Personal trainer success has almost as much to do with what you do outside the gym as what you do inside of it. Inside the gym your making sure you design the proper fitness plan for your client. You make sure they follow proper form and you measure their progress. Outside the gym you worry about things such as scheduling your clients. You look for ways to promote yourself and look for methods of increasing your business. In this post, I will offer you a quick key for personal training success outside of the gym.

Know your customer well…very well

The single most important part of any business, and personal training is a business, is to understand who your customers are. By knowing who your customers are, you are able to market your business specifically to them and dramatically improve your response rates.

The key to knowing your customer is to get data from your clients. Once you begin to analyze the characteristics of your clients you will begin to see trends which will help you create a customer profile. A customer profile will be a typical representation of who your client is and is not. Once you have a client profile, you will be able to tailor all of your marketing efforts: business cards, flyers, websites specifically to this customer. The result will be a dramatically improved response rate and an increase in your business.

So how do you get this data and find out who your customer is? The answer is simple, ask them. By asking them I mean give them a short survey with about 3-5 questions on it.  Ask them to fill it out and begin to analyze.

I have provided 5 questions you can include in your survey:

1. Tell me a little about yourself?

2. What’s your favorite part about personal training?

3. What’s your least favorite part about personal training?

4. What do you need the most help with in your training?

5. What do you struggle with the most?

Final thoughts

The key is to ask broad questions so that they can provide good responses. Yes and No questions will not work well here. Ask your clients these questions and get ready for an eye opeining experience.

If you’re like many personal trainers, you’re too busy training clients to worry about taxes. But when tax season arrives, you wish you had spent more time preparing.

Since personal trainers often work part-time, at home or on the go as independent contractors, your personal trainer tax situation is different. Therefore personal trainers should know what tax deductions are available for you. You should discuss them with a tax professional. This article does offer tax advice for any particular personal or situation.

No matter what your situation, Personal Training Business Coach offers the top 5 write offs for personal trainers.

1. Promotional and Marketing Expenses

Promotional activities are essential for gaining exposure for your personal training business. Whether you’re advertising on the internet or off line, these expenses are deductible. Promotional and marketing expenses include everything from graphic design costs for logos, brochures, and websites. They also include the costs for placing ads offline such as newspapers and online such as pay per click campaigns.  Evaluate your current situation and identify what types of advertising expenses you’ve incurred throughout the year. They may be tax deductable.

2. Home Office Expenses

Home office expenses can also be deducted from your taxes. These expenses include desks, computers, rent, printers, stationary and other costs related to your home office.  Deductions vary by state and must be verified by a certified tax advisor.

3. Travel and Entertainment Expenses

Travel and entertainment expenses qualify for deductions as long as they are used for business purposes only. These include auto expenses such as gasoline and lodging expenses such as hotels. If you’re entertaining a guest and taking them out to dinner, as certain portion of that can also be deducted.  Travel to and from conventions also qualify as tax deductions. Make sure to keep adequate records of business only expenses. This will help you identify which expenses are related to travel and entertainment.

4. Educational Expenses

Educational expenses including personal training certification programs may also be deducted. On-going education from industry associations, magazines, and books can be deducted. In order to qualify for deduction, these materials must be strictly for education relating to your personal training business. Educational deductions vary from state to state so make sure you confirm with a professional before deducting.

5. Retirement Plans

According to IdeaFit.com, retirement plans including IRA’s, SEP, and 401(K) in certain situations are tax deductible.  One question personal trainers should ask before choosing a retirement plan is which one offers the most tax incentives without costing more money to manage.