You’ve just set up your online fitness coaching business.
You’re looking to transform lives and get your clients fit, toned and healthy.
But when it comes to the admin side of things, such as taking on new clients, charging them, collecting payment, and how and when to pay, it can all seem like a bit of an admin minefield.
Here are 3 things to consider when starting your online fitness coaching business to avoid the admin overwhelm and streamline your business.
1. Put in place an initial onboarding process (and iterate)
No doubt you’ll have your own specific client onboarding process, the details of which will very much depend on how you run your online fitness coaching business, what goals you are helping your clients to achieve and the time frames.
For example, you might be helping clients to get to a specific weight, helping them with fat loss, gaining muscle, or attaining a particular fitness goal, e.g. running a half-marathon, or you may just have long-term clients who hire you for regular sessions to maintain optimal health.
Either way, you’ll likely need to go through a health and fitness questionnaire/application form with them and get them to sign any disclaimers. Whether you do this via Google Docs or an online app, it’s a key element of the process. At this point, you can also go through your ways of working and what they can expect from working with you and the training program.
If you put this process in place at the beginning, you can tweak it as you get more experience (and clients) so it’s as seamless as possible for future clients.
The point is to have a solid process at the beginning.
2. Consider how (and what) you’ll charge
What you charge will very much depend on your circumstances, outgoings, expenses and business goals.
You can read more about pricing options in our article here.
Another factor to take into account when setting your prices is what the transformation is worth to your client. This is especially pertinent if you sell your coaching as a package for a set amount of time. If you are selling coaching as a package, what else is included? For example, weekly check-ins, personalized diet and exercise templates, one-to-one calls, etc.
Also, you’ll need to consider who your ideal clients are and their needs. For example, are you targeting high-ticket clients with high-end transformation coaching packages or simply providing live hourly training sessions online or a low-cost membership?
Another consideration is if you’ll require payment in advance (full or partial). If you provide one-off sessions, will payment be at the end of the hour, or will you have a monthly payment schedule?
Getting this ironed out before you start will give you (and your clients) more clarity. You’ll have clearly defined prices for your offers, and your clients will know what you charge and what they get in return.
3. Make it easy for clients to pay you
As an online coach, you probably won’t meet your clients in person, so paying in cash is not an option, which means you’ll need to bill them online.
There are various ways your clients can pay you, and having good invoice software in place that offers a range of payment gateways will save you time and energy and help you get paid on time and at the click of a button.
Having a range of payment gateways means you are not stuck with just one method for clients to pay you – which might be inconvenient for them.
With Invoice Ninja, you are not limited to one payment gateway as we support multiple ones, which means your clients have many options for how they choose to pay you.
Invoice Ninja also provides professional invoice templates that you can customize and brand with your own logo or even add a short note for fitness recommendations for the future!
It also includes countless other features, such as late payment reminders, a self-service client portal and task/expense management.
What’s more, we have a Forever Free plan, so it doesn’t have to cost you anything, either.
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As you are coaching online, it makes sense to keep your business processes online and as seamless as possible. Take the hassle out of tedious and time-consuming admin chores by using Invoice Ninja – and leave the strain and sweat in the gym!
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