Going online: 7 lessons learnt from the shift to virtual PT

A shift to online coaching not only opened personal trainer Susy Natal‘s services up to new clients, it helped her gain some valuable insights into small fitness business operations that will benefit any PT. Here, she shares some lessons learnt from the transition to virtual.

KEY POINTS

• Start small and start with some of your existing face-to-face clients who already know and trust you
• While online services do not have you physically present, the communication can work in your favour as you are able to be more involved in the lifestyle factors around health, ‘the other 23 hours’ as they are known in the fitness industry
• Set up systems and apps to manage your services straight away
• Be proactive with creating structure and with setting boundaries and expectations with your clients around communication and timelines.
• Quality saves you from drowning in the numbers game: a quality service will minimise attrition and quality social media content will nurture quality engagement and lay the foundation for relationships with potential new clients who value your knowledge.

The past year has demonstrated the value of setting up online services for at least a fraction of your personal training business model. Online coaching is its own beast, and the need for in-person training is never going to disappear entirely. However, life is unpredictable, and adaptability will best position your business for maximal success. There are also several ways in which elements of online coaching can further bolster the quality of your face-to-face services.

1. Start small, start familiar

One of the most common concerns that in-person trainers usually have about shifting to online is where the clients will come from. Typically, face-to-face clients predominantly come from either referrals from existing clients, or from the membership base of the gym at which the trainer works. As with many other things, starting with what you already have and starting small is the best first step. Choose a handful of your existing face-to-face clients to be your first intake of online clients. These clients will be more honest in their feedback and more understanding of the learning curve you are on.

2. Decide which clients to invite

Not every client will be well suited to online training, but some will actually be better suited to this mode than they are to traditional face-to-face training. When you start inviting existing clients to participate in online training, select clients who:

• are already more independent and advanced
• find it difficult to get to the gym at times when you deliver in-person training
• struggle to financially commit to regular face-to-face sessions.

All of these clients, for quite different reasons, would take well to a conversation around shifting to an online service. These are also all clients who, for the very same reasons, are sometimes the most likely to drop off from a face-to-face service.

3. Sell the advantages of online

Online services are typically more affordable than in-person services, can be rolled out to anybody, anywhere and, while they don’t have you showing up in the moment next to a client, do increase your accessibility. Set up well, this can actually be conducive to more effective communication with clients, allowing you to have greater influence on their lifestyle factors – those elusive ‘other 23 hours’ where most damage to goals is done.

Communicating all these advantages to your clients will help them feel at ease, but you should also ensure – unless you intend to transition entirely to online services – that they don’t feel obliged to be one of your first cohort, particularly because you will make mistakes in the early days. Be prepared for things to go wrong and prepare your clients for this as well. This is another reason why it’s helpful to keep to small numbers and to people who already know you for what is, essentially, the ‘Beta testing’ phase of your new venture. Doing so will make any need for sudden changes to how you operate more of a quick scramble and less of a complete meltdown. It will also be easier to encourage this small, familiar cohort to provide you with feedback – information that will be beyond valuable, as they can tell you their roadblocks and frustrations far better than you will be able to predict them.

4. Get your systems in place from the outset

Though it may be tempting to ‘wing it’ at first to see what type of systems you might need, it’s best to take a more professional approach from the outset. Don’t wait until you have larger client numbers to set up systems: start immediately so that you are able to create structure for how you run the service and to respond proactively.

The amount of information involved in interactions with clients within an online structure is huge, so systems and applications will be necessary to contain everything. This will range from where clients chat with you and how their programs are delivered to them, to what their formal check-in process looks like and how you provide them with feedback, among other things.

5. Set boundaries and expectations

While the speed and ease of communication enabled by apps and other online platforms is advantageous, it can also potentially be problematic. It is important to set boundaries and expectations with your clients so that you are able to provide a top-quality service without drowning in alerts and notifications.

While some day-to-day chat will be necessary and reasonable, it’s a good idea to create a structured check-in process with deadlines for your clients, so that they know when and how they are supposed to provide certain pieces of information to you. This helps them to organise their thoughts and prompts them to prioritise the details that you actually need to know about the most. It also creates predictability around the influx of information, so that you are able to organise your workload across your working week.

6. Grow your base of online clients

If you plan to expand your online services, you will need to look beyond your existing face-to-face clients. Just like on the gym floor, word of mouth goes a very long way, but outside of this you will need to look at online ads and social media. It is worth mentioning that a massive social media following is largely unnecessary to succeed as an online coach. If you focus on doing a great job, delivering a high-quality service and nurturing your existing client relationships, you will minimise drop-off, which largely reduces the need to go looking for new clients in the first place.

Realistically, if you are training more than 50 or so clients, you are probably stretching yourself too thin and not providing your best possible service. It goes without saying, therefore, why you might not need 100K followers on Instagram in order to fill your books. On your social media, focus on providing value: quality information leads to quality engagement, which sparks quality relationships with potential clients. Heaps of Likes might make you look cool, but do extraordinarily little for your business or reputation.

7. Strive to train your ideal clients

Online coaching opens you up to the option to work with almost anybody, anywhere on the planet – but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to do so. For the benefit of everyone concerned, you should always aim to work with a clientele of ‘ideal clients’. Your skills as a trainer will already somewhat guide this, but who you are as a person will largely dictate who your ideal clients are. As a personal trainer or coach you work very closely with your clients, so the greatest successes will always arise when the interaction is genuinely enjoyable for everybody and imbued with mutual trust.

The more of yourself that you put into your content – your story and your value system – the more you will attract people who see the world in a similar way. This matters just as much as your ability to coach movement patterns, because the art of coaching is to be in a client’s corner and to serve as guide and support through their decisions and discoveries around self-care. Clients who feel that they are in a safe and trustworthy partnership with their coach, therefore, will always obtain the best results and have the most rewarding and fulfilling experience.

Susy Natal 

Susy is an online fitness coach, wellness writer and performance coach. She has previously studied a Bachelors in Psychology and a Diploma in Coaching, and typically addresses health and wellness goals with an integrated approach. Working online with training clients from around the world, she focuses on lifestyle factors to nurture deeper and long-term change. She also works with fitness professionals in general business coaching and on branding, communication and writing skills.

susynatal.com / instagram.com/susynatal

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