How Do You Deal With Difficult Personal Training Clients

Owning a studio is a passion cultivated in the love of the techniques we teach, a love of our clients, and a yearning to help people. It's also a practical business subject to all the challenges, stresses, and strains of any company.

In attempting to meet the challenges of owning a small business, client base growth is a must. We have to have bodies to teach, to pay the bills, and to make a living.

We get clients through marketing, word of mouth, and referrals. Word of mouth and referrals usually come through a network of people we know; this is the best way to get clients, by the way.

When we market, we send a call to the ethers for anyone to be a part of our community. When a new client walks in, we hope the person is like-minded, and they want what we have to sell. We also hope we like them and they will like us, but inevitably that's not always the case.

It's important to know that although we have a business to run, we have to pay bills, make a living, and be successful, we are not everyone's teacher, and not everyone is our student. It's hard to accept if focused on the business side of things such as numbers, which I understand are why we are in business.

Letting go of the idea that we can capture and retain every person that walks through our door takes faith, maturity, and trust.

Faith in a belief in the modalities we teach because we have practical experience that they work.

The maturity that not everything is about us. People come with lives and have more things going on than we can imagine. Sometimes it's the wrong time or the wrong place. Of course, examine our parts, such as the mood we were in and the session's circumstances.

Trust that there is a global consciousness behind the work we do. Through faith, integrity, prayer/meditation, and hard work, a new client is coming to replace the one we lost, who is more in alignment and in sync with us.

I am not everyone's teacher. I'm not going to be able to connect with everyone. The way I teach might not vibe with some people. I may not be convenient in price or location, and I accept all of those realities.

Instead of being up in my head, over-thinking things I can't change, I place my nose to the grindstone and work harder to improve my work. More importantly, I work harder to enhance the message in my marketing to find my people inevitably.