How to increase your PT prices for 2023 GUILT FREE 🥳

Putting up your prices as a PT is essential for your growth🤓

It also makes what you do more worth while.

Let’s face it, those that aren’t in the fitness industry to run a successful business either have plenty of money from other streams of income, a high end job they can walk back into (so PT is just a mid-life stop gap for a while) or they’ve got a partner that pays all the main bills & covers their living costs.

If it was purely about helping people as many claim then a lot more PT’s would be running their business as a charity 🤑

When it comes to increasing prices many PT’s struggle.

Many don’t value their own product enough 😞

Nor do they ever consider how much effort/time they invest🤔

Here’s what an average PT will do for one client:

• Rapport building
• Free advice/help and perhaps even micro-sessions
• Pre-screening to establish needs/wants of person
• Consultation
• Research post consultation with useful advice
• Conversion to client = sending out welcome pack/docs
• Reviewing all docs/info the client is asked to complete
• Program building based on info, with additional research
• Ongoing support for lifestyle change & nutrition
• Session delivery and after session care

There’s more that goes on behind the scenes such as a PT’s own CPD however the list is long enough already to convey a point.

As a PT you put in a lot of effort/time, thus you want to place a decent monetary value on this.

If you don’t you’ll not stay in the industry very long 👀

As mentioned above, unless you’ve got financial freedom from other means you’ll want to treat your fitness endeavours just like that of any other business.

Your time in valuable don’t ever forget this.

Below are 3 options for you that I’ve personally used that worked.

First up is a very simple reorganisation.

It had me move away from offering sessions and blocks of sessions with not real focus behind them apart form that of getting clients in the door to something more organised.

I started offering ‘PT Packages’ and these differed because I was able to set them out in a tired system fee wise.

(Got the idea from reading many sales/business books)

Originally I went for the classic 3 price option.

All were monthly rolling agreements that could be stopped at anytime.

🥉 Personal Program & From Check – £100

This consisted of a tailored program for the clients goal, and when I say program it was actually just one block of training for 4 weeks so it encouraged them to come back next month.

One face to face session was included to check form and ask any additional questions, nutritional guidance wasn’t included in this.

Although as time went on this 👆 also became a separate nutrition offer of £100 for 1 face to face appointment for nutritional planning and then distance style support for it.

It was nutrition coaching essentially.

🥈ReBoot – £250

Yes I did call it that because for whatever reason why coming up with names the old 90’s TV show came to mind and nostalgia kicked in 😂

I offered 2 sessions per week and nutrition/lifestyle coaching was also included.

Additionally people would get a training diary bought from a 99p shop (they didn’t know that) and I’d put on a sticker (from vista print) with my branding on it ✍️

It wasn’t much however people seemed to like it and it made tracking everything they did easier.

All they had to do was write everything down in their diary and we would review it post training sessions.

Nothing earth shattering however it worked well

🥇Evolve – £300

Naff name, however it was because of the process of a 3 stage Pokemon evolution.

As such each bock of training would be explained to require 4 months of commitment (so total time of training was a year).

Yes, I know, back in the early days I picked terrible names for things based off of fond childhood memories 😂

Anyway, in this offer I gave the client everything I could.

Nothing was held back and clients got a lot of extra time given freely because that was just something I did because I could.

They’d also get a branded t-shirt along with their training diary.

People love getting apparel 👕

It makes them feel a part of something and always goes down well.

The reason for the mere £50 price jump was to encourage more people to go for it, which happened a lot.

However upon reflection it brought down potential profits so looking at it now I’d probably have priced the above like this:

🥉 Personal Program & Form Check – £200 🥈 ReBoot – £250 🥇 Evolve – £400 – Limited to only 5 spaces

The reason is simple, it’d provide more profit and have the majority of people pay £250 pcm. You see it would help upsell those from a ‘one off program’ to having a month of 2 sessions per week which would allow me to show them the true value/benefit of PT.

Essentially giving me more opportunity to keep them as a long term client and increase their average lifetime value.

Secondly, limiting the top tier package spaces would separate those that were really committed and could afford £400 pcm (and would do so as a status symbol).

You see people put more value what is in limited supply.

Got to love the principle of scarcity 🤩

A second great option is to offer the a ‘Retainer Package’ 🎁

State today or as soon as possible that fees are increasing.

15-35% is a good amount and makes the retainer idea all the more appealing.

This means that anyone on your old fees will stay on them for 2023, all the have to do is pay for 3 months up front.

You can repeat this four times in year 1.

As 2024 comes around this then turns into 6month upfront payments to retain the fee they’re paying, and then towards 2025 last stages of this is where you ask anyone on this old fee to pay 12months up front 📅

Further to this you’d not be offering anything extra.

As your business grows you’ll be offering more and more to your services and refining your packages.

Those paying old fees won’t be privy to new benefits as their gesture of good will for staying loyal is a reduced training fee.

If however they do want the new client benefits you can provide this in your service.

The clients on the retainer offer (low cost) that want the new benefits can have them and your offer to make this possible is that they train in a group (4-10 people) with others on the same offer 👍

Lastly, increase the perceived value of your services🥰

It’s worth adding in extra benefits with your new prices/packages that people won’t be privy to unless they are a top tier client.

Things like this do well:

• Discounted rates on workshops/seminars you run
• Reduce fees for bootcamps you run
• Possibly free access to your PAYG classes
• You pay for a massage or two for high end clients
• Private members events/meet ups
• Exclusive metal key rings (seriously, people love this)

Basically give/offer them stuff they can use or redeem 😂

Most won’t ever use a quarter of what you offer, they just like having it there as it makes them feel special and that they’ve got some much available to them.

Human nature is one bias towards hoarding, so the more you’re seen to offer the more people will ‘take/use’ or at least think they will yet most won’t.

So how does all the above help you increase prices guilt free🧐

It doesn’t I went off on one and ended up sharing a cobbled together strategy with ideas instead of addressing the emotional monster people face known as feeling guilty.

So I’ll end with this.

You don’t need to feel guilty for wanting to make money💷

You’ve put in a lot of time, effort and energy into becoming a PT.

Now for all of this you are due some compensation for your efforts and dues paid.

This of course comes in the form of cash monies 🥳

Much as people may claim to be a PT for love I’ve yet to see any PT pay their bills and feed themselves on kind words and positive affirmations.

Remember you’re running a business not a charity 🤓

As always, please do leave your questions below.

Enjoy,
Ross

Why you really can’t make progress

The clearest answer is the one you don’t want to hear.

You’re not doing what you need to be doing.

Obvious as it sounds from a training perspective it’s really that simple because you won’t get the result for the efforts you’re not putting in.

For example, if you’re not losing body fat then at the simplest level you’re not in a kcal deficit.

True enough there may be extra factors in play, however that doesn’t remove this physiological fact.

You’re not in a caloric deficit.

Of course this means very little to people, nor does it address their lingering emotional issues that are potentially one of the main causes for them not being able to reduce their energy intake.

When it comes to actually making headway and progress towards your goal you need to address these:

• What your emotional blocks/ties are
• Why your emotions affect your habits
• Why your emotions affect your choices
• Why changing these would be beneficial
• How to make small sustainable changes to your habits/behaviours/choices
• Why refusing to change will be painful
• Why accepting change will be beneficial

I’ll be the first to admit this isn’t easy or ever very pleasant in some cases.

Although before you can really start moving forwards you need to address the above.

You’ve got to get out of your own way because if you don’t then you’ll forever stay in the place you’re currently in, and if you’re reading this then I’m willing to bet you don’t want that outcome.

The choice is yours, continue to be mediocre or choice to be more.

Make sure you think deeply on which it is you really want.

Enjoy,
Ross

Chasing multiple goals almost always results in failure

Although the idea of going after multiple goals is an appealing one, it’s not that practical.

Usually those that want to aim at more than one target tend to choose those that couldn’t be further apart from one another.

True enough some goals can potentially be worked on simultaneously.

Such as size and strength.

Both can be achieved at the same time, although the style of training required for each isn’t exactly the same although on a similar path their results not guaranteed to come as a single package (although they usually do).

This is what tends to give people the idea that they can pursue multiple goals.

Where the issue crops up is when the goals are directly opposing one another or competing for the same resources.

Say trying to run an ultra marathon while also working towards a 3xBW deadlift, and doing them both on the same day.

Okay, it’s possible these could be achieved together yet as I’ve said above, it’s just not probable.

If you do want to train to achieve multiple goals I’d advice setting out planned phases of training whereby you focus exclusively on one outcome first and then switch the your secondary goal for a phase/block of training and keep alternating.

You’ll want to remember that even though switching between your focuses will provide progress, it won’t be as impressive as if you only kept your eye on one target exclusively.

This also holds the caveat that you’ll want your nutrition, sleep and overall recovery to be on point.

Or as close as possible.

A couple of short summary points to keep in mind regarding the above.

• Goals along a similar metabolic/training & nutrition pathway have a high possibility of being coupled
• The more different the goals are from one another the harder it is to progress in both well
• You won’t be able to have much leeway regarding nutrition/recovery

Finally, hiring a coach to help you will save you a lot of potential wasted time.

Or possibly multiple coaches that can freely communicate with each other.

Keep the above in mind and happy hunting.

Enjoy,
Ross