High-risk spotlight: sales coaching and personal training
Do it right
Personal training, life coaching, and sales training are great industries to be in but also have high turnover rates. This is, in part, because the amount of money a trainer makes is usually tied directly to how much time that trainer spends working. The more time a trainer puts in, the more money they can make, but without the ability to balance the rest of life, people tend to burn out after a few years and switch gears. Offering some services online to supplement a legitimate face-to-face training business can add years to a trainer’s career.
Build a reputation
If you have been working in personal fitness or coaching for any period of time, hopefully, you have a list of clients or people who would recommend you kindly to their friends and family. Once you think you have a decent enough following, build your website and begin building your online presence. Peloton’s commercial division, Precor, has a free online social media guide for personal trainers that provides some great tips on building a following online. This guide from the National Academy of Sports Medicine is also useful because it gives you tips on the business side of your online training program.
Do not engage in high-pressure sales or free trials
High-pressure seminar sales or free trial offers – where a client is automatically billed later on – are practices that should be avoided. Seminars that hard sell clients simply generate unhappy customers and create opportunities for fraud. Free trial offers do the same.
Create a wide-reaching network online
The next step is to find a platform that works for your needs, and build a website with it. Consider a membership program and other great ways to keep customers coming back. You could build a video library and charge access to it, or use other creative ways of making your website useful. Make yourself a resource to anyone who wants to be in better shape, or whatever your coaching specialty may be. You can find a great list of software spotlights on our blog, many of which would be suitable for the needs of your industry. Alternatively, you could look through NMI’s supported program list and find one that fits you or contact us for a recommendation.
Accept payments and protect your business
Often, people in coaching and training realize that banks and payment processing companies consider their industry “high-risk” because of the recurring billing aspect of online training. This can make it especially difficult to collect payments online for your business.
We can help guide you through the entire process so you not only feel secure with your website’s payment processing but you know that everything is working properly.
Contact us to learn more or to get started. By following our payment gateway advice and establishing your own ethical practices, you can make a great living as a trainer and also keep your work/life balance at a healthy level.