How to Break Clients and Lose Money

TL;DR: Fear is a rubbish thing to instil in potential clients just to drag in a sale. It leads to unrealistic expectations, bad status relationships, scammy marketing and unhappy clients (and trainers). Being there for the itch, with stories that move emotion, ready to deliver what people want the way they want it, is the only way to hold a decent price and stay full.

Fear is why we break clients and lose money

External marketing people keep telling us to create a need and then push the dangers of not using us. How often do you read this?

• Restore your core
• Realign your posture
• Correct your dysfunctions
• Balance your Qi

Then the pitch continues:

• We'll take you through our specific testing to find your dysfunctions and correct them
• We'll screen your posture to highlight issues and prevent injury and pain
• We'll assess your fascial system and build a programme to fix you
• We'll put random machines, rollers and vibrating toys on you and stick pins in you, and you'll feel great — when it all stops

Set aside the lack of evidence behind most of these claims (that's a whole other rant). This isn't even what people want.

The dilemma

If the whole industry pushes this narrative and you need clients, what do you do? Sell with fear and you create problems clients don't have. Don't sell with fear and you wonder how you'll fill sessions.

Clients seem to want the fixer, too. They picture you solving them, so if you don't say you can fix them, maybe they'll find someone who will. From the client's side it's genuinely hard to find the trainer you actually want. Some clients wish for the days when a trainer just gave them a fun workout instead of a seminar, a lecture on food and some fashion tips.

To get found, trainers turn to social media — videos, photos, quotes, all trying to shout louder than the crowd. The pressure to produce unique, high-quality content is relentless. Staying in peak condition, travelling for good scenery, hunting for a white wall to talk against, hours of pulling the right face, and roping in your mate to climb scaffolding for the perfect shot. All of it drags you away from the very clients your product depends on.

And it keeps escalating. New courses and certificates in everything from stretching to smashing your skin with a hammer. In the US, physical therapists now think they're trainers. Someone even sells sticks with training programmes built around the stick. It makes me want to cry.

Where this leaves you

At this point you might think it's time to leave the industry — hang up the camera, skip the pull-ups in Roman ruins, take the holiday you actually want and stop pretending to fix a posture you can't see through skin and tissue with techniques weaker than opening a window.

But it pains me, because I see people I've helped making good money and, more importantly, loving their training, their clients and how easy it is to build content when the message is honest. The real problem is this outdated equation:

Create a pain, then solve the pain = sales.

It's irrelevant. The benefits of personal training are already known, so inventing extra claims and scaring your client helps no one. And if you claim to fix posture, prevent injuries or cure pain through muscle balancing without having read the science to prove it, you're just scamming people. When they work it out, you're in trouble.

What to do instead

Get in front of clients and get them to enjoy your story, to feel good, to empathise with the character in it and to want that feeling again by training with you. Your goal is to deliver:

• What the client wants — which takes psychology to find, and the integrity to only deliver what's in your scope and scientifically possible, and only what your skills as a trainer can actually do.
• The way the client wants it — so you need to move a client's emotion within a structure that builds a story, every time you train them.

To sign new clients, your current clients need to understand and be able to show their own story. And you need to tell a lot of stories, often, so potential clients can virtually feel the process through your marketing first, then replicate it live by signing up.

Your stories should reflect your character and celebrate the traits that clash with your presumed "trainer" persona. That's what makes you human and likeable. Finally, you need a strategy to be in front of the right people, with the right product, when they have the urge to buy — which takes consistent content, planning and a group of people who'll share your message when you release it.

Do this, and you'll attract clients who want you to be you. Price stops being the issue, referrals climb, and your clients stay happy because you delivered exactly what your marketing promised.