How To Soft Open Your Personal Training Business Opening
If you have followed all the steps of the previous blogs, it’s time to move on to your online personal training business opening. If you haven’t done all the steps, go back and finish the process.
Starting your online personal training business blog series
- How To Start Your Online Personal Training Business #1
- Personal Training Business Setup – First Steps #2
- Online Personal Trainer Management Tools – #3
- How To Make Your Personal Trainer Website #4
- How To Find Your Personals Trainer Niche #5
- Making Your Unique Selling Proposition for Fitness #6
- Online Personal Training Prices: How to Set Them #7
- How to Make Your Online Personal training package prices #8
- Making Personal Training Templates #9
- The Personal Training Business Opening #10 – End of Series (current blog)
Don’t want to scroll? Click a section to go right to it.
Why Do a Soft Open for Your Personal Training Business?
Almost every new business begins with what is called a soft opening. This includes restaurants, retail stores, gyms, and even online business. Your personal training business should be no exception. And it can be fun!
What is a soft launch? The basic concept is that you open your business but the goal is actually not to bring in a lot of business or customers. Yes, we know, this sounds like just the opposite of what you want. But is has a valuable purpose.
What is the goal of a soft launch? The main goal is to get used to the daily workings of the business. And also to learn those basic tasks in a low volume setting with little pressure. And finally, to be able to fix any glitches before going full throttle.
A good time frame for a soft launch is 2 weeks. The following steps will outline all you need to know to be ready for full paying customers. Additionally, you will have confidence in knowing you can give them the service they are paying for.
Step 1 – Choose Two Low Risk Clients
One of the best ways to set up a personal training business opening is to begin with low risk, low value clients. These are people like a family member, or a friend or a current client you have worked with in person. Charge a very low price or even offer training for free for two weeks. Yes, we said free. This is because these two clients are going to be help you create a solid online personal training bushiness launch.
Tip 1: Be sure the clients know they are a test client and things may not always work perfectly. They need to understand they need to be prepared to be patient with you.
Tip 2: Also, make sure the client is willing to give you constructive feedback on the processes. For example, the sign up process, receiving training plans, video conference scheduling etc.
Step 2 – Understand Why You Need A Weekly Schedule
HAVING A GOOD SCHEDULE IS ONE OF THE SMARTEST THINGS YOU CAN DO.
The personal training business opening is more than just releasing your website and sitting back to wait for clients. After all the time invested, you want it to be clean and professional, not scattered and messy.
- Keeps you on track. A good schedule is like a good map. It keeps you on track. Of course life sometimes intervenes and requires modifications at time. That’s ok. Just make the detour, but then return to your map. Create a solid schedule but be flexible if needed.
- Lowers burnout risk. Being an online personal trainer can provide lots of flexibility in work hours. You can train in different locations. You can choose when you work. As mentioned in a previous blog, at first you may need to invest long hours to get the business established. It is easy to fall into the trap of working 12 and 14 hours a day after the business is established. That can result in burn out. Burnout needs to be avoided at all costs.
- Separates business and personal life. Learning time management lets you make money, take care of clients and leaves you time to enjoy it. Following are some examples and general guidelines to help you set up a schedule.
Total PT Fitness Personal Trainer Software has all the needed tools for new or experienced trainers.
Step 3 - Establish Specific Tasks For Each Day
Monday and Tuesday – Consider a typical 9-5 day on a Monday to Friday week. Before we get into setting aside certain days for certain things, set aside the first hour of each day for the basics. Like checking email, returning phone calls and just reviewing the plan for the day.
After the first hour, Monday and Tuesday are great for working with clients online. It may be a simple phone call to check in and motivate, a video chat to go over exercise technique or updating their program. Doing these things early in the week helps your client get an updated and fresh program to work on.
Wednesday – After preparing for the day during the first hour, the middle of week is a great day to send out information on social media. The soft opening is a great time to get used to setting up your social accounts and posting on them. Post about upcoming specials, your grand opening date, tips on staying healthy etc.
Wednesday is also a good day to work on your website and do any maintenance on it. Review, proof read and edit your intake forms if needed. Make sure your checkout and payment process is working. You can work on creating new questionnaires or information handouts. Consider writing a short blog and posting it.
Thursday – As always, use the first hour to prepare and tidy up any loose ends. Then it becomes an excellent day to concentrate on various business tasks. It may not be as exciting and fun as creating fitness programs, but is is necessary.
This is the perfect time to get better at using your tax software. Enter receipts, compile and pay bills, make bank deposits, invoice clients if needed and other things of this nature. Depending on your state and federal guidelines, you may need to pay quarterly sales tax and similar items.
If you are all caught up on paperwork, this is also a great day to learn more about your other software programs. Learn your art and draw programs by making different ad layouts.
Friday – Again, check email, return calls and plan the day. It’s Friday. Your clients are set for the weekend. If you need to, this is a good day to work on anything you didn’t finish during the week. Friday is also a great time to work on advertising. (Usually it is best to wait on releasing advertising until you do the official grand opening)
Spend some time on website search engine optimization (SEO). If you have good SEO in place, your website will come up at top of the search results. And the best thing is, you don’t pay a thing. We will have a blog on SEO with more details.
Work on creating an Ad word account. A properly setup ad word account does not have to cost much and can drive lots of business to you. (Wait until the grand opening to activate the ad account)
Create and print out advertising flyers. Spend a few hours driving around and distributing them to local business.
And finally, if you were efficient and stayed on top of things during the week, it may be that you have some spare time. Friday may be a great day to take off early from the job and get a head start on your weekend!
Helpful Tips
Remember the main reason to soft launch personal training business opening is to learn your basic job. No matter how good a schedule is, things will come up to distract you from you current task. Do your best to not let that happen. Let a call roll to voice mail if it does not appear urgent. Close your office door so you minimize disturbances. Make it a point to not start new task before you finish the current job. If something does need to take you away from your current job, deal with it and get back on track.
Step 4 – The Official Launch of Your Personal Training Business Opening
Once you have worked with your free clients for two weeks, you should have gotten lots of good feedback. You should have had time to fix any glitches on your website. You should have been able to learn all your various software programs well enough to use them when business picks up.
The official business launch can now take place. Activate your ad account and begin distributing advertising flyers. Post on social media. Stick to your schedule. Take on only as many clients as you feel comfortable with working with. Build gradually. With hard work, perseverance and attention to details, your business will be making money and running smooth!
Total PT Fitness Online – The Perfect Software for Handling Client Fitness Programs