Customer Database

Customer databases: the principals are the same but the tools are different now

You may think you know all you need to know about your clients and can keep a database “in your head” with a few post-it notes scattered here and there to remind you.

Yes, that can work when you first start out and you’re not too busy, but if you are planning on growing your business as you should be, how about getting a system in place to track your clients professionally, reliably and in more detail?

The Dreaded Paperwork!

Let’s admit it – personal trainers aren’t always the best at getting paperwork done!

We are all about time in the gym, working with clients, keeping ourselves looking good and feeling fit and healthy; paperwork often gets put in the “too hard” pile!

A business without its records, files and paperwork in order will not get very far, unfortunately. So there are a couple of ways to deal with this potential problem.

Either we learn to do it and make time each week to get it done – or we outsource it to someone who can look after it for us; the latter option may be the best in the long run, so that it frees up more time for you, but at first it’s great if you can get into the habit of filling in all the information yourself.

Either way, part of the process is to design, build and maintain a client database and that’s what we look at below.

The Client Database

Why is this important? Because it lets you know exactly where you are right now – in terms of how many clients you have, how much you are earning from each client, the sessions you are running and so on.

Think of your client database as a quick snapshot of the state of your business, so it’s important to build one as soon as you have more than a few clients to work with.

What to Include

Your database should have 2 sections – one for active clients and one for ex clients (because you may be able to win them back or market other products to them in the future.)

In each of the two sections include the following column headings:

• Name
• Number of Sessions Per week
• Package You Provide Them
• Start date
• End Date
• Email address
• Phone Number
• Amount Per week
• Payment Frequency
• Comments

If you create this in Excel or an equivalent spreadsheet program, then you can add formulae that will help to calculate the total amount of income you make per week from all the clients, for example.

This is very simple to create and easy to update, if you get into a routine. Failing that, be sure to send accurate information at least every week to the person administering your database, as new clients come on board or other clients “fall off the back end.”

The Personal Client Database

This is where you enter more detailed information about your clients so that you have a more personal profile of each person. The client will probably be relying on you to track their sessions and you should be able to provide accurate and timely information as they request it.

As you get closer to them, you will also want to note their birthdays and their likes/dislikes and interests, so that you build a closer bond with them.

What to Include

You can keep a record of the following details for each client you work with:

• Name
• Joining Date
• Date of Birth
• Address and Contact Details
• Goals
• Comments

Then you should create a log of each session so that you know the session number, the date, time, type of session, comments and the action needed afterwards.

The best time to complete this information is immediately after each session or the same day at least, so that the information is fresh in your mind.

Just Get Started!

With tasks like this, it’s important to stop putting it off and to just get started; you’ll find that it’s not as hard or as mind-numbing as you feared it to be and your personal training business will be much better off for it.

Are you tracking the health of your fitness business?

Many fitness professionals will instantly know the answer if questioned about their personal bests or their clients’ progress with their weight loss goals, because they track these daily or weekly; but ask them about how they are tracking their fitness business and you may be met with a blank stare.

Just like the area of administration, the monitoring and tracking of a business is one of the less “glamorous” areas that tend to make some personal trainers’ eyes glaze over as soon as it is mentioned. But paying attention to the health of your business is as important as giving yourself regular fitness and health check-ups.

Below we look at some ways that you can start monitoring, tracking and measuring your business – all of which is vital to ensure you are maximising results.

Tracking a Fitness Business

Just as you will break down a client’s weight loss goals into the components that affect it – mainly diet and exercise levels – you need to break down your business to see whether its components are all aligned to your goals.

Do you know what your goals are even? Where do you want your business to be in one year… five years…ten years?

If you have defined your goals then how is your business doing in terms of reaching these goals or at least travelling along the right path towards them?

Focusing on the components of your business that affect its bottom line and overall success is key: this involves focusing on attracting new clients, retaining existing clients, ensuring that clients are paying, monitoring income levels and monitoring overheads, measuring the success of marketing campaigns and so on.

Can you honestly say you know what is happening in those departments?

How to Keep Track

Tracking needn’t involve anything too special in the way of software – simple Excel spreadsheets can help with much of it.

Here are some of the key areas to concentrate on, though you can add any other areas that you feel are especially important to your main business objectives:

• New leads generated
• Number of leads converted to paying clients
• Number of leads converted into complimentary sessions (if appropriate)
• Number of clients lost
• Overall client retention rates
• Number of paid clients
• Number of cancellations
• Number of complimentary sessions
• Total Income billed
• Total income received
• Total available sessions in the week
• Sessions filled
• Sessions remaining (unfilled)
• Overheads – break down

For individual marketing campaigns you can assess the success by measuring the number of new leads generated, the conversion of these leads into clients and how much revenue they generate; compare this with the total cost of the campaign.

Further Breakdown Per Personal Trainer

If you are running a business with several personal trainers involved then each of the PTs will need to complete spreadsheets for their own performance – in terms of leads generated and converted and many of the other factors listed above.

This can be done for both personal training and group training sessions and should be tracked on a weekly basis via the spreadsheet.

Each PT should be aware of their total session numbers, cancellations and no-shows, revenue generated, rates for client retention, new clients, referrals etc so that areas of strength and weakness are identified.

Some PTs will have to work on retention – which may mean forming closer bonds with their clients – while others will need to be doing more to attract new clients through promotions, encouraging word of mouth referrals, developing a social media strategy to help or some other strategy.

Without measuring and assessing the personal statistics of each trainer it will be impossible to identify this important information and improve their contribution to your business.

10% over time can totally change your overall outcome.

I’m on my honeymoon and just checked into the Hilton at Waikiki Beach Hawaii and it’s unreal… Totally recommend that you make put it on your travel list asap!

Coming from Australia to Hawaii (Being the USA) there are a few customs that I’m not familiar with one of them is ‘Tipping’. Tipping is something that happens rarely in Australia but over here it’s advertised!

It’s standard to give 10% Tip based on the cost of the goods or service you receive.. So if a meal costs me $80 it’s highly encouraged to give an $8 tip.

I found this out because when I got to the hotel on the first day the driver stared at me for a good 60 seconds whilst I said “Ok thanks Bye..” I thought maybe he didn’t speak English or something ?!? Later I realized I hadn’t tipped the guy… Oops! My bad – Lesson learned.

But here’s the thing – When I went to visit the ‘Cheesecake Factory’ to try and be all American (This place is crazy!!) the lady told me they get over 1 million customers a year! That’s insane! They don’t advertise at all except by over delivering on portion sizes forcing people to take away their meals in branded ‘Cheesecake Factory’ bags and they believe this is working for them.. and it must be because the average wait time to be seated is over 1 hr!

This got me thinking! 1 million customers… say each gave a $10 tip, that would equal an extra 10 million dollars revenue / year or more – for literally NO EXTRA WORK.. It’s just they do this: Develop a brand, Give good service, over deliver, and promote a 10% tip – this becomes a culture and soon people just expect to give 10%..

Seriously! Then I thought … 10% is such a small (and overlooked) number.. I could apply it to anything! Check it out:

10% extra on a 30 min cardio workout = 33mins = (based on 1 session a week) = 156 mins extra fitness a year

10% of a $1000 weekly wage = $100 = $5200 a year saved

10% of time a week to plan and develop ideas = (Based on 12 hour days) 8.4 hours = 436.8hours / year!

Think about all the life situations you could apply this to (Either with ‘Time’ or ‘Money’):

• In Business – Profit margins, Client Retention, Savings
• With your personal time and priorities – Personal Development, Exercise
• Relationships – Time with loved ones, activities, outings, gifts
• Financial – Savings, Cash flow projections, Budgets,
• Spiritual – Meditation, Reflection, Gratitudes

Etc etc…

10% is so so so small that we often overlook the difference that it could make over a period of a year.. or even a lifetime it could truly be the difference between great and extraordinary.

Hey, I guess thats what giving it 110% really means right?

Take it easy and Aloha from Hawaii!

Rans

Comp sessions - understand client goals & plan fitness strategies

Any personal trainer business – no matter how good they are – will always have clients “falling off the back”, so it is very important to keep loading new customers “on to the front end.” This ensures that you keep growing.

One way to attract new clients is to offer free introductory sessions and we take a look at the why and how of that process here.

“Why Use Comp Sessions – Can’t I Just Offer Discounts?”

For some people it’s quite a big step to enlist the help of a personal trainer and others may be dubious of the value you can offer to their fitness regime and their life in general.

A free introductory session allows you to show what you can do for them in an easy, “commitment-free” way, where they can get to learn about what it will take for them to meet their fitness goals.

In terms of your PT business, without adding new clients to your base you may soon see your business suffer, so your marketing efforts need to focus on generating new leads and prospects; using these free sessions can be a great way to promote our business and keep our “sales funnel” topped up and converted.

How To Run a Comp Session Program

The purpose of the comp session is of course to convert more prospects into paying clients.

This means that we have to take the client through a process and show them that we take a professional and scientific approach to their fitness; it’s not a simple case of them rocking up in their gym gear and getting started!

Preparation and First Documentation

That word again! Preparation is so key to everything us personal trainers do in our business.

Firstly we need to prepare all the right paperwork for the prospect as we want to make it as easy as possible for them to commit to us after the session has finished.

The first thing you should do is sit down with your client and complete a questionnaire with them; it should ask them about the following:

• Relevant personal information and lifestyle factors
• Their fitness goals and the results they wish to achieve with timelines – fitness, weight loss, strength, muscle gain?
• Their past exercise history and any previous injuries

Do not rush this process – find out as much relevant information as you can. It may take up to half an hour.

Initial Bonding

The questionnaire needs to be completed before you even get to the gym and helps you determine a plan of action for the client and shows them that you are taking a rounded, tailored and professional approach to their fitness rather than just placing them in a “category.”

Remember that you are a personal trainer, with just as much emphasis on the word “personal” as on “trainer”!

Asking some open-ended questions throughout this process will help you learn more about them as a person – concentrating on some of their interests, their career goals and what makes them tick, as well as their approach to fitness; this can all be added in a comments section of the form and will help you develop a more rounded picture of the client and help you to build the all-important rapport.

This procedure needs to be structured so that the client knows at the end of it that your intention is to help them achieve their goals – and your time in the gym together during the actual session will show them that you have the expertise to do exactly that.

Gym Time!

Many newcomers will not have exercised for a while and others may think they are fitter than they are; pitching it right is important because the client will judge your performance on the basis of this session – too difficult and it can daunt them; too easy and it will make them feel they won’t get enough out of your sessions.

Take them through a warm up process and keep the actual session down to about 20 minutes. Make sure you concentrate the workout mainly on the areas of their body they have identified in their questionnaire as their focus areas and choose exercises that they can’t do themselves, in their own time, as they will question why they need you at all.

For this reason it’s often a good idea to do pair work exercises such as med ball and boxing work.

After the brief workout, do a short cool down routine and then it’s time to pop a few questions and present a few packages.

Post-Session and Packages

Don’t let the client cool down too much before presenting your packages! You want to catch them while they’re still feeling great about themselves!

Before doing that, confirm with them that they enjoyed the session and ask them if they can see the benefit of doing a workout like that regularly.

Assuming the answer to both of these questions is “yes” then you have the lead-in to show your packages to them. This can be done on the laptop or via a folder with the relevant information contained within.

If you have a physical folder then include in it the following documents:

• Details about your packages with pricing
• Terms and Conditions of all packages
• Direct Debit forms
• Your business cards
• Gift vouchers, if applicable
• Referral slips

Once you’ve walked the client through signing the correct forms, you’ve just completed a successful conversion of a prospect into a paying client. It feels great as you transfer them over from your “Prospect” spreadsheet into your “Client” database as it means you’ve just grown your business!

Local business partnerships can help generate leads

Part of the success of any business is how well it can expand and grow through partnerships; again, your personal trainer business is no exception and here we look at some areas that you can look at generating leads through other local businesses.

No Business Is An Island!

It’s one thing to be protective over your business but this shouldn’t prevent you from exploring avenues with like-minded individuals and businesses in a similar market area as you, or with complementary businesses that can help you to expand your offerings or send new clients your way.

Any business that considers itself separate from the local community is heading down a dangerous path; we can see just how everything is inter-connected through the use of social media and the growing importance of social proof for customers.

Forging close times with the community and local businesses is becoming even more important in economically uncertain times; added strength can come from cooperation and symbiotic win-win relationships rather than simply trying to blast the competition out of the water!

Think Laterally and Locally!

How do you generate more prospects through working with local business? What type of businesses complement what you do? How do you add potential product lines that can earn extra passive revenue for you and are not dependent upon your time?

These are all questions you should be thinking about as you look to grow your business.

If you analyse the typical profile of your personal training clients, you may decide they are usually interested in health and beauty as well as fitness.

Here are some ideas of local businesses that may attract the same type of client profile you are interested in targeting:

• Massage parlours and tanning salons
• Hair and Beauty salons
• Fitness equipment retailers
• Sports clothing retailers
• Health clubs
• Health food restaurants and retailers

The Strategies

There are several ways you can approach these businesses for schemes that will benefit both them and you – and that’s the key; anything you suggest needs to address the “what’s in it for me?” factor for the other business.

Here are a few suggestions of how you can run promotions:

• You can offer a comp session or two for customers who spend over a certain amount in their salon or store –encouraging these customers to spend a little more with the business in question for a free giveaway.
• If they agree then perhaps you can use their customer database to email the offer and/or create some flyers they can distribute in-store.
• Make sure you leave the business owner/manager with a sheet to fill in customer details and arrange to collect this every week as that will promote a sense of commitment from the business to getting you some leads.
• Perhaps offer the manager or the whole staff base an incentive of a couple of comp sessions with you so that they can actively sell your service and you get more “buy in” to your lead generation program.
• Set up a free draw in businesses where customers regularly have to queue up. Speak with the business owner and ask if it would be possible to advertise this free draw for $ XXX worth of personal training with you.

With the above ideas hopefully you are beginning to see how just a few local businesses running draws and promotions like this can be sending a lot of new faces your way every single week.

Yes, you will have to spend time running comp sessions but if you can convert a good proportion of those into paying clients you have just used local partnerships to expand your business considerably.

For your business to be taken seriously raise your credibility and authority

A common mistake that fitness business owners make is focusing how they can sell more online rather than on getting people to buy more.

There is a difference. A big one, in fact!

The first approach is YOU-based – it’s about what you’re going to get out of it; the second approach is customer-based and it’s about making them comfortable with buying from you.

Below are 5 ways to achieve better results by focusing on the latter:

Demonstrate Credibility and Authenticity

If a stranger came up to you in the street and said they want to sell you a house for half its market rate, you’d probably keep on walking and with good reason. You don’t know them, what they are saying sounds too good to be true and they haven’t proven that they are credible.

Online, you are in a faceless crowd of businesses and unless you demonstrate your own credibility and authenticity people will not buy from you.

The number one fear of people buying online is being scammed – and without showing visitors that you are who you say you are and can deliver what you say, your chances of success are slim.

Online video testimonials, industry certificates, awards, press cuttings and bios are a great way to do this.

Demonstrate Authority

People want to know that they are buying from an authority in their field, not just somebody who wants to sell them something.

Demonstrating your knowledge of a subject via free white papers, reports, blogs, video, FAQs and on social media sites, starts to build your level of authority and will get people trusting that you really know your stuff.

Connect with Your Visitor

Most successful online marketers know that in order for people to buy online, they need to feel a connection to the person selling. That’s made easier with online video because you can look them in the eye and talk to them in a much more personal way than through text.

But it’s more than that. It involves you, at the very beginning of your marketing campaigns stepping out of your own mind and entering the mind of the customer: who do you want to buy from you? What are their likes, dislikes, problems and issues?

The more information you know the more you can make the connection to their own lives and their own problems and position your business as a part of the solution. They need to see this as soon as they land on your website.

Take the Focus off Traffic

A lot of focus is put on getting traffic to your site; of course this is important and great SEO will help you achieve that, but if they are landing on a website that is not focused on converting visitors into sales, it’s not going to help your business much. Traffic does not guarantee sales.

There needs to be a balanced approach between traffic and creating content that walks your visitors through the buying process, step by step, providing convincing information they are after in easy-to-find and concise ways and leading them by the hand through the steps.

Enhance Website Usability

Make sure that users can navigate your site easily, quickly and in a logical process; many people bounce away from websites because they are confusing – make sure this is not you by thoroughly testing it with friends, family and colleagues before you go live.

Also, keep “call to action” buttons prominent so that visitors don’t have to search far before taking an action.

Just by following the above guidelines your fitness business website will instantly become more customer-focused and less sales-focused – encouraging buyers to buy.

PTs should develop a referral culture

Referrals – we all love them! Hot leads that come to you on the back of how you have successfully looked after a client who has then passed your name on to their friends. Very little selling needs to be done and it’s an easy way to grow your PT business.

All marketers will tell you that you should go after the easy, low-hanging fruit first, so a good chunk of our marketing efforts as personal trainers needs to be aimed at cultivating an active and successful referral program. Here we look at how best to do that.

Asking For Referrals

There are ways and times to ask clients for referrals.

Use the systems you have set up already – like your existing client database – and if need be add a column to that to indicate when you last asked for referrals.

Just because you asked someone a year ago doesn’t mean that it’s not worth asking them again now if they have any friends that need your training.

Incentivising

This is an important part of getting referrals. Using the “What’s in it for me?” mindset is always good when you want a favour from people.

One approach is to contact your existing clients via email or text about the offer of being entered into a draw (for free personal training hours or similar) in return for the name and number of a friend or family member interested in personal training.

You should supply the referral form for them so they can just fill in the details and return to you, to be entered into the draw. Whatever you send them by email or text always be sure to follow up with them at your next session and remind them about it. Persistence will pay off and convince them that they MUST know someone who would be interested…if possible convince them to fill in a referral form there and then.

Discounts or Prize Draws?

Another approach would be to offer a percentage discount to your client for each referral they pass on to you so there is a guaranteed benefit to them for doing so, unlike with a draw.

However, the great thing with the draw is that you can create an occasion out of picking the winner and this can be good publicity for your business.

Contacting The Referrals

Of course the sooner you can contact the referred names the better. What you should usually aim for when you contact them is not to instantly sign up for a PT package but to convince them to attend a comp session with you where you can create an action plan that meets their fitness goals. Make a point of saying that you’ve been passed their name by their friend/colleague/family member who already trains with you, so that the call doesn’t seem as “cold.”

Hopefully the above has given you a few ideas about generating referrals; it’s not a “set and forget” area of your marketing strategy but needs to be a continuous effort as new prospects turn into new clients – and then they too become possible referral generators for you.

Sometimes your business is stronger with the missing piece

Personal trainers other Australian fitness professionals, professional coaches and mentors take note! No business is an island! The doors must always be open to partnerships and joint ventures because they can make your own business stronger.

We take a look at the benefits and how to go about forming joint ventures below.

Like Minds

It’s hard to avoid the clichés such as “two heads are better than one” but there’s no getting away from the fact that surrounding yourself and aligning your business with other people and businesses that augment and complement what you do, makes sense.

In fact, it can be the catalyst that takes your business to new heights or help you survive in difficult times.

You may see your fitness business as a solo pursuit that you know best and need to protect, because only you know what your clients want. It’s “closed” thinking such as this that will keep you working “in” your business putting out fires, rather than working on expanding and growing into a true business.

Like-minded individuals not only inspire and energise you to grow personally but they can help you grow professionally, providing stability, lowering costs and generating different revenue streams for your business.

With many sole proprietors and work-at-home people joining forces to become more competitive, it is definitely worth considering.

What Are Joint Ventures?

Joint ventures, large and small, are when two or more business entities join forces to expand their influence and enhance their market presence; importantly, both parties in the venture gain from the partnership. Apart from their markets, they may also share assets, knowledge, intellectual property and costs.

Both parties remain independent in the deal, so it is different from a merger.

How Might Your Fitness Business Use a Joint Venture?

If you are a personal trainer wanting to develop your fitness business by setting up your own gym, for example, this can be expensive; you may need to consider partnerships. You may not have all the skills necessary – in fact, most people are stronger in some areas than others; the smart business owners surround themselves with people that compensate for their weaknesses.

If you are great with the clients but not a good numbers man, then immediately that’s a problem for your business and it’s a hole that will need to be plugged; how about sales and marketing or product development? Think about all the areas your business will need and how you are going to cover them.

As you are identifying potential partners, consider what your weaknesses are and whether there are people around you that can add those qualities to your business.

Of course joint ventures with people who have the same dream as you – like starting their own gym – also make sense. From the cost factor alone, having two of you to combining resources and covering overheads can be a life saver.

Note that joint ventures require legally binding agreements so it is important that your business lawyer is involved in any deal. Never proceed without the relevant agreements in place and signed and don’t trust the standard templates that you find on the Web.

Potential Problems With Joint Ventures

The main problems with joint ventures revolve around decision-making; who has the final say? It’s important that your personalities gel and any potential conflict is avoided as that will hurt both parties.  Often it can be the human factors that break a partnership.

Failure can especially be a risk when partnerships are brought about by necessity – such as financial problems; it’s important not to see joint ventures as last resorts – they need to be entered into positively and with all the paperwork in order and a joint business plan in place agreeable to both parties, so that conflicts can be avoided.

Existing businesses entering into partnerships may involve some staff integration too – another human factor that needs considering; are your staff members ready for it? Have you explained it to them adequately so they don’t feel threatened?

Being aware of the risks is part and parcel of making a joint venture work. Taking the time to get to know your own fitness business and analyzing it subjectively, plus vetting potential partners thoroughly, is the key to joining forces in a win-win relationship that can help you grow in the years ahead.

It's time for some YOU!

The personal training business can be intense, not only physically, but mentally.

Unless you build some “down” time into your weeks for personal maintenance, you will find that pretty quickly you will burn out and that will have serious effects for both you and your business.

Refuel, Refresh and Re-Focus

A pilot has a very rewarding job because he gets people safely to their destinations; it’s also a stressful position because he carries the lives of hundreds of passengers in his hands.

Every pilot knows the importance of refuelling the plane – that’s basic; if the plane doesn’t refuel it crashes and burns!

But humans also need refuelling; if the pilot tries to fit in too many hours in the cockpit, his judgment may become impaired and he’s putting the passengers’ lives at risk. He knows he needs to stop, recharge and refresh himself and re-focus on the job in hand in order to get results.

Where The Personal Trainer and The Pilot Meet

A personal trainer is also focused on getting his “passengers” to their “destination”; there is a high level of responsibility attached to the job because the client has placed their trust in you helping them to arrive at their fitness or weight loss goals.

The best personal trainers will be anxious for their clients to achieve their goals and this can raise stress levels without us even realising it.  We want to please the clients and our staff and are so busy following up with everything that needs to be done that we forget about ourselves.

You will do yourself a big favour if you take the same approach as the pilot with your personal training business.

OK, the consequences of burn out may not put lives at risk like a pilot, but you will be putting your health and your business at risk, as well as letting clients down with sub-standard performance.

5 Pillars For “Personal Prosperity”

• Make an appointment with yourself – when you plan your week, don’t just list appointments with clients; include YOU TIME and stick to it as if it was an actual appointment.
• Pre-plan holidays and getaways – this means you can prepare your clients and your team and are not letting anyone down; least of all YOURSELF or YOUR FAMILY.
• Have a “Time Out” day once a week when you do something for yourself that you really love and enjoy! You can even make it a “BLACK OPS” day when you turn off your phone and computer all day.
• Position communication routes for checking your messages and email, so your clients know you’re busy.
• Make a time with your mentor or coach so that you stay accountable to YOUR goals!

We will leave you with a final thought that sums up the message of this article very succinctly; it applies not only to the personal training business but to any service-based business:

If you don’t take time out to give back to yourself, you will have nothing left to give to those you care about anyway.

Your vision as a leader makes the future bright

A recent Anthony Robbins seminar I attended in Sydney included some useful steps for leadership and it got me thinking about how they apply to our Australian fitness businesses.

Called the 3 Mandates of Leadership, they are presented below with some possible interpretations about how we may apply them.

As always, mandates, guides, steps, advice and tips are only of use to use if we apply them; otherwise they are just “nice to know” information.

The 3 Mandates

The 3 mandates are as follows:

1. See things as they are not worse than they are
2. See it better than it is
3. Make it the way you see it

Most Australian personal trainers who see their businesses taking a downturn and stuttering along can take the above lessons and start to fix their problems, if they choose.

I have always loved the quote ““If you think you can or you can’t, you’re probably right…” and this ties in with what we are talking about in the 3 mandates.

Of course it’s referring to the mindset and attitude. If we have a negative mindset then things will always look black; if we have a positive mindset it will look bright. The choice is in our control.

See Things As They Are Not Worse Than They Are

If the problems of your personal training business are that your clients are difficult to hold onto and you always seem to be too tired to take the necessary steps to build your business, because you’re working all the hours God gives you already, then let’s see that situation for what it is.

Firstly, it’s certainly not the end of the world and you’re not alone with this problem; many PTs experience the same, including myself in the past.

Next, understanding that your problems can be fixed and it’s not that difficult, is an important realisation that eludes all the nay-sayers who “think they can’t.”

Don’t over blow your problems as it will take others around you down too and don’t make excuses– normally it just takes some clarity and some direction to start taking steps; remember that your realisation of the problem is the first step to solving it.

Congratulations! You’ve just uncovered an opportunity, not a problem!

See It Better Than It Is

The opportunity you’ve uncovered can now be visualized; visions are what separates the leaders from the pack and you have recognised what is wrong – now imagine what it would like ideally.

Leaders focus on what they want and are not bound by the fear of failure; they do not linger long on what is wrong.

How would your business be designed, given all the time and money was made available to you? Would you have your own gym with 10 personal trainers working with you, fully booked and loving every moment of it? What would you be doing? Would you have more spare time to enjoy the fruits of your hard work? Would you travel more or spend more time with your family?

That’s what you’re aiming for – it’s important to have a vision and to see where you want to go; it will inspire others on your team to follow you; then it’s time to take the steps to get there.

Make It The Way You See It

This is the step that separates you from the mere “dreamer”; dreamers get stuck in the imaginary world, but successful people make that imaginary world happen with a series of actionable, concrete steps.

The steps are the final but most important part of making it happen. Remember if you “think you can” you’re probably right. Thinking you can will lead you and those around you to finding the necessary steps and taking them.

The human mind! What a wonderful thing…so much in this world comes down to your own attitude; we as personal trainers love to have mastery over the body, but it’s only half the story – how about we spend some time mastering our own psychology too?

Then we can actually create and achieve our visions of running successful Australian fitness businesses!