Train clients. Get results. That’s your main objective when you’re a certified personal trainer. Nevertheless, being a personal trainer involves much more work than what your clients see in the gym. You’ve got to manage your schedule, develop programs, bill clients for training sessions, run marketing campaigns, and keep clients motivated to help them achieve their goals.
If you want to be a successful personal trainer, you’re not going to be hanging out just counting reps and sets. You’ve got to take care of the rest of your business too. But it doesn’t have to be hard. Using the right tools can make your job as a certified personal trainer notably easier. Add these tools to your virtual gym bag to be a better trainer:
1. Scheduling Tools
Your success depends on training clients. So you want to make it as easy as possible for clients to book training sessions and keep their appointments. Google Calendar could work, but you’ll have to manually schedule those appointments—not to mention it could take some work to catch up with a client to confirm training session days and times.
Other scheduling tools like Calendly eliminate some of those back-and-forth challenges to book a training session. You set up your calendar with available slots for training sessions. Then clients pick a time that works for them to book their own appointment. Thereafter, you and your client both get notifications and reminders. The end result: fewer missed appointments, more hours spent training clients, and more revenue.
2. Accounting Software
If you want to get paid, you need to make paying for training sessions and packages simple. Plus, you need a way to keep track of your income and expenses.
Though kind of old school, you could get a generic invoice book, bill clients, and accept cash or check payments. And you could use a notebook or spreadsheet on your computer to keep track of everything. However, there are better ways to get paid, invoice clients, and manage the financial side of your personal training business.
PayPal provides tools that make it easy to create an invoice and email it to a client. What’s more, it’s just as easy for a client to check their email, access the invoice, and click a button to pay. You can even set up automatic recurring monthly payments for long-term clients. The downside is you can’t track all income and expenses with PayPal. Additionally, some fees are involved per transaction, but it’s a good option if you’re a newly certified personal trainer starting out.
Another reliable option is Freshbooks, a web-based accounting program that can help you generate invoices, get paid, manage client accounts, and track revenue and expenses to run your personal training business.
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3. Email Marketing Platform
How are you going to stay in touch with current and former clients as well as grow your personal training business? There’s more than one way to do this, but to leverage your time and reach the most people, you need an email marketing platform.
For every client or prospect you connect with, ask for their email address, and add it to an email marketing platform database. With an email list, you can email your contacts useful tips and information about health, fitness, nutrition, and promotions to book more personal training sessions or packages.
Try MailChimp, free for your first 2,000 contacts, or Aweber for a low monthly fee. Both platforms provide easy-to-use templates and tutorials to send emails and create marketing campaigns to help you grow your personal training business.
4. Social Media Management Tools
Marketing should be a regular part of running your business. Making the most of social media can help you become a recognized fitness expert. Leverage social media to attract more clients who need your help to build muscle, lose weight, or achieve a fitness goal.
Keep in mind though that you don’t need to spend hours a day posting fitness and nutrition tips, workout videos, and motivational messages on multiple platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and SnapChat. You can streamline the process with tools such as Hootsuite that allow you to create one message and post on multiple platforms at once. It will save you a lot of time, help grow your social media audience faster, and connect you with more potential clients.
5. Client Management Software
You sign on a new client, discuss their goals, and complete the appropriate fitness assessments. Now you need to design a training program and track their progress. The old-school notebook approach could work. Fortunately, there’s a better way.
Client management software for personal trainers, such as Total Coaching and Trainerize, makes it easy to design and deliver fitness programs. Make your own customized printable workout routines and log sheets. Or deliver your program to your client via a customized mobile app. It’s a great way to add value to the client experience.
Client management software can also help you track metrics like weight, body fat, body mass index, strength and performance gains, and more to measure progress. Many also allow you to upload pictures and track eating habits to measure a client’s progress.
The combination of these tools can help your business run like a finely tuned machine. To learn more about how to build a successful personal training business, check out the free guide: How to Start a Successful Online Personal Training Business.
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