How and When to Discount Your Personal Training Services

​Discounts seem to be a hot topic lately in the fitpro forums, mainly because a good percentage of prospect clients seem to expect them as a default. While this certainly sucks, there are certain situations where it's OK to discount and others where it's not.

To understand why your clients are always asking for discounts, take a look at the way most purchases are made in general.

High street shops promote discounts on clothing for which the season has hardly started. Supermarket and big chain store have sale running throughout the year on certain products. Society in general is conditioned to look for and expect them.

This type of thinking is prominent in the fitness industry and unfortunately, a lot of personal trainers succumb to the pressure and offer cookie-cutter type workouts available online under $10.

In this article we're going to discuss the discount mindset, when it's OK to discount your personal training services and when it's not.

Understanding Discounts

​A discount is a reduction to the standard price of a product or service. Using it as an element of your overall business strategy can either generate great returns or work against your business.

Whether discounting your services is going to be successful or not depends on a few factors like at what stage of its lifecycle your business is, how many clients you have and what your pricing strategy is.

Using discounts has its place in your marketing if you ensure that it’s part of a bigger strategy. You can identify the most useful way to use discounts for your fitness business by figuring out why you’d like to discount your services and integrating it in to a business plan.
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Do you need more cash flow to ensure financial security? Would you like to reach out and help more people? Would you like to create a buzz around your business in your area? Here we list a few scenarios and examples to help you find the discount solution that fits your specific business strategy.

Discounts for Appreciation

If you’re just starting out as a personal trainer or you need immediate cash flow to secure your finances, it can be a good idea to use discounts to generate business. It’s very important, however, to ensure you offer them in a way that won’t create the perception of lower value for your current and new customers.

If people get the idea that your service isn’t worth as much as you originally ask for them, they may buy from you at the discounted rate but won’t renew after. There are a few ways to ensure people understand the value of your service and also appreciate the discount offer.
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This means you offer discounts to selected long serving customers as an appreciation for their loyalty. These types of offers wouldn’t be published on your general marketing materials, they would be either sent as part of a loyalty programme or directly offered to hand-picked clients.

Examples:

• Bundles: an offer to buy their next session bundle at a discounted rate or add extra % of sessions to the same bundle they have been buying when they renew.
• Monthly paying clients, both online or face-to-face can have discount when paying for 3-6 months up front.

The idea is to create a win win situation. Your clients get rewarded for their loyalty and you get a lump sum of money.

Seasonal ​Discounting

Seasonal discount with clearly stated “offer ends” date for new clients. This works if your targeted audience already knows you well enough to appreciate your services. Ideally you would already have their contact details from previous communications and are readers of your emails so you can publish the offer within the funnel or a landing page.

​Examples

• Face-to-face: A good place to do this is in low budget or big chain gyms for warm leads, e.g. members that have taken part in your free classes, have asked you questions about their fitness and your services, have shown signs that they would hire you.
• Online: You can offer your free Facebook group members to join your challenges or other regular programs at a discounted rate.

​The actual discount itself is usually in line with a season or a holiday. Classic example might include bring your mum to train on Mothers Day or a one time offer during a particular holiday.

Add-On Discounts

If you have multiple elements to a service, you can offer additional services for the price of one. This is an ideal type of discount if the additional service doesn't cost you much in time or money.
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Examples:

• Studio owners might offer personal training plus access to group classes
• All new personal training clients receive a “starter kit” that can include branded gym bag, water bottle, towel, gift vouchers to other local service providers – coffee shops, hair dressers, etc.
  

Referral Discounts

Our trade is called personal training for a reason: because it’s personal. It only works for long term if the client can connect with you as the trainer on a personal level and vice versa.

Because of this referrals are still the largest source of traffic when it comes to new leads. Your clients know you well and they will be able to recommend you to people with similar mind-set and needs.
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​You can create incentives to encourage your current clients to get their friends and family involved in exchange for a discount or other deals. What discount you offer is completely up to you but ensure it’s aligned with your pricing and business strategy.

Examples:

• Monthly group session or personal training members: a reduction from their membership fees each time one of their peers sign up for a membership - the more they refer successfully, the lower their membership is.
• Session bundles: they can enjoy an extra 10% of sessions when they buy their next bundle – e.g. if they buy 10 session bundles, they get 11 once after they successfully referred a friend.
• Small group clients: If the capacity of your small group classes is 4 people, when they come as a group of four friends, they can get a % off for the first package/month each;
• Face-to-face or online: referred person can join at a discounted rate for the first month/package whilst the referring friend will have a discount on their next package/month.

Discount when marketing spend is reduced

Marketing spend can be reduced by signing clients on for a set period of time. Usually 6 months to a year.

Knowing your client will be sticking around for some time means that you don't have to spend any more money on filling that space.

This will give you more capacity to think about how to use that time and money surplus to take your business to the next level and/or fulfill your personal and business goals.
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Examples:

• Monthly memberships: no joining fee for a limited time and/or discounted first 1-3 months
• Fitness Packages - % with a commitment
  
• Large group sessions or low-end online memberships: when the number of long-term members reach the critical number to ensure the service’s smooth running plus extra for contingencies, you can consider reducing the monthly membership fees to make the service available for the masses.
  

Summing Up

​Discounts are yet another marketing and sales tool that when used correctly and as part of a well thought out business strategy they can boost cash flow and speed up the growth of your brand.