As a personal trainer, it’s all too easy to get caught in the “dollars for hours” trap. A new client hires you, buys a certain number of sessions, and then you help them transform their lives. Everything is golden, right?
Not so much.
What about when you start running out of hours? What about when 15 hour days start wearing you down? And what about when you want to help more people?
If you want to maximize your impact, both in terms of finances and in terms of the number of people you serve, you’ll either need to find a way to create more hours in a day, or find a way to maximize the hours you do have. And group training allows you to do just that.
Small Group Personal Training
You’ve likely heard of the concept of small group personal training; this is different from a boot camp in that the groups are typically smaller so your participants get more of your attention and guidance. The workouts are usually more progressive than a boot camp class, and depending on the way you choose to go about your small group sessions, your participants may even have their own workouts to do in a single session.
Small group training definitely allows you to make the most of your hours in the gym with your clients, but you can even take group training to the next level by making your program strictly online and using Trainerize to deliver your clients’ workouts.
Even Better, Online Group Training
Last year I was looking for a way to maximize my time, my impact, and my income, and I began running online group coaching programs. I took the concept of small group training and applied it to the online coaching world by offering a six-week program that included workouts delivered via Trainerize, weekly group coaching calls with supporting documents and resources, and a private Facebook group for the participants to support one another and ask me questions.
Trainerize was the obvious choice for me to deliver the workouts. I provided two levels of the program to choose from–potential clients could opt for a standard workout program that I created, or they could upgrade for something customized.
The ability to copy programs from one client to another made this process really simple. For all the clients who opted for the standard program, it was simply a matter of creating and scheduling it in one account and then copying it to the others. The process took a little longer for the customized clients, but they were paying a premium so the extra time was accounted for.
While there was a little bit of a learning curve for many of them, my clients were really excited by the idea of having a personal trainer in their pockets and were keen to track their workouts and add lots of notes about what they accomplished and how they felt. Many of them were not very tech-savvy, so during the first round of the program I spent a little extra time answering questions and creating how-to videos, which means I now have a how-to database and FAQ that I’m able to provide with each round of the program.
I also limited communication to within the private Facebook group and through the Trainerize in-app messaging system, so instead of answering dozens of emails and text messages I set aside a block of time each day to check-in and respond to questions.
With group online programs there’s an extra layer of accountability that isn’t there when you’re coaching a client one-on-one virtually. Not only are the clients making a commitment to themselves and their coach, they now have a group who’s holding them true to their word and helping them push through the tough times. By providing a community for them to interact with one another in, such as a Facebook group, you boost their chances of success and help them feel like they’re really doing this program with others and not on their own.
Plus, the beauty of offering a program like this is once it’s been created you’re able to use the content over and over again. I’ve run a few different live versions of the program where I switch up the workouts and the content of the coaching calls, but in between live rounds I also offer it as a self-paced program at a slightly lower rate. Because the client still has access to Trainerize it’s not a completely automated system, but once they’re set up and the call recordings and supplementary documents have been sent, the work is done and the client is happy!