Should You Give Personal Training Discounts?

In your fitness career, you will inevitably come across potential clients who can’t afford you. As a rule of thumb, I don’t ever like to turn away someone who contacts me and is willing to work hard on their health and fitness goals, so I try to find a way to make my services affordable for them. What you choose to do is up to you, but I would encourage you to follow some of the advice I’ve learned after many years in the business to help you understand if offering a discount for your services is the right thing to do to drive your fitness career forward.

Discounts for New Clients?

As I mentioned, I’ve had situations where clients have contacted me, but my rate proved to be too expensive for their budget. In my book, Your Fitness Career, I go through a few scenarios about how to make it work for your clients. However, in general, I don’t try to attract new clients by advertising a discount.

If you’re doing cold calls, you may have more success with a discount to drum up business. But if you go that route you must keep in mind that when you begin training a client at a discounted rate, they may not be willing to stick with you when your prices rise to your regular rate. I have found that many clients who begin working with trainers at a discount purchased the service solely because of the discount and not because they valued the services provided to them.

If you decide you want to try and grow your fitness career by offering a discount to new clients, I would implore you to clearly communicate to them the value of the services you’re providing, why they’re getting a discount, and what they should expect to pay once the discounted trial period is over. Setting these expectations from the beginning can help to weed out the people that are simply looking for a bargain from the people truly committed to working on their health and fitness.

How to Frame Discounts

If you decide you want to offer a discount, the best way to go about it is as a part of a new program launch. Advertise your new program as a beta test where you offer your services at a discount for a period of time in exchange for testimonials and feedback. This works well for trainers because it allows them to tweak different programs before they’re offered at the full price. Plus you’ll have proven results to help you market it.

If you have been working on your fitness career for a while, you know what your clients are looking for and what they’ll pay for it. But if you’re just starting out, it’s important to weigh the pros and cons of discounting your services to make sure it will give you a return on your investment and help your business grow. Just remember, if you can create an amazing experience for your clients and help them understand just why it’s so amazing, you don’t need discounts to get more clients!

Looking to become a successful personal trainer? Make it possible with my book. Your Fitness Career