How to Get (and Retain) More Clients Without Diet Scams
Jul 29, 2022
As a health and fitness coach or personal trainer, you have to recognize that your client’s wants aren’t always the same as their needs.
The shittiest part of being an evidence-based coach who truly wants to help people is that marketing gurus will tell you to make Instagram posts that speak to exact timelines, with “named” diet systems that guarantee specific results.
For example, a marketer might recommend that you make a post saying, “LOSE 30 POUNDS IN 90 DAYS WITH MY PROVEN FAT-TO-FIT SYSTEM!!”
This type of marketing will work to bring in clients, but it’s also problematic.
Fitness Marketing can be Harmful
Yes, a super punchy and promising post like the one above might bring in clients, but it lacks morals, integrity, and truth.
This kind of content and marketing is why the nutrition and fitness industry has become untrustworthy. It’s also why many potential clients are skeptical about your coaching services even though you’re an evidence-based coach.
And I can’t say that I blame them.
After all, tons of fitness coaches out there claim to have “easy and proven methods,” but that’s just a marketing ploy they use to drive sales.
Sure, some may help their clients, but the question is whether they deliver sustainable, long-term results. The answer is often no.
Many potential clients are looking for quick weight loss programs and promises such as “shed 2-3 pounds per week!”
What they need, though, is a slower rate of weight loss over time.
The term quick is a marketing term, not a path to success, and we know that fast weight loss is most likely water loss rather than the fat loss your client is looking to achieve.
How to Sell to Clients vs. How to Help Clients
Marketing yourself as a fitness coach who can “help clients lose 30 pounds in 90 days” works because it uses the “give the people what they want” angle.
If you want to sell, make your coaching and program require little effort, guarantee their results, and promise a fast pass to success.
Because that’s what people want.
BUT!
If you want to honestly help people, have clients that stick around, and refer more clients to you, then you need to be transparent with people.
You can make money without being a scam artist!
Don’t Make Promises you Can’t Keep
Tell potential clients that you can’t guarantee how their bodies will respond to a diet, so you can’t give an exact timeline.
Although they may want guaranteed results such as losing 10–15 pounds in 60 days, it’s important to teach clients to embrace trial and error because you will have to see how things go and how their body responds.
Your clients will appreciate your honesty and will trust you more if you don’t make promises you can’t keep.
Teach Your Clients
Tell potential clients you don’t want to just tell them what to do, you want them to learn how to do these things on their own, so eventually, they won’t need a coach. And tell them that developing that skill and knowledge will require effort.
And if they want clear rules (such as “no sugar allowed”), it’s important to teach them flexible guidelines.
While telling them to “eat this” and “avoid that” may seem easier, it doesn’t help your clients. Their daily routine will change, they won’t always have full control over their food, and they’ll want to color outside the lines.
Rules leave your client with no choice but to fail in those situations. Flexible guidelines provide them with choices on how to remain successful.
Look at Things Long-Term
Tell potential clients that losing a specific amount of weight isn’t a good goal for long-term weight loss maintenance. Teach them what it takes to maintain weight loss so they don’t return to yo-yo dieting.
As fitness coaches, we don’t want our clients to constantly be attempting to diet. They should eventually get to a point where they’re happy with where they are and want to maintain that long-term.
Honest Coaching Sells, Too!
Of course, the quick fix angle will sell, but in my experience, so will honesty and integrity.
At KJO Coaching, we’re determined to help as many people as possible by teaching them how to achieve sustainable fat loss, improve their relationships with food, and increase their strength.
And we do this without making promises we can’t keep.
If you want to learn how to incorporate HONEST marketing and psychology into your coaching - you’re in the right place! I can teach you how to cultivate a growth mindset in your clients and guide them to sustained behavior change using evidence-based practices in psychology.
With the Health Mindset Coaching Certification, you’ll feel more confident in your abilities to help clients with psychological aspects of health and fitness, so you don’t have to rely on scamming people into working with you.
You can grab 5 FREE lessons in behavior change and psychology from me by joining the waitlist for HMCC - click here!
See my original Instagram post here.
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