After hundreds of phone calls, questions, and in depth interviews with successful personal trainers all over the United States we have compiled a simple, short list of what’s important to successful personal fitness trainers.

Nutrition

Healthy eating with diets geared for individual goals showed up numerous times on the list of how a successful trainer keeps clients coming back. Setting up nutritional goals based on client preferences lets a trainer show progress without pulling out everything they’re use to eating. The example that comes to mind would be the client that eats a large burger, fries and soda every day for lunch, A successful trainer would start by suggesting to simply have a burger with a cup of water, then build from there.

Patrick Mullin is an outstanding trainer and nutrition expert who puts together thoughtful strategies to attain his clients’ goals. It requires a great deal of understanding, but getting to know your client and their individual needs is what successful trainers like Patrick know how to do. Clients only spend 1 hour at the gym in a day, this means using tools like meal plans for those other 23 hours.

Knowing your audience

Knowing how your clients work, day to day, is imperative to their success. If your clients have big families and not a lot of time, you should be able to seamlessly fit their fitness and nutrition goals into their lifestyle. Remember, it’s hard to get started at first.

We had the pleasure of speaking with Janine Cox, owner of an amazing training business in Texas, who knows her audience. She gets up early to handle errands, run classes and understands that working families don’t have 2 hours at night to spend in the kitchen making nutritious meals. They have 30 minutes tops, so by creating meal plans that can be cooked on Sunday and rejuvenated throughout the week she ensures her clients’ goals.

Accountability

Why do we use a personal fitness trainer? My iPhone can give me workouts, meal plans, and let me destroy pigs fortresses with angry birds. However, it cannot make me go to class when I don’t want to go. After speaking with Jacob Bedard, we realized that accountability is half the game. Jacob runs a boot camp and knows that keeping the routine going is important, he even has an automated email workout system anyone can sign up for to get you through those days that don’t have classes.

We think that every personal fitness trainer can use technology to help their clients achieve goals easier, that’s what Fit Ferret is all about. Using nutrition tips and meal plans to help outside the gym is an effective way to make progress without coaching. However, if you want clients to stick to plans it’s important to know what works and what doesn’t. Lastly, building a relationship to keep clients accountable is what makes your brand of training special.