The first steps in a Personal Trainer's career are not easy and often very discouraging. Getting the first client takes time and requires a long journey of knowledge, work, confidence, and optimism from these professionals.
Many doubts and questions linger:
- How long does it take to get your first client?
- And when you get one, how do you keep and retain them?
- But one client alone won't cover all expenses. How can I build my client portfolio?
...
This article focuses on these questions, aiming to help you reduce the time it takes to get your first athletes... or your COMMUNITY!
A rewarding job!
To answer the question in the title: it all depends on you and your work as a professional! The truth is that the time to get the first client can be just a few days to several months, even when all your work and investment is well applied.
Here on our blog we've said there is no secret formula or success recipe for a Personal Trainer to attract more clients, as it all depends on various actions that, together, allow the client/athlete to get in touch with you and start training sessions:
A Personal Trainer must know more than just sport or anatomy!
If you are seriously investing in your career as a Personal Trainer, you will have to broaden your knowledge beyond the sport activity itself.
The truth is that being a Personal Trainer is a business and you have to view this role as a way to earn an income. Therefore, you should invest heavily in your education: Marketing, Interpersonal Relationships, Sales, Sports Coaching, and other areas that may be useful during your profession.
All this will help you be persuasive in how you attract clients, helping to show that you are an “active voice” in fitness, living up to the saying “Caesar’s wife must not only be honest but also appear honest!”.
A Personal Trainer must know their audience!
To start attracting clients/athletes, you need to know whom you want to train, that is, your target audience. Without knowing them, you will inevitably delay the process.
Knowing the target audience means looking at the area where you plan to train: are there more young or elderly people? Do you want to train those already physically active or sedentary individuals?
These questions make you evaluate your audience, deciding whom to focus on by selecting the people you want to train. It may seem a bit harsh, but there is a reason for it: by doing this process, you ensure you offer the best results according to your abilities, focusing on providing the right solutions and investing in the appropriate equipment and spaces for your target audience.
A Personal Trainer does everything to communicate!
Creating a personal brand is the first step to informing the “world” (that is: your target audience) that you are ready to train, conveying credibility and professionalism in your work. We've already addressed this in the article "Should I stop training if I can’t find stability?" regarding the importance of working on the "personal brand"!
Invest in online and offline marketing campaigns, creating strategies to establish yourself as a reference. Use your network of contacts, whether family or professional: this will help increase word-of-mouth.
Knowing your target audience may also allow you to contact companies and entities that deal directly with the people you want to reach: this way you can propose your services and expand your client portfolio.
A Personal Trainer is organized!
Your personal brand can be perfect, but if the service you provide isn’t, the client you just earned is lost immediately and you start over at square one!
Create a schedule of everything to be done, from when you launch as a Personal Trainer until you build a client portfolio, adjusting the schedule if necessary. This will help you stay organized and analyze your current situation.
By maintaining this methodical organization, you will have good management of your work time: planning will be your "best friend"!
A Personal Trainer doesn't want everything: quality above all!
For those launching themselves as a Personal Trainer, there will be a temptation to accept everyone who comes looking. And they might think that the more, the better! Well: that's the most wrong approach!
Having a good client portfolio does not necessarily mean a “large” one: it means you can offer the best service to your athletes while maintaining a reasonable workload, methodical organization, and flexibility for any situation (like a class cancellation). By taking this care, you will retain your athlete because you will be more attentive to their needs, fears, and anxieties, offering a more complete and attentive service.
Final considerations
If you are starting out in this challenging fitness world and fear that clients won't come, the secret is to stay calm! Try to follow some tips we leave in this article and you will see that clients will eventually arrive. Don't hesitate to ask for help from professionals in other fields (marketing or communication, for example) to apply these suggestions.
The journey is challenging, but when the reward comes, there is no better gratification you can receive.
As a brand that works daily to meet the needs of all professionals working in this area, we believe in your potential and are a partner who wants to accompany you on this journey. We have a multidisciplinary team ready to help you at the start of your career: count on BOOMFIT!
Good training!
