How To Build Your Business as a Fitness Professional. Written by Ashley Hough

Transcription

1 How To Build Your Business as a Fitness Professional Written by Ashley Hough

2 Introduction If you are reading this book, you must be interested in starting your journey to becoming a Fitness Professional. This book is mainly targeted at a Personal Trainers business set up, but many aspects will be relevant for those who work as a Sports Therapist, Pilates Instructor or other. The information within this book is designed to give you a head start in building a business by having a good understanding of the following: What is the Persona of a Great Fitness Professional Marketing Set Up and Platforms Business Growth Mindset Potential Earnings and Business Planning Creating a Retainable Business Towards the end of this book you will also be able to learn more about our course structure and how we have created a learning journey to not just qualify you as a Fitness Professional, but to give you the knowledge, confidence and on going support to allow you to build the business that you want. 1

3 It Starts With You No matter what your training background or goal, as a Fitness Professional you will need to be able to apply your skills and knowledge to a vast array of different clients. For example, if your training goal is all about gaining muscle, getting lean, or competing in CrossFit, you will still need to train a client who may have the common goal of losing weight and increasing muscle tone, or wanting to run a marathon, or simply wanting to improve their lifestyle, fitness and movement potential. The most important role for you as a fitness professional is to learn the skill of building a great rapport with your clients, ensuring that they enjoy booking time out of their busy schedules to be trained by you on a regular basis. The rapport that you build with your clients will keep them coming back to you, from week to week - year upon year. Learn - Inspire - Succeed 2

4 It Starts With You What makes a great Fitness Professional? Is it a Young Persons Industry? Do I Need To Be Fit and Muscular??? A very common question that a lot of individuals ask us when considering embarking on a career as a Fitness Professional is, Don t you have to be young to be a Personal Trainer?. The answer to that always is an emphatic NO! Qualifying as a Personal Trainer in your late teens or early twenties is a great qualification to achieve, you can start to use it to earn extra income, either as a self-employed Personal Trainer, employed in a Gym Environment, or even a great way to earn extra cash whilst dong your studies at University. We have seen a lot of great young adults build themselves a successful business and create a great living for themselves. But for individuals in their late twenties, thirties, forties, fifties plus these qualifications offer you a great opportunity to build your own business. A large part of being a busy and in demand Fitness Professional is having the professionalism and life experience to be able to relate to clients, and to have potentially gone through the same barriers and set backs in life that a client may be going through. The fact is, by the time you are getting into your late twenties, you will already have had a good experience of working within an industry, potentially dealing with customers, clients and work colleagues, you may have even had experience in building another business yourself by this point. All of this life experience is a massive plus to your business and you will be very relatable to a lot of your potential clients down the road. No matter what your age, what is important is the ability to be personable, empowering, and knowledgeable. A Fitness Professional does not have to be the Fittest, Strongest, Leanest individual in the world. if you have these attributes then that is great but it is not essential to start a successful business in the Fitness Industry. So long as you have a passion for Training, Nutrition and Wellbeing. so long as you are able to train a client towards any goal and so long as you have the motivation, work ethic and positivity to succeed That is what truly matters. 3

5 Where do you start? One of the first tasks we set our students once they start their learning with us is to start to put in to place the necessary platforms for their business: Business Plan Website Social Media Platforms; Facebook Business Page, Instagram & Twitter Accounts Brand andwelogo Design One of the first tasks set our students once they start their learning with us is to start to put in to place the necessary platforms for their business: The business plan is important as you will need a vision as what your potential earnings are, where would look to run your business, and to give you a good idea of your target market. you Business Plan Website Social Media Platforms; Facebook Business Page, Instagram & Twitter Accounts We encourage of Logo our students Brandalland Design to start building their online platform as soon as they can, this is so that once they are qualified they will already be in a great position to promote themselves in a veryreason professional Putting our all of the above together can be a good few weeks and months worth The that weway. encourage students to start building their online platform a business of work, of the is a great to set you growing yourtofitness Business plan isgetting so thatahead once they aregame qualified they way will already be up in afor great position promote the best way. together can be a good few weeks themselves in a very professional way.inputting allpossible of the above and months worth of work, getting ahead of the game is a great boost to your Fitness Business. Learn - Inspire - Succeed 4

6 How We Can Help We are affiliated with local and professional companies that have all the skills of assisting you design and to develop your brand, website and online platforms. Of course this is simply a trusted and affordable service that we want to offer you, though some of our students have had the capabilities of doing all of this themselves which is great. We will be able to assist you in getting a professionally built website that will allow you to advertise your services, show off testimonials, and to produce your own Health & Fitness blog. These sites can be built for purpose so if you have any other ideas then just let our web designers know. Branding is massive in getting your Fitness Business growing as you want. Our affiliates are able to help with your logo design that can be used both for your online platforms as well as for your company clothing. You can even order the clothing that you want with your branding printed with our very highly rated affiliated clothing company. Getting a great brand, website, and online platforms prepared is one thing. knowing what to do with them all is something else. We will be exploring all of this as you go through this book. This book will teach you how to start advertising your services using Social Media Advertising as well as going through other techniques available to you. Marketing is not always easy, yet understanding of how it can be done is a great boost to a Personal Trainers business. To allow yourself to really accelerate your business growth in a number of different directions you can also enrol onto our online course The Business University. You can learn more about this course at the end of this book as well. 5

7 First Steps Get Your Business Ready To Grow!! Whilst you are learning any of our great qualifications, ensure you are developing the following: Website Facebook Business Page Other Social Media Platforms Business Name & Logo Once you have your website and social media platforms branded, and ready to go, then it is time for the fun part, starting to add educational content. The more content you get together now, the easier it will be to advertise your business when you are ready to go and fully qualified. What content should be added? The great thing about the Health & Fitness Industry is that there is always a subject for you to educate your clients on: Training Tips and Workout Ideas Nutritional Advice and Healthy Recipes How to adapt lifestyles to match training goals, and so much more Consider what articles, videos and resources inspire you and then have fun creating you own output of great advice and education for your future clients. Learn - Inspire - Succeed 6

8 Potential Earnings How much can I expect to earn as a Personal Trainer? This question should always be considered whenever you are considering any change of career or looking to learn a new skill, after all it is the achievable income that will affect your livelihood and have an impact on your family and lifestyle the most. Before we continue with the marketing of your business, lets first look at what you could potentially earn. Obviously the more clients/customers you have the greater the income, to get our students in the mindset of advertising and building a client base we set a task at the start of our Level 3 Certificate in Personal Training course: Go out and find your first 10 clients. easy right?! Finding clients is not always easy, but if you apply yourself and utilise the correct advertising means then it will happen. Sitting back and expecting your work to come to you is not how you should approach your business. Why 10 clients? This is the first target we give, sure a quicker goal maybe 5 clients, a longer term goal could be 20, but just like in goal setting for clients, set realistic short, medium and long term goals. 10 clients will generally correlate to 8-14 sessions of Personal Training per week, this is averaged out on some clients opting for 1 PT session every few weeks, some choosing 1 session a week, and others hopefully aiming for 2-3 sessions of Personal Training every week (The latter is generally the best set up for Personal Training, not just for a financial benefit but also for having the ability to really tailor an individuals weekly training programming). Now lets do the fun and motivating bit and do some cash flow projections Note: All of the following are realistic projections used by myself and other Fitness Professionals. This should also help you with your business plan. 7

9 Potential Earnings Cash Flow Projections The following is based on a Personal Training session rate of 35 No. of sessions per week Weekly Income Yearly Income (based on 46 weeks) , , , ,540 Not bad so far right? Remember this is all very attainable if you apply yourself and chase your goal Lets take it a step further. From my experience, and from feedback from previous students and other Fitness Professionals, a good weekly 1to1 Personal Training session target is This requires a good hard working week with maximal great job satisfaction and is financially rewarding. No. of sessions per week Weekly Income Yearly Income (based on 46 weeks) , , , ,350 These figures are not designed to sell a course they are simply the realistic projection of what is achieved if you are consistent with your marketing and you correctly promote yourself and your brand for ultimate business growth. So whats the catch?. Learn - Inspire - Succeed 8

10 Potential Earnings As with running any business there will be Overheads, Tax & National Insurance, and the risk of cancellations. Lets look into what this means. Overheads: Depending fully on where you plan to base your business. Some large chain gyms will charge you between per week in rent to use their facility, this is usually scaled to let you build your business there initially, i.e. fist month of usage 50 per week, 2nd month 75 per week, 3rd month and ongoing 100 per week. Other large chain gyms will offer minimum wage for working 10 hours in the gym each week, but then will allow you to use the facility as much as you like to train clients rent free. Whilst other gym chains will actually contract you into an employed role, this will include a basic salary for hours of work within the gym although they will take a percentage of your Personal Training income, but obviously no rent to pay. All of the above three examples can work perfectly well in the Fitness Professionals favour. Lets put the first example into our cash flow projection. This is based on an average gym rent of 125 per week. No. of sessions per week Weekly Income Minus Gym Rent Yearly Income , , , ,600 Gym rent will vary, as will terms and conditions of usage. Whilst being affiliated with a large chain gym will be great for putting you and your brand in front of a large audience of gym members, we 100% advise that you still market yourself accordingly and find your own clients away from the gyms membership base. Pick up a client through your own means, i.e. website and social media advertising, and have them sign up to the gym where you are based. 9

11 How to sell your sessions The first thing you must do is show that you are running a professional business. When you are going through your Personal Training fees with a potential new customer, do not make it look as though you are plucking prices out of the air. List your fees, block bookings and special offers on either business cards, leaflets or ideally have them available on your website. This will show a lot more professionalism and standardisation to your company. Below are some examples of potential pricing, again being done on a per session rate: Example One Potential Earnings Block Booking Type and Special Offer Cost Pay as you go - one session at a time Sessions - Buy 10 get 1 session free Sessions - Buy 20 sessions get 3 free 700 Example Two Block Booking Type and Special Offer Cost Pay as you go - one session at a time Sessions 350 (Reduces cost per session to 35) 20 Sessions 600 (Reduces cost per session to 30) Example Three Block Booking Type and Special Offer Cost One session per week 45 Two sessions per week 80 (Reduces cost per session to 40) Three sessions per week 105 (Reduces cost per session to 35) Once you have decided on your pricing structure, then consider how you want to receive payment The most common option is cheque or bank transfer. But consider setting up standing orders with your clients. This can be a great option as it will ensure regular income, no missed payments or forgotten payments by clients, and it is much easier to track for yourself and clients as to when the next session/block payment is due. Learn - Inspire - Succeed 10

12 Potential Earnings Creating a fixed income. Obviously one element of being self-employed that can affect a lot of individuals is not always knowing how much income you will receive from month to month. With no structure in place you may end up taking in some cash here and some cheques there, but a total monthly income will not always be known. To change this, consider the direct debit approach. it will help to create that regular monthly income that a lot of individuals need. It will also incur accountability for your clients, if they pay for the sessions they must attend them. Lets look at an example of direct debit monthly payments that you could offer to your students: Again, this will show a lot more professionalism and standardisation to your company. Block Booking Type and Special Offer Cost One session per week 160 per month (Cost per session 40) Two sessions per week 280 (Reduces cost per session to 35) Three sessions per week 360 (Reduces cost per session to 30) By allowing a client to set up this Direct Debit payment it will encourage them to attend every planned session You may add some form of reimbursement if your client fails to attend for a very good or personal reason, it is entirely up to you how you would structure this. Not only does being paid in this manner help you to know exactly what your monthly income should be, it will also benefit the following: Keeping control of your accounts for your yearly self-assessment tax bill. Allows both you and your client to track how many sessions they have had, **There is nothing worse than asking a client for their next block booking payment and for them to be of the understanding that they still have 1 more session remaining. Eliminates the sometimes awkward moment of asking a client to bring payment for their next session. 11

13 Potential Earnings Do not limit yourself to just one to one training in a gym environment We also advise that our students consider a number of different avenues to target with their Fitness Business. Training clients in a one to one format is great, it allows the sessions that you are programming to be specific to each individual, and to allow you to progress a clients training in the correct manner. But to go alongside this, why not consider bringing another dimension to your Fitness Business and look to creating group training sessions. It will increase your monthly income and bring a more affordable option of training to offer to your clients. Group training is beneficial for a number of reasons: It creates a great group dynamic, bringing about a real social element for individuals. Your clients will look forward to turning up to your weekly group training sessions and seeing friends and others working hard. This offers weekly training sessions that will be more realistic for a lot of individuals as it works out to be a lot cheaper for a client than one to one training. It allows you to earn a good amount of income per hour. This can also be set up using the Direct Debit format that will add towards your fixed monthly income. Learn - Inspire - Succeed 12

14 Potential Earnings Lets use the same principles as before to give an understanding of how Group Training and the use of the Direct Debit System can make a great impact on the growth of your Fitness Business. As with the 1to1 Personal Training sessions, if you were to ask clients for cash or cheques at the start of each session it can get a little bit messy and confused as to who has paid for what and when. Especially when you have groups of individuals for each group training session. The best way to pay for these sessions for both yourself and also for your clients is to implement a Direct Debit payment system. The following example is based on charging either 5 or 10 per session. It is also based on the pretence that you are going to be running three group sessions per week that are available to clients. Lets assume you will be running sessions on a Monday evening at 6pm, a Wednesday morning at 7am, and a Friday evening at 6pm. Obviously the more you can offer the better, we will discuss this further on the next page. Sessions Per Week Monthly Direct Debit Cost One session per week 20 per month (Based on 5) 40 per month (Based on 10) Two sessions per week 40 per month (Based on 5) 80 per month (Based on 10) Three sessions per week 60 per month (Based on 5) 120 per month (Based on 10) As you can see, this gives clients a real affordable way to train with a Fitness Professional on a weekly basis. It also brings into their weekly training a really good social interaction with other like minded individuals. Group training should also be good fun, motivational and yet still geared towards a clients goal. The downside is that it is not always as specific and tailored as one to one training will be, yet group training can still have an element of structure towards it. Will group training help clients train towards weight loss? definitely. Will it help individuals become fitter, stronger, leaner and healthier? of course. The social element will also help with a number of other factors, including lack of confidence, stress relief, and even help to form new friendships and relationships. 13

15 Potential Earnings How should you structure your group training? This can be done in many different ways. Firstly, within each group training session, you can work with mixed abilities by having graded exercises, i.e. beginner/ intermediate/advanced versions of each planned exercise. You may decide to run beginners group training sessions, and more advanced group training sessions. This is actually a really good way to structure. Start every new client off in the beginners or foundation group training sessions, allow them to progress to the more advanced sessions once you are happy with their technique, fitness levels and mindset. You could even bring in fitness testing to see which group training session each individual should be placed into. This really works for showing progression and aiding motivation. Finally, you might structure weekly sessions that are based on speed and power, or/and others that are targeted towards fitness and metabolic conditioning, and even others which may be lower intensity and more towards movement patterns, i.e. Pilates and Yoga. This takes into account your clients Total Fitness (strength, fitness, flexibility, skill-set). There are no limits as to where you may takes this. Just by using the above examples will show just how you can go from delivering three set sessions per week to 6, 9, 12 plus. You could even progress to putting on group training weekly sessions in different locations to target a larger market, and you may have to pay a trusted Fitness Professional to teach your programmed sessions for you. An example of this, if you were to charge 10 per session and you have 10 clients attend you would take 100, you could then pay a Fitness Professional 35 for their time and you have the remaining 65. Now lets really put a cashflow projection to this by showing what you could earn based on the number of clients per group training session. This is still based on those three session per week: No. of clients and no. of sessions Monthly Direct Debit Income 5 clients attending one session per week 100 per month (based on 5) 200 per month (based on 10) 10 clients attending one session per week 200 per month (based on 5) 400 per month (based on 10) 15 clients attending one session per week 300 per month (based on 5) 600 per month (based on 10) 5 clients attending two sessions per week 200 per month (based on 5) 400 per month (based on 10) 10 clients attending two sessions per week 400 per month (based on 5) 800 per month (based on 10) 15 clients attending two sessions per week 600 per month (based on 5) 1200 per month (based on 10) 5 clients attending three sessions per week 300 per month (based on 5) 600 per month (based on 10) 10 clients attending three sessions per week 600 per month (based on 5) 1200 per month (based on 10) 15 clients attending three sessions per week 900 per month (based on 5) 1800 per month (based on 10) Apart from the time spent programming, travel and setting up, you could be earning anything from 100 to 1800 per month for three sessions per week. If you were to add more group training sessions per week, i.e. Saturday mornings, one every evening, and in different locations this could become a very financially rewarding and retainable part of your business. Learn - Inspire - Succeed 14

16 Potential Earnings One last example, to really set a realistic scale as to where you could take your fitness business. Location one: 6 Group sessions per week Monday, Wednesday, Friday morning before work at 07:00am Tuesday, Thursday evenings at 18:30pm Saturday morning at 10:00am Based on 10 clients paying 10 per session on a direct debit payment system, each class is full at 10 clients so therefore some individuals are before work and some are after work and Saturday mornings. 10 clients per session will amount to 100 per session, 600 per week, 2400 per month. If you were to add a second location, using a trusted Fitness Professional to coach and manage your programmed sessions, with the same structure that will be a further The overheads for the second location will be paying another trainer to coach for you. Lets say that you pay 35 per session to another Personal Trainer, bearing in mind they do not even need to plan the session as you are doing this, they simply need to set it up and coach it professionally and expertly for you. They will earn 210 per week, yet your income from this will be 390 per week. 390 per week, 1560 per month. Add this to your first primary location, that will be a monthly income of Per year you could earn up to 45,540 (based on 46 weeks). This would also be an addition to possibly earning from your own 1to1 Personal Training income as well: No. of sessions per week Weekly Income Minus Gym Rent Yearly Income , , , ,600 Lets say you are delivering just 15 sessions per week of Personal Training, this will work out to be 2100 a month, add to this the 3960 from your Group Training Business, that will be a total income of 6060 per month. and roughly 72,720 per year!!! Note: These are all projections, are they achievable? Most definitely. The only thing that would stop you from getting to this level would be a lack of confidence in your ability, a lack of hard work, and a lack of marketing. Give it a go and see what heights you could achieve with your Fitness Business. Work hard, be professional, and have a little faith and patience. 15

17 Potential Earnings Are we being over the top? Chucking out large numbers to make it all look fantastical?? Everything that I have shown so far has come from realistic models and from past experiences of myself a number of different Fitness Professionals. We have seen our past students and other Professionals achieve some great heights with their Fitness Business within the industry, and there is always one common trait that they all adhere to. Hard Work and Professionalism! To make any business a success you must work hard and consistently at the start, and only then will you reap the rewards later on. Along the way there may be set backs, but you must not let this deter you from achieving the business, income and lifestyle that you want. Lets now look at what type of hard work and investment it takes to create and grow a successful Fitness Business Learn - Inspire - Succeed 16

18 Getting Clients Looking at cash flow projections and business planning is essential, it can be very motivating, yet you will still need to find the clients Where do you start? As we mentioned at the start of this book, get everything set up in regards to branding and marketing as soon as possible. We encourage students to get this into action as soon as they start their course with us, that way once you have completed the course and you are fully qualified you will have the means and the content to be able to market your Fitness Business appropriately. With the website and Social Media platforms in place, you can immediately start to advertise your services through social media, you can use Google and you will have a platform to direct potential clients to when they want to know more about what you do. What do we mean by content?? Once you have your website structure, we recommend trying to get as much content on it as possible: Services i.e. pricing, working locations, contact details Some information about you and your background Testimonials, these may initially be personality testimonials to start with prior to training actual clients and including their experiences. Blog and Video content, this can be about what you have learnt on the course that you feel would be beneficial to those who have an interest in Health, Fitness and Nutrition. This could be training tips, workout ideas, nutritional advice and recipes, just be as creative and informative as possible. You can even share relevant articles from people that you follow to your social media. All of this content can be added to your website and YouTube channel, and then shared and promoted onto your social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and others. 17

19 Getting Clients What content should be advertised and promoted? Sharing articles, videos and posts that are not always advertising your services goes a long way to help grow your audience and followers. The larger your audience across all platforms the better reach you will get for your adverts and promotions. The more educational and professional that you come across to your audience, the greater the chance of receiving enquiries about your services. Alongside this content, you will then be able to add in your adverts and special offers. The content that is put out to your audience should be related to your brand, i.e. how you can help clients achieve their goals, and it should be specific to your message about promoting health and fitness. The content that you promote to gain business and to grow your business should not be countless selfies and all about yourself. Yes it is great to show that you practice what you preach, but your promotional content should not be all about you, it should be about how you train your clients and to give an insight into your services. Learn - Inspire - Succeed 18

20 Getting Clients Consider your target audience If most of your promotional content is all about yourself and not your business, you will be deterring a large percentage of your target audience. A high percentage of individuals who are looking for a Personal Trainer are those who may lack confidence and who will be new to exercise and to the gym environment. You must make sure that the content that you are putting out there is attracting this type of potential client. Are you giving an insight into what you can offer them as their Personal Trainer or is the bulk of the content that you are putting out to your audience more about your own fitness journey. Ask yourself Is the content that I am posting going to make someone contact me?, Will the content motivate an individual to enquire about using my services to help them achieve their own training, nutrition or lifestyle goal?. If it will not cause this to happen then you should change the content of what you are promoting. Consistency is key! Marketing does not work as well as it should if you only post the odd thing here and there. Potential clients need to see what your business is about on a very regular basis. Do not feel negative if the content that you are putting out on social media and on your website is not getting the Likes or enquiries that you are after. A lot of individuals do not impulsively recruit the services of a Personal Trainer, many will be in the consideration phase and seeing your regular posts will eventually prompt them and motivate them to get in touch with you to find out more about what you offer. It takes time to build a successful business so be patient and never let the growth side of things get you down. Very often we will chat to a former student once they have qualified and are looking to pick up clients and grow their business, and their response can sometimes be I did one Facebook Ad and put out a few videos but I didn't get anything from it. It is so important that you do not give up after a few adverts with no response. If you are to keep advertising and to keep putting out relevant and professional looking content consistently then you will get the enquiries and the clients that you deserve. 19

21 Getting Clients Create a marketing plan and stick to it To be consistent and varied with your advertising and marketing content, a good way to help structure this is to create a marketing plan. This will also help on those days when you may be thinking what am I going to post today?. Social Media - How many posts per day are you going to put out and what will they be about? The great thing about the Health and Fitness Industry is that there is always so much knowledge that you can write about or create video with, therefore the content you are creating each week does not have to be all about the same topic. Below is an example of what your weekly Social Media content may look like: Training: 2 Videos per week - 1 potentially teaching an exercise or a training method, another giving an insight into how you train your clients. 4 images per week - Could be of clients training, your own training, snapshots of your working day. 1 article per week - This could be written on your blog page of your website and shared onto your social media and it could be about barriers to training, a clients achievement, or how to train for a specific goal and how you could help with this. Nutrition: 1 video per week - This could be an educational video of what you recommend your clients include in their weekly food intake, or it could be a recipe of a healthy breakfast, lunch or dinner, or it could be about how to prepare food if you have a busy weekly routine. 2 images per week - Showing an insight into your own healthy eating habits, or again a nice way to get food recipes across to clients and potential clients. 1 article per week - Again written on your website and could be educational as to what food groups your clients should be consuming, or maybe dispelling fad diets and myths. Lifestyle: 1 article per week - Educating your clients about how an active lifestyle is of great importance to training goals and stress relief, or maybe discussing the importance of habit forming to make training and healthy eating a part of everyday life. Personal: An insight into your own lifestyle is also important to allow potential clients to get an understanding of who you are prior to meeting you. Remember this must portray you as a professional individual and should not deter any of your target audience. The above is simply a guide as to how you can structure your weekly social media output. The great thing about the above is that by sharing articles from your website to your social media, you will also be getting people to visit your website so they are able to learn much more about you and your services and sometimes this will encourage them to act and to get in touch with you. You can do all of the above as you go through the week or you can use web based software such as HootSuite to allow you to schedule this content. This way you can set up a weeks worth of content on a Monday morning and then simply allow it to post out for you. Learn - Inspire - Succeed 20

22 Getting Clients Along with your weekly Social Media plan, you should also consider advertising using other means available to you. Campaigns: Creating professional looking campaigns are a vital part of keeping potential clients in the know of whats available to them. Every time a new comes through to you, this address should be added to your database. Hopefully most enquiries by will convert into a new client, yet a lot of individuals will just be after some further information before committing to a course of training with you. Therefore, instead of letting them sometimes forget about this initial enquiry, it is vital that you keep them thinking about you by having an every now and then that will put your brand and services back into their thought process until eventually they hopefully act on this and commence a course of training with you. addresses are really important for keeping in touch with individuals who have considered using your services in the past, again some individuals will not act on using your services straight away. Sometimes it may even be months down the line before they commit, therefore keep reminding them that you are still there for them when they are ready. Using a web based service such as Mailchimp or Zoho is a great way to make your campaigns look professional and it will also give those on your list the option to opt out of receiving your s. How often should you your database? We all have had to endure a barrage of s from insurance companies after we simply enquire about costs, and we all could probably relate to the fact that this is pretty annoying so will unsubscribe without actually reading any of the content. So it is definitely important to find the balance between not ing too often, and yet ing enough to get the information across to your database regularly enough so that they still consider signing up with you. The frequency is obviously up to you and dependent on what content you want to out, but I would advise somewhere around once every two weeks, though this may be worthwhile doing once a week if your content is varied. The s that you produce could be to promote an article on your website that you have just posted, another great way to get traffic to your website), it could be for a special offer, it could be to promote your social media platforms, or to showcase a new video that you have made. There are many options for you to get creative with. Along with collecting the addresses from those who contact you, try to gain more addresses by offering a free ebook or for a special offer. Your target audience will be interested in what you are doing so will give their address to learn more. 21

23 Getting Clients Create a marketing plan and stick to it Lets have a bit of a recap of what we have discussed so far, this can be used as a check list for you when it comes to building your website and social media platforms along with the content that needs to be created. Website: Clearly showing services, costs and contact details. Along with testimonials, articles and video content. Social Media Platforms: With content uploaded to each. This should include your own articles, articles that you have read and found informative, video that has been created by yourself or by others that would again reflect the message of your business. Campaigns: Start to grow this by offering something for free to those that are interested it what you are promoting. Old School Advertising: Believe it or not, banners, posters and leaflets are still an effective way of promoting your company in your surrounding areas. Consider where these may go, gyms, doctors surgeries, beauty salons, health food shops, where do you think your target audience would spend their time? It may even be worth getting your vehicle sign written to create brand awareness even further. Clothing and equipment: Having your clients wear clothing with your brand on it is a great way of showcasing your business. It also helps to create that following or tribe as some marketers refer to it as. Word of mouth: This is still one of the best ways to gain new clients. It is also very satisfying when you learn that one of your clients has recommended your services to one of their friends or colleagues. You can build on this even further though, why not give a special offer to all of your current clients in the hope that they find more business for you. For example, for any new client that is referred to you and signs up to a course of training, the client who made the referral could receive a free session or two? Make it worth their while as well and this will really motivate them to promote you. Learn - Inspire - Succeed 22

24 Barriers to Personal Training There are many reasons why a potential client may feel like they can not yet train with you. The correct course of action is for you to provide a solution to these barriers. This will be beneficial to your business but it will also be beneficial to your potential clients, allowing them to pursue something that they may feel is beyond their ability. Lets look at some potential barriers and solutions to them. Before we do though, lets consider what a lot of individuals perception of Personal Training is so that we can understand their mindset and apprehensions. A lot of stereotypes are attached to a Personal Trainer. Prior to working with one, an individual may give them the stigma of someone who will simply beast them until they are a sweaty mess on the floor. They may feel that the only way a Personal Trainer will train someone is by using very high intense training. Your job when consulting with a client about Personal Training is to dispel any of these stereotypes and get across to them the professional set up that you run. 23

25 Programme with knowledge and realistic expectations. Barriers to Personal Training Your consultation with a client is your opportunity to put them at ease by giving them a clear understanding about how Personal Training should be done. A course of training for a new client should never begin with sessions that are too hard or unachievable for them. You should always programme a foundation phase of training. This will be a set number of weeks, dependent on clients ability and experience, for you to gain an understanding of clients current fitness and stamina levels, their movement potential, and importantly their mindset. Your online content should also clearly get this across to potential clients, even before the consultation has been arranged. Lets look at just a few barriers that you may come up against with potential clients before they start a course of training with you: Barrier Possible Solution I don t feel fit enough to train with a Personal Trainer, let me get a bit fitter and then I will be in touch Firstly, periodised training for any client should involve a foundation phase to their training. Whether they are new to exercise, or if they have been training for years beforehand, a good fitness professional will not try to wow them with high intense training to show them just how good a Personal Trainer can be. Instead they should find out a clients skill set, movement potential, technique, fitness and stamina levels, and most importantly mindset. If an individual has low self esteem, the worst thing that a Personal Trainer could do would be to try to make them do something that they cannot do, this will knock their confidence.. All of this should be clearly conveyed to a client whilst they are considering signing up with you. They do not have to get themselves in a better state of fitness to train with you, you will actually be able to get them feeling fitter and better about themselves a lot quicker than they ever would on their own accord. I would always make it very clear in a consultation that the first few sessions are not designed to be hard work or too testing, they will be designed to allow me to work out what type of exercise will be effective, i.e can this individual squat, can they perform a push up, are they comfortable on a rowing machine. Give your client confidence in training with you. I cant afford Personal Training Yes Personal Training can be an expense for a lot of individuals. There are always a few options for potential clients though. Firstly advertise the training with a friend option, this can also help to overcome the apprehensivenesss in some individuals. If your potential new client had a friend that they could train with within your Personal Tariner sessions they could then share the cost. "I don't have time Look at your clients weekly routine, including work, family life, and social activity. Is their anything less important that could be replaced with the importance of getting fitter and healthier. Could they do a 30 minute session instead of an hour? Would they consider waking up an hour earlier to train before work? Help your client to overcome this common barrier and ensure you give them options to work with. Learn - Inspire - Succeed 24

26 Special Offers Everyone likes a Special Offer Create you own monthly offers to continue to keep growing your client base and online audience. Using monthly offers is a great way to encourage potential clients to sign up with you. A monthly offer can be promoted through the means of your website and social media across the month with an ad campaign, and you can also use it for your ing list. You most likely will be promoting your 1to1 client base or group training sessions, but you can also use special offers as a way to attract different individuals to your list by using free gifts and giveaways as described earlier. The following are a few examples that you can then build upon for your own business: Giving away a freebie to get clients interested and being able to experience what you offer. One of the most successful formats for this that myself and many offer fitness professionals have used in the past is to offer a free client consultation* and also free taster sessions, or even the first full PT session absolutely free. This works on many levels: Firstly it is free so it straight away captures the target audience. It allows you to gain their address, incase they don t sign up after the offer. It allows your potential client to meet you in a neutral environment for the consultation, therefore puts them at ease as you can start to build the all important client rapport. It creates the habit for your potential client of booking a time, date and place in the diary to meet you. First of all for the client consultation, then a second date for the first taster session, then another for the second taster. This habit forming is very important to establish early on. It allows you to get across your professionalism and it can break down any barriers and reinforce to your client that you are only going to work within their limits and will build up their training over time. By offering at least two free sessions, it also allows you to show how you can add variety to their training regime by targeting different muscles groups and training systems. This is something that a lot of individuals will never have experienced before, i.e. same programme being done for session after session. * This should always be free, this is more for your benefit than the clients as it enables you to gather all the necessary information prior to programming and mindset planning. 25

27 Special Offers As well as free sessions, you could even give away free merchandise. For example, when you sign up to a course of 1to1 training or to our group training class you will receive a free hoody or training top. This will have your brand on it too so it will be great to make your client feel that they are part of a group/tribe and it will also promote your company. To build up your client base for your group training, you could offer the first week free. This again will help your client form the habit of attending and to be able to see how good your classes are and to experience first hand how well you or your trainers look after them, again building on the rapport. Advertise that a client can train with a friend to share the cost Some individuals may see your prices online and feel that it is too expensive. By advertising the Train With A Friend offer, you will be able to show a more affordable and sometimes fun option to potential clients. Refer a friend and receive two free Personal Training sessions This offer could apply to existing clients and also potential clients or just someone who follows your content. On the back of this promotion you may get a new client in someone who has been considering training with you, they may introduce someone else at the same time so that they can get the two free sessions, the result being two potential new clients. Monthly promotions work really well, again all of these promotions can be planned in advance for the whole year by implementing it into your marketing plan. You should even include seasonal holidays, for example: March Offer - Get ready for the summer by taking advantage of our special offer - First block of 10 sessions half price, rrp 350 special offer price 175. Christmas Offer - Give the gift of Fitness purchase 5 Personal Training sessions for 100 instead of 175 January Offer - Sign up to our newsletter ( address collected) and receive a free nutrition guide. As with all of what we are building on here, your own limit is your imagination. Why give something away cheaper or free? Simple, it allows clients to experience what you are all about. Do your job right, be professional and build a rapport and most who take up the offer will sign up to continue to train with you for a long time to come. Learn - Inspire - Succeed 26

28 Online Coaching Another avenue to consider, and a great way to bring a passive income into your Fitness Business is to utilise online coaching. This has been done very well by some, yet very poorly by others. To start with, as with anything that we have discussed thus far, if you are going to offer online coaching as part of your business, it must look professional. How would I structure an online coaching business? The essence of online coaching is offering contact to clients and then to give ongoing support, guidance and education on their own journey of fitness, health and nutrition. This can, and will be, contact with clients that are a long way away form your base of work, therefore meetings in person is not an option. Even with this being the case, your online coaching still needs to be personalised and offer contact via video calls, , phone-calls and messaging. Before we look at pricing and marketing of this, lets first look at what content needs to be thought about. Client Consultation Treat an online consultation as you would any other consultation that you would deliver as a Personal Trainer. From the very first point of contact a good rapport needs to be worked towards. A good introduction needs to be always put into place through whichever means is appropriate for your client, i.e. video call or phone-call. As well as this introduction, you should go through an extensive ParQ (medical questionnaire) and Lifestyle Questionnaire. These two forms are vital and they must be completed in the correct manner. The ParQ will ensure you are aware of any conditions that may be affected by training, activity and even nutritional changes that you may apply. If this questionnaire highlights any issue, then your client will be able to get advice from their local GP before commencing their coaching with you. The lifestyle questionnaire should be very extensive, and be full of open questions that will allow both you and your client to go off on a tangent occasionally to explore vital bits of information that may have an impact on their coaching journey. The Lifestyle Questionnaire will gather all the information that you will need to give you the best opportunity to coach your client. The information gathered will include: An understanding of your clients mindset. What potential barriers you may have to overcome. Any major stresses in their life. How their weeks are structured which will result in how they will be able to food prep or dedicate time to training. Will they have support from family or friends. Have they had coaching previously and has it been successful or not. All this information will be vital for you to coach in the best effective manner. When done correctly, a proper client consultation will generally last anything from 45 minutes to a couple of hours. 27

29 Online Coaching After you have delivered a successful client consultation, gathered as much information as is necessary, and given your client the opportunity to ask as any questions, it is time to start planning. This next bit is very important as it can be done extremely well, but it can also be done very poorly. As with all Personal Training, and in this case online coaching, it must always be personalised to your client and it should never be generic. Lets look at how online coaching can be delivered incorrectly and unprofessionally. First of all, we have come across a high number of online coaching individuals or companies that would charge a premium rate for a very unprofessional set up. Not only does this not give value for a customers money, but it also sets up those individuals to fail. All too often online coaching will start by only offering a phone-call or a lot of the time communication made only by . In some cases it won t even start off with a proper client consultation, i.e. finding out information about a clients likes, dislikes, goals, barriers, timeframe etc. It will simply be, pay me money, I will send you a generic food plan that works for me therefore it will work for you, and here is a generic training routine. That is not how online coaching should be delivered. In a lot of cases there is not even support offered along the way, no training and nutrition tracking (i.e. food diaries), and there isn t any reviews in place to check progress. We have come across many individuals who have brought into and sold an online training & nutrition plan and it has not worked for them, essentially due to a lack of professionalism and support. Your online coaching should be individualised and specific for each client, they should be supported, and they should be tracked throughout their journey. Structure to your online coaching platform should be along the following lines: Client Consultation Baseline measurements Training programming for first mesocycle First nutrition plan Client to receive any documentation: Nutrition plan and training log Next review appointment should be agreed and in the diary Client should have a full understanding of what they need to do and how they can use you for support if needed prior to next review session. Baseline Measures As with everything we are about to discuss, Personal training works best when delivered face to face in person, online coaching is not designed to better that situation. Online coaching simply serves as a more affordable option for some individuals and for those that may already have experience of training and nutrition but simply need some structured guidance to what they are doing. Obviously the best way to find out someones baseline measures (i.e. body composition, postural analysis, fitness and strength tests) is in a face to face scenario, but it can still be implemented into your online coaching. Instead of doing skin-fold tests with callipers and circumference measurements to test body composition, you could get your online client to find out their body composition by using body fat scales at a local gym or even at their local Boots store. yes it is not as precise, but it gives a measure none the less. You can also get your online client to take their own body measurements with the help of a friend or family member, this will need to be shown to your client by the use of a worksheet or video, i.e. this is how you perform body measurements. You could even set fitness tests and muscle endurance tests for your client, and even ask for a video or photo to check their posture. Learn - Inspire - Succeed 28

30 Online Coaching Training programme for first mesocycle If you are to prescribe exercise for your online client, the key to this is to have the ability to educate your client by having visual content. Obviously you will not have the ability to demonstrate an exercise such as a Press up or a Squat in person, the next best thing would be to provide a video on your website that shows you coaching the teaching points, progressions and regressions for each exercise. The downside to this which is why this is never a replacement for one to one Personal Training is that you wont be able to observe your online client performing this in person. Yet there is always the option of having your client send you videos of them performing certain exercises. As with programming for any client, you should not just send out a generic programme card that may work for you or others, you must take on board all the information gathered from the lifestyle questionnaire. When programming the first phase of training, work to building up exercise technique, fitness and stamina levels, and even building up your clients confidence. Do not make it unattainable and too difficult. Definitely consider clients likes and dislikes as you need to ensure that your client is to be motivated and inspired from the very start. On your next review point, this is when you can consider progressing any element or maybe even scaling some exercises back. First Nutrition Plan Do not feel that your first nutrition plan given to any client has to be the best written nutrition plan in the world. This is exactly why no programming or nutrition planning can be generic. For example, you may have designed the best looking nutrition plan on paper steak and spinach for breakfast. salmon and vegetables for lunch. pre and post workout meals. but. not every client will benefit from an all singing and dancing nutrition plan from the very start, in fact this is exactly where a lot of clients or should I say Personal Trainers fail. The very first nutrition plan that you give should again reflect all the information that you have gathered from your consultation, likes/dislikes, current food habits, any allergies, has your client followed nutrition plans in the past but failed? The nutrition plan that you initially start off with for your client should be designed around this information. An even better way to start off advising your clients nutritional planning is to give little or no information about what they should eat. Before this point I would definitely advise your client to first of all keep a 1 to 2 week food diary. This way you will get an even clearer picture about the following: Current nutritional habits What your client perceives as healthy Calorific intake Does their current intake match their training goal? Are meal timings right? Once you have this information you can then start to plan. The first element of educating your client on nutrition is to ensure that you start off by developing any necessary eating habits. For example, if your client is regularly skipping breakfast, instead of advising they start the day with an egg, fish or meat based breakfast, you should simply encourage them to eat some cereal or toast at first to try to form the habit. To go with your nutrition plan, your client must continue to track their food and drink with a food diary, and you must continue to give support and to keep tabs on their progress. Resources, review points and understanding To start your online client off on their new regime as positively and empowered as possible, make sure they have all the materials and resources required, i.e. training log and food diary (this could be online as well so you can also login to see progress). Give your client the opportunity to ask any questions or to gain any extra information. If they are not fully understanding of what they should be doing it will not be effective and they will not be motivated to give it their 100%. By booking a review session in two weeks time, once a month or even every six weeks, this will keep your clients on track and accountable for what they need to achieve. You should also give ongoing support before this review session, making your client aware that if they need to ask a question then they should have the ability to do so. 29

31 Online Coaching Potential earnings form online coaching. There are a good number of options for how you could earn from this type of platform for your Fitness Business. We will be exploring this in a way to increase that monthly Direct Debit to help show how you can create yourself that regular income. The most important thing that you do with online coaching is to make it look professional, and to clearly lay out what your clients will be getting for their money. The most beneficial way to cost this, both for you and your client, is to not do a one off payment but to promote a monthly payment. The price you charge per month is relative to the worth you feel your offering to your online clients. I would definitely suggest that if you are signing your client up to a monthly payment plan, you should have a website full of educational content that they can also tap into. They should be able to access training videos, educational videos and even articles that are aimed to motivate, empower and educate. Below are some options of how you could structure your payments and also projections of each, remember the beauty of online coaching is you can market it nationwide and even internationally: Option One: Nutritional Guidance - 35 per month For this your clients will receive: Client consultation Food diary analysis - monthly Nutrition planning Ongoing support and monthly review Access to library of nutritional and lifestyle articles Cash flow projection: 10 clients per month = 350 monthly income 25 clients per month = 875 monthly income 50 clients per month = 1750 monthly income Option Two: Nutritional Guidance and Exercise Programming- 60 per month For this your clients will receive: Client consultation Food diary analysis - monthly Nutrition planning Ongoing support and monthly review Access to library of nutritional, lifestyle and training articles Periodised training programming Access to library of exercise technique and training videos Cash flow projection: 10 clients per month = 600 monthly income 25 clients per month = 1500 monthly income 50 clients per month = 3000 monthly income If you create a structure for each online client and show value and worth for your services this could create a very retainable part of your business. Of course some clients may use your services for 1 or 2 months only, but others will definitely become more long term. Learn - Inspire - Succeed 30

32 Running your own facility Can I really run my own Gym? One barrier for a lot of Fitness Professionals is not fully understanding how far they can actually take their business. Another is not investing in themselves enough to take their business to the next level. Now I am not saying for one instance that you should go out and spend 50k plus on a facility and expect it to work, but I have had the privilege of knowing a lot of individuals who have created a great training facility. Whether it be a gym solely for your own use with your own clients, or a gym that is open to the public for their own training, or even for other Fitness Professionals to use as a base for their own business. The Health and Fitness industry has always been heavily dominated by large chain gyms such as Fitness First, David Lloyds, Anytime Fitness to name but a few. This does not mean that smaller independent gyms can not be a part of this industry and create a great membership base. There is also the option to not open up a gym facility for gym members, but to instead open up an exclusive Personal Training studio. Owning a gym facility is not always as expensive as it may first seem. Research and investment can easily make this a reality. On the following page we will look at some examples of how this can work for you. 31

33 Running your own facility The cost of setting up your own facility will vary greatly. Dependent on facility size, location, rates, and lease the type of equipment purchased or leased and is the facility ready to use or does it need any work to fix up. The setting up of a facility requires a lot of research, a very good and well structured business plan, and maybe even the implementation of a partnership or investor. Finding the right facility for you and how it will fit your needs and ambitions is the first step. Are you going to be looking for a facility that is big enough to house only one Personal Trainer usage at a time. For example is this going to be a space for a treadmill, rowing machine, one squat rack, a bench, dumbbell stack, a range of kettle bells, a TRX and some floor space? If so the space you require may be 10m by 10m (100 square meters). This size space can be found in a well converted double garage, at the basement of an office block, or an un-used studio. This size would be ideal if you are really trying to have a unique space to train your clients away from the hustle and bustle of busy working gyms. A facility of this size can be made to look really inviting as well, it should be clean, well lit, good flooring, nicely painted and decorated, warm and a space that will motivate individuals to be training in. If you do not want to fill the weekly usage of this facility with your own Personal Training sessions you could consider letting over Fitness Professionals use it at a rental fee to ensure it is being used and you are getting the required income from it. A different option would be to scale up and open a bigger facility, one which could be utilised by a number of different Fitness Professionals at the same time. One thing that this industry needs is lots of options for Personal Trainers to deliver their sessions from, and independent gyms are great for this. You could create this facility that is not only inviting for your own clients to train out of but also for other Personal Trainers to use for their own clients. This way you will be getting an income from your own sessions and a passive income from other Fitness Professionals using your facility. This option is what I feel would offer a lot to your business and for others. Yes the facility rates and lease will be higher, but if your business plan is realistic you will be able to easily claw back these costs. A facility of this size could house 1-2 Treadmills, 1-2 Rowing machines, a few squat racks, a few benches, a good stack of dumbbells, KettleBells, TRX, punchbag, floor space, possibly even a prowler track. The options for you are great. But, when considering a venture such as this you must consider your target market. For example, if this facility was going to be very much BodyBuilding, CrossFit or Strength & Conditioning targeted, you will probably be putting off a large number of your Personal Training market, and potentially limiting Personal Trainers from using your facility. The reason for this is that a large market of a Personal Trainers client base is very often individuals who may be new to training, looking to lose weight, may have their own apprehensions about using a gym, and if your facility is a little bit too intense it will definitely put this type of individual off. If you are looking to create a Personal Training facility, and a gym for other trainers to use as well, it must take into account this target market. Learn - Inspire - Succeed 32

34 Running your own facility On this type of facility lets consider some potential earnings If you yourself were to deliver 25 sessions out of this facility that will be 875 per week (based on 35 sessions). Yet if you were letting other trainers use it for either 10 a session or 100 a week for unlimited access, 4 other trainers could give you 400 per week. That could amount to 1275 per week, 5100 per month, 61,200 per year (based on 48 weeks). Yes no overheads are added into the mix here, that will need to come into your business plan. All this is meant to do is give you some idea and hopefully inspiration to what your options for your Fitness Business could be. Could you bring any more of an income to this avenue of your business? Definitely, if space allows and if you have created the right training environment, you might have something that you could open up to gym goers who aren't looking to use a Personal Trainer, yet they want a good training environment to use for themselves. Having individuals use your facility will require gym inductions and agreements of usage, but ultimately it will create another passive income. Consider having 30 members paying you 30 a month to use your facility, that will be a nice addition of 900 per month. This would go along way towards covering your monthly outgoings. If you have the space, consider building in a treatment room for Sports Massage Therapy. Or you could hold indoor group training sessions, including Circuits, Pilates and Yoga. All these ideas will be bringing another revenue altogether to your business, and importantly creating a good footfall through the door of your facility, generating the all important word of mouth marketing about how great your facility is. As with everything, if you are going to open your own facility, you must make sure it appeals to your target audience. It is important that you do not just invest in the facility, but you invest in the marketing for it as well. For anyone who is trying to grow their own business, remember this following quote: A man who stops advertising to save money is a man who stops a clock to save time Henry Ford The essence of this quote is that if you do not give yourself a monthly marketing budget, which should be included in your cash flow projection, you can not expect people to flock to you. You may offer a great service as a Personal Trainer, or you may have a great training facility, but if no one knows about your business through lack of advertising then you will not get the growth that you deserve. 33

35 Business Growth Invest in Yourself As with any business, you must decide how much you are able to invest into it to ensure the growth that you desire. Invest in yourself is very apt. You will be investing in yourself when you decide to enrol onto a Personal Trainer course. This should be seen as an investment that you are willing to pay to ensure you end up following a career path that will give you job and lifestyle satisfaction, as well as the income that you are striving to achieve. When I got qualified as a Personal Trainer back in 2002, I was 23 years old but I decided to invest 5000 into my education and to enrol onto a Personal Trainer course ( 5k was then the going price for a good Personal Trainer course). At the time I was in a job which didn t give me any job satisfaction, and a job where I would be forever limited to what I could earn and where I could progress to. It didn t pay much, and I didn t come from a wealthy family, so therefore I decided to take a leap of faith and to get a bank loan to pay for my education to allow me to achieve the career that I wanted. I chose to invest in me, and I have never looked back on that decision. At the time borrowing 5k from a bank to allow me to pursue a completely different career was scary, I was borrowing a third of what I was currently earning every year. But this fear of borrowing and also the fear of creating a business in my early twenties with no experience of doing so is exactly what gave me the motivation and need to succeed. For me this loan was seen as my first investment to getting the career that I wanted. I ensured that this loan was a part of my business plan and I also worked hard that to ensure that it was repaid within the first year of trading. Not because I was rolling in money in my first year, but because I made sure that every month, after I had covered bills and living costs, I would pay back towards my loan as I saw it as the sooner I can pay this off, the sooner I would be able to invest again into my business. To this day I continue to invest into my business, so long as I can see that it will have a positive outcome. The great thing about the Health and Fitness Industry is that there is always learning and relearning to be done, continuing to build your knowledge allows you to add more value to your customers. So if you are reading this it may be because you are considering starting off as a Personal Trainer, or you may be reading this trying to figure out how you can grow your business to ensure you get more of an income that you feel you are worth. My advice would always be to try not to have fear when spending money on something that will potentially have a great and positive impact on what you want to achieve and where you want to be in life. Goal setting is a massive part of a Personal Trainers job, setting training and nutrition goals for clients is something you will be doing on a weekly basis, but make sure you apply that same goal setting knowledge to your business and life goals. Where do you want to be in a years time? Where do you want to be in 5 years time? What career do you want to have that will give you job satisfaction for the next 10, 20, 30 years? Now lets get one thing clear, I did not just jump at taking out a 5k loan, this took a good amount of consideration and going back and forth as to whether I should or shouldn t. What made me take the leap of faith and to invest into something that I believed I could do really well at, and to give me the career that I wanted, was asking myself can I really make this happen?. After a bit of research into what a Personal Trainer can potentially earn, and a lot of planning into how I could make it happen, I told myself that if I don't invest in myself, I would never know and I would be stuck doing a job which did not motivate for the next 20, 30+. This uncertainty and investment was definitely turned into a motivation for me to ensure that I would succeed. It helped me create a business and lifestyle that I did have a passion for. Learn - Inspire - Succeed 34

36 Business Growth After an initial investment, how do you build your business? This is one part of our company that we want to truly focus on, once a student is qualified as a Personal Trainer, how do they go about building their own Fitness Business. We have so far in this book gone through potential earnings and shown you some pretty good looking figures, but how do you actual go about making this a reality? The trick to this is consistency and another important investment, a monthly marketing budget. How much you actually dedicate to a monthly marketing budget obviously depends upon your financial status. But one thing that I have learnt over the years is that if you do not advertise, work generally does not come to you. Even if you are working out of a large chain gym with a massive membership base where you have many potential clients, it is still imperative that if you want to achieve the level of business and income that you are after, you will need to advertise to bring clients in as well. I have spoken with many Personal Trainers over the years whom while working at a large chain gym become frustrated with the lack of leads and new clients. I would always advise them to not expect the leads to always come, and to find new clients by using your own website and social media platforms. The great thing about the age we are working in now, is that digital media is a great and relatively cheap way of consistently marketing and keeping in touch with your current clients and potential market. Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube to name a few are all the perfect platform to spend a little and to get a lot of targeted reach. Consider this, you have written a great article on how you have been helping clients implement new lifestyle habits and making training and good nutrition a part of their weekly routine. Or maybe you have created an amazing video which captures your Personal Training skills and your clients enjoyment within their sessions. Whatever it may be, if it just sits on your website it probably won t get the reach and notice that you will be after. This is where your monthly marketing budget comes in. Lets say that your monthly budget for your first three months is 100. You could use 30 of this to promote your article or video on Facebook for a two week duration. Targeting your audience, this may be an age demographic of 35-45, male and female, interested in weight-loss, nutrition, training for example. The good thing about this type of advertising is that it is driving people to your website. They will not only be able to read your article, they will hopefully have a look around your site to see what else you have to offer, they may read some of your testimonials and hopefully they will take action to get in touch with you. Another part of your monthly budget might go towards a specific Facebook advert which is essentially advertising a monthly Special Offer, encouraging those who are interested to take action immediately to avoid missing out. An example of this could be your January offer entitled A New Year, A New You, two free Personal Training session, to receive you must message direct from this advert. You may want to heavily promote this by spending the full remain 70 to keep a targeted advert floating around Facebook for the whole of January. If this advert results in the gaining of a new client that is looking to train with you for twice a week, you have made this investment back straight away. That one client could then go on and train with you for year upon year, an investment of 70 now could net you 3,360 (based on said client training with you twice a week for 48 weeks of the year). It could be even better, the 70 advert could always have brought in 2,3,4 or even more new clients. Now from month to month your marketing budget may change. Of course it may be more at the beginning to bring in the clients, maybe you have budgeted 300 for the first two months, 150 for months 3 and 4, then down to 50 a month thereafter. Some months you may be getting the reach from your social media and website and you are busy enough that you may feel that you don't want to spend any on a monthly marketing budget. No matter how it works for you, the key to success and continued growth is always consistency. Do not think that one advert will build a client basis, as we have already mentioned, some potential clients will need to be reminded of your services before they take action and get in touch with you. Every month should involve a marketing plan, and every month should involve a marketing budget to bring about real success. 35

37 Business Growth Not all of your monthly marketing budget should or needs to be put towards social media advertising. Means of advertising should include the following, some of which are only one off investments: Social Media Advertising - Monthly spend Google Ads - Monthly, every other month or quarterly spend. Promotional video and/or photography - One off spend, or intermittent if looking to update content Banners, Leaflets, Business Cards - One off spend Vehicle Sign Writing - One off spend Again, all of the above should be a part of your marketing plan, do stick to this plan, be consistent, and do not feel that it wont work for you. Your potential clients won t always be on Facebook or Instagram, your consistent posts is what will ensure they will eventually see it. Keep a good record of all of your advertising. You will need to see where your money is going and you will definitely need to see the return that you get for it. The likes of social media will even give you an idea about your target audience demographic, allowing you to sometimes change your target depending on the persona of individuals who are engaging with your content. All businesses need to have money invested into them to ensure they grow. I have seen the exact effect upon my own business, and unfortunately I have also recorded that if I am not consistent with content and a monthly spend, the amount of enquiries and sales that I see goes down drastically. Its simple no spend, no new business. Don't be afraid to invest in yourself, make sure that you always see a return on what you are spending, if you aren t consider a different approach to the promotional material that you are using and a different targeted audience. The great thing about Personal Training is that it can generally be a very retainable business. Most of the clients that start their training with you will be training with you consistently for months and hopefully years. This will definitely mean that once your weekly schedule begins to reach your perceived maximum, you're spend on advertising can go down to reflect this. If you happen to lose a few regular clients, you can simply increase your monthly spend to replace with new clients and new challenges for you. Lets next look at this retainable business, and how it is vital to your business longevity and success that you keep your clients motivated and encouraged to stay training with you year upon year. Learn - Inspire - Succeed 36

38 Retaining your clients It is one thing to get a client, making sure you do your job right to ensure they want to train with you on a monthly, yearly basis is what matters. This is where client rapport comes into it. If you are to do your job right as a Personal Trainer it is imperative that you give your client a reason to want to come back to see you regularly as part of their weekly routine. This should be easy at the start, as well as building a rapport with a new client, and building on that professional relationship, you should be programming accordingly so that you can change how they train, eat and enforce lifestyle changes to create ongoing habits by setting short term and medium term goals. Yet after three or four months, hopefully moist of these first initial habits will implemented. Your client should be eating better, seeing results in themselves, finding training challenging yet nothing that they are not used to by now. The challenge now is to continually keep your client motivated and working towards a long term goal. 37

39 Retaining your clients Now when it comes to training, as with most disciplines, it is the basics that work. As a Fitness Professional, you do not have to continually think up new and wonderful exercises. You simply have to keep your workouts challenging yet motivational by programming using the exercises that are effective (such as squats, lunges, overhead presses, rows, bench presses, pull ups, clean & presses etc). The programming should also reflect your knowledge of variety, sequencing, advanced training methods and understanding of how each element can be progressed, or in some cases regressed. Over the years many a student has asked for advice as they are running out of ideas of how they should programme for what is turning out to be a long term client. My advice has been to always keep to the basics and to not worry if you are doing squats every week, or deadlifts every week, as these are the exercises that develop and improve a clients technique, strength and body composition. Take a look at your own training for example, I am sure that over the years you have maybe changed the format of your training, yet it probably has remained pretty much the same content of exercises and training styles, all that changes might be the intensities or resistances. What keeps your clients coming back to you is programming that will show progression of their abilities, but mainly your interaction. The great thing about Personal Training is that you can build some great friendships along the way. Many clients will enjoy seeing you on a weekly basis as not only will you be guiding their training, nutrition and lifestyle, you will be genuinely interested in them as a person, as they will with you. Over the years, most of my long term clients have taken an avid interest into my lifestyle, family and friends, as I have with theirs. It has ensured clients look forward to training with me each week just as I have looked forward to seeing them. Yes it is ultimately about paying for a service and seeing the results, but the rapport that comes with that is a great bonus to the job. Another reason for a client wanting to train with you on a regular basis is to ensure that they remain accountable for their own training and lifestyle habits when they are not seeing you. If a client struggles to keep on the wagon when it comes to nutritional intake, having the accountability of seeing a Personal Trainer each week and showing them their food diary will definitely ensure they are eating and drinking correctly to match their goal more often than not. If they do start to fall away from a good intake, the weekly training sessions and discussions upon this will allow the Personal Trainer to address any issues and to keep them on the straight and narrow. The same applies to the training that they are doing when they are not seeing you. Keeping a training and activity log for some clients is also highly important as to get great results it is important that calorie expenditure and regular activity is implemented on a daily basis, not just once or twice a week in a Personal Training session. Learn - Inspire - Succeed 38

40 Retaining your clients Most Personal Trainers will build up a business of retainable clients. Lets go back to your first 10 clients as an example of this. Out of your 10 clients, hopefully a few of those will be two to three sessions a week, some once a week and maybe a couple of will train with you every other week. This should hopefully give you up to 15 sessions per week and these will train with you for a good period of time. Most of the clients that I have had over the years, as well as other Personal Trainers working along side me, have been fortunate to train these regular clients on a yearly basis. Obviously if 15 sessions of Personal Training a week is not your target then keep advertising until you get the number that you want, for me I always ensured I had around sessions of Personal Training each week for every year of running my Personal Training business. If a client drops off for any reason, ensure you advertise correctly to fill up the space so that your weekly session quota isn t affected. Another great way to ensure you keep a retainable business would be to not just sell blocks of sessions, but to sell a life changing course of training, nutrition and lifestyle education. You may have seen a lot of Fitness Professionals sell 12 week challenges? Some can be done really well, others are not for everyone as some are very much intense training and a restricted diet to strip down body fat, yet this is not always life changing as it is great for the 12 weeks but then a lot of clients will not continue with this type of training and intense dieting. There fore, they see results after 12 weeks, then they continue to go back to a normal diet and their old style of training and the weight goes back on. Also selling a 12 week challenge does not always encourage anyone to continue their personal training after the 12 weeks, therefore it is only retainable for 3 months and then you are back to trying to find another client. Consider advertising a course of training that will not be a quick fix but will be a lifelong training, nutritional and lifestyle change which won t just benefit your client but will educate them to apply this knowledge to their family and friends. Lets look at an example of this: Special Offer: Limited to 10 spaces 14 week Training & Nutritional education 2 sessions of Personal Training per week Training plan - Reviewed every 4 weeks Monthly baseline measure testing Nutrition planning Food preparation workshop Weekly nutrition education workshop and food & training diary analysis Ongoing support Cost 1495 *After the fourteen weeks you will be offered a discounted price on Personal Training sessions to continue your training and to ensure you keep all the nutritional and lifestyle changes as a habit and you continue to improve, to reach your goal and to reach new goals. 39

41 Retaining your clients Obviously selling a package that costs 1495 will be harder than selling a block of 350, but ensure your advertising hits the unique set up of this. You may want to add some comparisons, i.e. training three times a week would cost 1470 for 14 weeks, but on top of this your clients will get all of the additional benefits from your educational course as well. You may also add in to the selling that it is only limited to a set number of spaces and only runs at a specific times of the year, i.e. give a time frame of starting April 1st. It will also be important to get across in your advertising that this is not a one off 14 week course where the clients will be left to their own devices upon completion. Really highlight that your clients who sign up will be able to continue their training with you after the 14 weeks, and that they will then qualify for the discounted Personal Training rate. Lets look at this from a cashflow prospective and how you could implement this over the 14 weeks. If you were to sell all 10 spaces on your course that will net you 14950, without taking into accounts any overheads. On top of this, hopefully most/all of the 10 clients will also continue training with you upon completion, adding to this. By training each client on a one to one basis you will be delivering 20 sessions of Personal Training per week. The educational workshops can be delivered as a group, therefore you may dedicate one evening per week to this. Every four weeks you will need to arrange a one to one review and potential baseline measure testing session for each client. If necessary, you may bring in group training sessions as a further option to a package like this. You may also use the services of another Personal Trainer to help with the delivery of these sessions. A good reason why this could be a successful option for you is that too many Fitness Professionals do a great job in delivering sessions, but do not also educate their clients on lifestyle and nutritional changes. Remember this does not even need to be done just the once per year, it could be done twice a year and it could also be delivered in different locations. If you were to deliver two of these a year, that would amount to 28 weeks of the year in total dedicated to this and an income of 29,900. Pro rata that would be equivalent to a little over 51,000 of a yearly wage. This is just another option for you and your Fitness Business. This is a great way to not just offer value and lifelong knowledge to a client who is looking to make a change for their health and wellness, but it helps aid a retainable business. Learn - Inspire - Succeed 40

42 Retaining your clients Lets recap the key elements to creating a retainable business: Create a great client rapport. Ensure that your programming progresses your clients fitness, strength and ability. Results need to be shown for your clients investment into your training. Give ongoing support to your client throughout their training and nutritional journey. Do not just pay an interest during your PT sessions. Ensure that you use review sessions, enabling you to look over your clients food diary, training log, and to check your clients mindset. These review sessions will also enable you to gain feedback from your client. Use educational courses to create the habit for your clients to want to book in and train with you on a weekly basis. 41

43 Now Go And Be A Success Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you ll know when you find it. Steve Jobs Learn - Inspire - Succeed 42

44 Now Go And Be A Success Upon completion of your Personal Trainer qualification, this is where it all becomes a reality and you must put all of your new skills into practice. Hopefully, as you have been working through your qualification, you will have been laying the foundations to your new business: Brand and logo design is complete A website is live Social media platforms are up and running and content has been added to them A base to train from has been established A solid business plan with short, medium and long term plans is in place You may even have your branded clothing and a marketing plan Now you must go after your first 10 clients and let your target audience see just how good the service is that you offer. Once you are actively working as a Personal Trainer, the content that you can upload and promote through your website will increase ten-fold. You will be able to give an insight into your Personal Training sessions by use of video and pictures, you will have client success stories to write articles on, you will even be able to get a lot more specific client testimonials. Sharing someone else's experience on how you have trained them is a great way to showcase what you have to offer. This is where the Social Media platforms really come into it. Lets go through a quick crash course in how you can use Social Media to your advantage and how it can really grow your business. 43

45 Using Social Media The Pros and Cons of Social Media: Pros: A great way to promote yourself on a daily basis for FREE. The spend on advertising can be as minimal or maximal as your monthly marketing budget allows. Many methods can be used to promote your brand and business, competitions are a great way to attract new customers and to grow your social media audience. Links up well with your website, therefore a very easy way to drive traffic to your site. Cons: Can lead to procrastinating!! Can affect your confidence levels and motivation. Other individuals can be negative towards your content. Many Fitness Professionals fall into the trap of creating self promotion about their own physiques and training, rather than using it in a professional means to advertise. A variety of call to action buttons makes it easy for potential clients to contact and engage with you. Learn - Inspire - Succeed 44

46 Using Social Media Social media platforms are an excellent way to grow your business. It can be cheap to run marketing campaigns, and you can target a very specific audience. Most individuals are using a social media platform these days. Whether it is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or other, a lot of people have a habit of logging on to their chosen platform almost every day. But, do not forget that not everyone is using social media, so it is still important to consider how you can reach that side of your audience. This could be by using local advertising: Banners/Posters/ Leaflets Targeted Google Ads for your website Sign writing your vehicle. etc. As we have discussed already in this book, it is vital that you create professional looking social media platforms that reflect the message of your brand. Remember, if you are training to be a figure competitor, or if you train for CrossFit events, then your social media content should not be only about you. Of course it is great to show a bit about your own training ethos and how you uphold a lifestyle of consistent training and disciplined nutrition, but that should only really make up 20% of what you put out online. The remaining 80% should be solely targeted at potential customers. Finding clients who have the same goal as you would be great, and they may view your own imagery online that reflects what you do as inspiring and they sign up to train with you, but the target audience for this will be very small and limited. Lets be honest here, 70%+ of any Personal Trainers client base will most likely be made up of individuals who want to get fitter, healthier, lose weight, build muscle (referred to as toning up). These are clients who will be wanting to create lifelong training, eating and lifestyle habits. If this is such a large part of a trainers client base, then this is what your online content should reflect and be targeted towards. If your content is consistently images and videos yourself training, or selfies in a toilet post-workout, or pictures of your steak and spinach breakfast, it won t appeal to your target audience. What appeals to your target audience is imagery, videos, and articles of how you can help individuals make the changes that are necessary to reach their own goals. I do know Fitness Professionals who solely train bodybuilding clients, or sports performance clients, and they have created a business out of doing so. My point here is that it is a very small minority of your target audience. 45

47 Using Social Media Once you have got your content on your social media, again the more you can get on here in the first few months the better, it is then time to grow your brand and create awareness of what your services are. Articles written on your blog page of your website should be shared to your social media. As will imagery and video content that shows how you train your clients, and also content that will educate your clients and potential clients. To do this you can do a number of things: An article or video on your website will obviously only get seen if someone directly goes to it. To start with, your new website will have very limited traffic, therefore all your good work probably won't get the attention that you want. Sharing your content to your social media will ensure your target audience will be able to see your work. This will also result in individuals clicking through to your website, therefore increasing traffic. Likes and Shares: Try to encourage your audience to start Liking or Sharing your posts so that those who are not yet connected with you will see what you do and hopefully follow your work in the future. Therefore growing your following on social media, and putting your work in front of a larger audience. Facebook Boosts: Not all of those who follow you on social media will see your posts, this is something that Facebook in particular has done to encourage you to boost your posts. If you have an article that you feel really reflects what your brand is about, you can make sure that more of your followers will see it by boosting, but this will cost a small fee. Or you can even choose a targeted audience, for example everyone between the ages of 45 and 55 within 10 miles of your location that is interested in Fitness, Health and Nutrition. Boosting content works, and you can do it on either a very small spend or a much larger one. But do make sure that you are not spending 5-10 a boost for multiple posts which don t clearly get your message out there or that would convert into sales. Also if you keep boosting random posts the costs will soon mount up and you will have eaten too much into your monthly marketing budget. Facebook and Instagram Ads: This is the best way to promote specific posts, special offers, testimonials, services etc. This should be done using the Ads Manager on Facebook. By using the Ads Manager, Facebook will promote you in the best possible way, to the audience that you choose. It can even promote the same advert on Instagram as well. This will not only promote a specific offer, video or article, it will also drive traffic to your website and it will grow your social media following. The more you spend, the greater the reach so therefore use you monthly marketing budget to plan accordingly for this. Social media should definitely be utilised to successfully advertise your business. It can be a very affordable way to reach a lot of your target audience, but remember to promote your brand professionally. Use a monthly marketing budget and follow your marketing plan, and remember to always be consistent. If one advert does not at first give you any new clients, do not be put off, keep promoting, keep spending wisely, and it will happen. Consistency is key. Learn - Inspire - Succeed 46

48 Plan for your future Success isn t always about greatness, it s about consistency. Consistent hard work gains success. Greatness will come Dwayne Johnson The Rock Start planning for your business now. I hope this book has given you some ideas that you can apply to your own Fitness Business. Preparation now will help you to achieve the success that you desire for your future. Create your brand, website and online platforms. Write a business plan, a marketing plan and give yourself a monthly marketing budget. Invest in yourself. Continue to learn, Knowledge is Power. 47

49 Learn - Inspire - Succeed