What is your personal training client worth to you? How much value a customer has is a question every business owner must ask, but how do you make that determination?

The truth is value is a door that swings both ways. Your brand reputation is crucial to a successful business, and that means personal trainers must prove their value to their clients to gain their loyalty. Consider some of the advice we give trainers looking to determine their client’s worth.

Assigning value to customers

It’s likely every personal training professional answers that question differently. Value is a unique concept for every person.

To a personal trainer, value can mean:

• Money – How much are they willing to spend during a training session?
• Referrals – Word-of-mouth marketing is the lifeblood for a personal training brand.
• Frequency – How many training sessions do they schedule in a month?
• Response – Maybe you only work with people who respond well to your training or you like a challenge, so you prefer to take those hard cases—clients who struggle to meet their fitness goals.

All those factors should matter to a personal trainer who wants to succeed in this industry, but do they define a client's value?

What are you worth to your clients?

The more important question is how much are you worth to your personal training clients? Trainers tend to elevate their role in the lives of their clients without recognizing the vast competition that exists in this field.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics lists the job outlook for personal trainers as growing faster than average. Recreation centers, corporate gyms, health clubs, clinics, and studios are popping up all over the place. The competition in the fitness industry is growing each year, so how much value you bring to a customer is critical.

Building your brand based on reputation

Twenty years ago, people chose trainers based on their partnerships. They would look for fitness professionals at local gyms and health clubs.

Today’s personal trainer is looking to build their own identity. Unfortunately, that leads many to focus on marketing tools like logos and ads. However, they don't recognize what is essential to their clients, like goals, methods, and systems.

When running a business, you do need to consider overhead expenses, such as marketing. For example, if you spend 100 dollars on a print or online ad that brings in 10 new clients, each one costs you about 10 dollars.

That’s all fine, but how are you going to keep those clients? Retention is the key to assessing client value.

The importance of client retention

The client who schedules one session and then bounces costs you money. That’s why fitness practitioners and trainers must look beyond their brand identities and marketing campaigns. The question isn't how to get clients as a personal trainer, but how to keep them.

Personal training is a service industry, and you need to look at it that way to build client retention. That is what increases the lifetime value of each customer and boosts your revenue. Your goal is to create unique relationships—ones that last. Lasting client relationships generate return business and free word-of-mouth advertising.

How to increase your personal training client retention

Here’s what we suggest:

• Extend your relationship beyond the workout sessions. The internet provides us with a vast number of touchpoints, so use them. Website, blog, social media pages, email—these tools are at your disposal for little to no cost, so put them to work.
• Monitor activity. Canceled sessions are part of the job, unfortunately. Personal trainers should assign an inactivity number to each client. If a client cancels or remains inactive for a set time, reach out and keep it up until they come back.
• Start talking renewal early. If you wait until the last minute to re-sign your valued customers, you may lose them to a better offer.