Selling Personal Fitness

Building Rapport with New Personal Training Clients

Jun 27, 2008 Darryl Wilkinson

No matter how good you are as a personal trainer, if you cannot sell your product and don't have a regular flow of clients then your career will be short-lived.

A successful personal trainer needs to understand the basics when it comes to talking to a potential client. Within seconds, rapport and comfort levels with a client can be created or destroyed.

In order to consistently produce new clients and sell your services as a personal trainer you must build rapport with your new prospects. Good rapport will create a comfort zone for both yourself and the client, as well as increasing trust -- without trust you will never make a sale.

Build Relationships

It's important to stay patient; think as they would. Stay understanding and empathetic to their questions and concerns. All individuals find it difficult to trust a person they don't feel comfortable with, so stay humble and kind in all situations. Listen more and talk less -- you have two ears and one mouth for a reason.

The most successful personal trainers are able to build mini-relationships with the majority of their prospects -- they can communicate well with each of their clients, are friendly and trust each other. if you think of each potential client as a friend, this will help you feel more comfortable with talking. You can then build a strong rapport base by finding a possible common interest that you both may have.

Remember though, keep it simple. Be careful not to offer too much information about yourself before you can discover what their interests are. Ask plenty of open questions to your prospect and find common interests based on their answers.

Rapport doesn't have to be complicated, it can come from something as simple as calling the client by their first name.

Body Language

As well as building rapport by speaking to your prospect, remember that body language is essential if you want to make your potential client comfortable - mirror your client. When used properly, mirroring allows you to have the ability to change the way you act, talk and the speed in which you react or walk.

Mirroring is the most vital and overlooked aspect of being a personal trainer. So if your client is shy, you can't be aggressive, if your client walks fast, you can't walk slow -- easy? Mirroring isn't as easy as it sounds, but when you have it perfected, it is one of the most effective sales tools you will ever have and it will boost your client numbers dramatically.

Top 5 Essentials when Speaking with a Potential Client

1. Smile, use a handshake and keep eye contact.
2. Use a proper greeting and introduction. Introduce yourself and make sure to use your client's name.
3. Let your client do most of the talking and mirror them.
4. Ask questions. Don't give up too much information until you understand your client's intentions.
5. Remain indirect when attempting to close the sale.

Stay positive and remember that you're not only a personal trainer. If you want to start your career on the road to success you need to become a business person; especially a sales person.

The copyright of the article Selling Personal Fitness in Self-Employment is owned by Darryl Wilkinson. Permission to republish Selling Personal Fitness in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

personal trainer or sales person?