5 Common Objections: And How To Handle Them As A Personal Trainer

Learn the 5 ways how to overcome peoples concerns around hiring a personal trainer.

1. Objection #1 Lack of Time

People are living lives that are constantly being filled with other priorities. It's no wonder that 2 in 3 adults are obese or overweight in Australia.

Therefore, your biggest competitor isn't going to be your fellow PT. It's going to be time poor people.

How to get around the dreaded objection of "I don't know if I'll have time"?

There's a simple formula: anticipate, reframe, and provide a call-to-action.

In order to solve peoples problems it's essential to get ahead instead of reacting. Most people live busy lives, therefore, a simple statement such as I know you're probably super busy with work, but you're health and fitness goals also need some investment of your time.

Reframing is a great tool to flip what someone may suggest as negative and paint it in a more favorable view. An example being for the statement "I can't train in the morning because I'm not a morning person." A reframe could be: I understand you're not a morning person, but if you workout in the morning then it's done.

A call-to-action is as simple as saying what do you think. Or you can try some specific closing techniques such as assumption based closing.

2. Objection #2 It's Expensive

Pricing is often a key consideration when clients are weighing up their options as to whether they want a personal trainer. Statista found in 2014 that 39.7% of people stopped personal training due to expense.

Below are a few ways to overcome this objection outside of the anticipate, reframe, call to action model above:

• Have empathy for your clients. This is important for two reasons: one, it shows you care about your clients, which you should, and two, by understanding their perspective you may be able to better negotiate alternative payment structures instead of losing a client all together.
• Adjust your business model. If you're charging $100 for the hour, and you're noticing clients dropping off due to price it might be time to offer 30 min sessions, payment plans, or paired personal training for a discounted price. Experimenting with a price point that will increase someones willingness to buy or decrease your willingness to sell (discount) is the simple value stick method most businesses use.
• Establish authority in a certain niche. You can often charge more by specialising in certain areas such as postpartum weight loss and recovery, or strength and conditioning for soccer athletes as examples.

3. Objection #3 I Don't Know If I'm Fit Enough

Surprisingly people often have the misconception that you have to be fit to go to the gym or workout with a personal trainer.

It's usually never about fitness and more about self confidence . Their concerns sometimes center in body images issues, fitness, or how they might make a fool of themselves doing incorrect form.

This objection is gold for a personal trainer. You can talk to what you learnt at FIT College with things such as proper form, healthy eating general discussions, and how you've helped other people with the same concerns achieve their health and fitness goals.

4. Objection #4 I Need To Talk To My....First

Whether it be the wife, the boyfriend, the cat, people often use this as a fall back when they feel unsure about progressing to a paying client.

That's why it's important to establish who the decision maker is early on in the conversation. You may do it jovially, or in a more direct manner.

The difficulty with this objection is that you will need to hold them accountable if they tell you they are the decision maker. If they are still unsure about going ahead with your services at least you've ruled out that it's because they need to talk to someone else. It's another objection that you might be able to uncover.

5. Objection #5 I Need Some Time To Think About It

This is one of the most difficult objections to overcome. People obviously do need time to think about costs, and how personal training will fit into their schedule. How much time is the key question.

During a consultation it's important to step through a potential schedule and let the client take charge. Make their personal training sessions work around them.

It goes back to the formula in point 1: anticipate, reframe, and give them a call-to-action.

The anticipation aspect in this objections is crucial. As your consultation gets to the pointy end you'll want to get specific as to when the client wants to train, as this will remove some road blocks.

If they are still undecided don't leave the time frame open. Reframe to put the onus back on them, A good question is how much time do you need?

With all 5 points listed above take charge of your conversations and keep that personal training dream alive.