Fitness, Business, Fitness Business, & Achieving Life Goals

Once the club/studio brand is clear, you can start to design the “experience” you want your members and/or clients to have.

The first perception of Personal Training may be at POS. How the program/membership coordinator (sales person) describes or recommends Personal Training can have a huge impact on the potential client’s impression of Personal Training. That process or description should be carefully planned out to either sell Personal Training right there and then or, at least set the Personal Trainer up in the best light going into their first meeting.

Now enters the Personal Trainer. What first impression will the Trainer make? In Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking he states, “A person watching a silent two-second video clip of a teacher he or she has never met will reach the same conclusions about how good that teacher is that are very similar to those of a student who has sat in the teacher’s class for an entire semester. That’s the power of our adaptive unconscious.” The power of that instant decision making is something we need to be aware of and prepare for.

The following is of my view of what a positive, initial experience with a Personal Trainer might be.

Punctuality – being late for an appointment is a perfect way to show a potential client that you don’t care about them or their time.

Appearance – clean, professional look, warm, friendly, open

Interaction- warm, friendly greeting, light conversation as you invite them into a clean, comfortable, private office.

Motivational Interviewing – going through a medical health history and lifestyle review utilizing coaching techniques and guided interviewing, a la Robert Rhode, explore the positive motivators for the goals that the individual has. A Personal Trainer that listens intently and asks appropriate open-ended questions will be perceived as caring and trusted.

Recommendation - make an honest recommendation of what you believe the best course of action is for the client. Usually this would entail Personal Training, but not always. Ask if that sounds like something they would like to do.

Sealed with a … well, with positive, enthusiastic statements of encouragement, support, and assurance that they are on their way to reaching their goals.

Of course this is my view because it is consistent with my brand. This varies with your own brand.

Best wishes, Mark

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