and health care depending on their unique needs. Senior fitness is an emerging market dedicated to keeping the aging population healthier and more active. Many senior people have started to join gyms to remain healthy.
However, the problem is that most gyms are not equipped with the proper tools to help them. Senior fitness trainers can help the older population remain fit by assigning them modified exercises that benefit their health. They need to make sure that the exercise doesn’t cause heart or blood pressure issues in seniors or any further health problems.
Strength Conditioning Specialization
This area of specialization is mostly preferred by athletes and serious sports and fitness enthusiasts, the kind of people that want to improve their strength and performance. While the market for this specialization is still developing, the trainers get a handsome payout for their services. A lot of pro sports companies hire these trainers to train their athletes and help them deliver peak performance through constant exercising and training.
That’s not all! Many personal trainers serve as strength conditioning coaches for people as well. These are the people who want to increase their mass muscle ratio without considering bodybuilding and weight training. So endurance and strength conditioning is their next best option.
Fitness Management Course
A fitness management course like the one offered by W.I.T.S. Education is a great way for a trainer to expand their business and manage their employees. This course is for those who don’t want to do all the training by themselves, but rather by hiring fitness specialists.
Other than that, lots of gyms and fitness institutes have many branches that need management. Fitness managers can work at those places as well. They work behind the scenes to ensure that all the operations run smoothly and their clients are satisfied with the services. These managers also deal with any mishaps and issues between the clients and trainers. Fitness managers are also responsible for hiring new trainers and handling client registrations.
Sports and Exercise Nutritionist Course
Sports nutrition is a field that has gained a lot of traction in the past few years. Sports nutritionists are in great demand, especially by agencies managing pro sports athletes. Each athlete needs a specialized diet to fulfill their calorie requirements. But the issue is that each type of sport has different dietary requirements, and nutritionists must understand them and then devise diet plans.
As a sports nutritionist, you’ll get a chance to work with and train many top and upcoming athletes to ensure that they stay in their best shape and form for their tournaments. Since this is a relatively new field, the pay for being a nutritionist is quite high.
Work Opportunities For a Personal Trainer After Specialization
Personal trainers with multiple specializations can work in different settings to train their clients. The more specializations a trainer has, the more diverse their line of work becomes. Normally, beginner trainers start out as apprentices to already established trainers. They work in their institutes and gyms to train their clients and gain further experience.
Once they have a bit of experience, they can start taking up bigger responsibilities or can start working on their own. These days, personal trainers are taking advantage of the internet and offering online and in-person lessons to their clients all over the world.
Sometimes, personal trainers can work as specialists and coaches depending on their specializations. For example, there’s a dire need for medical fitness to keep athletes in top shape, and senior fitness experts are also high in demand to help keep them active.
Recently, youth fitness has become an emerging field for trainers as well. Due to the popularity of social media and the influencer culture, lots of people are hiring personal trainers to help them attain toned bodies like their favorite influencers. All of these things give trainers many opportunities to make their mark in the fitness world and generate a steady source of income.
Are you struggling to find reliable courses to further your career in the fitness industry? Check out W.I.T.S. Education.
We are a fitness training institute that offers a number of courses related to health, fitness, and management. Our courses include Certified Personal Trainer Course, Youth Fitness Course, Group Exercise Instructor Course, and Fitness Management course. Each course is specifically designed to give you the necessary skills as well as to keep you updated with the latest developments in the fitness world.
The best thing about our courses is that they are hybrid in nature. You can take virtual ‘LIVE’ lessons as well as in-personal training labs. For college students, our N.C.C.A. accreditation system allows them to transfer credits from the course to their degree program.
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us.
In the age of social media, digital marketing, and a booming fitness and health industry, certified personal trainers (CPTs) need to stay up to date on their marketing strategies. Not doing so will not only cost you business but will affect your public persona and perception as well.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that your marketing strategy is fine as it is, and your work will speak for itself. While it’s true that the quality of your services is what matters the most, it’s also important to remember that you still need to put in the effort.
Here are some common mistakes that personal trainers make when it comes to their marketing content and strategy, and you should be careful to avoid them:
Setting the bar too high and becoming unrelatable
While you might think it’s inspirational to post workout videos, ‘clean’ meals and expensive, extensive grocery lists, waking up at 5 am to go run or workout, other people may not agree. It’s one thing to look toward your favorite trainer for motivation, but if you’re only projecting an image of perfection, it might be highly unrelatable by being unattainable to the ordinary person.
After all, you do this for a living, and it’s your job to stay fit, healthy, and practice what you preach, but for other people, be it, stay-at-home moms or college students, their routines may not be adaptable for that lifestyle.
In short, the best thing you can do is stay relatable.
Space out and diversify the kind of content you share, including whatever your personal preferences are, from motivational quotes to workout tips and advice to promotional content. Everything must be well-thought-out and balanced because you’ll have a poorly organized feed with random, repetitive content without that.
Additionally, be sure to post consistently and follow a regular schedule. This is necessary for engagement, showing you’re active and indicating that your business profile can be used to reach out to you.
Don’t go weeks or months without posting and expect engagement and responses. This applies to all marketing content, including emails, web content, promotional messages, etc. Consistency is key, and a CPT should know that!
Mundane, repetitive content that doesn’t do much
Beyond just posting consistently and following a schedule, however, you should also work on mixing up the type of content you share. The same motivational videos and quotes can only get you so far.
It’s definitely challenging and an added layer of work to manage, but as a CPT, you need to provide value to your clients through your marketing strategy. Make a combination of text, images, video, and audio content, and continue to diversify your web presence.
You can do this through the aforementioned point regarding planning content, which allows you to curate and create meaningful material rather than just self-promotion and images and videos of yourself.
It’s true that while you are the main service provider, there’s got to be more to your profile than gym selfies and videos. It should be engaging, interactive, and inviting.
Ask questions, get to know your audience, understand what your potential clients are looking for, and think of how you can make your feed more organic. Testimonials, snippets of training sessions, educational information are all excellent options.
Excessively posting sponsored content and material
Another mistake that a lot of fitness experts are often guilty of making is posting excessive sponsored content. Yes, it’s great for your credibility and income to have sponsorships and paid content, but posting too much of that can be off-putting to audiences.
It can make it harder to trust in your abilities and your expertise if you’re continually promoting products, whether they’re skinny teas or supplements or even gym wear. However, as long as it’s spaced out and cushioned by more organic material or other forms of content, you should be good to go.
In addition to that, focus on building your SEO presence and optimizing your existing content for more relevance. Build a website, develop content for that, make your work more accessible and watch that work wonders over typical PPC advertising.
Pricing yourself far below market rates (it’s not a good thing)
You might think that selling your services lower than the average market rate will help you attract more clients, but that works against you. The more you devalue your work, the more people are skeptical.
After all, why would a skilled, qualified CPT charge significantly lower rates than their competitors unless something was wrong? You can, however, use promotional offers and seasonal discounts to build a sense of urgency, but never sell yourself or your services short.
Not targeting the right audience or focusing only on new clients
Don’t be that trainer who’s so focused on attracting new clients that they forget to value their current ones. It’s cheaper and more profitable to retain old clients than constantly bring in new ones, and as a CPT, you should know who to target and how. Find your niche, address that, and attract faces while also highlighting your current clients’ progress and achievements. Their stories, testimonials, reviews, and recommendations are what can make or break your practice
As a personal trainer, you are running a business at the end of the day. Whether you’re selling services independently, as part of a gym or facility, or in affiliation with other programs, you need to have a solid marketing strategy that drives results.
A trainer-client relationship is one of the most important professional relationships you’ll ever develop in your career as a fitness professional. It’s one built on a foundation of trust, mutual respect, and support and needs to be treated as such. As a trainer, you must ensure that your clients trust you and believe in you to help them achieve their health and wellness goals, rather than fearing you.
They should be able to express their concerns and vulnerabilities, knowing that you will be able to help them, and that’s only achievable if you actively work on being approachable and trustworthy.
Here are some great tips on how to improve your relationship with your fitness clients:
Maintain a professional attitude and demeanor
To make a good impression on your clients, you don’t need to have the latest trainers or fancy clothes. There are a few basic tenets of professionalism that can start you off on the right foot; being punctual, honoring commitments, staying pleasant, and being honest are often more than enough. It’s important for trainers to maintain a professional attitude when dealing with clients because it helps them see you as their coach and as someone who is trained in their field and equipped to help them.
Communicate clearly, communicate often
Communicating with your clients is very important. Not just sharing basic need-to-know details like timings and schedules but communicating words of encouragement, approval, recommendations, and even off-day workouts. It helps to show your clients that you’re involved, following up with their progress, and offering them support, advice and feedback even beyond the gym floor.
This also applies to regularly communicating their progress and walking them through their performance, improvements in their form, stats, or general indicators. It’s a great way to build rapport for healthy communication.
Empathize and put yourself in their position
Often trainers forget the importance of empathy. Yes, you’re there to push your clients to do better, work harder, and perform more steadily, testing their limits along the way, but you shouldn’t overlook their struggles either. Put yourself in their shoes for a moment and envision how they feel being yelled at by a trainer on the gym floor–name-calling, body-shaming, mocking, terrorizing are some of the worst practices any trainer can adopt, and you should work to steer clear of them.
Maybe you were genetically blessed and came out of the womb with a six-pack, but maybe you were also heavily bullied for your appearance once upon a time. No matter what the case may be, you should always remember that your client is a person with feelings and emotions before anything else.
Be specific to their needs but remain flexible
Learn to adapt your training style and schedule to your clients’ needs, goals, and requirements. Rather than taking a cookie-cutter generic approach to training, see how you can help your clients achieve their specific fitness, health, and wellness goals through your services, providing them with the tools, knowledge, and expertise that they need.
You might have a trajectory in mind for them, but injuries, accidents, fatigue, physical and mental limitations can all get in the way and how you respond to them as a trainer is what sets you apart. The more adaptive you are while still doing your job, the more your clients respect you.
Set goals for the long run to show commitment
Goal-setting should be a two-way street as you and your client mutually set goals for your training sessions. Where do they see themselves in 3, 6, or 12 months? How do you plan to help them achieve those goals? It’s important to set aside your assumptions and let them take the lead on these goals, sometimes. As a trainer, you might feel like you can tell exactly what your client needs, and while you might be right, you should also work on negotiating with them and meeting them halfway. Remember that not everyone will have the same fitness and exercise goals, and that’s okay, but as long as you’re thinking of both long and short-term goals that are achievable, you’re showing them that you’re with them for the long haul.
Get to know your client on a slightly deeper level
Lastly, you should learn to be your client’s friend. This doesn’t mean you cross professional boundaries and become besties with them, but rather, you hear them out, let them open up to you, and be honest about their fears, challenges, and insecurities, supporting them in more ways than one. A trainer is so much more than just your gym instructor, it’s someone who sees you at your worst, and you’d want that person to treat you as an equal. It also allows you to be vulnerable and open about your own struggles, helping them feel less alone.
As a fitness trainer, your role goes beyond the gym or classes; what you say and do can often impact your clients directly and affect their mental, physical and emotional health in the process. It’s a lot of responsibility to take on. You should never shy away from working on your communication skills and abilities, developing more empathy, and improving your relationship with your clients.
Learn more about improving your services and working as a personal trainer and a certified group exercise instructor through our courses and training modules. We have some of the most highly-rated fitness trainer programs that include both online and in-person components and will equip you with not just the necessary knowledge and skill to train and coach but also provide you with interpersonal skills and insights. View our range of certifications here, or register for one of our other training and specialties today!
Clients come and go – as a certified fitness trainer, the trick in keeping your business going strong and your client list high to make consistent efforts to attract new clients. You must expand your skill set to attract new clients, from continuing education online fitness trainer programs to specialized personal health training programs.
If you put in a great deal of effort, it will become easier to have clients lining up for your services. Learn how to market yourself effectively. Here are four ways to attract new clients and use your passion for fitness to improve the lives of others.
Invest In Social Media
Digital is the best way to go. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter linked with your website will allow you to target the right type of audience. Email campaigns or social media campaigns work best to build a higher client ratio but make sure you have contact info or chat windows for them to engage you.
If you’re just beginning your journey as a personal trainer, then W.I.T.S offers in-person and online options for all learning best practices. You can explore multiple personal trainer certification options and sign up for webinars as per your need.
Prove Your Value As A Certified Personal Trainer
World Instructor Training Schools, W.I.T.S., Personal Trainer is the only organization to receive NCCA accreditation in the health trainer programs’ with practical skills and theoretical knowledge. There is no replacing hands on skills and mastering them to have long time success
Start your health and fitness career with the industry’s most comprehensive certifications. Through W.I.T.S, you can become certified as a personal trainer, group fitness trainer, older adult trainer, and much more.
Offers Courses in Universities and Colleges
Seeking out to offer courses in universities and colleges is a great opportunity to network and build your professional resume. W.I.T.S. teaches health, fitness, and overall wellness in educational institutions because this is a health occupation where you change people’s lives.
W.I.T.S offer fitness certification courses and certification testing locations all over North America. Gain knowledge at the largest college and university-partnering network in the fitness industry.
More Than Certification: Education/ Training Courses
Attract your clients based on the other services you offer apart from fitness. Establish expectations of what customers will experience from your variety of services.
W.I.T.S offers much more than just certifications to its clients. A higher learning standard is maintained and followed to ensure your career skills are effective and safe for clients and long term success.
If you’re looking for a personal fitness trainer certification or a group exercise instructor certification, W.I.T.S has got you covered. Contact us today to start your journey into the fitness industry!
If you wish to keep up with the fitness industry, you have to be aware of the latest trends in technology. Ever since COVID-19, people have become curious about their fitness routines and overall wellness.
The combination of fitness technology and digital fitness has been reshaping our industry for some time now. This is not just from the consumer (gym-goer) but also the supplier (gyms/ personal trainers). Gym-goers now are more interested in their workouts, eating habits, mindfulness, and quality.
Here we look at top three fitness technology trends that fitness trainers should incorporate in their programs.
Wearables All The Way!
The fitness sector’s top trend of 2020 that has made its way into 2021 has been wearables. Fitness freaks and gym-goers are more inclined towards these because of the detailed health information collected by these devices.
In addition, these devices give fitness explorers a chance to design their workouts so that they address certain concerns and meet their wisely identified fitness goals. There has been a large emphasis on at-home fitness where the users pair their virtual workouts with several devices such as smartwatches, fitness trackers, etc. When paired with artificial intelligence, the data collected from these fitness wearables opens up a world of possibilities for the industry.
If you have a passion for fitness, you can have the perfect opportunity to turn it into your dream career with W.I.T.S.
Virtual Fitness Is Indeed A Reality!
Virtual reality is not just a way to navigate the challenges presented by COVID-19 but is one of the best trends of the post-COVID world. Several mobile apps and social media platforms provide records of virtual workouts and remote coaching services.
Virtual fitness opens up a range of opportunities for fitness enthusiasts, such as planning training programs and encouraging people to stay fit at their pace at economical prices. It is without a doubt an exciting dimension in the fitness industry. This has helped people with their workouts immensely and allows them to work out for longer periods.
If you’re a fitness professional looking to improve your capabilities, at W.I.T.S, you get to experience high-quality health and fitness education workshops to improve your capabilities.
Smart Equipment
Wearables aren’t the only devices that can track your progress; say hello to smart fitness exercise machines that can provide clients a never experienced before work out.
Having this technology in your gym is a plus as it gives real-time feedback to the client, boosts their workout regime along with increasing a positive word about your gym or studio. It will give the clients a new reason to visit your studio.
These cloud-connected pieces of equipment enable the trainer to keep track of their client’s training progress and keep the staff updated about the maintenance of the machines. Become a certified exercise instructor with W.I.T.S.
W.I.T.S is the first fitness industry to get NCCA Accreditation in testing the written core knowledge and practical skill competencies. Turn your passion into your dream profession and start your health and fitness career today! Contact us.
