How to Get Your First Online Coaching Clients as a Personal Trainer

Your first online coaching clients come from people who already know you. Start with your phone contacts and your current personal training clients, then your followers, and make every conversation about booking a call instead of selling in the DMs. You don't need a logo, a website, ads or another cert to sign your first five.

I started online fitness coaching in 2016 with zero clients. I was terrible on camera and had no confidence. It took me until 2019 to have my first $10K month, and most of the time in between was spent on things that didn't get me a single client. Since then I've made $4 million from online coaching and trained 500+ fitness coaches through The Blueprint, and the way the first clients come in has barely changed. This is the order I'd do it in if I started again tomorrow.

What do you actually need before you get your first client?

Less than you think. Every week I speak to someone who wants to start coaching online and turns up with a to-do list a mile long. Logo. Website. Branding. One more cert.

Skip all of it for now. Where you put your time steals from where you could be putting your time.

The mindset you want is MVP, minimum viable product. Work out the least you can put together that still gets a real person a real result. For an online fitness coach that's three things:

1. The service. A program, a way to check in each week, and a clear result you're helping someone get.
2. The marketing. A way for the right people to hear about it.
3. The sales. A conversation where someone decides to pay you.

That's the whole business. Everything else can come after your first 10 clients.

The answer to imposter syndrome is action and results, not more qualifications. You don't need to be the best coach in the world. You need to be the best coach for your specific client.

Who should your first online clients be?

Pick a specific person before you message anyone. "Fat loss" is a category. "Fat loss without counting calories" is a subtopic. "Fat loss for busy mums" is a person you can picture and talk to.

The more specific you get, the more your messages sound like they were written for the reader, because they were. You can always refine it later. Pick one and run with it.

Where do your first clients come from?

From the warmest people first, working out to the coldest. Here's the order I teach:

1. Your phone contacts. Friends, old clients, people from school, people from the gym.
2. Your current PT clients, if you're a personal trainer. They already trust you with their body.
3. New followers on your socials.
4. Story viewers.
5. People who like your posts.
6. Cold outreach to strangers. Lowest return. Treat it like networking and don't pitch on it.

Most people start at number six, get ignored, and decide online coaching doesn't work.

Start with your phone

Go through your phone contacts and send each person a short, personal message. Say you've started online fitness coaching, who you help, and what you help them with. Then end it by asking if it might help them or if anyone they know comes to mind.

That last part does the heavy lifting. It gives anyone who isn't interested an easy way out, so nobody has to be awkward with you at the next family barbecue, and it turns a "no" into a referral. One of my clients did exactly this and made $11,000 in a few weeks.

Then your PT clients

If you train people in person, some of them will want to keep going with you online, or move to fewer sessions plus a program and check-ins. Offer it. I've written a full breakdown of how to do this without losing income in moving from personal trainer to online coach.

What do you say in the DMs?

DMs have exactly one job, and that's booking the call. Don't pitch, don't send a price, don't paste your whole program in.

Think of it like dating. Nobody responds well to "let's get dinner and then have kids, I've already picked the names." You're just getting them to the next step.

The flow I teach:

1. A friendly, disarming opener.
2. Find out what they're trying to achieve. Get a number and a timeframe.
3. Ask what they're currently doing, and how long they've been trying.
4. Ask what results they've had so far, then where they were hoping to be by now.
5. Ask what they think has caused the gap. When they say it in their own words, they own it.
6. Offer a call to help them with it.

The bigger the gap between where they are and where they want to be, the more they want the call.

How many messages does it take to get clients?

More than people expect, and that's why most give up. Here's the maths I use.

Say you want four clients this month at $2,000 each. That's $8,000.

• At a 40% close rate you need 10 sales calls.
• At a 70% show rate you need to book about 14.
• If about 15% of conversations book a call, that's 90 to 100 conversations.
• If about a quarter of people reply, that's 350 to 400 messages.

Spread over a month, that's 15 to 20 DMs a day. Most people send 10 in a week, get two replies, book nothing, and conclude DMs don't work. Do the volume first, then judge it.

Do you need content to get your first clients?

You need some. Content is what makes your DMs land, because people check your profile before they reply. Bad DM results usually trace back to bad or missing content.

Keep it simple. Post three to four times a week on your main platform and put something on your stories every day. Mix three types:

• Value: teach your specific person something useful.
• Proof: results, screenshots, wins. Your own if you don't have client ones yet.
• Personal: your story, your opinions, your life.

Value without proof is theory. Proof without personality is an ad. Personality without value is just a diary.

And for the fear of being judged: the people judging you aren't your clients and they don't pay your bills. The more you post, the less scary it gets.

What happens on the call?

You help them see the gap clearly and decide whether they want help closing it. Keep it to 35 to 45 minutes. Ask about where they are now, why they're stuck, where they want to be, and what happens in six to twelve months if nothing changes. Only then show them how you'd help, and only then talk price.

Sales is something you do for someone, not something you do to them. If they need help and you don't make the offer clearly, they keep the problem.

Turn your first client into your next five

As soon as someone signs, share it. A screenshot of a win, a check-in message, a "welcome to the team" story. Small proof compounds. Then ask for referrals at high points, when a client hits a milestone and is buzzing about it.

Your first client is also your first case study, so look after them like it.

Common questions

If you've already worked your contacts and you're still stuck at zero or one client, book a call with my team and we'll find where it's breaking.