How to Begin a Personal Training Business

1. Introduction: Welcome to how to begin a personal training business. My name is Timothy Taylor and I'm a former personal trainer over ten years in business owner. In this class I'll be detailed and six keys to planning your personal training business. This class is intended for those who are interested in personal training and want to identify their target market is class, however, will not go over how to register your business. By the end of this class, you wouldn't know exactly who your target market is and how to best serve them. It might decade of personal training. I've seen a lot of people leave this business just as quickly as they enter because they didn't have a plan. They figured that because they train themselves. They could train others and they never focused on a specific market or client. Now there's an old saying, proper planning prevents poor performance, otherwise known as the five P's of success. With the proper plan, your personal training business can be a success. Without a plan, it's gonna be very difficult to be successful. Before we move forward, I want to say something so you and I hope I'm not the first person is saying, congratulations, you passed the personal training certification. You're ready to make a difference, change lives and let's be honest, make some money. 2. Six Question To Ask Yourself: Go out and make a big difference in the world and also make a lot of money. I want you to think about the six questions to ask yourself for your personal training business. Number one, how much will you charge per session? Number two, will you work full-time or part-time? Number three, are you an employee or self-employed? Number four, will you train at a gym or outside? Number five, will you try and groups or individually? And lastly, number six, what kind of clients will you train? If you're ready to get into these cities? Questions, Let's go question number one, how much will you charge per session in order for your businesses of vibe, you must turn a profit and we're proper pricing, you can quickly create a full-time source of income. As a business owner, you decide how much you will charge your clients for your services. And the price that you charge depends on many different factors. Some things to consider before setting your prices or how long the sessions are, where the sessions are held, how far you had to travel, the type of training you're offering? Will you offer discounts? Will there be a minimum commitment of sessions and the current market in your area? In order to sit accurate and fair prices for your clients, you want to first think about how long the sessions will be. The average personal training sessions last between 45 min to an hour. But some personal trainers may offer 30-minute or even 90 minute session. You had to think about your target demographic. When you said in these time slots, what you're blocking out time slots, you need to consider how much time you will need in-between sessions to sanitize and reset or traveled to meet your needs client. You also want to think about how long your target demographic will be willing to train for it. That's very important. The longer the session, the less clients you'll see in a day, shorter session, two more clients that you can recruit for your business. Will all of your training sessions be the same length or with somebody 30, some B45, somebody an hour, somebody 90 min. You had to think about this also. This is where understanding your target demographic is very important. You need to understand is demographic before you make this decision. The next thing you want to think about when you're setting your prices is where will the sessions be held? If you've ever been around real estate, then you understand the expression location, location, location. And while that's important, and real estate is also very important in the personal training business. If you're training outside and apart e.g. then there's no overhead cost. But if you're running out of studio to train in, then of course there's overhead, there's utilities, there's things of that nature. So every time that you set your price for training session inside of a studio that you're running out, you have to factor that in to your price. You have to pay the rent, you had to pay the overhead, and you also have to pay yourself. The next thing that you want to consider when you're setting your prices is how far will you travel? Are you willing to travel to your clients or all of them coming to you? You can charge more when traveling to a client, but you must put a limitation on how far you can mute. And if you live in an area with a lot of traffic or your clients live far from each other. This will impact how many clients you can see in a day. Now, can you still make a profit when you deduct your travel expenses? Then you also have to think about the time that you're spending traveling to and from your client's home. The fourth thing to consider when you're setting your prices for your personal training business is a type of training that you will offer. One-on-one training will always be priced the highest. And if you're training out of a client's home, decline is paying for convenience and individualized training plans. Think about it. They're getting all of your attention and also you came to them. Now this training should cause more than small group training sessions at your local part. Is 2022. Are you training virtually? This is very important during the start of the pandemic. In order to keep my business afloat, I had to offer virtual training for the first time. Even after lockdown restrictions were uplifted, some clients weren't willing to leave their homes sold to keep my existing clients. I offer it sessions online. Also. Are you including other services such as meal plans? This can help drive results for your clients. Also bring in more money. Another thing is, are you offering specialization such as boxing or dance class? Now there's a reason why our group yoga session does not cost as much as a CrossFit class. It doesn't make one service more valuable than the other. But consider what you as a trainer would need to contribute to a yoga class versus a CrossFit class. The fifth thing to ask yourself when considering your prices for your business is will you offer discounts? You know what? Don't even ask yourself this. I'm going to actually give you the answer. You ready? The answer is yes. The question is, will you offer discounts? The answer is yes. Offered discounts. Make your clients loyal to your business because you're helping them out, get them in for more sessions, even if it's at a small discount to help them out. You helping your clients, they will help you remember, without clients you have no business. So the answer to this question is yes. Okay. It took us 11 slides, but we're at the slide that I think a lot of people overlook. Will there be a minimum commitment of sessions is very important to understand how you want payments to be made to your business. Our client's paying for one session at a time, for the week or for a month commitment. This is where understanding your target demographic works well for you. At the beginning, I will suggest that you're flexible because you're still trying to understand your target demographic. If you have someone who can not make a monthly financial commitment, I will say consider allowing them to make a biweekly financial commitment. If you're flexible with clients, they're usually going to try to help you out. If you're not flexible, they are possibly going to find a personal trainer who will be flexible with them. And the sixth thing that you want to think about or consider when setting your prices for your personal training business is the current market in your area. Now, Mark is always set the price, a house in the Midwest is not the same price as a house into Northeast. House in Florida is not the same price as a house in California. The market sets the price. You want to think about this when you're setting your price. I want you to look around your area, call around, look on websites, look on social media, and find out the rates that other personal trainers are using. And I will say find the median and run with that number. Wrong with that number. Push that number plus that number, and push that number to begin your business. As you get more experience in this business, then you can change your rates of course. But starting out, I would say find a median number and run with it. You don't want to price too low. Because if your price is too low, many people will think maybe he or she's not that good because if they weren't, they would price higher. You also don't want to price too high because obviously you're going to price some people out there not even going to look your way. Recap when setting prices for your personal training business, you want to think about seven different factors. Number one, how long are the sessions? Number two, where would the sessions will be held? Number three, how far are you willing to travel number for the type of training you offer? Number five, will you offer discounts? Number six, would there be a minimum commitment of sessions? And number seven, the current market in your area. And remember to be clear and transparent about your prices. The second thing that you want to ask yourself when you're planning your personal training business is, do I want to work full-time or part-time? Some people have this goal of leaving their full-time place of employment and becoming a personal trainer on a full-time basis. While others like their current job and only want to train as a side hustle. Either way you choose, this can be very lucrative and exciting career. In this section, we will discuss some things to consider when working as a part-time or full-time personal trainer. Let's begin with full-time. Anything you do on a full-time basis is going to require full-time commitment. That's going to mean some early mornings and late nights. And being that this is your main or only source of income, you're going to have to figure out how much money you're bringing in on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis currently. And then think about how many training sessions you're going to have to perform in order to exceed or remain at that number unless you're thinking about downsizing. And because this is your main source or only source of income, you're going to meet need more clients than if you were to go part-time. Also with more clients, there's a higher income potential. Now. Conversely, if you went part-time, there's only a part-time commitment. While it's still gonna be some real work that you had to put in is still a part-time commitment. This is also just additional income. Add it to your current income because you're not leaving your job. Also working as a part-time personal trainer is more flexibility. Being that this is your second job or just a side hustle is more flexibility. You may not have to put in so much work and so much time as a full-time personal trainer would. The third question that you want to ask yourself when you're planning your personal training business is will you be an employee or will you be self-employed? Now, it's 2022. So I know a lot of people are giving this employee word a negative connotation. And I want to remind everyone that employee is not a bad thing. Some people don't want to be owners. They want to work for someone. They don't want the responsibility of being the owner. They don't want the headache of being the owner, and that is fine. If everyone was an owner, then many people wouldn't really have businesses because we need employees. So let's talk about the pros and cons of being employed. The first pro is all the equipment is provided by your gym. Once you get to work, all the equipment is there and all the spaces there, you don't have to bring anything with you. You also don't have to repair anything. And most importantly, you don't have to come out of pocket and buy anything. The next thing is that the marketing is done by the gym. These gems have money, they have marketing dollars just for commercials, for social media ads, and for a sales team. You don't have to solicit anyone to become a member or a client at your gym. Also, the gym will provide you with training. The gym is a business and any business wants to make money if you can produce the best results, you usually bring in more money. If your gym can make you the best personal trainer, then you're going to bring in more money, which in turn means they bring in more money. So they're going to provide you with different types of training and is usually paid for by them. Now some of the cons of being employed is that you only get a portion of the pay. Whatever that client is paying the club, you're only getting a portion of it. And a lot of gyms is 25% or less. Also to scheduling isn't up to you. This is not your business. You don't run a schedule. Third, no choice and choose and clients, you don't get to choose the clients well, unless you bring them in. But usually you don't get to choose your clients because the sale team got them in or they saw an ad on social media. Are they saw an ad on TV and they came in and signed up as a client, but you don't get to choose them. And that can definitely be a con, because you too may not be compatible. That's not saying they're not a good person you to just may not be compatible. And being a personal trainer is all about reputation. If this client is not following your lead and not listening to what you're telling them. And they're not getting any results. They're going to blame you. Their friends are going to blame you. People outside who don't know anything besides the fact that you're training them and they don't see any results, they're gonna also blame you. There's no choice in choosing clients when you work at a big box gym. The fourth con is clients are tied to the gym. In 2020, we saw a lot of gyms closed because of the pandemic and I'm sure most of those clients did not come and work out with you because they were tied to the gym. Also, if you were to move if you were to quit and go to another job, the client is tied to the gym at least until their sessions is over because they pay for them. Alright? Alright, alright. Targets are the self-employed people here. Here are the pros and cons about being self-employed. The number one pro is you create your own schedule. I want to put it There's an asterisk there and I'm going to explain the asterisk. The asterisk is because your clients can control it in a sense, but you still had the last day. So in regards to your schedule, number two, which is probably the most important for many people, especially when you're first starting out, is that you give full pay. There is no middleman, there is no boss Jim, that I had to pay tours, know, the client pays and the money goes to you. Number three, Pro is the choice of clients. Again, your reputation is everything. When your personal trainer, you want to work with people who are going to follow your lead. If they're not going to follow your lead is okay to say, I can't train you. It's okay to decline a client. It's okay. I'd rather keep a good reputation around my city instead of collecting a few dollars. Now, if they're pros or cons, and there's definitely some cons and being self-employed as a personal trainer, the number one con is you're responsible for the equipment. So if you're running out of space, or if you buy a building, or if you're traveling around with this equipment, you have to buy equipment, anything breaks, you have to fix it or replace it. That's going to cause some money, especially at the beginning. It doesn't have the cause you a lot of money, but equipments absolutely going to cause you some kind of money. The other con is marketing. You are the marketing agent for your business unless you hire a marketing team, but you have to mark it. You have to be recruiting every day. Always be recruiting. That was the same by some basketball coach or something. But you want to be recruiting every time you go out, you spark conversations, let people know what you do. Always have business cards on your key business cards inside of your car. If you married or you have some friends or whatever, give them business cards. Because because someone may bring up personal training and they can give them a business card. Make sure you put this on your social media. Make sure everyone knows that you're a personal trainer because you're always recruiting. The fourth thing to ask yourself when you're planning your personal training business. Is, will you train in a gym or outside? There are only two places that you could train, whether it has a large Jim. Jim, are you home gym? Is the Logisim Well, there's the park or the beach, or your yard is still outside. And there are some factors that you want to consider when you're working inside of a gym or while you're working outside. The number one factor for a gym, period, gym etiquette. Gym etiquette. Remember, if you're inside of someone else's Jim, you want to be respectful to everyone that's there. If you're working inside of a big box gym, they're not going to take kindly to you being a personal trainer unless you're actually working for them. And I'm not really going to go over that because you can get your membership, terminate it if you get caught personal training. Now if you work out at a small gym, you could probably go to the owner and figure something out in regards to paying the gym to train there. But even if you're a personal trainer there, you still want to be discrete. You don't want to be barking orders in front of everybody, showing everyone as your personal trainer unless you went over that with the owner. Also, always remember privacy. Some members came there to work out on their own or came to work out with their friends or family member and they don't want you to be pestering them about personal training. You can ask but always be respectful of their privacy. Now if you're working outside the factors to consider weather, events and equipment. If you're a sunny South Florida like myself, then you can train outside basically throughout the entire year. But if you're in some other parts of the country, especially the colder states, then of course, is a different story. Also, if it rains, what are you going to do? You have to have this answer. Let's say you pull up the park at 08:00 on a Saturday morning and they're they're setting up for an event. What are you going to do? You have another spot to train out of? You have to have a plan. And then number three, the equipment, you're going to have to be bringing your equipment around. You've got to load up your truck or car, drive over to your place, unloaded, sanitize it, and do everything in reverse when you're done. Those are the factors to consider when you're working inside of a gym or working outside. The fifth question that you want to ask yourself when you're planning your personal training business is will you try and groups or one-on-one? I can tell you from experience that both groups can be lucrative in one-on-ones can be lucrative. And I'm going to explain how groups is just simple math. If I can have five or ten people paying X for an hour versus having one person paying X for the hour. I'm going to always go with option a. Now, one-on-ones can be lucrative because they understand that you are giving them your undivided attention. You can tweak and help them out with their workouts because you're seeing everything and also you're giving them an individualized plan which they are usually willing to pay for. Also, some people who are getting one-on-one sessions. They will never worked with a group. They do not want to work around people to only people they want to work out around. Is there trainer and that's it. And if you can push them and push them and push them and they'll never go to a group session ever. Now, some people who love working in groups don't want to work one-on-one. They do not want the one-on-one attention. They want to work in a group. They want to have fun and they want to compete with other people. Now, something that I learned later on in my career is bootcamp marketing and I'm giving it to you. Early boot camp marketing was once a quarter, I would have a bootcamp. I would invite all of my clients over to a boot camp and I would tell them to invite two or three friends and I will charge their friends on nominal fee while the clients got in for free. What we would do, we would do basically the same things that we do in our group sessions. We will compete, we will have fun. We will burn calories, we will work out. We would turn our bodies. And what I was trying to do was get more clients from those sessions. I wanted them to see how fun and exciting and difficult or challenging these workouts are so that they will want to join our group sessions and some of them would join just one-on-one sessions. The thing that really helps is that their friend And you know what, their friends are there walking billboards and loudspeakers. And because they want their friends to sign up and do it they're doing. Also, remember to always use Bootcamp marketing possibly once a quarter. And the number six question that you should ask yourself when you're planning your personal training business is, what type of client will you train? Now, most people overlook this. I did also, because it forces you to understand that you cannot and should not train. Just anyone. Being that I did it. Also, I understand why people do it. But as a business minded individual, we have to remember that no business, no matter how universal the business model may be, can cater to everyone in the world. Even though your certification allows you to train most people, you shouldn't. You want to find people who are compatible and you want to find a target demographics so that you can mark it towards them. See an older athlete and a younger athlete. They may have the same enthusiasm, but their bodies have different needs. A middle age woman look into tighten up versus a young man looking to bulk up. They have different needs and you're going to have to work on them in different ways. You need to find a target demographics so that you can mark it towards that demographic is going to save you a lot of time, a lot of money, and it's going to make you a lot of money. I ended up stumbling upon my target demographic, but once I learned it, I'm market towards them, I spent time and energy understanding them. My target demographic were women 20 to 40 years old. I don't remember how I fell into it, but I just fell into it. And when I did, I made sure that I understood them better. Our research them, I will ask them questions. We will have talks. I will go to the place that they were frequent, that will bring business cards. I was sparked up conversations. I would change my social media or exchange our social media so that they can feel comfortable with Tim. And when they wanted to train, they're gonna call or contact Tim. You have to find your target demographic and market towards them. Now, did I train younger athletes? Of course I did. Did I train older athletes? Of course I did. That. I trained men. Of course I did. But I wanted to find out what my target demographic was and go towards them. I want you to think about this. Mcdonald's is a Fortune 500 company. Everyone knows what McDonald's is, but when they market their happy meal, they're gonna put their Happy Meal commercials around times that kids are watching TV. They're gonna put their Happy Meal commercials on channels that kids are watching. I mean, anyone can eat a happy meal, right? Of course. But they know who their target demographic is for that meal. So if a Fortune 500 company that everyone knows is marketing to their demographic, why wouldn't you? 3. Conclusion: Thank you for watching how to beginning your personal training business. In this course, we went over six key factors that you should remember why you're planning your personal training business, and creating your business plan. I hope that this course has helped you to answer any questions that you may have. If you have any questions, please reach out to me. If you loved this video, please leave a positive review. Now go out there and be great.