As an online trainer, you need to be able to do three things for your clients, who might be anywhere in the world:
- Take payment
- Deliver programming
- Provide support
How many of those things require special software? Here’s the list:
- . . .
That’s right. You can train clients online without any specialized software. In fact, when you’re starting out, it’s probably better for you and your clients if you don’t even consider it.
What’s the best software to effectively distribute material and communicate with clients?
If you’re just starting out, the answer to this question is: The kind that's free.
After all, you don’t want to be spending money you haven’t yet earned.
Even if you sign up for a free trial, you’ve still wasted all the time you spent obsessing and procrastinating over which software to try.
That’s time you could’ve devoted to the single most important task for an entry-level online personal trainer: getting clients.
Besides, what are you going to learn from a free trial when you can’t even describe what you need the software to do for you? Until you’ve trained a few clients for a few months, you have zero context for that decision.
Let me save you hours of research on personal trainer software platforms.
They all cost about the same, and they all allow you to do the three things you need your software to do:
- Take payment
- Deliver programming
- Provide support
Yes, their marketing works hard to make them seem different. They all try to one-up the competition with new functions and features.
But what you need at the beginning of your online training career is so basic, it doesn’t require software at all, never mind all the bells and whistles the platforms provide.
You can easily perform all three functions—taking payments, delivering programs, providing support—with services you and your clients are already comfortable with.
Taking payments
If you’ve ever bought or sold anything online, you’ve probably used PayPal. It’s super-easy to set up PayPal for online coaching. In less than five minutes, you can start accepting money from anywhere in the world.
Setting up payments on a software platform is a lot more work.
Delivering programs
Online personal training software was created to make it easier for coaches to set up and deliver programming, and it’s the one thing a software platform offers that’s more efficient than any of the free options.
But that doesn’t mean you need it. I never used it. I wrote training programs in Excel, made PDFs, and emailed them to my clients.
Today you can write programs on Google Sheets and share links via text or DM. It’s probably still the best way to do it when you’re starting out.
It’s not as efficient as software. But it’s free. And for a lot of coaches who’re just starting out, it makes more sense than paying for software before you have any clients or any sense of what you need software to do for you.
Providing support
You’re probably reading this article on your phone. And if you have a phone, you can communicate with your clients in any number of ways—text, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, iMessage …
All those services offer better text and voice messaging than the software platforms. More important, they’re already natural to you and your client. There’s no learning curve.
One of the most annoying things in life is learning a new way to do something we already know how to do simply and efficiently.
Your client doesn’t want a new place to check messages, and neither do you.
The best use of your time and money: Finding and training clients.
Just to clarify, I’m not down on personal training software. I can’t deny they’re a valuable tool for online coaches. The busier the coaches are, the more they get out of their technology.
But what’s valuable to an experienced trainer with a thriving business is too often an expensive distraction for an entry-level coach.
It’s not just the financial cost. There’s also an opportunity cost.
If you’re focused on technology, you aren’t working on the two most important tasks for a new trainer: finding new clients and helping them reach their goals.
Do that successfully, and the question of “What’s the best software to distribute material and communicate with clients?” becomes a lot more straightforward. You’ll know what you need, and you’ll have the income to pay for it.
