{"id":3109,"date":"2017-03-15T05:52:05","date_gmt":"2017-03-15T04:52:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.totalcoaching.com\/blog\/?p=3109"},"modified":"2017-03-04T17:10:21","modified_gmt":"2017-03-04T16:10:21","slug":"profitable-online-personal-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.totalcoaching.com\/blog\/profitable-online-personal-training\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Crucial Rules for a Profitable Online Personal Training Business"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":3148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","tve_updated_post":"

When I moved my business from training clients face-to-face to offering online personal training services, I thought my life was going to get so much easier.<\/p>

I had read The 4-Hour Workweek<\/a>. I \u200bknew all about the high R\ufeff\ufeffO\ufeff\ufeff\ufeffI\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff <\/a>that comes with selling digital goods and services. By not having a physical space to manage or employees to look after, I was going to save time and money. I would outsource<\/a> the tasks I didn't want to do. Life was going to be easy!<\/p>

I couldn't have been more wrong.<\/p>

\n\n\"online\n<\/span>\n<\/div>

You know from your own personal training career that the most important service you offer is YOU.<\/span> Your clients want to feel connected. They want accountability<\/a>. They need to be motivated<\/a>. <\/p>

All of these functions of a personal trainer are true for online training just as they are for face-to-face training. If you're not careful, your online clients can require just as much of your time as face-to-face clients. And that might be okay\u2014your goal is to provide a helpful service to your clients. <\/p>

<\/div>
You want to give them what they NEED, but that's not always the same thing as what they THINK they need.<\/blockquote>

It took me far too long to find the perfect balance between giving too much (which doesn't help your clients) and not giving enough (which comes across as being neglectful and lazy). <\/p>

Now I have a system that gives me the freedom and flexibility I always wanted from online personal training, while also giving my clients exactly what they need. Here are 3 rules you can follow to achieve the same:\u200b<\/p>

Rule #1: Take Control of Your Inbox<\/h2>

Many personal trainers worry that their clients won't want to make the leap from in-person to online training. To help ease that fear<\/a>, they make support promises like, \"Unlimited email support, 7 days per week!\"<\/p>

I made this mistake too. Want to guess what happened next?<\/p>

You guessed it\u2014I lived in my inbox. My clients were paying me less for online training than they did for in-person sessions, but they were taking up WAY more time because I had set an \ufeffexpectation<\/a> that any and all questions they ever had about health (and even ones not related to their health) would be answered right away.<\/p>

This is problematic for two reasons:<\/span><\/p>

  1. \u200bI hated my life (seriously, who likes writing emails all day long?).<\/li>
  2. I was training my clients to rely on me, not their own understanding.<\/li><\/ol>

    Read this statement carefully:<\/p>

    You are not helping your clients if you are creating a dependent relationship. You must teach them independence so that they can grow with your support and on their own.\u200b<\/blockquote>

    Imagine you bought a new client booking software for your business. It's full of features that can radically improve your business. But, instead of offering tutorials showing how to use the software, each time you had a question, you were forced to call a 1-800 number to speak to customer service. The service rep would take control of your computer to fix the issue and would then send you on your way.<\/p>

    You might appreciate the help at first, but after a while your mastery of the new software would be so impeded that you'd likely end up feeling pretty frustrated. You want to be in control.<\/p>

    The same is true for your clients.<\/p>