If you’ve just completed your Certificate IV in Fitness, and you’re looking at the best advice to start and grow your Personal Training business, then you’re in the right place! We understand from experience, that it’s not as easy as just getting qualified and getting clients. There is a lot to consider when getting industry ready and setting your Personal Training business up for success, and we want to share some of our top ways to help you start your Personal Training business and ultimately succeed as a Personal Trainer.
We will be covering some common questions we get, to help you start a Personal Training business, the most effective way, from the very start.
- How do I set up my Personal Training business?
- What else do I need to do to develop my Personal Training business?
- What mindset will help me succeed and thrive as a Personal Trainer?
- How do I find out what my ideal Personal Training client is?
- How can I network & market my Personal Training business?
“Failure to plan, is planning for failure”
If you haven’t asked yourself these questions yet, then you’re doing yourself a disservice and skipping the most crucial foundations that set up Personal Trainers for ongoing success.
How do I set up my Personal Training business?
When setting up your Personal Training business, it’s no different to setting up your own business in any other industry. You need to have a business number, register your business name, get insurance and have all your documents created and ready to go. Although It’s not the most exciting part of being in the fitness industry, it’s a necessary part of setting up a professional Personal Training business. Having a website, a logo, branding colours, questionnaires, terms and conditions and waivers in place will ensure your Personal Training business is registered, safe and professional.
Learn how to choose the right colours for your brand
Implement that through building a website that converts
What else do I need to do to develop my Personal Training business?
“Surely I’m set up to go now!?” Not just yet. Once you have a good foundation, we need to look at how we are going to manage and develop our Personal Training business. Some core components of this is our social media, client management software, payment management and how this, plus more, falls under working ON your business.
You must allow time to work on your Personal Training Business on a consistent basis. When starting out, it’s even more imperative that you start developing your business from the very start to be successful long term.
You need to consider the following when developing your business:
- Social media is a tool to showcase your skills, services and results.
- Client Management Software to book, track, program and check in with your clients.
- Payment gateways to track your financials and make client payments seamless.
- Personal and professional development, to continually learn and develop your skills.
- Networking and Marketing strategies to have a consistent stream of prospect clients.
Developing your Personal Training business needs to happen when you’re not working with clients one-on-one. it’s important to schedule time each week to work ON your business, otherwise, you won’t have a business to work IN.
What mindset will help me succeed and thrive as a Personal Trainer?
Understanding what the right mindset will do for your Personal Training business is crucial to your success and will set you apart from the rest. A positive mindset coupled with the right communication, questioning and listening techniques will only help you understand your clients better, make more sales and build longer lasting relationships. We also need to consider how important confidence, awareness and transparency is when working with people in a very personal environment. If you have the wrong attitude and you’re not investing in developing your people skills and communication skills, you will find it very hard to get clients and maintain clients. On top of this, the ones you do have will struggle to stay long term and get the results they are looking for.
For more information on Growth Mindset for better customer experience
How do I find out what my ideal Personal Training client is?
Now you have your Personal Training business foundations set up, you’ve got the right mindset and skills to work with and maintain your clients, we now need to look at how you determine what clients you want to work with!
It’s hard to figure out exactly who that ideal client is, but once you do, it will give you the tools to market to your prospective clients much more effectively. We can base our ideal Personal Training client off a variety of characteristics, such as their gender, location, goals, challenges, needs, wants or lifestyle choices. It can be a combination of these characteristics that make up the ideal client you want to work with.
For example, If your marketing strategy and content is relatable to middle aged ‘tradies’ who work early mornings and have back issues, but you want to work with post-natal mums that are time poor and need guidance getting back into shape, then you need to structure your marketing to relate to that ideal client of yours.
How can I network & market my Personal Training business?
Understanding how to network and market is very important and often undervalued when setting up a Personal Training business. Networking will heavily rely on investing in learning the skills we mentioned earlier in relation to your people skills, questioning techniques and overall mindset. Using these skills you learn will help you when building a network of people, businesses and groups that you can then influence to change their health and fitness for the better, and ultimately leading them to want to work with you. If your ideal clients are the post-natal mums that are time-poor, which we spoke about earlier, then developing a network of mum groups, childcare facilities and coffee shops would only help you build a network around your niche market and succeed as a personal trainer.
Marketing is the next big tool to help you succeed as a Personal Trainer. It’s powerful and often overlooked at how effective it is when done right. You first need to ask yourself a few questions to determine how you’re going to market yourself:
- What value do I bring?
- What is unique about my services?
- Where do I sit within the market?
Once you’ve answered questions like this, it will allow you to then look at your marketing options, tools, goals, budgets and marketing strategies. Unfortunately, there is more to marketing than posting a video on Instagram and that’s why we developed the Industry Ready PT course. It gives Personal Trainers the required resources, knowledge and skills to start, develop and continually succeed in their Personal Training business. We cover everything you have read today, in more detail, how to implement it all, plus much, much more.
“I FINISHED MY CERTIFICATE IV IN FITNESS AND DIDN’T KNOW WHERE TO START. THE INDUSTRY READY PT COURSE FROM VAST GAVE ME SO MUCH CONFIDENCE AND ALL THE TOOLS I NEED TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN MY DREAM JOB” – Jasmine
