How can I expand my fitness business? What should I consider in order to manage both channels?

We chatted with @arianfitnesscoach, an online personal trainer with an impressive background and story worth listening to and learning from.

In this event, she shared the best advice (based on her experience) to rapidly take your in-person training business to the online world.

So, today is your lucky day because right in this article, we will show you the first steps you should take to offer your services to more people from anywhere. Let’s get started!

#1 Build a client portfolio

This may seem obvious, but sometimes it needs to be reiterated. To start an online training business, the first thing you need to do is establish a solid base of clients. With this point, we not only focus on quantity but also on the quality of clients, and this is something that needs to be worked on.

The best way to acquire clients without investing in advertising is by utilizing social media.

Instagram is a good platform to achieve this initial step. However, you need to have a good communication strategy to attract quality followers who can generate positive word-of-mouth about your work and what you offer.

La mejor forma de conseguir clientes sin invertir en publicidad es utilizando las redes sociales.

1) Start by creating relevant content

Publish things that truly resonate with your followers. That’s the secret behind Instagram accounts with a good reputation. In the webinar, Arian mentioned that the best way to connect with her clients was through real testimonials (showing before and after), videos with specific exercise routines, food recommendations, or part of the nutritional plans she offers her clients, as well as providing information of interest to her target audience.

2) Engage extensively with your followers

This goes beyond responding to comments. Follow your most loyal audience and interact with their content. A recommended action is to follow those who already train with you and occasionally share content or messages with them.

3) Regularly post content

Plan your content in advance so that you can post frequently. We recommend that, if you’re just starting out, you try to post as much as possible (between 5 – 7 posts a week).

With publishing, we not only refer to “Posts”… you can upload stories, record and share reels, videos, and more!

Other ways to attract customers include:

• Partnerships with trainers or fitness and health professionals who have a good reputation and history.
• Training individuals who have a good reputation (followers, values associated with yours, and a community with similar goals to that person).
• Having a website or landing page where you showcase your services and products.
• Conducting giveaways, as it is the only way to promote and expose your work.

#2 Commit to delivering real results

For your online presence to be successful, you need to be able to provide solutions tailored to any circumstance. As our friend Evaristo Molina from Entrepreneur Fitness says, “A fitness business should be based on helping people, not just training for the sake of training.”

• Listen to your client. Understand their goals, fears, and frustrations. Discover their limitations and what they are willing to do to achieve their objective.
• Work with them based on their needs. Offer them a service and guidance that is 100% tailored to them.
• Let them know they are making progress. Help them stay motivated, remind them of their goal, and show them what they have achieved since they started their journey together.
• Motivate them to go for more. If you have helped them reach their goal, motivate them to continue to maintain it or move on to the next level.

Another thing to consider at this point is the need to specialize in something, that is, not trying to sell everything to everyone.

Sometimes, it’s better to refer a client to another colleague in the industry than to try to fit them into your services by any means. In fact, this will help you attract clients because they have more confidence in a trainer who refers them because they don’t specialize in that specific problem than one who advises without a basis for anyone.

#3 Document your success stories and use them as a marketing strategy

The people who will help you take your business online are those who support you and have blind trust in you and your work.

Rely on those clients whom you have helped achieve their goals and show the world what they have accomplished by working together. Their testimonials will allow you to reach more people through “social proof,” which involves making public (with the consent of those involved) the transformation, improvement, or progress of a person.

As mentioned before, you can use this resource on your Instagram by continuously posting before and after photos of your clients, or you can also add them to your website or landing page to provide confidence to the user.

One last thing we recommend at this point is to generate content adapted to the needs your clients had at the beginning of their process. You will surely find and connect with more people with the same needs or desires. If this helps you attract more clients, focus on addressing a single problem and specialize in it to the maximum.

#4 Now, invest in a platform that helps you centralize all the management of your fitness business

While it’s true that taking a business online is not a task that can be done in a couple of days, as it initially involves creating all the content that we will use to monetize our work, as well as automating the rest of the tasks (management) of the business itself. However, it must be done now.

After the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has evolved by leaps and bounds, and we have all experienced this firsthand. Now, many of us prefer to train and/or work from home, be more independent, and rely less on our surroundings and more on technology.

This reason alone is enough to consider that the future of your business is also online. As Arian mentioned in the webinar, “just by seeing the reach you achieve by digitilizing, that alone is worth the time & effort invested”

There are many platforms that can help you not only manage your business better but also train and advise your clients in the same way you do in person. In fact, many of them are so powerful in terms of available features and tools that they allow you to manage more clients at the same time, which is almost impossible in person.

In this case, let’s see some things you can do with the Harbiz platform:

• Maintain close guidance

If there’s one thing we’ve realized from the results of the National Survey on Fitness Sector Trends 2022, it’s that new consumers or future clients of fitness and health businesses are increasingly demanding more flexibility, more security, and at the same time, maintaining closeness.

Nowadays, they seek to have experiences beyond going to a sports center or gym to train. They have become accustomed to freedom and immediacy, that is, having everything at hand and being able to train wherever and whenever they want thanks to their digital devices.

Let’s see what the Harbiz platform has to offer to help you with this first point:

1. Chat: Send a motivational message to your clients every day before starting the program.
2. Metrics: Allow your clients to complete and evaluate the training, and ask them for periodic updates of their data (measurements, for example). This will allow you to see their progress so that you can share it with them through the chat.
3. Personalized training programs: Design workouts that cater to your clients’ needs. Customize them based on their performance and always try to make them different. This will help motivate your clients and even make it enjoyable for them.
4. Customized nutrition plans: There’s nothing better than eating what you like during the process of improving your body. With Harbiz, you can create nutrition plans with different meal options, add recipes for your clients to prepare, and provide a detailed grocery list… EVERYTHING to offer a 100% tailored service to your client and their preferences.

• Simplify processes

If you want to dedicate more time to your clients and even invest time in attracting new ones, you’ll need to automate your tasks and management to avoid accumulating things or leaving everything unfinished. With the Harbiz platform, you can automate many of your tasks:

1. Automated payments: This is probably one of the great advantages of the platform. You can offer your services through subscription plans that renew themselves after a predetermined time.

   You can also offer one-time services or even create session packages or coupons… EVERYTHING to make the tedious management tasks easier for you and your clients.

2. Templates for programs, workouts, and nutrition plans: Create templates for your services that you can later customize for each of your clients.
3. Plan your messages and content in advance: You can schedule anything you need in your clients’ calendar to help them in their process. From messages, programs, and plans to a form you want them to fill out or interesting content they should check out.
4. Manage class bookings with a click: Schedule sessions in the calendar, allow your clients to book or cancel autonomously, and manage cancellations in a timely manner.

There are many more features that will not only allow you to manage your business better but also help you enhance the way you offer your services, as well as support your personal and professional growth. Discover them!