Are you trying to make your PT business stand out? Brad Sheppard reveals the secrets to successfully distinguishing your PT business from all the others…
I’d like to show you what you can do to start charging what you’re worth, which I suspect is a lot more than what you’re charging now! But before we get started, there’s one concern that almost every personal trainer I talk to has around this subject, and that is: “What if I put up my prices, all my clients leave, and I can’t get any new ones. I still have to pay the bills?”
Rest assured, I’m NOT suggesting you just put up your prices and not do anything else differently, just yet. Without a proven plan or system, simply increasing your rates might be considered risky. Instead, what I’m going to show you is a system which, if you apply it as I show you, will have you consistently being able to charge at least double what you currently charge – and often a lot more.
How to make your PT business stand out
The first thing you need to do is to differentiate your service.
That means you need to stand out from the rest of the crowd. Stop being a “me too” Personal Trainer. Because if you’re a “me too”, then you’re a commodity; it’s like buying petrol – people will shop around and only compare you based on price. However, if you set yourself apart so you have no competitors, then there’s nothing for clients to compare you to. They stop buying on price and, instead, look at you and what you have to offer. But (I hear you say) given that there are 15,000 new personal trainers graduating across the country every year, how do I set myself apart?
“Stop being a “me too” Personal Trainer. If you’re a “me too”, then you’re a commodity; it’s like buying petrol – people will shop around and only compare you based on price.”
Well, there are actually millions of possible ways to do that, but they fit into two main categories. To understand how this works, we need to look at an important business principle called “The Bathplug Diagram”. Here it is:
Imagine that you’re looking at the cross section of a bathtub, with the plughole at the bottom. Every business lies somewhere on the curved line. Here’s how it works:
The people who make the highest profit are those at the top left and the top right of the diagram. Those at the top left are the ones who do a small volume of business, but at a very high price with a large profit margin. Like, say, a designer clothes store. Those at the top right of the diagram do a large volume, with low prices and a small profit margin. Like Kmart or Target.
The problem for most people is that they are too afraid to claim either of these two extreme positions. Instead they try to be “everything to everyone”, taking all business that comes along, and charging the least amount they can without going broke.
It’s these people in the middle who struggle. The reason for this is that, when the economy goes bad, or if “the plug is pulled” on the economy, these are the first ones to go down the drain.
So here’s the key: the further up the sides of the bathtub you are, the better you’ll perform. You can achieve this position in one of two ways:
Model one: low volume, high price (like a designer clothes store)
This is probably the easiest model to set up. The way you do it is by finding a niche that you can specialise in. There are thousands, if not millions of possible niches out there. The reason that specialising works is that, given the choice, people would rather be trained by a specialist who knows exactly what they need, rather than a generalist who takes all-comers. And people are prepared to pay more for that refined expertise. “Find a niche that you can specialise in.”
Model two: high volume, low price (like Kmart or Target)
This model is generally a bit more effort to set up. The way you do it is by finding ways to have a lot more clients without having to spend a lot more hours on the job. That means leveraging your time. Here are two ways you can do that:
- Have some type of membership based group model. Instead of seeing one person and charging $200 an hour (like the specialist), you could see ten people and charge them each $20 per hour to get the same outcome.
- Hire a lot of trainers to work for you. In this case you teach a lot of other trainers your system, and take a percentage of every dollar they earn. It does mean hiring and managing staff (which requires a streamlined system to be in place), but it can be very lucrative in the long term.
How to become a specialist in the fitness industry
Specialising allows you to do a number of things:
- You can target your marketing, so you need to do less marketing and you get more clients.
- You can charge more, as people expect to pay more for a specialist, and they’re not just comparing you on price.
- You can work less hours without a cut in income, since your hourly rate goes up.
- You keep your clients for longer, since your training is tailored exactly to suit them.
So exactly what do I mean by “finding a niche to specialise in?” A more accurate description would be “finding a niche within a niche to specialise in”. In other words, you’re after a fairly narrowly targeted group. When I talk to personal trainers about specialising, they’ll often say to me something like “Oh, I already do that. I specialise in working with women.”
Well, this is actually not what I mean when I talk about “specialising” because “women” is a very broad niche; in fact, it’s roughly half the people in the entire world!
Instead, you need to find a niche within this broader niche.
Here are some examples of niches within the niche of “women”: overweight women preparing for pregnancy, brides-to-be who want to look their best on their wedding day, or new mums who want to get back in shape after having a baby.
Avoid the rookie mistake that many Personal Trainers make. In their first attempt, many people who try to define a niche for themselves tend to choose one that is either too broad or too narrow. The next section will help you avoid falling into this trap. There literally are thousands of “niches within niches” out there, so how do you choose the right one for you? There are a few criteria that a good niche must meet.
Choosing a specialised niche as a PT
Let’s look at an example and how it stacks up against the five criteria: let’s look at the niche “brides-to-be who want to look their best on their wedding day”.
Criteria 1: There must be a big enough group of people in that niche.
On average in Australia every year there are about six marriages for every 1,000 people. So if you live in a city with a population of one million, then there will be about 6,000 potential new clients. Given that you’re probably looking for only 50 to 100 clients a year, this is plenty.
Criteria 2: People in the niche must be hungry for your service – they must really want it.
There are not too many brides-to-be out there thinking “nah, don’t think I’ll bother doing anything special for my wedding day. I’ll just rock up as I am really.” Whether it’s losing weight, or just toning up, you can guarantee most brides-to-be have at least thought about a physical tune-up prior to their big day.
Criteria 3: Do you already have a track record in this niche?
Have you trained brides-to-be before? Are you able to get them to sing your praises in a testimonial? One thing that’s great about this niche is that it’s really easy to get great testimonials to use in your marketing. “Before and after” pictures are a very powerful persuader.
So you can imagine the contrast between the picture of the overweight bride-to-be, and the gorgeous, glowing bride on her wedding day. Envy and desire are hugely powerful motivators!
Criteria 4: Is it easy to find people in your chosen niche?
Are brides-to-be easy to find? They buy bridal magazines, buy wedding gowns, choose wedding cakes, book reception venues, set up gift registries, choose wedding flowers, go to bridal expos – the list is endless.
Criteria 5: The people in the niche are willing and able to pay for your services.
The average cost for a wedding in Australia is currently $50,000! Brides-to-be expect to outlay large sums of money for everything on “the best day of their lives”, so you can bet most will be willing to pay more than average for the right personal trainer to have them looking their very best on their wedding day.
Your action task from here is to start brainstorming some possible niches and apply the five criteria directly to them. Remember that you need all five to stack up from a business perspective. When you find one that works and you are truly passionate about it, give it a go!
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