Are your clients like mints?

No not spearmint of peppermint but like mint sweets – hard or soft, let me explain:

Soft mints

These are the clients that need a lot of encouragement and positive re-enforcement. They give in at the slightest problem. They ‘can’t possibly do another rep..’, they simply seem to give up long before you know/think they should.

This type of client can be really frustrating to you as you know they are capable of more just how do you get them to believe and do it? Mostly with gentle positive encouragement, if you push too hard or take a ‘military circuits’ approach very few of the soft clients will react well.

A few well placed ‘well done’, ‘looking good’, that’s 3 kgs more than last session’ will help them to try a little bit more and see the improvements that they want far more than ‘COME ON!’. This approach will simply reinforce their belief that it’s just too hard.

The ‘softies’ need to be protected and supported or they will crumble and when they do that’s you out of a job. As ‘walking adverts’ for your business they may need a lot more time to be that in the physical sense but every word they say about you to people in their network will be positive and that’s going to help you gain more clients (of any type) in the long run.

Hard mints

You may love the client who always rises to the challenge of one more rep or 2 more kgs. But they can harm you business and themselves just as easily. These guys will work thorugh niggles and pain and seee giving in to it as a weakness.

Tke care with them, if it turns out to be more than just a little niggle or DOMS from the last session they could end up injured. Then you’re either out of a job for a few weeks, permanently or looking for ways to reworks sessions that may not be as effective as your original plan. Worse could be to come too, if the client believes that you are in some way to blame then you could be looking at a law suit – check you’re insured!

If you suspect that a client may be in pain and it’s more than just a little bit of extra effort to get in a final rep then take the decision to reduce the reps or weight for them. It is far better to have the believing they can do more and uninjured than the reverse.

More mint-spiration

It takes can take some time to figure out which mint your client is more like as few of us are completely at one end of any spectrum. Watch, listen, see how they react. Make sure each clients session is that – their session, one size does not fit all.

Suck it (the mint!!!) and see!