Are you an independent personal trainer struggling to find more local clients? You’re not alone; finding clients might be one of the biggest challenges trainers face. Client retention might be the next biggest challenge but today we are going to focus on client acquisition.
At Rocky Mountain Flex Fitness, we support independent personal trainers in Denver by offering gym rental space for their clients. Since opening in 2015, we have understood the challenges of finding new clients and building an independent personal training business from the ground up. Today, we’re sharing some of our top tips for attracting more local clients and growing your personal training business.
Create your personal training website
Build a professional website to showcase your personal training business and help potential clients learn more about you. Platforms like Squarespace.com or Wix.com offer user-friendly tools and templates to create a visually appealing and functional site in a short amount of time.
To reach potential clients in Denver or other cities, focus on optimizing your website for search engine optimization (SEO). Utilize keywords like “Denver Personal Trainer” or “Personal Trainer in Denver” throughout your site to improve local search rankings. This strategy will help your business appear in search results when people look for personal training services in your area. If you don’t know where to start, you might hire someone on Fiverr to help optimize your website.
What to include on your website:
- Home Page: Clearly explain what your business is and who you serve. Incorporate local keywords such as “Personal Trainer in Denver” or “Denver Personal Trainer” to improve local search visibility.
- About Me Page: Provide a detailed introduction to yourself, including your background, degrees and certifications, and passion for personal training. Include photos of yourself and clients, if you have permission. This helps build trust with potential clients.
- Contact Page: List all the ways potential clients can reach you. Include a contact form, email address, phone number, and social media links to ensure easy communication.
- Testimonials Page: Showcase before and after photos and testimonials from current and past clients. This helps build credibility and shows the real impact of your training.
- Offerings Page: Highlight the various programs and personal training packages you offer. Provide detailed descriptions, benefits, and pricing to help potential clients understand their options.
Don’t get overwhelmed or overcomplicate things. Start by creating a home page with the most essential information, and you can always add more pages later.
Use a lead generation service
Leveraging lead generation services can be a game-changer for personal trainers looking to expand their client base. Platforms like Bark and Thumbtack connect you with potential clients actively seeking personal training services in your area. Signing up is straightforward, just create a professional profile on Bark through their website and start receiving personal training leads. Similarly, Thumbtack allows you to register as a pro here, making it easier for clients to find and book your services. These platforms can significantly boost your visibility and help you attract more clients without the hassle of traditional marketing efforts. We heard from some of the RMFLEX personal trainers that they have had better success with Bark than Thumbtack but you might want to try both and see which is better for you.
Social media
Getting yourself out on social media may sound scary and daunting because it may feel over-saturated but instead of getting overwhelmed, think of it as a second website and a way to share your expertise with potential clients. If you are looking to train locally, make sure to tag your gym’s location and use relevant local hashtags.
- TikTok
Be visible in the gym
It might sound obvious, but being visible around the gym, even when you’re not training clients, is crucial. This is especially important when you’re new to the gym and don’t know anyone yet. If you only show up for client sessions and leave immediately after, you’ll miss the chance to get to know gym members. When members recognize you and like you, they’re more likely to consider you if they decide to work with a trainer. Building relationships with other trainers and in-house practitioners can also lead to potential referrals. At Rocky Mountain Flex, trainers sometimes pass along new client leads to others when their schedules are full, thanks to these strong professional connections.
Another benefit of spending time in the gym outside of sessions is the opportunity to film informative or inspirational videos for your social media channels. You can also ask the gym if you can post your content on their social media, helping you reach more members. We often encourage our trainers to collaborate with us and share their expertise on our social media channels.
Print business cards and fliers
Having a business card or flyer made is a great way to show your business to potential customers. Near the front desk of RMFLEX, we have a dedicated card holder for all of our personal trainers and practitioners to display their business cards. We often see members grab cards of trainers that they might want to work with, especially the new members who join the gym.
You can find tons of free business card and flyer templates on Canva and have a design created in minutes, then you can have them printed at FedEx, Moo, Vistaprint, or local office supply stores. Just make sure your cards have only relevant information in a clear, easy-to-read font.
What to include on your business card or flier:
- Your name
- Phone number
- Website and a QR code that leads to your website
- Email address
- A photo of you
- Logo
- Social media handles
- Any offers you want to promote, such as a free training session or consult
Get client testimonials
Get as many testimonials as you can use as social proof of the results that you can get for future clients. A great time to ask for a client’s testimonial is after they hit a particular goal, such as a specific fat loss goal, a PR during a specific exercise, or if they gain more lean muscle mass over a certain amount of time.
Below is a script template that you can use to ask for a client testimonial:
Hi [Name],
I hope you’re doing well! I wanted to reach out and see if you could help me with a small favor.
As a personal trainer, I’m always looking to improve and show potential clients the benefits of working with me. Your feedback and experience would be incredibly valuable for this. Would you be willing to write a short testimonial about your experience training with me?
It doesn’t need to be long—just a few sentences about what you enjoyed and how it helped you achieve [X] goal. Your words could help others understand the benefits of my training. If you’re comfortable, I’d love to share your testimonial on my website and social media to reach more people.
Thank you so much for considering this! I really appreciate your support.
Best regards,
[Your Name]
Referrals from current clients
Just like with asking for testimonials, you will want to ask your clients to share your information with family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. You might incentivize your clients with a handful of business cards to share and offer them an incentive for every new client you get. An example of a referral incentive could be: for every new client who signs up for a 5 or larger session pack, the referring client will receive a $25-50 Amazon or Visa gift card or a free training session.
Networking with other practitioners and businesses in your area
Connect with physical therapists, nutritionists, chiropractors, doctors, and massage therapists. Offer special promotions for their clientele. You can create a special flyer just for that practitioner to hand out to patients and clients.
Additionally, you can find other businesses in the same field that will allow you to promote your business. For instance, in Denver, we have a prepackaged healthy meal store called MyFitFoods which is a great place for clients to get high-protein, healthy meals that will help them reach their fitness goals faster. Some of our Rocky Mountain Flex trainers have gotten permission to promote their personal training business to MyFitFoods patrons while they are shopping. They will often allow you to leave a flyer as well.
You can also connect with local apartment complexes near your gym to offer a special promotion for first-time clients. For our local Denver trainers, you will find several new apartment complexes close to the RMFLEX that you can advertise our free 7-Day membership to so their renters can try out the gym and get a free training session or assessment from you.
At Rocky Mountain Flex, we offer the following advertisement opportunities for our independent personal trainers:
- Digital business cards on the gym TVs – We display digital business cards on the TVs around the gym to make our trainers visible to members. Each trainer gets a slide to advertise their personal training services, including photos, their information, and any details they would like to include. When a Denver independent trainer signs up to rent space at our gym, we provide information on how to create their slide. These slides cycle several times per hour, giving gym members multiple opportunities to see them during their workout.
- A page on our website – After our trainers have been renting space with us for 3 months, we offer a page built out on our website under the Trainer section.
- Collaboration with the gym on social media platforms – For those who want to be featured on our social media pages, we invite trainers to collaborate with us on informative videos together showcasing exercises, gym equipment, or helpful tips for our members. We tag the trainer’s page as a collaborator to increase their exposure to our community.
From time to time, we get the contact information for a member who is looking for a personal trainer and we are happy to pass those along to active trainers. We are always looking for new ways to support our trainers because they are a crucial part of our gym community.
We hope you find these tips helpful in growing your personal training business. At Rocky Mountain Flex, we’re all about helping trainers in Denver by providing a great space for you to train your clients. Whether you’re just starting out or already have a full client roster, our flexible tiered rates are designed to support you as you build and grow your business. Our gym offers a welcoming community that your clients will love. Plus, we give your clients a discount on their monthly membership dues while they’re training with you. We’re excited to be a part of your journey—come join us and take your personal training career to the next level!
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to us!
