Holiday Referrals That Actually Work for Personal Trainers

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Safety Reminders
• 1:01 Holiday Referral Strategy Setup
• 1:20 Case Study: Retired Lawyer Client
• 2:06 Programming For Aging Bodies
• 3:11 Duo Training Flow: First CCA
• 6:12 Gamifying Work: Cash And Planks
• 6:33 Duo Training Flow: Second CCA
• 8:20 Duo Training Flow: Third CCA And Finisher
• 9:02 From Free Sessions To Sign-Ups
• 10:13 How To Ask For Referrals
• 12:02 Clinic Feel, Safety, And Results
• 12:16 Closing: Standards And Professionalism

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Show Up Fitness Podcast, where great personal trainers are made. We are changing the fitness industry one qualified trainer at a time with our in-person and online personal training certification. If you want to become an elite personal trainer, head on over to showufffitness.com. Also make sure to check out my book, How to Become a Successful Personal Trainer. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review. Have a great day and keep showing up. Howdy, y'all. Welcome back to the Show Up Fitness Podcast. 30 days of podcasting. Halfway done. It's all about consistency, being disciplined. Be careful out there right now. A lot of people getting sick. Last thing you want as a trainer is to get sick yourself. So if a client is sick, let them know. Don't show up today. Be respectful. I'm not necessarily a germaphobe, but there's nothing worse than being out for five days. A whole week of doct pay is significantly worse than a client who doesn't show up a couple of times because they're feeling under the weather. Be mindful of that. But today I'm going to help you get clients parlaying of what I've talked about in the past and in my book, Volume Two. If you haven't read it, I would love that five-star review. We're almost at 100 views. We got to get that on the charts as the Bible for new trainers and trainers that want to level themselves up. How to get clients with those 10 Rs. And one of them is referrals. So what you can do during the holidays, offer a client a comp session for a family member or friend. I just picked up a client who bought five sessions because I said your husband has been struggling to improve his wellness. They went to an opera event over the weekend and they were walking up some hills and he was huffing and puffing. And it really just smacked him in the face that as a 72-year young hunk, ex-lawyer, I don't know if you say ex, but his prior job was a lawyer. He's retired now. He wants to improve his fitness, but he had a bad experience with the trainer. The trainer did too much too fast, and he's a feeble body. So he was really down with the DOMS, delayed onset muscle soreness, and it discouraged him to come back. You got to be mindful when you're working with new bodies. You do not want to destroy them, especially as we age. We got that sarcopenia, that dinopenia, loss of muscle mass due to age, sarcomere, basic unit of muscle, dinopenia, loss of power due to age. If you don't use it, you will lose it. Referenced 40-year-old virgin. You need to train with resistance, but make it specific to the individual. That's the difference between a qualified trainer and an average trainer. Qualified trainers understand the human body. So if I'm 73, I'm going to train you differently than I would a 15 or 20 or 25-year-old. The principles are the same. The fundamental movement patterns are the same. I'm going to squat, I'm going to hinge. But instead of doing three CCAs, I may do two rounds. I may only do two sets, but it all depends on the individual. You assess that organism and you, as the coach, apply a program that's appropriate. So I told my client, who's also a lawyer, let's get him in here. I didn't spend a week writing out the program. I took him through the same program I did with her. I just modified the intensities and the movement. And that's the beautiful thing about the CCA. It's a plug and play, but training two people, in my opinion, is actually easier than training one. Because when I train her, she's talking about all the drama with him and blah, blah, blah. It's a lot easier to train them together because the conversations are a lot simpler. They're more superficial. What do you like to do? Where'd you go to law school? Talk to me about the best experience you ever had. Oh, I got this going on with law. I use that during the rest periods. Clients you've been training a long time, as you know, they're going to get a lot more into the details. So I find training two people significantly easier than one. I don't charge her more to bring him in. I let her know that in the future, if he wants to start training with one of our trainers, let's sign him up for one time a week to slowly get him into it. So he showed up with her and I did a quick little park. How's your body hold up? Everything going all right? Let's have you sign this waiver. We're going to go through a nice little warm-up and then we're going to go through a workout. And if anytime anything feels off, do not try to keep up with your wife. Just let me know. I want this to be an enjoyable experience. So we started off with some warm-up. We did some band stuff, pulling, pressing. I checked out his balance. And then we got into the first CCA. We did a squat, a row, and an accessory. So for a squat for her, we loaded up the back squat. We've been doing safety bar squat with some wedges. So I had her do that while he was doing some banded rows. Then I had them switch. Now instead of him doing a safety bar squat, I had him come to the bench and do body weight squats. I'm looking at his form. I'm spotting her while she's squatting. I don't have to worry too much about his form on the banded rows. So one of the exercises I'm going to be more aware of and paying closer attention to if I need a spot. The other one I'm not necessarily as concerned about. Okay, if he has a little bit of shrug with the traps, I'll walk over to him, tap it down. I'm giving him a lot of attention because I've trained her for two plus years and she understands the movement, but I'm still being present for her because I don't want her to go to volitional fatigue and potentially hurt herself. Together they do planks. It's a little plank game. We have a little laser here in Santa Monica. So I had them both on their elbows and then I'd point on the ground and say who can touch it the fastest. And then we rinsed and repeat. We went back to the squat for her, added some weight, went back to the bands for him, then we switched. This time I gave him a five-pound dumbbell and then back to the planks. For the third round, added weight for her on the squats for the rows for him, then they switched. I then had him do what I call elevator squats, where he keeps the dumbbell at his chest. And when he goes down, he pushes it out. And when he comes up, he brings it back in. I didn't want to load him up too much. Again, we're using five pounds, but because 10 to 15 reps times that by three, 40 to 45 total reps when he hasn't done a lot of repetitions with squats, can be a lot for an individual. So then we did the rows, he did the squats. And then the last thing, I got a couple dollars out. Because as you know, I work for Chip and Dales and I got a bunch of ones on me at all the time. I'm joking, but I had some ones and I put them on the ground. I dropped them and they would grab them. So they left with five dollars in cash. Oh, that was the big winner. She got three, he got two, some bragging rights, made it fun. Then we moved on to the second CCA, unilateral with the step up into push-ups, into banded ball tosses. So for the step-ups, I added weight for her. So she's doing the step-ups. He's doing the bar push-up at a pretty high level, meaning it's super, super light. Had him do eight reps. And then together they put bands on their knees and they went back and forth in the frontal plane and they were throwing back and forth a volleyball. Made it fun, got him to smile, did that for three rounds, challenging her with more load. I kept the step ups to control on the eccentric. We did not load them up. I was paying attention with her with the push-ups because she does the eccentric, but I'll put a band under her and we did a couple more. And so then I don't have to worry about him doing the step ups. I'm keeping an eye on him, but it was really neat to see him like, oh crap, she's freaking stronger than I am. She could almost do two full push-ups, but she can do one, and I can't do that. So that's motivating for him. I need to show up to keep up with my wife. He's almost 10 years older than her. Good for him. But he's seeing this as this is an opportunity for me that I need to show up if I want to keep this longevity and wellness part of our life. And then for the last CCA, we did the core patterns together. So for one and two, I would have one do a squat, the other one would be doing the row, and then we would switch. For the last CCA, they did the exercises together. So we did an RDL. She knows how to let she, we have a 97-pound kettlebell here. She can pick up that sucker for 10. We started with the blue one, which is like 60. I'm working with him and just the mechanics of it. Drawing his hips back. I have a little PVC pipe, tapping his knees. Don't let those knees migrate forward. Proud chest. I'm working on his form. She's cranking out the reps. And then together we moved into the split stance presses. She was doing 15 pounds. I had him for the first round do five. Just work on the mechanics of that. Add some trainer perturbations for her with that left arm. I would go to him, keep it above your head, hold for a couple seconds, challenging proprioception, body awareness. And then together we moved into the balance. We stand on one leg and they're bouncing a bouncy ball back and forth. It bounces past them, they chuckle, they go and grab it. We made the last A almost like a game. And we did that one for two rounds. And then we finished off on a ski erg where she went for 45 seconds, he went for 15 seconds, they rested and then did it for three rounds. And she got a great workout out of it. It wasn't too taxing for him. Made sure that he eats his protein afterwards. He doesn't eat a ton of protein, gave him some suggestions. And then I scheduled the next time where he can come in for a private one-on-one. That's how you can incorporate this with all of your clients. You're giving to them free sessions. It doesn't necessarily need to be a family member, it'd be a coworker. And so people in your area are recognizing you as that professional. If you're an Equinox or Lifetime or Crunch, just go to the front desk, get them a guest pass for the day. That could turn into an opportunity with online training or something outside of the gym. Make sure you're playing by the rules. You don't want to get fired for that. Maybe they get a membership and now you picked up a new client because of it. You can offer a little gift card. Give this to three to five people. One free session, two sessions. Let them know how much I cost, though. That's an important thing because the value exchange can be a gift for a stocking stuffer during the holidays. Here are two sessions with a trainers,$150. That's a$300 gift. Holy crap, that's awesome. I really wanted to increase my wellness and resistance training knowledge in 2026. And I want to stick to my new year's. This is the perfect gift. Thank you. And then you sign them up. You giving to your clients and having the conversations, it's what's going to give you referrals for 2026. How do most people ask for referrals? Hey, if you know anyone that wants to uh work out sometime, just let me know. Then you sit down. So with Beth, that's her name. We went to coffee after one of our workouts on a Saturday. I didn't have a session after her. Talk to her about her kids coming into town, life, love, and happiness. She gave me tons of praises on everything that she's accomplished. And she's like, Chris, what type of whiskey do you like? Because I like my whiskies. I like that 10 and 12 year bourbons. You want to get me some Pappy Van Winkle? That sucker's 900 bucks. And I joked around, but I kind of waited for a second to see if she would get it. I always put it out there. I've had one client in my entire life bring me a bottle of Pappy and we drank it together in one night. But I, you know, I may make a joke and we have a fun conversation. And then I asked her, you know, during the holidays, you're going to be around a lot of family members, coworkers. You have a party here next Thursday. I would love for it if you talked about me a little bit. Hell, I'll go to the Christmas party with you if you don't mind. Because one of my goals for 2026, I want to pick up a couple clients for myself, but also drive some more business for the gym. We have a couple of new trainers that are coming in. Here's their pricing structure. Can you think of anyone that would be able to work with them? Because your experience overall has been very positive. And then I ask for business. I'm not pushy. I'm not saying you have to do it. It's a conversation. She genuinely likes working here. She loves the community. So why not provide that same experience for someone else? There's people out there that are absolutely clueless on how to work out. They're lonely, they're scared, they have injuries. We are that solution. If you have anyone that has an injury, use this gift card,$185 to work with our therapist. That's a great present to give someone. They're going to get their shoulder, their knee, their low back checked out, and now they see your gym or your environment. That's pretty cool. This is more like a clinic and a boutique studio versus like a gym because I thought it would be these crazy meatheads running around. It was going to be loud, obnoxious, some crazy EMT, whatever the fucking music we listen to today. No, whatever music you want to listen to, that's what we got. We're going to take care of you. But most importantly, it's going to be safe, but you're going to get results. Ask for business. That's how I drew up the CCA for two people. I designed it on the fly as trainers should, because you're a competent, qualified trainer. Throw this into your story to help trainers build their book of business for 2026. If you like the podcast, we love that five-star review. And also from my book, volume two, take some photos. We'll tag you. We'll post it on our main page. Spreading the message, qualified trainers. Don't give that shitty answer when people ask, I want to become a trainer. Just get your NASA. Don't set people up for failure like that because you're reading a textbook and you're not setting them up for success. Read my Substack that I just put out there today. We are an industry that's not respected, and that's what we're trying to change. And it begins with you giving the referral and suggestion for trainers to level up soft tissue, nutrition, build those streams of revenue, but most importantly, be confident in their material because they're competent and they have a team of professionals with RDs and therapists. And remember, big glutes are better than small ones, and keep showing up.