Three Ways To Keep Your Personal Training Clients Motivated (And Be Their Hero)!

Dear Friend,

If you have ever wondered how to motivate… really motivate… your clients so they stay on track and love you as their trainer…

… and how to go “above and beyond” just making workouts and really understand how to encourage your clients…

Then read on because I’m about to reveal three “tricks” I use to inject a shot of motivation into my clients so they get better results AND never want to stop training with me…

Here we go!

For the first several years I was training, I had a terrible time connecting with my clients and getting them to do their “homework” when they weren’t training with me.  In fact, I was so bad at connecting with my clients that I struggled with client retention.

Here’s what I mean:  Many of my clients would leave after just a few months.  They would tell me they were going to do things on their own.  And my boss was not happy about this.

We went to lunch one day and he asked me what exactly I was doing.  After telling him he stopped me and said, “Ok Stu… we need to change a few things.”

We discussed a few easy things I could do to create a deep connection with clients and there are three I’ve used every since.

1. Hands-On Training

If you’ve read some of my other articles, I talk about the importance of hands-on training so I won’t go into it in detail here.  But I want to remind you about how powerful it is.

Remember, your clients hire you because you are an expert.  They expect you to be an expert sort of like a doctor.

But when I started training, I was afraid to use hands-on training because I didn’t want to make any of my clients uncomfortable.  Well, what ended up happening was I didn’t create any connection with them.  I didn’t add any value to our sessions, so they wanted to do it on their own.

Of course hands-on training must be done correctly so you don’t put yourself at risk of any sexual harassment issues, and that’s why I go over it in detail in my e-class.  When done right, hands-on training is THE most powerful tool you can use.

The second best tool is…

2. Asking “The Right” Questions During A Session

There is always conversation during your sessions.  And instead of simply talking about “normal stuff”… you should ask “the right” questions that get your clients to open up AND want to stay on track.

Look, I’ve been training for 20 years and I mastered these questions over that time frame… but it takes some practice.

Of course, this is an important lesson in the e-class because this is somewhat of an art form.  Here are a few questions I find myself asking a lot:

1. On a scale of 1-10 how happy are you with your progress?
   • What could make it better?
2. How can I help you with that?  Is there anything you’d like us to do differently?
3. If you were at a 10 out of 10, what would you be doing differently?
   • What’s stopping you from doing that now?
4. What would get you really excited about getting your cardio in and re-committing to your nutrition?

Again… these are just a few examples.  The real important part is understanding how to come up with questions to fit your client and their specific needs…

…And then know when and how to ask the questions so your clients don’t get defensive.

Anyway, there’s one more tool I use almost every single day…

3. Taking The Time To Connect With
Your Clients Before or After Your Session

Listen… I’m the type of guy who loves to get down to business.  I’m usually rushing around and it’s hard for me to slow down.

But what I’m about to tell you is absolutely amazing and necessary.  I wouldn’t have believed it myself until I started doing this and I’ve seen the results with my clients.  In fact, many clients tell me they feel closer to me than some of their family members and I believe it’s because of what I’m about to tell you.

Take two minutes either before or after your session and slow down to intentionally connect with your client.

How do you do this?  Simple, here are the steps:

1. Clear your mind and only focus on your client in the present moment
2. Make solid eye contact with your client… not just for a second, but hold the eye contact as you talk with them
3. Ask them an open question and wait and listen for them to respond
   • “Renee, how is everything going?  Are you doing alright?”
4. LISTEN to what they say and HOW they say it and take just a little more time to ask and connect
   1. “Are you sure everything is alright?  I noticed you’ve been a little off lately and I want to make sure you’re OK.”
5. When they tell you about any difficult stuff that’s going on or any challenges, simply ask:  “How can I help you with that?”

This small connection before or after your session will create a deep and lasting bond, and it will give you the information you need to best help your client!

Like I said, I wouldn’t have believed it, but I do it and it’s made all the difference.

By the way, I felt awkward doing this at first, but I just kept at it and now it’s totally natural and the moments are very amazing!  You gotta try it!

So these three tools will give you spectacular results… if you do them correctly.  And if you want to fast-track your success and get ALL of the tools I use (and have learned over the last 20 years training) then you need to register for my e-class.

You can do that here: https://thesixfiguretrainer.com/vipspecial

 

Sincerely,
Stu Schaefer