4 Effective Ways To Boost Your Career As A Personal Trainer

So you love fit­ness and want to make it a career? Great! Yet there is more to being suc­cess­ful as a per­son­al train­er than being good at work­ing out. The good news is you can find out what these things are below.

- Get Good At Listening

Yep, if you are going to be a thriv­ing train­er, one skill you need is being able to lis­ten to your clients. Indeed, each per­son will have indi­vid­ual needs, and con­cerns, and want results that are spe­cif­ic to them. To that end, being able to dig deep and define these is an essen­tial skill.  Of course, build­ing this step into your client onboard­ing process is the best approach. This is because there will be too much info to gath­er at the inquiry stage, and it will also allow you to touch base with your client and devise a plan best suit­ed to them. You can even write out some ini­tial ques­tions to help you get the very best results at this stage. 

- Walk The Walk 

You have to walk the walk, as well as talk the talk as a per­son­al train­er. That means you need to keep your­self fit and healthy, and most­ly stick to the kind of diet you recommend. You also need to work up a sweat with your clients when they do. Yes, that means doing the exer­cis­es along with them, and not just shout­ing orders from the sidelines. 

- Specialize 

Anoth­er way you can help to boost your per­son­al train­ing career is to pick an area of exper­tise to spe­cial­ize in. That way, you can rise to the top of the mar­ket much faster and make a name for your­self as the expert to con­sult in that area.  Of course, the spe­cial­ism you choose will be up to you and the activ­i­ties you pre­fer. Although, it’s also worth con­sid­er­ing the demand for spe­cif­ic nich­es, as well as the prices you can charge for train­ing in them. For instance, becom­ing a body­build­ing train­er can be far more prof­itable than work­ing with a more gen­er­al clien­tele. The rea­son for this is that body­builders tend to be great­ly com­mit­ted to their com­peti­tors and their bod­ies and so are there­fore more will­ing to pay high­er rates to get the results they are look­ing for. 

- Work With Your Clients Not Against Them 

Fol­low­ing on from the sec­tion above, if you want to be a suc­cess­ful per­son­al train­er you will need to learn to work with your clients rather than against them. That means using a flex­i­ble approach that focus­es not only on results but the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence too.  Indeed, just as it is in any cus­tomer-fac­ing indus­try, mak­ing sure that your clients get the expe­ri­ence they want, as well as the results, is vital. With that in mind, you may wish to piv­ot to a mod­el where you offer encour­age­ment to clients that are strug­gling rather than stick­ing to a “my way or the high­way” approach. One way you can devel­op this skill in your­self is by adopt­ing a dai­ly mind­ful­ness prac­tice. Indeed, mind­ful­ness can help you be more patient and more flex­i­ble because it allows you to see the thoughts and emo­tions the brain throws up, before act­ing on them. Some­thing that will pro­vide you with a pause where you can decide how to act, rather than act­ing pure­ly on instinct. 

Final Thought!

It is always said that it’s not what you know but who you know that mat­ters most when it comes to accom­plish­ing high­er lev­els of success. Apply­ing this to the per­son­al train­ing career, think about the peo­ple you can con­nect with who can help you lev­el up. Start with doing some research and come up with some fit­ness men­tors who may be will­ing to share tips and tricks for cre­at­ing a more sub­stan­tial busi­ness that brings in more per­son­al train­ing revenue. Nev­er give up on your dreams; no mat­ter how com­plex your jour­ney is, you can suc­ceed by believ­ing in yourself!