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Part 1 - NoSweat - Marketing Manual Extract
Introduction
You may be just starting out and thinking about how to attract your first clients or you may already be training a couple of clients and are ready for some more. You might be working in a gym-based environment for someone else and are thinking about setting up on your own.
Whatever your situation, you will need to understand what your potential client really wants, what their needs are and provide a service which satisfies them. It’s not a Personal Trainer your client wants but what a Personal Trainer can give them. For example, your client may want a healthier body, a fitter body, a more active lifestyle or a return to previous fitness for a particular event. It may be something very specific they need like a certain reduction in fat weight and they may have a target date in mind.
The success of your business depends on your ability to deliver what your client wants and if you can deliver it better than your competitors, you’ll have an advantage. This marketing manual is designed to show you how to do this by providing practical guidance in five stages, each with a checklist.
Contents
Introduction
1. Preparation
What you need to do before you can start:
business set up, insurance, qualifications and start up costs.
2. Research
Profiling your potential clients, competitor research, charging your clients and forecasting your sales.
3. Planning
Promoting your service, the message and the promotion budget.
4. Action
A checklist of tasks with deadlines and estimated costs.
5. Review
Deciding what is working and cultivating referrals.
Appendices
- 1. Sources of free information and advice
- 2. Estimating start-up costs
- 3. Information on GP Referral Schemes
- 4. List of benefits of personal training
1. Preparation
What is covered in this section:
- Setting up your business
- Insurance
- Insurance
- Qualifications
- Legal & copyright
- Start up costs
- Location
Setting up your business
If you haven't set up your business already, here are some of the things you’ll need to think about before you start marketing:
- The trading form you want your business to take: sole trader, partnership or limited company.
- Whether you want to be employed/self-employed which will determine how you pay your income tax and National Insurance.
- Do you need to complete a tax return (tax on your business profits)?
- Do you need to complete a VAT return too (tax on sales of goods and services)?
- How to open a business bank account (your bank may want to see a business plan).
- Choosing a name.
- Appointing an accountant who can advise on your trading form.
Your local Business Link offers free business advice based on your individual circumstances so book an appointment with an advisor. You can pay a recommended consultant to help set you up if your prefer. See Appendix 1 for sources of free information and advice.
Insurance
You will need Public Liability Insurance that covers your legal liability for death, injury, illness to others and loss of or damage to third parties. There is also Personal Accident Insurance providing benefits for accidental injury sustained while working as a Personal Trainer. You may also want to consider Professional Liability Insurance that covers your business for any legal action launched by a client. If you have employees you must have Employers Liability Insurance too. For more information contact: Perkins Slade, Sports Department, 0121 698 8000 or HFI Ltd, 0208 876 2005.
Legal & copyright
You may want to consider protecting your intellectual property. For example you can protect your logo and product name by filing a trademark. However, the trademark process is expensive so you may want to leave this until you are more established (see www.patent.gov.uk for more information). If you register a company name (limited companies only), this is one way of protecting it. You’ll need to keep up-to-date with any new legislation that is introduced which impacts the Personal Training industry too.
Location
Where to locate yourself has a huge impact on your future business. Is the type of client you want to attract in the area you plan to base yourself? You could consider travelling but this will impact the number of clients you can train in one day and therefore your overall sales. Back-to-back appointments will result in maximum profits so does the location you've chosen allow for this? Have you considered working from home? You will need to inform your insurance company if you intend to work from home. There may also be issues regarding the use of premises for business purposes and your accountant may be able to advise you on this.
Qualifications & skills
Just like location, your skills and experience will also impact the type of client you successfully attract and then train. Therefore you need to match your skills to the clients you are trying to attract. Just like any other service, clients will want to be reassured that they are getting the highest quality for the service they are paying for. The ACSM Exercise Leader (EL) and the ACSM Health and Fitness Instructor (HFI) certifications are recognised as the gold standard in the industry and it will help you attract clients. You may need specialist qualifications if you want to focus on a certain area. For example, to get GPs to refer clients to you on a referral scheme, you may need to qualify at the higher ACSM HFI level. Make sure that your qualifications are competitive with other personal trainers in the area.
Start up costs
These should be minimal if you're just starting out but listing everything you can think of before you start will help you decide your pricing structure and how many clients you need to break even. See Appendix 2 for details.
Preparation Checklist:
- Make your appointment with your Business Link advisor to start setting up your business.
- Who is your potential client and what are their wants and needs?
- What does it deliver to your client?
- What are your qualifications and skills?
- What is your business objective?Eg attract and train 2 clients a week for 3 sessions each at £30 per hour in 3 months.
- What do you have to do to achieve this?Eg How often and when are you prepared to work during this period (allow for holidays).
- Estimate your start up costs (see Appendix 2).
- What equipment, premises and insurance do you need?
- What’s your survival income?Eg how much do you have to earn each month to live (pay the mortgage, bills etc)?
