Over and over again I hear consulting clients tell me that they can’t grow their personal training business. They are stuck at a certain level of success with their boot camps and cannot understand why. Their service is of higher quality and they provide more personalized attention than larger box companies. So what are they doing wrong?
The answer is usually little things that make a difference. On the one hand, they are trying to create a brand from a basic product. That’s impossible. The public now sees personal trainers, boot camps, and challenges offered around every corner. Every magazine cover and every Facebook timeline is filled with opportunities for free and paid access to these services. They are generic.
When that’s true, the only thing left for a customer to do is shop around based on their needs. If your location is better, your price is right, or if it’s less physically intimidating, for example, you might have a shot. Those are random results. You want predictable.
If someone is going to search for you on the Internet through their Google search, will they find what they are looking for in you? Few people go to Google to find a nearby boot camp. A frustrated woman doesn’t search for a personal trainer at night on her computer.
People look for solutions. They have problems. Those problems somehow become urgent. It can be a wedding, a reunion, or a summer season that suddenly makes you feel urgent. Use the questions someone types in Google to help you be the answer they find.
What would you write if you were a 47-year-old woman who wanted to lose weight? What would you write for tips on diets that work for rapid fat loss? Using those specific words on your website, your business card, and in your email signature will help someone to believe that you are their answer.
Instead of listing your alphabet soup, choose the most prestigious certification you have and list. If they want the full resume, they can find it on their website. List the website or blog url instead of getting carried away. Make it a live link. Have a way for the customer to find content that adds value when they get there.
Create more than one signature on your emails. For communication with personal trainers looking for a marketing coach, for example, I list the URL of my personal fitness professional’s blog and the website where someone can learn about coaching. To communicate with my female market after 50, I include my wellness webinar page and the URL of my book targeting that market.
By seeing that I provide information for people navigating fitness after 50, a potential customer instantly knows that I have solutions for them. They don’t care until later what credentials or experience I have. Until my professional fitness clients know I have the answers for their mastery of fitness marketing, they don’t care what degrees or certifications I have. Most of them have them too! They just don’t have the marketing, branding, and business expertise to get their business revenue where they want it.
Determine who you serve or want to serve. Determine what is important to them. Next, look at your email signature. You will have a chance. By the time they have contacted you by email, they will be interested. Tell them right away that this is about them and not your own self-promotion. Your knowledge should be shown instead of having to tell them.
Your formula for the brand:
1. Your name and two or three key credentials
2. Your contact information
3. A title that is not a commodity. It takes personal trainer. What else do you have? Are you a change agent? A slimming coach?
4. Something for the customer. This is a URL where they can get a video, an article, get more information about you on your website, get a quiz, or tools to help solve your problem.
5. Make it easy to read. Include less, not more. Limit your focus. Use color or colonists or separate lines.
6. Make the links active. No one will love you enough to copy your URL into their browser and fetch more.
This may seem small. Every little thing matters. The more educated, articulate, and business savvy your target customer is, the more they can smell the lack of confidence that the need to list credentials shows. The less educated your audience, the easier and faster you will need to get your solutions. The bottom line in any case is that it has to be about them.