Financials | Earning & Maximising Money

Set your prices to attract the right customer

Ebay attracts a thrifty cheap customer base. Those without allot of disposable you see this in the website and in commercials. But you can work this out by yourself - why does a person by second hand clothing, tech etc.

The same is true for Providing personal training services. Price yourself low and you will attract those that value only how cheap you are. Price yourself higher and its possible to attract people who value your expertise - but you have to communicate your value well enough for them to take you up.

Upsell

Understand your clients and you can upsell other people's services for a small kick back or sell products. People who workout tend to have muscle soreness this is an easy cross sell for massage guns or someone you know who does physiotherapy or sports massage. 

Classes

It's important to include group classes within your services as something you can cross sell and as a pipeline for clients who you may get from the classes you do. Contact your local school to see if you can rent the sports hall or find some other community centre where you can rate a decent space. 

Personal Trainer specialisation, Becoming an Expert & your unique selling point (usp)

 One of the most common mistakes for personal trainers just starting out is just being a personal trainer-no matter what your goal is I can help you achieve it. It sounds okay but what makes you different from any other pt in your area or online? Really nothing. Have you also noticed how many PT training services are out there right now, churning out an endless supply of PTs who will offer everything you can, with the promise of quick riches? This is why it may help to choose a specialised role, take some time to think about who you want to work with ie what type of client, what goal. This will help you gain more experience as you focus on one type of goal rather than try to be all things to all people. Become an expert in your area. 

Being Focused and Becoming an Expert in Personal Training

 Focusing on one specialisation helps you to become more than just a general personal trainer, but more of an expert in your chosen area. Almost every other industry does this, and many ecommerce stores thrive by being specialised stores rather than everyone trying to be just another Amazon. They can provide the extra detail and expertise that comes with specialisation. 

You may think that this will reduce your potential client reach, and you are right it will, but that is a good thing  - especially when you are just starting out. Lets say 1000 women are looking to lose weight in your area. and they view the profiles of 100 PTs all with the standard generic profile. Then, they see your profile someone who specialises in weight loss for women suddenly you are the forefront of all these people. You may lose out on 1000 Guys who are looking to be body builders, but that is ok. Better to be able to sell higher rates to more willing target audience than hopefully getting fewer numbers of just anyone.

Personal Training Specialisation benefits your time and resources. 

You work with the clients and goals that work for you - no more taking on clients that you are not keen with. You also get to dedicate your time to learning and improving your knowledge, routines and system with a laser like focus rather than just having the standard routines that almost all other PTs have.

 

Think about what type of customer will be looking for a pt over Apple fitness , peloton etc.

Personal Trainer Specialisations

Kids / teens

Sports - tennis football

Weight lifting

Influencers - body sculpting

Disabled

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Golden Rules for Getting Money: The Art of Money Making, Investing & Creating Capital

One aspect of managing your revenue is how you use your money. The book Golden Rules for Getting Money can give you practical ideas for maximising your revenue which could be the difference between success and failure.

Many good pts will put aside a portion of money from. Each client to cover holidays and sick days. In fact choosing a bank that allows you separate accounts to split your earnings in this manner will repay you exactly when you need it. Even better would be to choose a service that will let you put money aside in a stocks and shares isa with no more than a week withdrawal time frame. This money is not to be touched until you retire from personal training unless you need it to cover the afore mentioned times of need. If you can keep sick days to a minimum then you should end up with a nice pot of money at the end of your career.

Creating a Personal Trainer Website

Start by asking if you really need a website. Many Web hosting services will tell you that you do but they have a monetary interest in you creating a website with them. I do have a PT website but many of my clients have come from word of mouth and pay via PayPal, they have never seen my website. If you are very good at self promotion you will have to consider what the cost : benefit of a website will bring you.

For example if you specialise in older people will they be searching for a personal trainer online? From my time spent in community leisure centres my own experience is they don't tend to and are far more likely to seek information from local centres they go to. 

Next consider what your website will do for you. Will it help you provide online payments, act as a marketing funnel to get clients, help you and your clients keep track of online bookings or allow you to provide online content. What you require from your site will help you decide who to choose as your site provider. Many people are quite happy paying via PayPal or pay by card in person with a service like izettle or square or sum up. Many still prefer cash. So a page on Facebook twitter or Instagram or even a place on classifieds could be a cheaper and more effective option. 

What your site should really be for. The cost of acquiring customers via search advertising used to be very cheap but this is no longer the case. There are so many other pts bidding on those clicks, plus services like peleton and gyms. Then there are the countless fitness books, streaming services and products all pushing up the cost of customer aquastition. So use your site as social proof, to give customers confidence in choosing you and to provide addition information. This means focusing on doing the leg work in person network the right areas and people and  having a card with a qr code on or a service like slink. 

Ekm can be a good option to help collect payments for single and block bookings or to operate a fitness store. It requires little knowledge of Web design and can be set up in minutes, plus plans come with good support. 

First lets start with the domain. Unless your name is already well known in your area or within the circle of your chosen target market you are not going to benefit from using karis PT other than pride. In this instance consider pride a sin, and avoid it. a better option would be to include your specialisation like Karis weight loss, Karis spin or karis junior fitness. This tells customer straight away what they want to hear without needing to look for information. It will also give your site a boost in ranking for the keywords people are searching for. 

When creation a site a key aspect will be to give people reasons to resolve their cognitive dissonance and keep their pride such as images of success, ideas of social approval etc.

Tips on how to create a password for your sites

Advertising

Advertising should be a main focus for your personal training business, more so than doing extra fitness courses or learning more about fitness. You should learn marketing, you are going to have to learn to communicate your ability and give people the confidence to choose you over other pts and fitness services. This is because many of the most successful products and services were not actually the best, they just had the best marketing. 

Despite the rise of fitness platforms and gadgets many people still look to local personal trainers for help in reaching their fitness goals. 

The first step is to make sure you have chosen and are happy with your specialised fitness area. This will form the foundation for where you advertise, how you advertise and what your message is. 

Get comfortable with word of mouth or as I call it door to door sales. You are going to have to approach people wherever and whenever you can. Trust me a PT website is a hard sell without testimonials and images of results. The easiest way to get started is to approach people who are exercising and compliment them on their hard work or ask them how their training is going. Try some rejection therapy if you are scared of approaching people. Rejection therapy is where you ask for things that you are fully aware people will not agree to. This will help you get used to hearing people say no and may help to remove any anxiety associated with approaching people. 

Local ads and lealfets

Leaflets are still a great way to advertise your services, especially if you target your distribution so you catch the right people for your chosen specialality. So if you focus is on weight loss target your leaflets and ads at the doctors, slimming clubs, etc. 

Classifieds

Classifieds should be your next step, the reason why we don't focus on a website straight away is because building seo takes time and unless you have a high budget for advertising it will take time to get traffic to your site. Placing on a classified is one way of getting instant traffic to your service. 

Search engines 

The main two are Google search and bing, your main goal with this is to rank as high as you can in search rankings. The best way to do this is to continuously improve your seo (covered elsewhere). But the fastest route to success is to pay to be at the top. Think carefully about your chosen specialisation and take the time to research keywords and people related to it. 

Youtube

Next you need to start building a site to showcase your specialist knowledge and previous work. Make sure your site and adverts across Google bing and YouTube are consistent with lots of imagery and invest in video especially for YouTube. 

The Fastest way to earn Money as a Personal Trainer | Alternative Jobs

 Getting started as a Personal Trainer can be difficult, time consuming and require a large initial investment when you factor in the cost of training, setting up your website and your budget for advertising. (Daily posts on instagram doesn't count).

Below are some of the fastest ways to start earning money as a Personal Trainer

Personal Trainer / Fitness Instructor for Council or Corporate Gyms 

 many big corporations have their own gyms for their employees benefits  you can always apply for work there or if they don’t emploe people offer to apply your pt there in return for paying rent. Also, check council gym jobs frequently as they are usually secure jobs with good budgets for expanding your skills. 

A Fitness Columnist for Newspapers or Magazines

Many magazines newspapers and websites have an insatiable need for fresh new content  go find these places  cold call if necessary give them examples of what you are capable of writing

Other Health / Fitness Consultant Jobs within Government

Your pt qualification / experience can get your foot in the door of government jobs  usually as a health office or other roles this can be in the wider community or in schools and care homes etc

Teaching Physical Education in Schools

As above your pt qualification may help you get a teaching assistant job for physical education  this option also works as a way to diversify your income as they usually work during school times  giving you ample time to do personal training at a prime time when most people are usually finishing work and therefore needing a pt to help them workout in their free time  

Freelance classes

Many gyms are on the constant look out for class instructors so try to gain a course that includes some for of class qualification or module. One ever popular option is spin classes. Then it is just a matter of calling gyms in your area to offer your services. Classes are also a good way of upselling personal trainng.

Stock footage

Many studios and freelance photographers earn good income from selling stock footage for business to use on websites, corporate videos, advertising posters etc get in touch to see if they have a fitness shoot that you can work with them on. They will be glad of your pyshique but more importantly your knowledge of how na exercise should look. 

Becoming a Personal Trainer Gym V Home (Mobile)

One of the first key decisions you will likely make is whether to become a gym based personal trainer or a home based personal trainer. Each has their own pros and cons and we will take a look at these below. But as a quick take away if you can get into a gym it is usually easier to get clients, I have met PTs who would never get a client on their own be 'given' clients because they are in a gym. Home based PT offers more freedom and if successful more pay - but it is harder. 

Key Advice: Unless you already have a good and unique specialisation, with experience, then try to attain employment in a gym ( Government/ Council is usually better.) first.

While it can be beneficial to start off in a gym first, essentially to gain much needed experience being a personal trainer, I would still advise against a gym position if you can go mobile, here’s why

Pros

No Personal Trainer 'Gym' rent

Let’s start with the biggest reason to avoid gym based roles. Many will charge you the pleasure of being in their gym. The sell of this is that you are in the very place where people might want a personal trainer, and for use of their equipment etc. Now, wether you get clients or not you are still expected to pay the gym - a mobile home personal trainer doesn't have to pay this, and can easily use this money as their advertising budget.

Full Autonomy as a Personal Trainer

Despite being your own boss, you still have to answer to the gym manager and usually the team leaders. So you have all of the risks of the self employed but fewer of the pros like really being your own boss. You are also working for their brand, you wear their clothing, and have to abide by their standards. If a client switches to a new gym, thats a lost client for you, where as a home based pt will only face this problem if someone moves house to a different area. 

Specialise

While it is possible to specialise in a gym with things like GP referrals (highly recommended to earn extra money and make yourself valuable) etc. You have a much broader scope to work with when you are self employed. You can focus on areas and people that are underserved such as junior fitness, speciality sports, or a certain demographic (women, bodybuilding etc).

Benefits of gyms

Being where people want a Personal Trainer

This is easily the main reason why many personal trainers pay rent or get a job in a gym  being where your potential clients are  and should you make good personal approaches ie network properly you can earn a good income from it  

On going Training

Many gyms will either provide training or offer a discount on training courses in partnership with training providers. If not you should encourage this as this will be mutually beneficial, you receive added skills while the gym can provide extra services especially classes. 

Classes

Classes are a great way of earning some bonus income but they can also be a great way to get new personal training clients as you showcase your fitness knowledge and your personality. Don't forget to give a call to action at the end of your sessions informing people of your rates and availability - you may also include any offers you may do or free sessions.

The old practice for gyms used to be that you'd pay rent each month and then be told that you are your own boss / self employed yet still have to answer to middle management, do cleaning jobs etc. Nowadays this is becoming increasingly rarer in favour of working part time in the gym as an instructor then doing PT outside of those hours. While this is much better you still should be looking to cut the 25 hours you would be working out as as possible in favour of working less hours but more money as your own PT. Just be sure to use your time in the gym correctly. Focus more on engaging and upselling your brand rather than meeting the gyms requirements for your part time role.

As a rule if you can it is much better to get a paid PT job if you have no clients or experience. 

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