The secret to a successful personal training business is fitness client retention. Acquiring a new client is harder, more time-consuming and costly, and less predictable than keeping an existing client. This is why keeping a focus on your retention rate will help your fitness business flourish, giving you less stress and more revenue. What most people don’t realize is that client retention is a combination of personal trainer style, member relationships, and goal focus, to name a few. To boost your retention, here we’ll explore:
- Myths of client retention
- Strategies to increase your retention rate
- Methods to make client retention more efficient and effective
Whether you’re just starting as a personal trainer or own a flourishing fitness studio, don’t miss out on these tips.
Myths Of Fitness Client Retention
Before diving into how you keep an existing client, let’s first debunk myths about retention.
Myth 1: It’s A Personal Trainer Sales Issue
Yes, the average trainer doesn’t like sales. It’s not what they love about the fitness industry. However, if a current client doesn’t renew, it doesn’t mean that the fitness professional didn’t push them, hard close them, or even ask for the sale. This is sometimes the case, but a loyal client will renew a training session package when it’s up for renewal–so long as they know.
Myth 2: The Client Can’t Afford It Anymore
Personal training is expensive. Unless you’re drastically increasing session rates, it’s unlikely that a client isn’t renewing because they no longer have the money. Instead, it’s likely that they no longer find value in the service.
Myth 3: The Client Hit Their Fitness Goals
If a client hits a fitness goal, great! That’s a reason for celebration! However, most personal training clients don’t know how to maintain their fitness level or goal independently. Additionally, humans love always working toward something bigger. So, once they achieve the initial results they were looking for, it’s likely they’ll want to advance to something bigger.
Myth 4: Anything Else That Comes Up At The Time Of Renewal
Myth 4 includes any reason that the client comes up with at the time of renewal. As you’ll learn, a good fitness client retention strategy begins as soon as the client becomes a new client. It starts with a great onboarding session and continues throughout the entire customer journey. Therefore, any objections to renewing the session package will likely come up at some point beyond the package expiration.
The Best Personal Training Client Retention Strategies
By debunking the myths about how and when to retain clients, we’re ready to discuss what you should be doing to keep a new customer. As you review each one, score yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 for how well you use them.
Ongoing Rapport Building And Relationship Development
Customer acquisition and retention start with rapport building and relationship development. You should be using your client’s name, engaging with them, and sharing a personal interest in their ability to achieve their fitness goals. Keep a friendly and motivational demeanor with all clients–even those you think will always be around.
Keep Fitness Goals The Top Priority
This might seem simple, but it’s easy to lose sight of. The workout you plan for your clients should always keep them engaged and tie to their fitness goals. Every interaction with your client should connect to what they first set out to achieve. Fitness goals should be collaborative between the client and the personal trainer. Joint goal setting ensures greater buy-in. Further, these goals must be a part of the professional record-keeping process. It allows clients to know when they hit major milestones or when they’re off track.
Maintain Professional Fitness Records
You should be tracking progress with your clients after every training session. It helps you keep organization and shows your professionalism. There’s nothing worse than saying to a client, “What did we work on last week?” or “When was the last time I saw you?”. Implement a system for how you track your interactions with clients. Record-keeping should include general workout outlines, recommendations you provide, nutrition coaching you offer, and more. It will help you be more effective when the client shows up and is critical in retaining clients.
Maintain Professional Boundaries
When you build a great relationship, it’s common for you to learn more about your client and even connect with them on a personal level. This can lead to social interactions like happy hour, parties, and other events. It’s undeniable that you’re crossing professional boundaries if you and your client spend more time talking about either your or their personal life than you do about their fitness journey. Be friendly but keep the boundaries professional. Once you become a personal friend rather than a fitness professional, it’s harder to hold them accountable to their goals. Once you break these boundaries, it can be tricky (sometimes impossible) to recreate them.
Keep Contact In Between Training Sessions
Years ago, personal training services were provided only during a training session. However, the fitness industry now realizes that the minutes together in a fitness facility aren’t enough for a client to achieve results. Instead, clients need to have their personal trainer top of mind. You should be providing education through fitness and nutrition tips, offering motivational words, and checking in on them to increase accountability. For these reasons, client retention is greater when the personal trainer is integral in daily living. Additionally, technology allows a steady stream of communication to be possible.
Track Client Inactivity
This is similar to keeping communication lines open in between training sessions. When you track whether a client is coming into the gym or not, it helps you catch attrition early on. By reaching out when a client misses a workout or two, you’re showing you care and are with them each step of the way.
Talk About Renewals In Advance
You don’t need to ask if the client will renew their personal training package before it’s up. However, you should be having ongoing conversations about their goals and progress. Help fitness clients realize it’s a lifelong commitment to being healthy. For example, after they lose weight, what will be their next goal? Is it a marathon, fitness competition, or increasing their lean body mass? Having future conversations in advance makes you more likely to keep an existing client when a package comes up for renewal.
Don’t Forget About Old Clients
A former client shouldn’t be one you lose sight of. In fact, these are the types of leads that don’t require additional marketing money. Further, old clients are more qualified and will convert better. Make them part of your retention strategy and keep in contact with them even after their package expires.
Making Client Retention Effective And Efficient
As you can see, the best customer retention strategy is the one that’s on top of your mind each day. It’s part of how you run your personal training practice. But, it takes a lot of work for a client to feel unique and remembered each day. It’s also tough to keep track of all the details like special dates, nutrition compliance, workout sessions, and more.
If you invest in the right personal training CRM and software, you can automate much of these activities. When you can automate the most critical aspects of your client retention strategy, the results are more predictable financial projections, more revenue, less marketing costs, and an easier way of running a fitness business.
Naamly’s offers the tech solution the personal training business owner has been waiting for. It’s client and gym member retention features include:
- Client goal tracking
- Record keeping
- In-app communication (video, text, email, etc.)
- Fitness client activity and inactivity tracking
- Alerts for client communication needs
- Nutrition compliance tracking
- Reminders for important dates (renewals, anniversaries, etc.)
Systematize a fitness business now to save you time managing the entire client life cycle with Naamly’s fitness business app. It’s for the personal trainer and fitness studio owner who wants to create the best client experience while still scaling and growing their business.
Use Naamly’s FREE starter version today! You’ll see how easy it is to automate client retention efforts.
Want to see it personalized for your needs in action? Schedule a Naamly demo to see how it can work in YOUR fitness business.
Rev up your success with Naamly’s FREE GUIDE, and make customer loyalty your superpower!