Motivation is a crucial factor that can affect your success as a personal trainer.

Continuing with weeks of rigorous training is tough for many people and as a trainer you must motivate them continuously to keep going. Without enough motivation, clients are likely to drop off midway and you will lose serious business.

So once you have done your personal trainer certifications and have started working, you must know how to retain clients through positive encouragement.

Motivating your Clients
The success of your personal training business depends on building a steady and loyal customer base down the years. You must have clients who are willing to pay and complete long sessions or who will come back to you every year for short; brush-up courses. To do this, you must maintain a balance between positive encouragement and being downright authoritative.

Remind Clients of their Goals
Before any client signs up, always discuss her chief incentive for joining a fitness course. It is important that your client understands her goals clearly in order to enjoy each session. Once the goal is defined, remind her often of this especially at times when she becomes frustrated with failures, depressed with routine or fatigued from sheer exertion.

Learn to Command Respect
Always maintain a professional; no-nonsense attitude while training clients. Avoid idle chit chat or staying busy with something else (speaking on the mobile, for instance). Remember your clients are paying for the time and expects your complete attention and guidance regarding their health, fitness and wellbeing. Join your clients in doing some reps to show off your skills further and your clients will definitely have more respect for you.

Praise their Efforts
A little praise does wonders to perk up your clients’ self-esteem and confidence. Everybody loves to be praised and a few good words now and then helps keep the motivation high. Celebrate little victories and milestones as the session progresses. Allow for a little weekend binging or a dine-out if your client has succeeded in achieving something through regular workouts.

Be Lenient
Although your clients look up to you as a no-nonsense instructor, it pays to be lenient with them at times. Remember, your clients are not trained in personal trainer certifications and for the average person, achieving a certain fitness standard is tough work.

As your clients work hard to reach milestones, they will also be making mistakes, act lazy or may even skip a few sessions. Do not berate or humiliate them in such situations. Rather, you should sit with them and explain to them patiently why it is important to continue with the hard work and that results will not be far if they are honest in their efforts.

Challenge your Clients
It is important to avoid boredom from setting in. Motivate your clients further by challenging them often with different types of workouts. There are huge combinations of exercises taught at personal trainer courses and you must learn how to mix and match them so as to make each session as exciting as possible. Your clients too will look forward to each session if you surprise them often with newer and more challenging workouts.