How to Get Qualified Leads as an Online Fitness Coach (2026)

So you're stuck in a cycle of attracting broke leads that cannot afford your coaching program. You want to help them, but they just cannot afford it. So there's not much you can do. Now, in this video, I'm going to show you 5 filters that you can implement inside of your business to filter out the tire kickers and attract only the high-quality buyers. That's both from organic and also from any paid ads effort. Now, if you don't know who I am, my name is Maciek Horomanski. I'm on a mission to help online fitness coaches systemize their businesses so they can enjoy more freedom and make getting new clients easy. So let's Let's jump straight in. So you have dozens of conversations in the DMs and on sales calls, tons of interest, but it never turns into cash, or not at the level that you'd like it to. You're stuck in a cycle of attracting people who can't or won't even pay you. This isn't a lead problem, it's a system problem. So here are the 5 filters that you are missing. Now, first things first, we actually need to do the maths because you might not have a lead problem, it might be a math problem. Stop obsessing over cheap leads because the only metric that really matters is your return on ad spend. When we are talking about ads, let's say you spend $1,000 on ads and you get $100 leads, which is in KPI, this is what we are aiming for, to get leads for less than $10 per lead. Let's say 10%, just 10% of those leads that you speak to are actually qualified, which means we get 10 quality leads. Let's say 8 of those leads book calls, which means you spend about $125 per call, and 2 of them turn into clients. Just 2 of them. It's just a 25% close rate, which is super low if you are talking to qualified leads, right? It's very, very low. So that's very pessimistic. That means you just collected $4K if your program is $2,000. Right, which is also not a lot. I would charge at least $2.5 to $3K. So you just put $1 in and you made $4 out, right? If you can spend $1 in and get $4 out, you have a winning machine. That's the only number that matters. That's why I wanted to say first, actually do the maths. See if you actually have a quality problem or if you don't, you know, just see if you're actually profitable, especially if you're running ads. But same with organic content, look at the numbers, look at what are the actual percentages, because if you just think a lot of people are not unqualified, that doesn't really mean anything. You need to have hard data. The second filter, and you might be guilty of this, even if you think you have a specific niche. You need to stop talking to everyone because if you try to speak to everyone, you will only attract people with generic problems and generic bank accounts, right? High-ticket clients don't look for general solutions, they look for specific solutions to their specific problems. That's why it's so important to have a very specific niche. And don't forget to speak to them in most of your content because a lot of you guys, yes, you have picked a specific niche, but you still Like if you look at your content, like 50% of your content or 60% of your content doesn't talk to those people. So the generalist can be, I help people lose weight and have more confidence, or I help busy professionals lose weight. That's super generic. A specialist, I help divorced dads get shredded and get back in the game while becoming a better role model for their kids. That's very specific. It can be even like a career-driven man, a career-driven woman. That is pretty broad, but at least that's a bit more specific. And as long as you talk specifically to that person, you're going to attract more quality buyers. And especially in ads, if you are generic, you're going to attract brokies, complete brokies. You have to be extremely specific with your language. If you want to run ads, you have to have a very specific niche and you have to speak towards a very specific avatar. Filter number 3 is adding intentional friction in your videos, in your ads specifically. Your content shouldn't just attract the right people, it needs to actively push away the wrong ones. This is called adding friction. It feels weird, but it's the secret to improving lead quality literally overnight because you repel all the people that would not be a fit for this program. So you want to call out your ideal client in the ads, in the body copy of your ads. Use phrases like 6-figure dads in your ad copy. You know, be very, very specific. Or career-driven men making over this much per month, or just career-driven men, and talk to their specific pain points, their daily life, right? A career-driven man is obviously extremely busy. They grab takeout. They are too busy to go to the gym. But a lot of you guys try to target those people, but you don't talk about their pain points at all. You talk about some generic, you struggle to be in a calorie deficit and lose weight. That's so generic. Like, talk about pain points. You're too busy to even think about going to the gym. That's a phrase that would attract a high career-driven man because they are too busy to go to the gym. That's why it's so important to have one avatar and talk specifically to them. Also call out who this is not for. This is not for lazy people looking for a quick fix. Repel all the people looking for a quick fix. And you can also mention the investment, but implicitly, okay? Especially if you run B2C. If you do B2B, like coaching, like business coaching, obviously you can literally mention like, hey, you need to be making this much money per month, or we don't work with clients below that threshold. For example, in my case, for my company, this only works for coaches who can spend $3K or not. For example, there are fitness coaches who say, hey, you need to be making this much per month, but that is very, I would say, I would add that level of friction only at scale where you just have so many leads and you really want to filter them. At first, adding too much friction is unnecessary. Remember, first get the lead flow and then add friction if necessary. At first, you should have as little friction as possible because if you add friction, you intentionally are shrinking down the actual number of calls that you are booking, right? And it's better to book calls even if at first you are not sure about the quality. It's better to book more calls and maybe some of them will be unqualified, but you will put some reps in, right? You will get some reps as far as sales, and then you can add friction. Don't add too much friction at first. Don't, don't overthink it. Keep in mind that adding friction will make your cost per lead go up quite significantly, and that's a good thing because you're paying more for better quality, right? Every sales call will be more valuable to you because the people that are on the sales calls actually have money and they're not tire kickers. Another filter that you can try, and this is really if you have a lot of leads, a lot of leads, and you have a big social media presence, you're spending a lot of money on ads. I wouldn't do this on a, at a smaller level. You have to make them apply to talk to you. So stop letting just anyone book a call. First, make them fill out an application form. If somebody can be bothered to fill out a few questions, obviously they probably wouldn't pay you high ticket on the call, right? They, they don't care enough. They're just looking for some free advice. As far as the actual application form, you want to ask questions about their goals, what they've tried before, and what they do for work. You can justify that you just want to understand their daily activity levels a bit more so it doesn't just sound so weird like you're trying to financially qualify them. This weeds out the, the last of the time wasters and ensures you only speak to the most serious prospects. So this is if you actually want to do the application form. I wouldn't do this unless you have like a lot of calls and you're just swamped with calls. If you have more than like 3-5 sales calls per day, then yes, you can implement a form. If not, I wouldn't, I wouldn't bother, right? It's better to have more sales calls with less qualified people but you are more likely to actually make more money because you have more calls in the first place. But even if you don't apply the application form, always ask these questions in the DMs. Make sure you or your appointment setter always implements them. By the way, how old are you? Just to help me understand your metabolism. Ask that somewhere in the conversation. And the second one, what's your job like? Like, is it sedentary or more active? If they tell you, hey, I'm unemployed currently, well, they're probably not going to be the right fit. So you can filter out a lot of those bad leads on the DMs level before they even talk to you. And in this case, you don't even need any application form. Now, number 5, if that still does not work, it's clearly your ad when we talk about ads, and it's clearly your content if we are talking about organic content. Okay, if you've done everything else and you're still attracting garbage leads, the problem is you and your content and your ads. Your ad is likely unclear, unprofessional, or boring. So just look at your content or look at your ads. Do you look presentable as well, or like you're just rolled out of bed? Is the quality good? Bad audio, shaky video, hard to read text, small captions with some weird colors. Big captions, big white captions, good lighting. You can use natural light, you can stand in front of a window. It doesn't even need to be complicated. You don't need to be in a studio, right? Make sure the audio quality is good. Investing in a microphone is probably the highest leverage purchase that you can make, to be honest. You can buy a Rode microphone like the Wireless Mini. You're going to be using it in your content, in your ads, so it's a complete no-brainer to buy. And the last good test is, can I tell what it's about with the sound off? So you want to use clear visuals and captions, but also It's very important that you look presentable. Like I said, if you're a coach, for example, for first responders, maybe you can wear clothes that would represent like that demographic, right? If you're a coach for career-driven men, then maybe you can wear a nice polo, look presentable, basically look like your target demographic that you're trying to attract. Your ad is your first impression. A low-quality ad and low-quality content will always attract low-quality leads. So that's it for this video. Just to summarize, first things first, actually do the maths, see if you actually do have a lead quality problem. Second, make sure that your avatar is dialed in. Your ideal client avatar is dialed in. You're talking specifically to that person in your content, in your ads. All of these filters are applicable for both ads and organic. Next, you can add intentional friction. At first, create flow before you create friction. Lastly, you can implement an application if you have a lot of leads. If you don't, definitely implement those two questions that I mentioned. So, what do you do for work, just to help me understand your activity levels? And second, how old are you, just to help me understand your metabolism? So It's a good justification for why you're asking these pretty weird questions, but you can easily identify if the quality of the lead is actually good. And actually check the ad, check the content, check if you are speaking specifically to your client avatar, because oftentimes the quality of that or the content will not be good, or you're just not talking to your avatar. You're not talking about their specific pain points and their specific goals that they would actually care about. So that's that. Now, if you struggle to get clients or keep clients or cannot for the life of you figure out how to grow your online fitness coaching business, feel free to check the first link in the description. It's a video of of me explaining how my company can help you solve this problem. It's not some free training or some free webinar. It's a video of me trying to pitch you. You can check it out if you want. If not, I hope you got some value from the video alone. Now, if you have any questions about the lead qualification process or anything else, make sure to drop that in the comments, or you can also DM me on Instagram directly. I will help you out, and I can also make a YouTube video explaining that thing that you're unsure about. So make sure you drop that in the comments, and then make sure you like the video if you liked it, and you can subscribe to see more videos like this that keep you engaged and watching until the end. Thanks so much for watching. Have an amazing day, and I'll see you in the next