Personal trainer certification completed — check!
Motivation to apply your certification — check!
Innovative ideas on how to earn income as a personal trainer—pending.
You’ve done the hard work to get your certification and now you’re ready to hit the ground running and start making money doing what you love.
The first step to starting your personal trainer business is finding your niche. By narrowing your focus, you’ll be able to tailor your service offerings to meet your client’s specific needs.
Next, it’s time to be innovative. What are some ways you can make money as a personal trainer to set yourself apart from the crowd?
Below we outline five ways you can make money as a certified personal trainer. If you want more information about your earning potential as a personal trainer, check out our Ultimate Personal Trainer Salary Guide.
Learn how to become a certified Personal Trainer online in less than 6 months
5 ways to diversify your income as a Personal Trainer
Exclusive One-on-One Training
Most people think of personal trainers as engaging in personal training, and there is a significant need for trainers who provide this service. You can offer your services as an employee of a gym or as an independent personal trainer who can visit people’s homes.
From a business income perspective, however, when a personal trainer depends solely on one-on-one training as their primary source of income, their ability to grow their business is limited by the number of hours in the day they have to be with clients. . When you try to maximize your income with this model, you run the most risk of personal trainer burnout.
So, how can personal training be best used to increase your income? You can offer this service as a ‘stand-alone’ service in addition to group training or other income streams. When you brand your personal training sessions as exclusive, limited and high value, people will be willing to pay a lot more, especially if they have already taken advantage of your other services and been satisfied.
Group Training
Group training is a great model for training many people at the same time in an in-person classroom format or online as part of a training program.
Clients often seek this option because they enjoy the opportunity to socialize with other people to create a supportive community and pay less than for one-on-one sessions.
For personal trainers, group training sessions are a great source of income when you’re signing up multiple clients at once, but you’ll need to set a minimum enrollment goal to make sure you cover costs and pay yourself.
Keep in mind that even for group training, you need to make an effort to create a personal connection with everyone in the class. While it may be tempting to get as many people as are interested to maximize your income, you should put a limit on the number of people who can sign up based on your ability to give each person the attention they need to make the training responsibly and carefully. Remember, you can always open another session!
Group training can be done in person or on online platforms, including a personalized branded app, Facebook groups, or apps designed for personal trainers.
Online Education
You can use digital tools like apps and meeting platforms (Zoom, Skype, Google Meet) to offer courses to a large group of customers. You can also pre-record lessons that users can play back for a fee.
If you choose to offer your services in an app, you have two main options. You can create your own personal training app by hiring an app designer, or you can upload your routines to an app designed specifically for personal trainers to interact with their clients.
The advantage of using online education platforms is that there is plenty of room to increase income. They are also becoming increasingly popular for clients to use as home workouts become the norm and access to apps tends to cost less than gym memberships.
Remember that to get people to sign up for online training, you’ll need to get them to your website or app to make a purchase. Here are some ideas on how to convert your social media followers into leads.
Digital Products
It’s time to get it—the most valuable part of your personal training certification is the knowledge you bring to the table. When you find the sweet spot between your coaching knowledge and understanding the needs of your niche, you have information and tools that your target audience will be happy to pay for.
Invest time and resources to put your expertise into eBooks that describe your unique methodology or that share unique tools and tips. You can also create downloadable training programs to help your clients achieve a specific goal.
To get the most out of selling digital products, it’s important to have a website you can be proud of and implement an effective social media strategy to convert your social media followers into leads.
If you are interested in learning how to convert your social media followers into paying customers, read this article.
Membership programs
When it comes to leveraging your income, subscription models are extremely effective ways to secure your income. The subscription model can be integrated with many of the revenue streams mentioned above, including online and in-person one-on-one and group training programs, digital product offerings and app subscriptions.
The difference between a subscription model and a session-based model is that a subscription model helps secure income from your customers on a monthly basis. When you charge by individual sessions, clients can easily become irregular or choose not to pay for a personal training session from one week to the next. This makes it difficult to have a steady income and make the most of your time.
Subscription models are typically based on a set monthly fee for which paying customers gain access to different services and digital products. You can even create different tiers of services where higher paying memberships offer added value, such as regular one-on-one sessions, e-book downloads or personalized training programs.
Looking for more ideas on how to maximize your income for your coaching or personal business? Check out AFPA’s Ultimate Personal Trainer Salary Guide.
