Discounting to Sell Personal Training - Part 1

It’s a deal, it’s steal, it’s sale of the ******* century.  A line befitting of the 1998 Guy Ritchie film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels in which Tom and Nick the Greek squabble over the price of stolen goods… but does it have any place in the very real world of your personal training business?  Let’s take a look. 

My favourite café does it.  Buy 5 coffees (mmm… mochaccino) and get the 6th one free. 

The sushi bar down the road does it.  Buy 10 sushi meals (mmm… salmon and avocado sushi) and the 11th one is on the house.

Heck, some of the very fitness clubs we train in and run our business from even do it.  Sign up this month and get til the end of January free. 

So discounting seems like a pretty reasonable marketing and sales tactic to incentivise your PT leads to buy personal training right?  I certainly thought so in the early stages of my PT career and as a result I learnt some of the facts below “the hard way”.  Read on so you won’t have to: 

Discounting hurts you.

Firstly, discounting lowers your perceived value to potential clients.  When a person entrusts you with something as important as their health, fitness and wellbeing they perceive your session rates to be an indicator of how good you are at what you do.  My colleague and mentor Steven Gourley sums it up with the saying “half price equals half as good”.  In other words potential clients think “oh, this trainer mustn’t be very good, he charges less than the others” when you attempt to woo them in to personal training with discounted rates and price incentives.

Secondly, it hits you in the pocket (ouch!)

Example 1

PT Peter is charging an average market rate of $60 per hour over a modest 20 session week:

$60 x 20 sessions = $1200.00 total gross income.

Ave spend = $60.00

Not bad Peter!

Example 2

PT Sammy is running a “buy 4, get one free” deal and for simplicity's sake we'll assume that for every 4 sessions she delivers, there's one free in this week:

$60 x 16 sessions = $960.00 total gross income.

$0 x 4 sessions = $0

Ave spend $48.00

That's equates to a discount of 20%!

And let's say that her profit per session is usually $30. When we knock $12 off due to the discount (the difference between the standard ave spend of $60 and the discounted ave spend of $48) the result is a whopping 40% loss in profit!  Ouch Sammy!

Example 3

Bargain Bob is charging well below our average market rate of $60 per hour:

$40 x 20 sessions = $800.00 total gross income

Ave spend = 40.00

That's 33% below the the average market rate Bob!

The greater the discount; the less you end up with in your pocket for exactly the same amount of work.

Thirdly, discounting attracts bargain hunters and freebee junkies whose purchasing habits are dictated almost exclusively by price.  They may well take you up on your offer of “discount personal training” but then proceed to drain you of your will to live (or to PT at least!) with their constant “something for nothing” requests, expectations of further discounting, late payments… and heaven forbid they refer their bargain hunting, freebee junkie friends so you can “hook them up”.  Furthermore, they’ll be gone as fast as you can say “10% off” the moment they come across a better deal.  Taking these bargain hunting folk on as clients can be a morale lowering, disillusioning experience that will have you questioning the very demand for and value of personal training.     

Discounting hurts other trainers

“Ok Jamie” I hear you say… “now you’re getting carried away.  If I discount, how does it affect anyone else?” 

Well, often when trainers promote and sell “discount personal training” their level of service and professionalism tend to follow suit, often without them being consciously aware of it.  The ol “I gave them a good deal so they can’t expect too much” mind-set outwardly expresses itself in the trainers service (or lack of) and clients eventually disengage having achieved little more than creating a hole in their wallet.  

Gym members talk - as Steve has alluded to in his blog on building reputation first and business second.  So you can bet your boiled chicken, rice and broccoli that before too long, a potential PT client will be asking that disgruntled ex discount PT client: “hey, I’m thinking about hiring a trainer, are they any good here?” To which they’re likely to respond “well, the one I used was cheap and crap, I wouldn’t bother if I were you”.  You’ve heard the saying “bad news travels fast” right?  Well it only takes a few of these changing room conversations amongst members to lower the perceived value of the entire personal training team in that club.

Discounting also hurts other trainers in that it creates expectation in potential clients for all PT’s in your club to discount.  “My friend trains with Bargain Bob PT for only $40 a session, why are you charging $60?”  “Hook me up.”  Not the type of conversations you want to be having when converting your leads in to clients.

So what’s the alternative?

It’s crucial to quickly build your client base and income when you start your personal training business and the temptation to “do some deals” to get some cash rolling in is as much of a dilemma for new trainers now as it was when I was starting out.  The good news is that there’s a MUCH better way!  Continued here...