• By Sportacy Club
• 19th January 202127th January 2021
• With 0 comments

This week we spoke with personal trainer Basia from Poland. After living for six years in London she decided to make an adventurous decision and to move to a completely new city: Barcelona. In today’s Fit Flash Friday you can read about building a (personal) trainer business all the way from scratch at a completely new place. We will discuss different aspects of growing as a trainer; from growing your clients as well as your online audience and mindset.

Three years ago you moved to Barcelona. You did not know anyone and you had to start from zero as a personal trainer. How did you manage to grow as a personal trainer?
When I was living in London, I was already visiting Barcelona a lot of times. One time in Barcelona I realized: I want to leave England and I want to live in this amazing city as a personal trainer. However, at that moment I did not have any qualifications for being a (personal) trainer yet. So I decided to sign up for a personal training course already when I was still in England. Furthermore, I did already set up my Social Media pages in England as well and I started to search for contacts in Barcelona. I did reach out to them and from that moment I gave myself a goal for every new visit to Barcelona until I would move to that city.

I wanted to meet 3 new contacts every visit: one fitness related, one for my business network and one potential housemate. Slowly I started to have more and more contacts while not even living in the city yet! I asked them ”do you want to have a coffee once I’ve arrived in the city?” I sold everything I had in England and bought a one-way ticket to Barcelona in May 2017. When I arrived in Barcelona I had already my mini group of sports clients waiting for me!

How did you continue to grow after this smart first move?
Once I was arrived in Barcelona I took a very proactive attitude at approaching people and organizations. From my visits before I knew an organization called BeachFit Barcelona who were organizing beach work-outs at Barceloneta. I wanted to work as a trainer for BeachFit so bad and I approached the owners a lot of times. I did send them my fitness videos so they could get a good impression of me and my training style. Since it was a pretty big organization I did not expect too much of it. However after some days the owner did contact me and gave me the chance to provide a test training as a cover trainer together with him. He liked my style and gave me a job as a trainer!

I liked working at BeachFit a lot, however in November of 2018 the owners, Mark and Andy, announced that they would quit the organization. They offered me to take over BeachFit, but for me this was the sign to finally start giving training sessions on my own. I got to know a lot of new people at BeachFit and a lot of them did join my training sessions when I did start my own trainer business!

Apart from being a good trainer and having a great network, online marketing is a very important aspect for trainers nowadays as well. How did you make your Instagram grow over the years?
Over the years I developed a growth mindset and this is the case for my online visibility as well. I have an – act now – mindset which makes me not procrastinate things; I focus on doing something every single day. At the beginning of my journey as a trainer I did schedule a meeting every single day! By doing this I knew I would meet new people and create new chances for myself. I want to grow and in order to do that I possess a lot of perseverance and dedication – which are essential in my opinion.

The digital visibility became especially within the last years even more and more important. I recognized this and even before moving to Barcelona I was already active on Instagram in London: I did have around 6000 Instagram followers in England. After moving to Barcelona my Social Media did grow even more with over 4000 new Instagram followers. Right now I have over 10k of followers. A very good technique that I have used to gain attention of potential new sports people is using hashtags at all of my posts. Hashtags such as #PersonalTrainerBarcelona and #BeachFitBarcelona did bring me a lot of new traffic.

When I became a trainer at BeachFit I did post even more and I was very dedicated to grow even more. However, I can notice differences in my approaches in London and Barcelona. In London I was active but mainly very self-focused. In Barcelona I became more creative, in that way this city really was a game changer for me. I regularly give training to sports groups and sometimes I do edit the videos of those exercises myself. I have even done this in the metro between different bookings of clients – in that way I did use my time most efficient since being a trainer can be quite busy at times!

In my opinion Instagram works better than Facebook since I can make use of hashtags. When you use certain hashtags very consistent there is so much growth possible! However, I personally think that – how important those things might be – it is important to not only focus on your hashtags, followers and views. But what really mattes is… what do your clients do and how do you relate to that? And is it really inspiring what you post?

How do you gain and retain your clients and what is important for this according to you?
Apart from meeting with a lot of people when I just started as a trainer in Barcelona – which definitely helped a lot – I got a little bit lucky after a while as well when I was given the opportunity to take over BeachFit. Later on – when I decided to start my own sports community – almost all of my clients decided to come with me!

What further is important is that you make your clients feel great. Even if it is not your best day, you have to make sure that your client enjoys and grows a lot during your training. Your (potential) client usually doesn’t care if your boyfriend just broke up with you…

I have experienced hard times as well in Barcelona. When things are tough and you are too focused on your personal life, this affects your business. I lost my focus in these times and this is something that you usually can not do. What really did help me to set clear deadlines for yourself to get back up.

What matters is that you always have more energy than the client – and thus there is not that much space to show that you are sad during the training. You should be responsible for boosting the mood of your client and making them enthusiast and energetic as well!

What advice would you give to trainers that struggle with their growth?
I think a growth mindset is very important and most of all: consistency! Put your ego aside and make little moves; step by step. In the beginning this might be quite hard to see – as it was for me as well. Especially when you just started, you usually do not see the results directly. In the end however, all these consistent little steps will add up to something really big!

It is important to discover your weaknesses as well. Once you know your weaknesses you know what you can work on. The reason why most people fail is that they do not want to put the work in it – again and again. You should put in the passion and you should be convincing when it is needed.

Be creative and work your ideas out, edit your videos and use your clients feedback. Try to engage with your clients as well. For example, a year ago I’ve organized a Planking Challenge where I challenged all of my clients to plank and to work on their core on every Thursday.

Thus, work hard, be consistent, create and have your own style. Find out your deeper motives, your inner ‘why’. And on your social channels; be visible, make creative and good content, use hashtags based on your location and audience and… keep posting!

Is there one more thing you want to share with your audience today?
I want to make use of this great opportunity to thank some very special people who helped me a lot along the way. Of course, I want to thank Mark and Andy for giving me the opportunity to join and give training for BeachFit. I further want to say thank you to Jay (@coachzworld), who did really support me in Barcelona. He made time for me, invited me over for New Year’s Eve when I just arrived, gave me useful tips during trainings at Barceloneta and he did really encourage me to go for it! This drive, passion, enthusiasm and support did really help me a lot. Last but not least, Martin (@ebylife1) did give me a lot of support and trainer advice as well.

In the end, good people meet good people. Keep putting in the work and keep on going with meeting great people – and in the end you’ll be astonished by the growth you’ve made!

Read more about Basia on @basiafitnessbcn.