How to Book More Appointments as a Personal Trainer

In this video in Module 6, Time Management, I'm going to be talking to you about how to set appointments and cancellations. So first, how to set appointments. So you always need to give the perspective, I suppose, that you have things to do, you're busy, and you also need to make it easy for people to say yes. So the standard way that I'll set appointment, let's just say I give the scenario someone, you know, to sign up to me, and I'll say, I always start with a large decision and then I move into the small decision. So the way it works is, so when are you looking at training, at the start of the week or the end of the week? And they'll say end of the week. Okay, great. I have either Friday or Thursday available. Which of those suits? Friday. Okay, Friday. Do you normally train morning, afternoon, or evening? Morning. Great. In the morning, I have 2 times available on Friday. I have 6 AM or I have 9 PM. Which one of those 2 times best suits you? 6 PM or 6 AM? Great. Let me book you in for 6 AM. I'll send you a text now just to confirm. Has all the information on it, and I'll see you at 6 AM. So that's how I'd set an appointment with someone, is I start with, okay, what day, start of the week, end of the week. Here are my picks out of this day. Sometimes there's been cases for me where I don't even have to do that because I look at my diary and literally I've had people go, I want to book in with you. And I look at my diary and I flick, flick, flick, flick. Okay, I can see you in 4 weeks on Friday at 6 o'clock. You don't want that? Okay, flick, flick, flick. I've got 6 weeks from now, whatever it is, right? So I'm I've got so many things on that I'm booked out, right? What you're doing though, there's two things on that is with the method I'm teaching you is it makes it easy. So if you say to someone, what time do you want to do? They'll go, ah, I don't know, I'm doing my hair on Friday. I've got to pick up the kids. Oh, I was going to go see Jono. I was going to get to that movie. It's a bit early. Oh, Maybe 1:13. You're sitting there going, what? I don't see any. I don't want to see this person at 1:13. It's a weird time. You've made it hard for the person, right? You've made them think. People just, they kind of want to be guided. You got to make it easy for them to make an appointment with you. You're going to have an appointment at this time because this is the time. And also when you deliver it in that way, people see more value. Like, oh, if I don't see him at this time, I'm not gonna get in for the next couple of weeks. You wanna give that person, act as if, right? And then you will get busy enough where you're no longer acting, right? When I look at my diary, I'm like, oh shit, where am I gonna put this person in? So again, to reiterate, you sign someone up, probably already have an idea. When are you looking at training? Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays? Okay, great. Start of the day, end of the day, whatever it is. Okay, I've got 2 times available. This time or this time? This time. Great. Great, let's book in this time. Do you want that time every week? Yes. Great, let me book it in. In fact, using Google Calendar, let me send you an invite to that event and set it on repeat so that way it's in your diary. Great. Alright, so that's how you set appointments. And regardless in what scenario, if you're on the gym floor and you meet someone on the gym floor, same thing. When do you normally train? Start of the week? End of the week? End of the week? Great, I've got 2 times. AM or PM? Morning, afternoon, evening? Evening. Okay, I've got 2 times available on Monday, 6 AM or 7 AM. Which of those times best suits you? If they say, oh, I can't do either of those times, that's okay. Did you need a little later? Yeah, I needed about, oh, maybe like an hour later. Oh, so you need 9? Hmm, yeah, if you have the time, I could squeeze you in at 9:15. Does that work for you? Yes, it does. Okay, let me put you in at 9:15. Done. Let me send you a text just to confirm all the details and our location. And if there's any questions at all from now till then, just reach out to me. Great. Get the text. So now let's talk about cancellations. So cancellations as a trainer, you're probably going to get, right? We get them. We get them, but we don't get them as much as what a lot of other people get them. It's probably one of the biggest complaints that trainers say, and there's multiple reasons for that. Reasons, probably number one is that the way people are charging and the way people are offering their services, they're offering it by the hour rather than by the outcome. They're not— people aren't seeing it as a program. The client hasn't fully bought in. I mean, there's so many reasons why people just cancel in the session, right? Yes, things come up. And if things come up, I mean, I always say you have some common sense about it, right? If someone's kid got hurt or they got in a car accident, I don't charge them for that, right? Even though the cancellation policy says you can charge them, but there's always a little bit of goodwill, I think. And it's hard to teach goodwill. It's just, what is goodwill? Goodwill is that you have some common sense, right? Someone got in an accident, it's not a big deal. They've been a client of yours for, let's say, 5 years and they accidentally canceled on you this one time. It's okay, it's not a big deal, but you gotta have value around it. And I think that established value really goes a long way in terms of making people not want to cancel, right? They look forward to the session, they wanna be at the session. That's really the relationship you want. So if someone cancels, generally speaking, my kind of script to coaching clients or trainers in this case is, you might say, look, this is the first time. I'm just going to say it's all good, not a problem. But just so you know, we do have a 24-hour cancellation policy. If it does happen again, I am going to have to enforce my full cancellation fee. Client says, yes, look, I understand. That's fine, right? You give them kind of one free and they do it again. It's like, okay, great, you've canceled. You know, I'll just— you know, you didn't necessarily have to say, you've said in the previous message, okay, you've canceled. They know, right? You know, you're obviously, you're aware of the cancellation policy, not a big deal. Do you want me to reschedule to another time this week, right? Or you can simply go like some people, some trainers, and I look quite honestly, like for me, the way I was running my training business, I was so booked out. If you canceled on me, it really mucked me about. It really did muck me about because if you call me and say, I cancel and reschedule, I don't have time to reschedule. I just don't, right? So if someone did that to me, I'd be like, okay, it's my cancellation fee. I can't reschedule to next week. I'll see you next week. Done. Some trainers, when they're not as busy, what I've seen, and it can work, so I'm not anti this. So you could do it like this, which is, okay, great, you've canceled. Instead of charging you the cancellation fee, what I'd rather do is for you to reschedule and book in. Can you reschedule to tomorrow at X time? Yes, I can. Okay, great. Look, some clients really appreciate that as well. And if you can do it, sure, why not? There is a line because some people do take the piss. If you're getting a client who's canceling you all the time, then that's taking the piss, right? You don't offer that to that client. They don't deserve it. But if you get a client who they had a bad run, right? They're normally on time, they're keen, and they had to cancel today, and you offer them and reschedule them. That's more than acceptable. I think it's customer service, right? It's being a good business. It's having a good customer service experience. So there's no problem with that either. So cancellation policy, again, you are going to face it as a trainer. You want to have a cancellation policy. It should be full fee. Should be full fee. Some people do half fee, 10%, all this kind of nonsense. It's full fee. It's your time, right? You can do the reschedule, or you can just simply, depending how busy you are, if you're able to. In my case, I'd always try and reschedule people in, but I got to a point where I just couldn't do it. I was literally just booked out constantly. So that's at least some ways you can do it. Cancellation fee, put it in place, put it in writing, make sure clients understand it before you charge it. You could give the first session some grace, and that's that.