Apparently you don't want to fuck with Justin...

You've got the certification, a little experience, the ambition, and the ability to say "toned" without gagging on your tongue. Now all you need are clients.

Internet marketer Justin Goff gets it. And after you read this short interview, you'll get it too. (And unlike contracting herpes, this is something you actually want to get.)

While most trainers are handing out fliers and business cards, you'll be doing things the effective way.

Nate:

I just had a conversation with my friend about what I'd do if I had to start my personal training business all over again. It's funny how many things come to you when you look back at all the mistakes you made and how you'd go about it now if you had to start from scratch.

In terms of setting up a fitness blog or building your online presence, how would you start all over if you knew what you know now?

Justin:

Good question. First let me point out I'm not a personal trainer, I'm an online marketer that works with personal trainers to help them get more paying clients. For a trainer who is just focused on getting local clients to his gym and keeping in touch with clients, I would recommend a pretty simple website. I set up most of the stuff for my business partner Vic. If you take a look at the site, you'll see it's pretty basic but provides the info needed and always gives people a way to get a hold of him.

I would first find a programmer if you're not tech savvy (elance.com or Craigslist work for this) and get a simple site like that setup. (Note from Nate: If you want to go another route, I always recommend my web guru Jason Lengstorf.)

We run this off the Thesis Wordpress theme.

It's pretty easy to use and you can probably figure out 80 percent of it within a week.

I would also make a page for all of your separate services (bootcamp, personal training, kickboxing, etc).

As far as the local market goes it's pretty easy to rank in Google for local terms like "Springfield Bootcamp" or "Personal Trainer in Springfield, NY." This is what is called SEO or search engine optimization. You basically want to optimize your site so that if someone in your area is searching in Google for what you offer, you will show up in the top listings on the first page.

I also think it is important to figure out exactly what you want. Do you want to train 50 hours per week and leave the business stuff to someone else? Or would you rather train 10 hours per week and focus mostly on growing your business? Either way, figure out what you want to do and work towards that target.

For most local businesses some good search engine rankings and a decent site is more than enough to continuously bring in new clients.

I also always recommend capturing people's email addresses who come to your site. You can give them away something free like a free report on how to choose a personal trainer or five fat-burning workouts or whatever. Having a big email list that you can market to over and over is crucial. It's how you make real connections with people, and how you develop relationships with your customers. Aweber is great for this. I think it's something like 19 bucks for a month and is very easy to use.

Nate:

Seth Godin talks a lot about building communities and tribes and truly caring for your customer. What have you found is the best way (or ways) to keep in touch with your audience and let them know you care?

Justin:

Everything that you're gonna use to keep in touch and show you care is just a tool for doing that. Whether it's Twitter, Facebook or e-mail, they're just tools for keeping in touch. If you truly don't care about them that much, nothing in the world is going to help you develop that strong relationship. You have to actually care about your clients, not just listen to them.

With that said I think Facebook is where it's at for trainers. Everyone is jumping on Facebook now and I'm willing to bet over 60 percent of your clients are on there.

To show you how far it's come, the fastest growing segment on Facebook right now is mom's 45-50. By being friends with all of your clients, you're able to post videos, pictures and notes to your page that will continue to increase the bond between you and your clients. They'll love you for it, and soon they may start sharing your videos with their friends, or posting it as there status. All of a sudden you have 1200 people in your city seeing your video for free. It's viral marketing at its best.

If you logged onto Facebook everyday for 25 minutes and truly took an interest in your client's lives by writing on their walls, sending them motivational messages and so on, they would never leave your gym. That's something Gold's or Metro Fitness isn't doing (and probably never will) and they just can't compete with you on. Price barriers seem to go out the window when someone truly likes and trusts you.


Nate:

You had a recent post on your blog about creating Facebook ads to increase personal training revenue. How much of your attention and ad budget are you directing toward this? What are the benefits?



Justin:

Shhh! You're giving away a big secret! Ha! Anyway, Facebook ads are really like the new direct mail (except cheaper and more fun). Clients you pull from Facebook look at you as the cool trainer. It's like a little high school clique.

I've been killing it for a local trainer here. Just last week I sent him like 21 bootcamp leads in six hours. He'll probably end up converting 3-5 of those to paying clients, and I literally only spent about $65 on those ads.

That's an ROI (return on investment) you just aren't gonna find anywhere else.

The local ads for trainers on Facebook are a flat-out goldmine. No one is really working the direct response marketing angle yet except affiliate marketers, so you're paying much less per click than you would with Google pay per click or a similar service.

If any one out there is interested in having me generate clients for you through Facebook, check out my new service for trainers called Client Rush.

Nate:

What are some other under-utilized networks, technology, websites, or tools that trainers and businessmen alike should keep their eye on?

Justin:

Video is huge. I can't believe how much it has exploded and helped local businesses. You can put up a video titled "Charlotte Personal trainer" on Youtube and if you get five to ten links to it, you'll be on the first page of Google. Video is just so much more real than anything else, and it creates that quick bond between you and the viewer.

From all of our testing on things, video has increased conversions for products and services more than anything. It makes people realize you're a real person, which is a huge hurdle in selling.

People only buy from people they like, know and trust. Video really helps with this. I would suggest all trainers have a few videos on their site.

You could do 2-3 home workouts for your customer to do or talk about nutrition for a few minutes. If someone finds your video and get any result from it, their trust in you will go through the roof. So if I watched your bench press video and next week I used the tips and benched ten more pounds, I'm gonna be searching you out to find some more information for sure.

Even an intro video on the home page of your site would really help. You could give them a tour of your gym, and talk about how you became a trainer. These types of things resonate with people and they'll be more likely to check out your products or services.

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Check out more on Justin here and make sure to head over to Gym Junkies. And if you have any questions for him or me on the business of fitness, please leave a comment below!

Posted Mar 27, 2009 by Nate Green.
This entry is filed under fitness marketing and tips.