Quote: (02-25-2013 03:23 PM)thegmanifesto Wrote:
Think outside the box (so to speak).
Find your own clients.
Train them outside.
I see cats training people (some celebs) outside near my house all the time.
Charge what you can get ($60 per hour? $100 per hour?)
No overhead.
All profit.
All CASH.
Get referrals. Book up. Now you are making 10k per month. Again, all CASH.
Now you are cooking with gasoline and a match.
My brother is a personal trainer and employs a similar model to this. It's all about good social skills, i.e. customer service skills. Because at the end of the day, a personal trainer is providing a service to a client and part of that experience is the atmosphere and comfort level the trainer can present.
He works full time at a high end health club, but because of his commission-based salary, he had to sign a non-compete which states that he cannot steal clients away from the club in order to train them on the side for personal financial gain.
He goes out and joins a lot of sports clubs, i.e. basketball leagues, snowboarding events, etc. He networks through these channels and picks up clients this way. He does this part time so he chooses how many clients to take on, and what hours to work.
The reason why he isn't taking this full time is because he is still young. When he told me about his situation, I had advised him to keep working his job, to gain important credentials and reputation (which is very important in the fitness industry) so that when he does decide to branch out on his own, he will have a solid network that can back up his personal training business.
The most important element amongst all this is that he is passionate about fitness. His friends are all about fitness, he studied health and fitness in college, his hobbies are all sports...all that jazz. So that's why he's able to do the full-time + part time personal training like he does.
All in all, my point is, if you want to make personal training a good, profitable sideline gig, you need to treat it like any other business venture. Network, keep those good impressions consistent, and keep your clients happy.