We’re approaching that time of year when every personal trainer who is committed to a career in fitness needs a new fitness client process. You need a system or a method. And you need to measure whether it works.

After 37 years in fitness, and 33 as a one-to-one trainer or health coach I’ve definitely made my share of mistakes. But actually, thanks to my ex-husband and friend, back in 1992 I developed a process and I have used it over and over to describe how I work with clients, to start clients, and to continue with clients.

My first session follows several steps.

Consultation with New Fitness Client Process

More and more with each book published, media appearance, TEDx talk, keynote speech, clients will apply to work with me without ever doing a consultation.

But still 50% of the time, I will consult with a customer not sure if we’re a match or with questions about how it works. Even during this consultation, I share the steps of how I work with clients from beginning to next. We all like to know what to expect. Setting expectations should be a part of your process.

Following enrollment there is Pre-First Session Homework for the New Client
They’ve filled out all the pre-questionnaires, history, inclusive of health, fitness, hormones, and awareness.

Documents are Turned In

Homework is Turned in 24 or more hours before I meet with a client. That guarantees I have time to go through them and start identifying an ideal lifestyle plan.

That plan however is never the actual starting point. Literally, never.

We’re working with real life humans with a history of habits and preferences and a reality that has to be a part of the step-by-step change we help them make.

Books to read for supporting you in supporting them:

• Tiny Habits
• Atomic Habits
• The ONE THING
• Essentialism

Identify Questions for First Session

I’ll pick one, two or three areas where I want to ask questions.

If I don’t see an obvious ONE THING to start with and ask if the client agrees, I’ll ask them which feels like a bigger pain point for them so we’re co-collaborating on a starting point. I never turn a client’s world upside down or assign an arbitrary goal out of the blue. They are somewhere before we met. That’s our starting point for deciding where to go next and for deciding what turn to take.

I have a template that I use for those meetings. I use a checklist. I list the follow up questions I need to ask to collect all the data I need. Those questions are qualitative and quantitative both.

The answers to those questions that I’ll use to finalize the actual proposed plan for week 1. In my mind I’ve got week 2, 3, 4 also plotted. That’s creating an ideal. There is always a change to it based on data and feedback from week 1.

Flipping 50 Master Class 

Platforms for meeting:

• Tele-conference calls
• Skype
• Facetime
• Zoom

Follow up connections with clients:

• Text
• What’s App
• Voxer

Start Your Sessions Systematically

Ditch the small talk and the, how are you? Seriously, catch your clients when they throw that back to you. Yes, it’s polite and conditioned but it’s trite. This is about them. The purpose of this call is not to open up how you are.

I’ve got their session prep form in front of me when we talk. But I always ask, is there anything else you want to add to this list or is it complete? And: Is there anything unusual coming up for you in the next week I should know about so as we talk I can take that into account so you’re next week’s plan makes the most sense for you?  

I ask if the client wants to go through things from top to bottom or if there’s a highest priority item they want to start with.

Give Choices

All of that is about putting the client in charge. Listen, we’re co-collaborating here it’s not a dictatorship. My job is not to make someone co-dependent, it’s to help them rely on their own judgment and take charge. It’s more about that than taking responsibility. A client who’s reached out to you is extremely responsible.

My view is the client is an expert. No one knows them better than they do. My expertise is hormone balancing fitness, kinesiology, movement, and behavior change that sticks. We have to do this together.

End Sessions Systematically

One of the important things for you to do is pad your sessions. I learned this the hard way. When I would have calls with 3 clients in a row and then have the day take off like a runaway train, getting back to send homework and summarize the session and give recordings to clients became really hard to do.

So, I leave 10 minutes minimum and I’m also taking notes (keyboard right into their call transcript). You can also transcribe it with otter.ia but you will have to go through and edit that or have someone on your team do so.

That way I send homework, recordings, any additional resources to a client before I start anything else. It’s so much less time consuming done this way.

A part of the session end for my new fitness client process is letting them know when we have 10 more minutes in this session. It’s a good time to ask, is there anything additionally that you want to make sure we talk about today, or do you want to continue on the track we’re on?

Foreshadowing

There is always a next step. I want clients to know that even as I keep the steps small in the beginning there will be bigger ones that I may believe they’re capable of even before they do. I’ll plant seeds about their progress, their goals, and about our working together and what next steps are.

You want to make sure you have a next step. What will your clients need or want next? If you can’t keep a customer or client and keep them on track with life goals you’ll also jeopardize your business. Find a way to always be thinking, what’s next for this client? How can I serve them in their next step? Often those options don’t require that one-on-one attention. That then provides a new opportunity for both them and your business growth.

That’s the sign of a business with longevity.

Optimize your organic reach right now for fitness business success in the coming months. No matter when you’re listening (reading) this, it’s time to do this. If you haven’t started early and aren’t already 60 days into your pre-launch for the new year (as I create this early December 2020) then put on your calendar RIGHT NOW to start October 1, 2021 preparing for Jan 1 2022.

For now? Let’s roll up our sleeves and start making what you’re doing now matter more.

Need help? I’ll get you lift off AND 10 months of branding, marketing, and selling strategies if you’re working with women in midlife.

Use key words.

Distribute key words in three places:

• title
• content
• meta description

If you’re on word press, use a tool called Yoast, even on the free level to help you know when you’ve done this.

Before that you need to do some homework.

Do you know the words you want to be “found for”? These are words that you deliver on. These are the problems your clients come to you with, in their words not yours. Key words are a part of the transformation your clients want. Your key words are a mixture of the problem and the solution that your ideal customer wants.

So before key words even? You need to know what your favorite customers of all time, who made the most progress, and loved working with you, say they want. What do they say they’re grateful for?

Because you and I could say we give our clients muscle mass and strength. But even in 2020 when I write about it constantly and you’re reading about it as the way to help and support them, it still is not what they ask “Dr. Google” at 8pm on their couch watching Hallmark movies. It’s not what they search for at 2pm when they should be working but they’re distracted by feelings of bloat or discomfort in clothes that don’t fit any more.

How to Improve Your Organic Reach (Homework exercise)

What are those words? Take a moment and come to the show notes later and do this homework because it’s big.

Problem

#1 Way my client describes her problem:

#2 Way my client describes her problem:

Transformation

#1 Way my client describes what she wants:

#2 Way my client describes what she wants:

Personal Condition

#1 Word or phrase that describe my client’s status (in her words)

#2 Word or phrase that describe my client’s status (in her words)

Some combination of problem or solution plus condition are your key words. Do your homework.

The Mistake that Fails Your Organic Reach

Does this sound familiar? You know you need to post regularly on social media. So you set aside time to do it, create the graphics, a quote, or take a picture, even invest 30 minutes in creating a REELS. But do you go into action doing that before you even think about what your ideal client is thinking or feeling right now?

No judgment here. I’ve done it too. Not that long ago I spent hours on Sunday creating my week’s posts for the week, cueing them up as scheduled on platforms and wa-la, done! (I’m typing wa-la thinking I don’t even know if that’s a word!)

Them vs You

Here’s the deal…. If your posts are pushing your content and information that you think people NEED out there… it will fail to get you traction. It’s a conversation. When you do that it’s like sitting across from someone who is talking and instead of listening, you’re thinking about what to say next.

You may have the answer to their problem but it’s not going to resonate with them if you deliver it like what they just said doesn’t matter.

How Do You Know If You’re Falling Short?

Look at what you’ve been doing. How well has it been working? If you continue to do more of it… how will you get different results? If your reach over the last 3 weeks has not gone UP, it’s time to change.

On a blog post, use all of the previously mentioned. The same goes for your show notes if you’re podcasting. What about social media? Both YouTube and now Instagram even are becoming more like search engines. So if you’re not doing the same with title, description, tags on YT and using hashtag strategy that works on Instagram, you’ll fail.

Instagram is Good for Your Organic Reach, Too, Done Right

Instagram strategy is not posting daily. It includes the right hashtags based on research, the right number of hashtags, relevant hashtags for your content, the right use of images, graphics, memes, quotes, and your content matters. Are you telling stories? It’s social remember. So longer posts that describe who you are, and why anyone will care about what you say are important. Ask questions.

Use your timeline, stories, IGTV and REELS as well as lives. Encourage DMs to communicate. Especially when you’re smaller, it’s possible to generate leads and customers so long as you’re not selling on social.

Your Organic Reach vs Paid Traffic

Know that once you begin using paid advertising your organic reach will go down significantly. A platform that knows you’ll pay to play will begin to require it. A good rule of thumb though is that if your organic reach isn’t going up, you don’t want to pay for it to reach more people who won’t respond! Always look at how something does organically first, then build on that momentum. It’s the same way January is a busy month in fitness, right? It’s the month you should be advertising the most.

There you have it. Not so secret secrets… and the biggest one of all is doing these consistently.

Links mentioned in this episode will be in the show notes at fitnessmarketingmastery-dot-com/organic-reach

Resources: 

10-month mastermind

Posting feverishly without getting results? Fitness professionals social media efforts generally either fall into one of two categories: definitely work or definitely failing. If you’re spending money for someone to do your social media, or you’re spending time doing it yourself, it’s expensive to get zero results.

With more ears and eyes on social media than ever, this is for you. Any one of these 7 fitness professionals social media mistakes can hurt you. Fixing any one of them is definitely a step in the right direction. Let’s dive in.

Episode Sponsor

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Posting before you have a strategy

            Imagine a pee-wee soccer league. If you don’t have kids of your own, you may have coached, you’ve got a niece or nephew, or you’ve just watched this. A 5-year old cares more about treats than the minutes they play. But inevitably one kid will finally get the ball and run with it to score the perfect goal… for the other team. If you are consistently posting without results, you too may be running in the opposite direction. Now, are you helping your competition directly? Not exactly, but you are using time and energy where it is not paying off. Before you post…

• What is the reason for your post?
•             How is this tied to your customer journey?
•             What’s your Hansel & Gretel plan for getting home?

Posting without a message & mission

• What do you want the listener, viewer, reader to do, think, or feel?
• Why do you want that?

Fitness professionals social media posts should be in alignment with the message and the stand they take everywhere. It can’t be the same as every other fitness professional. What do you stand for? What do you stand against? In 2020 we’ve been presented with a number of challenges that we may never have thought would polarize our audience, but have. From masks to vaccines, to quarantine, to racism, there have been reasons to address these things that may have been listed in your style guide as “never talks about.”

(If you don’t have a style guide, you need one. It will force you to know your message and your mission in a way that everyone you work with knows clearly what’s in and out of bounds.) Learn more about Style Guide creation.

Missing hashtag strategy in Instagram

            Fitness professionals social media mistakes on Instagram are many, but the biggest ones involve hashtags. If you’re not aware of the number of hashtags you need on social media, the place you want to put them and don’t, and the range of the hashtag popularity to use based on the size of your current following, you’re wasting time.

Being consistent is about doing the right thing consistently. If you want to get in on some of the secrets that make your Instagram not just grow your following but grow it authentically with people who want what you’re selling, it’s a part of the Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist program.

Not supporting (specific) others and engaging

            Social media is meant to be social. You can use social media to create relationships. Give to others. Identify 100 people who are doing what you want to do or related to what you want to do in a complimentary way. Follow them. Take time regularly to comment and post and DM them. That should be as much a part of what you’re doing and not random. List those people out specifically. If you’re tempted to copy, don’t. People smell a copycat.

            Notice how larger accounts post. They don’t post their freebies. They post content that organically connects to their freebies. You have to have an engagement first. If you haven’t got eyeballs on your content, back up. Connect. Start looking at your insights. 

Neglecting to Use Insights

            Insights are free! Fitness professionals social media mistakes center around this one on every platform. Not using insights is like ignoring your friends when they call. Eventually they are going to stop calling. Fitness owners and managers have almost cultivated this bad habit when they didn’t know enough about social media and turned the process over entirely to a young member of their team that they assumed “know more about social media than I do.”

The only way you can create more effective messages that resonate with your audience is to measure what matters. Set up a weekly “weigh in” and start looking objectively at whether you increased or decreased engagement, which posts, what type of posts, and what content works. Do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.

Yes, it takes time to get traction but if you’re still posting to a handful of people after months it’s time to change your strategy.

Forgetting how your customer feels

Preaching doesn’t work. Teaching works sometimes. Talking to people works. Listening works best. Are you ever asking questions? So often fitness professionals social media posts probably feel condescending to your clients. Imagine how they feel and post based on that. When someone is frustrated and in despair, they don’t need to read a post about getting steps in. Maybe they need to read a post about how hard it can be to start when you feel the road is long. Tell a story about when you felt this way.

If you look super fit, and your customer is not, you need to relate to them somehow. That’s not to say you have to have been fat or out of shape at some point in your life, but you need to relate to struggle.

Not telling your why

You could be a plumber, teacher, lawyer or doctor. Why are you a personal trainer or health coach? Fitness professionals social media accounts are often void of the backstory. That’s like getting to a movie 10 minutes late, or not reading the text on the screen so you know the significance of the story. I can relate because last week we were watching a Tarzan movie and I was admittedly multitasking on my laptop. My son rewound and said, “Are you reading this?”

Much of the movie would have had less meaning to me if I hadn’t read those screens.

The same is true for you. Periodically, you have to share your story again. Introduce yourself. Tell them who you are, your rags to riches story, the story that makes you relatable and unique. What is it? What makes you cry, cringe, sing, dance and celebrate?

There you have it – fitness professionals social media mistakes, why they hurt, and how to fix them.

Links to mentions in this podcast:

How to Avoid the Biggest Mistakes Training (and reaching) Women in Menopause - masterclass

Style Guide step-by-step (SCROLL DOWN on the page)

My Social Media Book from Healthy Learning