How can I expand my fitness business? , What should I consider to be able to manage both channels?
In the talk we had with @arianfitnesscoach, an online personal trainer with a career and a story worth listening to and taking as an example. At this event, she was giving us the best advice (based on her experience) to be able to bring your face-to-face training business to the online world in a short time. So today you're in luck because right in this article, we'll show you the first steps you should take to be able to offer your services to more people and from anywhere. Let's go!
#1 Build a customer base
This seems obvious, but sometimes you have to remember it. To start an online training business, the first thing you have to do is build a solid customer base. With this point, we don't want to focus only on quantity but also on their quality, and this is what we work on. The best way to get customers without investing in advertising is to use social networks. Instagram It is a good way to achieve this first step, however, you have to have a good communication strategy to achieve quality followers that are capable of generating “word of mouth” of your work and what you offer.
1) Start creating relevant content
Publishing things that really connect with your followers, that's the secret of all reputable Instagram accounts. In the webinar, Arian told us that the best way to connect with his clients was through real testimonials (show the before and after), videos with specific exercise routines, food recommendations or part of the nutritional plans he offers to his clients and information of interest to his target audience.
2) Interact a lot with your followers
This isn't just about answering comments. Follow your most loyal audience and truly engage with their content. A recommended action is to follow those who are already training with you and from time to time, share content or messages with them.
3) Publish on a regular basis
Plan your content ahead of time so you can post frequently. We recommend that, if you are just starting out, try to publish as much as you can (between 5 and 7 times a week). With publishing we don't just refer to “Post”... upload stories, record and share reels, videos and more!
Other ways to attract customers is through:
- Alliances with trainers or fitness and health professionals who have a good reputation and history.
- Train people who have a good reputation (followers, values associated with yours and a community with objectives similar to those of that person).
- Have a website or landing page where you showcase your services and products
- Hold raffles, this is the only way to move your work and exhibit it).
#2 Commit to delivering real results
For your access to the online world to be successful, you must be able to offer solutions adopted under any circumstance. As our friend Evaristo Molina says of Fitness entrepreneur, “a fitness business should be based on helping people, not on training for the sake of training.”
- Listen to your customer. Know their goals, fears and frustrations. Find out what your limits are and what you are willing to do to achieve your goal.
- Work with him based on his needs. Offer him a service and advice that is 100% adapted to him.
- Let him know that he is succeeding. Help him stay motivated, remind him of his goal and show him what he has been achieving since they started the journey together.
- Motivate him to go for more. If you have succeeded in helping him achieve his goal, motivate him to continue to maintain himself or move to the next level.
Another thing you should take into account at this point is the need to specialize in something, that is, not to try to sell everything to everyone. Sometimes, it's better to refer a client to another colleague in the sector than to try to fit in with your services, and in fact, this will really help you with attracting clients, because a coach who derives because he doesn't advise that specific problem gives them greater confidence than one who advises anyone without basis.
#3 Document your success stories and use them as a marketing strategy
The people who will help you take your business to the online world are those who support you and who blindly trust you and your work. Lean on those clients you have helped achieve their goals and show the world what they have achieved working together. Your testimony will allow you to reach more people through “social proof”, which consists of making public (with the consent of those involved) the transformation, improvement or progress of a person. As we have mentioned before, you can use this resource on your Instagram by publishing the before and after of your clients continuously or also, you can add them to your website or landing page to give confidence to the user. One last thing we recommend at this point is that you generate content adapted to the needs that they had those clients at the beginning of their process, I'm sure you'll find and connect with more people with the same needs or desires. If you manage to attract more customers with this, focus on “attacking” a single problem and specialize as much as possible in it.
#4 Now yes! Invest in a platform that helps you centralize all the management of your fitness business
Although it is true that taking a business to the online world is not a task of a couple of days because this implies, at the beginning, creating all that content that we will use to make our work profitable, in addition to automating the rest of the tasks (management) of the business as such. However, we must do it 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 like to train and/or work from home, to be more independent and to depend less on the things that surround us and more on technology. This reason is enough to consider that the future of your business is also in the online world and, as Arian told us in the webinar, “just by seeing the reach you achieve by digitizing yourself, that's worth all the effort and time invested in the beginning.” There are many platforms that can help you not only to manage your business better but, in turn, to train and advise your clients from it The way you do it in person. In fact, many of them are so powerful in terms of available features and tools that allow you to manage more customers at the same time, something that in person is almost impossible.
In this case, let's see some things you can do with the Harbiz platform
- Keep advice close
If we have noticed anything with the results of the National Survey on Trends in the Fitness Sector 2022, The fact is that new consumers or future customers of the fitness and health businesses are increasingly demanding more flexibility, more security and, at the same time, maintaining closeness. Now they are looking for experiences, beyond going to train at a sports center or gym. They have become used to freedom and promptness, that is, to have everything at hand and to be able to train wherever and whenever they want thanks to their digital devices. Let's see what the Harbiz platform has to help you with this first point:1) Chat: Every training day, send a motivational message to your clients before starting the program.2) Metrics: Allow your clients to complete and evaluate the training and ask them to update their data from time to time (measurements, for example). This will allow you to see their evolution so that you can later share it with them through the chat.3) Personalized training programs: Design workouts that respond to the needs of your clients. Adjust them to their performance and always try to make them different, this will help your client to be motivated and even have fun.4) Tailor-made nutritional plans: Nothing better than eating what you like during the process of improving your body. With the Harbiz app for nutritionists you can create nutritional plans with different food options, add recipes so that your customers know how to prepare them and provide them with a detailed shopping list... EVERYTHING, so that you offer a service 100% adapted to your client and their tastes.
- Simplify processes
If you want to dedicate yourself more to your customers and even invest time in attracting new ones, you'll have to automate your tasks and procedures to avoid piling up things on you or ending up leaving everything half done. 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 on their own after the time you have determined. You can also offer your services on a one-off basis and even create session bonuses or coupons... EVERYTHING, to make boring tasks easier for you and your customers.2) Program templates, workouts and nutritional plans: Create templates for your services that you can then adapt to 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 with their process. From messages, programs and plans to a form that you want me to fill out or interesting content that I should look at.4) Manage your class bookings in one click: Schedule sessions on the calendar, allow your clients to book or cancel with total autonomy and manage cancellations on time. There are many more features that will not only allow you to better manage your business, they will also help you to strengthen the way in which you offer your services as well as helping you to continue growing on a personal and professional level. Discover them!
