I just graduated from Indiana University with a Bachelor’s degree in Fitness and Wellness. I’m working at my local YMCA and they really haven’t had an established personal training program in the past. I have been brought on to create my own personal training department from scratch which has it’s pluses and minuses. I have created a few programs already and am just in the process of endorsing myself. Any advice as to good methods for attracting clients and endorsing my personal training?
Do you look the part?
Yes, I am very well groomed and outgoing so that’s not an issue. I would just like different ideas to promote a personal training business
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It is difficult to start from scratch. The first thing I’d do is make it easy for people who are already looking for a personal trainer to find you. This is much easier than trying to convince people who aren’t already looking for a trainer that they should, in fact, hire one.
On that note, I’d make it clear to every member of your club that there’s a personal trainer on staff now. Signage, emails, and the like should do the job. Some small percentage of members might say “you know, I’ve been thinking about hiring a trainer” and take you up on whatever your introductory offer is. You’ll have more success with this if the people in the club already know and like you, so its probably in your best interest to spend time getting to know the members and offering advice when appropriate.
Outside the club, I’d set up a simple webpage and a Google Business profile so people searching for trainers in your area have a shot at finding you and reaching out. Make the webpage clean, professional, and appealing to the kinds of people who hire trainers at the local YMCA. Depending on the demographics of your area and the local competition, this may be enough to get a slow but steady stream of potential clients.
These are both largely “passive” marketing strategies, so I’d also engage in 2-3 “active” forms of marketing until your schedule is pretty full. Ideas include: direct mailing campaigns, email marketing (get people on your mailing list with a free lead-magnet and then keep in touch with relevant emails 2-3x per week), charity workouts, speaking events both inside and outside the club, reaching out to the local paper offering to write fitness-related content, forming relationships with complimentary businesses (physical therapists, weight loss docs, massage therapists, etc) in your area, etc. Once you have some clients, referral-based marketing is probably your best bet, and there are a ton of ways to do that.
Overall, you’ll be doing a lot of work that isn’t directly related to training for at least the first few months – probably longer. Mind if I ask how the compensation structure works at this facility? Usually the benefit of working at an established club when you start out as a trainer is that they feed you clients. This allows you to actually get decent at training people without having to focus on building a business at the same time. Sounds like that’s not going to be your situation, so I do hope the compensation agreement you have with them makes it worth your time and effort.
Don’t recommend the gym newbie starts off on 6x per week on a hypertrophy/powerlifting split with undulating progression. Ask them how many days a week they can train, ask specifically what their goals are, ask how their relationship with food is, and encourage them along the way. Get them started on the big 4 so they can have some groundwork to expand on too.
Also, anything in here is good.
Lastly, don’t put your dick in them.
Thank you very much for the advice! That is extremely helpful as I am really going about this on my own and am needing to take the “bull by the horns” when it comes to getting things done. Unfortunately, the compensation here isn’t good here at all. When training someone, my pay rate will increase to $15 an hour and I get zero percentage of the package price that they pay when they sign on. However, I have been working on some programs and things that I would like to discuss for the future as I realize what I bring to the table and am responsible for doing here. Therefore, I am planning on having a meeting with my boss this week to renegotiate my compensation here so that I get about 65% of the package with an increase in pay to a permanent $15 per hour.
I am currently getting paid about 10 an hour as I am fresh out of college, but with that being said, my expectations here are too high for me to not be getting paid properly. Creating a whole department from scratch is my main use of leverage in that discussion because I want to create a department that will not only attract clients for the facility, but also lead to greater chances of them hiring other personal trainers when I move away in a year or two.
As far as marketing so far goes, I have posted my personal trainer bio on my Instagram and Facebook as I am trying to utilize social media. My manager at the YMCA was going to share it on hers also. Then her husband is a photographer for all sports within a 30 miles radius so she said he will spread the word too. I’m hoping that helps and will endorse me.
Did you go to college with the ultimate goal of being a personal trainer?
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That’s rough dude. Do you live in a small town with a low cost of living? Are there any other gyms in the area?
Since you’re essentially going to be on your own and building your own clientele, I’d try to negotiate a structure like this: you’re not an employee at all, but an independent business that pays them a flat rate for every training session you do there. 15 or 20 bucks is pretty close to the current market rate, so that’s what you’ll pay them. Charge your clients $60-85 (maybe less for the first few but quickly raise rates once you have experience). You’ll have to carry your own liability insurance, open a business bank account, and pay self employment taxes, but you’ll actually be able to make a living and be rewarded for all the work you’ll be putting in.
The social media thing might bring a person or two, but I wouldn’t count on it. It’s going to take a ton more work than that.
What’re your medium and long term goals in the industry?
I was a trainer for almost a decade, starting at a commercial gym, going independent at a personal training facility, and eventually opening a (profitable) private facility myself, so I have a decent lay of the land when it comes to this stuff. Happy to help lead you in the right direction any way I can — just ping me here if you’re interested.
The entire personal training thing is counter intuitive to me. When I started lifting weights in the late 1960’s I sure could have benefited from a trainer, but no such person existed anywhere near me. And any sports coach those days thought lifting weights made you muscle bound.
And now there is more information at your fingertips than I could get in 20 years, yet people feel a need for a personal trainer?
Now if you are saying some people need a motivator/plate changer, I can attempt digest that.
And there is the exception that a motivated lifter might feel the need for a reliable AAS source. That makes some sense.
In my experience, the vast majority of people who hire personal trainers are simply not people who are interested in working out, but who know they need to do it for one reason or another.
Typically, my clients fell into one of three categories: older (60+ year old) people who have never lifted weights and find the prospect intimidating but know they should start, high net-worth individuals with stressful jobs who need an outlet and social connection and have no desire to spend any time actually thinking about what to do in the gym, and people with injuries or legitimate complicating factors that mean they actually benefit from having a knowledgeable professional on their side. I’m sure there are people who love the gym and working out who end up hiring trainers — I just personally didn’t run into them very often.
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While I get what you are saying - the fact is 99% of the info on line these days is bogus. Dam I was told 1800 calories a day to cut weight by one web site. I’m 104kg (228lb). And I exercise VERY intensely very often.
A good personal trainer cuts the crap. Helps shift through and find the gold. That is the issue. If I were to google “losing belly fat male” and read the top 100 replies I’d wager:
90 of the would be aimed at sedated office workers
80 of them would result in weight loss - including muscle mass
75 of them would tell you to go running, swimming or cycling for hours a week.
25 of them would be some “2 shakes and a big meal” or similar unsustainable diet
And only 5-10 would be sustainable life style choice based diets. That would / could result in meaning full fat lose. You’d hope the PT had a handle on this. And knew the way to the good stuff.
@Devin1524 - know what your client wants. And be honest with them if you can / can not do the job. I have just rehired my old PT. I’ve lost some weight and I’m struggling to lose the next 10kg. The last time we worked together I was doing strongman. BUT his first question this time was - “what are we doing this time?” We spoke about the goals and the process. He told me straight that I was asking a lot lol. And that it could be hard. But that honesty build trust. And that trust makes the whole thing work.
@TrevorLPT It’s definitely an odd situation here as it is quite a small town. I really like the advice that you said about going out and actually speaking to the public rather than just staying here and trying to get people who are already in the gym because chances are, they already have some sort of blueprint that they stick to. I am going to focus today on planning on different places where a good demographic would be and then try to contact them one way or another.
As far as my goals go, I am actually a paid intern right now, but my boss and I have known each other for years and that’s where the trust is when it comes to giving me such a big task. I was going to do my internship and head out to Colorado to work out there, but with this opportunity to create a whole Personal Training department from scratch, I feel that I should stay here longer. I think that this will give me experience and allow me to beef up a resume for the future.
As far as my long-term goal goes, I would like to move out to Colorado and open my own privately owned gym that caters to veterans. So many veterans come back and struggle with fitting in or mental health that I would like to create a community within my gym where they can connect and stick together still through lifting/ working out
Tell me more about this internship. Usually with an internship, you’re working under someone who’s already doing what you want to be doing, and you get compensated primarily with experience, knowledge, and industry connections. That doesn’t sound like the setup you have at this YMCA at all.
What’s in Colorado? Do you just like it there?
If you want to work with veterans, why don’t you find a gym that’s already doing that and try to get in with them. See how they do things and learn as much as possible.
Alternatively, get in somewhere that’s going to feed you a ton of clients so you can actually get some practice and make some money. Then, if you do decide to open your own space, you have an existing client base and a skill set that makes it worth it for people to hire you.
The last thing to consider is that if you know you’re going to move to a different city, it’s best to do that sooner rather than later. As a personal trainer, when you move, you start over. So why would you break your back building a clientele and scraping by making $10 an hour when you know that even if you’re “successful” you’re just going to give it all up anyway?
I moved across the country once during my career, and although it was the right move in the long run, it was tough and it meant starting over again and building up a whole new clientele. My honest advice is that if your goal is to own a facility in Colorado, you should just get yourself to Colorado and start training people. Really push yourself and you could have your own facility and a decent income in just a couple years. This YMCA thing does absolutely nothing to move you closer to that, unfortunately.
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I think what @doogie was getting at with this question is: Do you look like you train with a shirt on? Being well groomed is mandatory, but if I walked into a gym as a newbie and had to choose between @Christian_Thibaudeau:
and Jake from State Farm:
… I’m choosing Mr. Beefcake to train me.
Your body is the most important part of your résumé as a personal trainer, so looking the part is probably just as important as your degree (sorry to say).
If we took this to another extreme…
An unfat person walks up to you and tells you how you could fix your squat. You going to listen to him? probably not (understandably).
A guy who’s built like CT walks up to you and tells you how you could fix your squat. You going to listen to him? probably.
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I don’t know if @doogie meant this, but me personally, if I ask if a trainer “looks the part” I’m not asking about this:
I’m asking if you’re jacked.
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Lmfao dude I didn’t even see this post - great timing!
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From my experience with observing personal trainers, their biggest asset is to the person who knows almost nothing about weight training and needs someone to hold them accountable to stick to a program. And the clients need enough discretionary money to pay what seems to me as unreasonable for the value received, but then I am addicted and I don’t understand lack of dedication and motivation.
I have seen a few knowledgeable personal trainers, but a large percentage look incompetent to me. They are less knowledgeable about the fundamentals of training for size and strength than seems reasonable. Range of motion seems an option.
Getting into the stretched position of a muscle is never stressed. And consequently never done on many exercises, e.g., Leg presses, pull downs, pull-ups, and all back exercises.
90% couldn’t help an awkward squatter correct their form for any amount of money.
If I had my way I’d have every personal trainer compete in a bodybuilding contest and a powerlifting meet to become certified and become reasonably competent in both.
I know this sounds unreasonable to most everyone. But It hurts me every time I see these naive trainees looking up for “expert” guidance from some who have no actual proficiency in weight training.
But I should say that even the most incompetent personal trainers can significantly help the beginner who needs guidance, encouragement, and accountability. I am definitely guilty of being a purest. So… I will fade out of this conversation, having gotten that off my chest.
There are some very good personal trainers out there. Be one of them.
I think this is mostly true, with the caveat that if you want to grow a successful and sustainable business as a trainer, you need to figure out how to make the value they receive commensurate to the money they’re spending. For me, that meant working with older individuals trying to gain or sustain an active lifestyle later in life, and recreational athletes with complicated or repeat injuries.
Is it worth it for a young guy trying to grow some muscle to pay a trainer a few hundred dollars a month to work with him in person a couple times a week? Almost certainly not. Is it worth it for the recreational soccer player if you can help him prevent his fourth consecutive hamstring tear? Probably. Is it worth it for the 75 year old woman if it means she’ll be able to hike 10 miles with her husband every weekend until the day that she dies? Hell yes.
Yeah man for me a PT has to look the part.
Nothing more hilarious than seeing some PT who looks like he’s stumbled out of a nightclub while holding a doner kebab.
And don’t give me the whole ‘as long as they know what they’re doing’ bullshit. Any idiot can glean some info from social media and get to work
I want a PT who’s embraced the darkness and can carry me through it