Fitness and Money

Fitness and Money
The Business of Personal Training
How to build a successful and enjoyable
Personal Training Business
By
Barry McDonald
Corey Eames-Mayer

Fitness and Money-The business of personal training
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All materials and techniques are protected by copyright
Copyright © 2012
Disclaimer
This book does not contain medical advice, Author and publisher disclaim
any and all warranties, liabilities, losses, costs, claims, demands, suits, or
actions of any type or nature whatsoever, arising from or any way related to
this book, the use of this book, and/or any claim that a particular technique
or device described in this book is legal or reasonable in any jurisdiction.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief
quotations in a review.

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Table of Contents
Introduction 4
Warm Up: Building/Planning 7
Are You Fit to Run a Business 8
Designing Your Business 12
Brand Identity 12
The Working Business Plan 16
Mission Statement 21
Setting Goals 23
Choosing a Name 31
Fitness Program Design 33
Fiscally Fit 36
Billing Policy 37
Start-Up Costs 39
Finding Start-Up Funding 41
Building Your Team 43
Digital Business 46
The Virtual Trainer 47
Your Website 48
Sales and Marketing 50
Marketing 51
Advertising 66
Prospecting 59
Selling 67
Growth & Maintenance 77
The Long Term View 78
Resources 81

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Introduction
As fitness trainers we are proud people. Everything we do is based on
accomplishments. We don’t expect any handouts. Sitting around waiting for
something to happen is very far removed from who we are. We set goals:
then we achieve them.
You’ve downloaded this book because you have a goal. You want to start
your own personal fitness trainer business. This book is going to be the most
valuable resource in your collection. You’re going to be able to get more
mileage out of it than any treadmill. You will get more strength from it than
you would from a 1,000 reps with a dumbbell.
This book is designed to help you build the foundation for the future of your
fitness business. You can’t really put a number on this kind of value; within
these pages are years of experience, education and researched information.
These are lessons that weren’t taught when we first left the comfort of the
gym environment to embark on my own adventure.
This eBook was created for you if:
 You are losing more money to the gym than you’re making
 Pressured to focus on sales at the cost of the client’s fitness
 Recently gained you fitness qualifications and want to know what the
next step is
 Love fitness and have dedicated your life to helping others
 Beginning to consider other careers because you’re just not making a
living off of what you love
 You’ve been strapped to a cubicle for years and you finally want to
break free
Like I said, we are not strangers to the anxiety that might be building up
inside you right now. We’ve been there. If we knew 10 years ago, what we
know now, we could have traded blood, sweat and tears for a smoother
transition. As they say, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” We’ve
learned lessons that may be able to transform that stress and anxiety into
profit that feels effortless to you. Do you like the idea of being able to
transform financial worry to financial freedom just from doing what you
love?
“It was April 2003, I was 19 and I was working as a gym instructor for a
non-profit organisation in Thomastown, about 30 minutes north of
Melbourne. After one year there I was earning around $400, which wouldn’t

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seem too bad for a 19 year old. The problem was that I was working 50 to
60 hours a week to earn this money, which breaks down to below minimum
wage.
I was trapped between being head over heels in love with being a personal
trainer, but staring down the barrel of realization. I was going to have to
come to terms with the idea that I wasn’t going to be able to support myself
doing what I loved. I was considering doing the unthinkable… giving it up to
join the rat race for a traditional shirt-and-tie office job.
Can you imagine trading in the adrenaline and excitement of personal
training for answering phone calls from angry customers all day and giving
boardroom speeches? When one of my clients reaches their fitness goals, I
am filled with the joy of accomplishment. If I got hired by this mystical
corporation, was I going to feel the same joy when I landed a new account
or selling one of their widgets?
I didn’t want to give up doing what I loved. As soon as an opening for a new
position at the gym came up, I did what anyone would do looking for some
more income; I applied for a new position as the health and fitness manager
and took on more responsibility.
I got the job. And for the first time in my short fitness career, I felt like I
was working a “job.” Yes, I received a tiny increase in pay, offset by my
stressful and overwhelming increase in work hours and expectations from
my new bosses. I stuck it out for three long years. Three years that put a
strain on my passion for fitness training. If it weren’t for the pockets of joy I
got from time to time from coaching and developing young personal trainers,
I probably would have gone and applied to that mystical office job.
I wasn’t being fulfilled though. I knew it, but I didn’t want to complain. As
soon as an opportunity opened up at a large commercial health club, I
surprised myself by how fast I jumped on it. I remember walking in the
doors gob smacked by the size of the operation and ‘sales’ culture instilled in
the company. This was just what I was after, a challenge!
Unprepared for the ‘sales’ culture, it might have been too much of a
challenge for me. The problem was I had bills to pay; I had to feed myself
and live! Moving from a ‘safe’ management position to a ‘risky’ environment
where I needed to pay a rent to have the privilege of making money, it was
a necessity to sell myself to survive. I found out quickly I was either going to
sink or swim.

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Those first three months were tough. Working two jobs until I had enough
money and clients to survive solely on one was draining not only my
confidence and self but also my family and social life.
I learnt a number of valuable lessons during that period, and the 6 years
since that time spent as a personal training manager for a number of clubs,
right through to becoming a state wide personal training manager looking
after 11 health clubs and hundreds of personal trainers has been priceless.
Starting out in a new industry can make for a challenging work life and it is
very hard to know what you don’t know. If only I had the skills and
knowledge I do now back then I think my experiences would have been very
different. This is the main driver behind developing this trainer resource.
This is a book of lessons, empowering business skills and the systems to
success. These have been developed over 15 years of experience’s, trial and
error and mentoring hundreds of personal trainers through their challenges.
In those first three months the impact that you can have on the following 12
is pivotal. To be able to go back again and know that I could be running a
seriously successful personal training business within just three months
would be exciting! Having seen many personal trainers succeed and fail, this
book will ensure we even up the score and empower you to be one of the
most successful personal trainers in the industry.” BM
In this comprehensive guide you will:
 Transform your thinking from an employment mindset to that of an
entrepreneur
 Take these lessons and start on your new business venture
immediately
 Enhance your business skills and learn to take what you’ve learned
from previous training jobs and turn that into a profitable business
 Build a brand in the fitness marketplace
The eBook is designed to support, guide, and coach new trainers through the
process of beginning a new fitness business, as well as up-skill current
trainers running a business that isn’t delivering as much as they would like.

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Warm Up: Building/Planning

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Are You Fit to Run a Business?
The transition from being a fitness
trainer who works at a gym to
owning your own business can be
mentally traumatic. Working for
yourself will be fun, fulfilling and
exciting, but there is a catch that
most books do not talk about. You
have to put in the work. It’s like
knowing there’s a pot of gold at the
end of the rainbow. It’s easy to see
the rainbow from virtually
anywhere, however to find the gold, you have to embark on a perilous trek
to locate the end of that rainbow.
It’s not as bad as it seems. The work and preparation that you put into your
business in the first few months will set the tone for longevity and success.
Are you fit enough to manage the growing pains?
It’s a major transition from working in a gym to launching your very own
business as a personal trainer. The good news is that you will be able to take
some of the skills you’ve already acquired and use them to your advantage.
For example, when you were working for a gym, there may have been heavy
emphasis on the amount of new memberships you sold. In some cases, your
job stability depended on it. Your job performance was often called into
question if you couldn’t attract as many customers as one of your
counterparts.
This sales training will help you when you make the transition into business
ownership. The success of your new business will require you to tap into that
ability to attract new customers and keep existing customers motivated.
The scariest thing about being in business for yourself is that the success
and failure of the business relies on the work that you put into this business.
It all rides on your shoulders. This realization can be overwhelming.
It’s best that you realise this now instead of waiting until you’re a few
months into it and have a complete mental breakdown.

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If you aren’t self-reliant, you may want to reconsider.
You can no longer rely on someone else to give you a paycheck anymore.
You can no longer rely on someone else to encourage customers to sign up
with you. You are solely responsible for your own success or failure.
Are you determined? Are you in it for the long haul? Perseverance is
essential in starting a business. You may have a few false starts before you
get it right and everything clicks. If you are strong enough to pick yourself
up from a few scrapes and falls, then you may be ready.
You can’t be afraid of hard work. In the early stages, a new business needs
a lot of care. It’s not too dissimilar from raising a child or adopting a puppy.
It takes time, sleepless nights and a constant watchful eye before you
develop a routine that works for you.
Are you completely dedicated to the idea of owning your own business? Are
you doing it for all the right reasons? If you are only doing it because you
hate the managers at the gym you ‘re working at, you may want to consider
switching to a new gym before you embark on the journey of
entrepreneurship.
The Small Business Association estimates that 40% of businesses fail in the
first year. 56% fail within three years, and 76% go under within five years.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that it becomes a picnic after the first five
years. Local economies change. People’s desires change.
Are you self-motivated? Can you comfortably work alone or do you need
people around you?
Working for yourself can be lonely business. The way your friends and family
respond to your decision to go solo will also have an impact on you. If they
are supportive, you’re in a great position. You have an outside motivation as
well as your internal motivation.
All of your friends and family won’t be supportive. Some will think you’re
crazy for giving up that guaranteed paycheck. Others will be non-responsive
to your trials and tribulations because they don’t know how stressful running
a business can be.
You have to rely on your own internal motivation to keep things going in the
beginning stages. Tap into that natural gift that trainers already have. We
are built to be motivators.

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How good are your communication skills?
More than most other professions, your personality matters. You have to
learn how to use your personality to your advantage. Your personality is at
the core of who you are and is very difficult to change. Successful personal
trainers are outgoing people. You need to become famous within your fitness
circle or workplace
Have you got your finances in order? Have you set aside enough money?
Beyond poor marketing and poor planning, financial mismanagement is
listed as one of the top reasons most business fail in the first few years. If
you haven’t saved at least three months worth of living expenses, you may
not be ready to go into business. Nothing aids poor decisions more than the
desire to make a quick buck.
Are you disciplined? How good are you at managing your time? Are you a
procrastinator? Can you multi-task?
Do you have daydreams of sleeping in late or deciding to take the day off
because you’re the boss? Erase those fantasies out of your mind.
Time management is a huge issue for new business owners. If you were in
the restaurant business, you would have set dining hours. You would arrive
a little early to prep the food and you’d go home after ever thing was
cleaned up. Your schedule would be set. Personal trainers often don’t have a
“normal” schedule. It’s easy to get distracted, overwhelmed and behind on
your administrative workload.
All new entrepreneurs suffer the same fate. They underestimate the number
of hours they will have to put in to get the business off the ground. The best
method to combat this is to plan your training hours and your administrative
hours weekly and stick to them.
You’re not the first person to ever go into business for yourself. You can use
your strengths to your advantage and work on your weaknesses. Eventually,
like all the rest before you, you will find your stride.
You must be motivated. There are going to be hard times and good times
ahead. You must keep the same motivation levels at all times.
You must be disciplined and have good work ethic. Your profit, success, and
the amount of customers you generate will be dependent on the work you

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put into the business. It requires you to put in the work and remain
professional through interactions with clients, prospects and other
professionals.
Before you step out on faith, ask yourself the difficult questions. Re-evaluate
your decision from a truthful position. If you’re not cut out for self-
employment, this is the time to get out. There is no shame in changing your
mind. If you are ready to get going, please keep reading.
The number one method of minimizing your chances of failure is pre-
planning.

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Designing the Business
Great businesses begin with good concepts. Good concepts blossom into
great ideas through well thought out planning. A business plan is a blueprint
of the steps you will execute to achieve your idea of success. The better the
plan, the easier it is to execute and the more effective it will be in achieving
your goals. You don’t necessarily have to create a formal business plan
unless you are seeking funding from an outside source. However, a plan
helps you see your vision more clearly and more readily identify the steps
that you need to take to get to where you want to go. Let’s begin with the
foundation from which your entire plan will be based.
Brand Identity
In the days where there are more products on the shelves, more
commercials, more billboards, more advertisements and more service
providers than there are customers to buy them, you have to have a brand
identity that stands out from the rest in order to compete. Brand is a simple
concept to understand. It’s what people think, feel, say, or believe when
they see something associated with your business.
When you think of Nike, you think of fashionable athletic wear. When you
think of Louis Vuitton, you think of luxury. When you think of Disney, you
think of family fun.
In the book, Start Your Own Personal Training Business, Tom Weede
suggests “Develop your own professional personality, your own techniques,
and your own program. Do things that will make you stand out from other
personal trainers in a positive way.”
Your brand is the foundation from which most of your business decisions will
be made. Branding determines the type of clientele you attract, the way you
interact with clients and the way you market your business. It will even
determine the partnerships you engage in. For example, if a gym director
contacts you to host a special event that they are having. Whether the
money is good or not, you would first consider whether an association with
that gym is representative of your brand. If that gym has a reputation for
double billing their clients, then you don’t want that reputation associated
with your business, if your brand promise is built on fair and transparent
pricing.

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A popular saying is “think outside the box.” To create a brand, you have to
build your own box. You create this box to fill it with your brand values. In
that box, you put all the things that describe your brand. The edges of that
box protect what’s inside and keeps out everything that’s contrary to your
brand.
For example, Jim Ross incites fear and respect. He’s often called “Tough, but
he gets results.” This moniker is likely to scare some of Jim’s prospects
away. Jim’s okay with that because he doesn’t want clients that are
uncomfortable around him. He also knows that he’s at his best when he
operates like a Drill Sergeant. When he advertises is training business, he
doesn’t smile in the photographs because it’s contrary to the brand that he
created for himself.
You may be appalled at Jim’s training style, but his clients love him. Most of
all, they are loyal and they tell other people about him. Jim found his niche
by sticking to an identity.

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Create your own. Identify your capabilities, the things about your business
model and training style that excites customer’s the most. What’s the
business’ personality? How do you want people to feel when they think of
your business?
What your brand does NOT stand for is just as important as what it does
stand for. The more thorough you are with creating your brand identity, the
more concrete the concept is for you and the easier it is for your customer’s
to internalize it and share it with others.
Create a notebook or folder that you can paste images into, jot down
quotes, glue newspaper and magazine clippings, collect testimonials and any
thing else that helps you create the picture of your brand and to make it
truly exist.
As a trainer, what do you do best? Deliver quality training? Create innovative
training? List some adjectives that describe what you do best as a trainer.
How do you deliver your service? Are you a “tough-as-nails” military style
trainer or are you tender because you work mostly with patients who have
special needs?
What do you care about most? What are your values as a trainer?
If you change your mind and decide not to pursue your own business, what
will customers miss out on?
Brand Consultant Derrick Daye advises that “Once you’ve begun to narrow
down your brand focus, you’ll need to identify ways that your brand, your
values, and your goals connect with the people and community that you
want to serve. Today, most strong brands address customers quest for
meaning by becoming cultural champions, demonstrating their alignment
with one or more causes that resonate with the values of their customers.”
Walk the Walk
Defining the brand is only the first step. Personal trainers have to walk the
walk. The most important brand identity resource for your business is going
to be you. No one is going to hire a personal trainer that they deem as lazy
or not healthy. How do you think people will look at you if you tell them
you’re a personal trainer while you’re puffing on a cigarette?

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In the book, How to Start a Home-Based Personal Trainer Business
Lauran Augenti writes “As a personal trainer you have the responsibility to
portray the picture of fitness. Your physical image is your first impression to
potential clients or to a person who may refer a potential client to you.”
In the business world, image is everything. Image is perception. And if
prospects perceive that you are the perfect picture of fitness, they will
believe that you can help them reach their fitness goals. You have to live
what you preach or prepare to have the congregation turn against you.
Deliver on Your Promises
Deliver on your promise. Customers and non-customers will remember the
times when you failed to deliver on a promise more than they remember the
times that you did. Marketing studies show that negative experiences get
passed along by word of mouth ten times more than positive experiences.
When you say you’re going to do something, do it.
Remember this simple fact when you are interacting with people. Your
current clients are your second best source for spreading your brand values
to other people. If you are constantly cancelling their sessions or cutting
session short to go pick up your children from school, that will have an
impact on your brand identity. That’s what they will tell others as they are
complaining about the reasons they are looking for another personal trainer.
Continue Your Education
Medical science finds something new about the human body all the time.
Medical Journals publish these findings. Your customers will have questions
and you should be able to answer them to the best of your abilities or be
able to find the answer. The better informed you are, the more effective you
will become as a trainer. Helping your customers reach their goals motivates
them to tell others about you.
Become an Expert
An effective method of creating brand identity in the minds of prospects is to
become an expert. Have you ever seen those news programs or experts
featured on talk shows? Those people are considered experts in their field.
By being identify as experts, they generate more business than their
competitors. They are even able to raise their rates to become more
profitable because of their title of expert.

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“If you are planning
to work with a
partner, a formal
business plan is ideal
to put your mutual
concept in writing.”
The Working Business Plan
Your business plan doesn’t have to be formal, but you should put effort into
it. This could be your sole source of income for a long time or it could be
something you started half-heartedly and years later regret not putting more
effort into it.
If you considered taking a family cross-country trip,
you wouldn’t dare take that journey without
getting a map or mapping out your driving
plan through Google Maps. You’d estimate
how much fuel it would take you to make the
trip, how much food you’d need for the
number of people that you will have travelling
with you, and potential rest stop along the way.
You’re going to plan as much of the vacation trip
ahead of time as possible to make sure it’s a good trip.
With starting a business, the principles are the same. You’re taking a
journey. But this journey could last ten, twenty, thirty years or more. Jack
Lelane continued working in the fitness industry well into his 90s. Planning
saves you money, time and effort.
This section isn’t about writing elaborate executive summaries to impress a
venture capitalist. This section is about pinpointing exactly what you hope to
accomplish by starting your own personal training business and mapping out
your directions to get there.
In the book, How to Open & Operate a Financially Successful Personal
Training Business, John Peregrine Jr writes, “The business plan is intended
to give a quick, accurate picture of the business as it exists, and an
educated estimate of the near future.”
Don’t get too caught up in structure and appearance. The purpose of your
plan is to create a blueprint for your fitness training business. The types of
formal business plans you can create is nearly infinite. And every year
another “business brain” writes a book and tells the business world that his
new type of plan is the only one that guarantees future success.
You’re not seeking a venture capitalist to invest millions in your company. All
you need is a working plan. This plan will help you block out the buzzing in
your ear from outside sources that tell you that you should try this or that. It

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keeps you focused on your goals. Entrepreneur Magazine defines the
working plan as “A working plan is a tool to be used to operate your
business. It has to be long on detail but may be short on presentation… you
can probably afford a somewhat higher degree of candor and informality
when preparing a working plan.”
You will use this section to set achievable goals that you can meet in realistic
timeframes. This is your blueprint for building success, your roadmap to a
smoother journey or however you want to see it. It’s a plan for you to
follow. It will keep you focused.
Writing things down forces the mind to analyze them more rationally. A
working plan is a guide that you can pull out periodically to help you make
decisions that are aligned with your goals. Some business owners update
their plans annually as they may achieve some goals earlier, or they find
new plans.
What is Success to You?
Achieving your goals is your road map to success. But what is success?
Success must be defined by each individual on their own terms. The idea of
success in your best friend’s mind is going to be different from the idea of
success you have in your mind. Success doesn’t have to have anything to do
with money.
At its core, success is simply the achievement of a series of pre-defined
goals that leads you to a particular point in your life cycle. Where does
achieving your goals lead you?
My Idea of Success Worksheet
In my personal life I will be happiest when___________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
When I’m enjoying myself ten years from now, what will I be doing? What
does my life look like?___________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
In my career, at what level will I consider myself a success? What am I
doing in my career at this stage? Am I still training?____________________

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_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
Financially, at what stage will I consider my earnings a sign that I have
achieved what I set out to achieve? How much am I earning? How is my
financial situation related to my career/business?______________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
Is there a level of education that I want to reach? Is there any particular
area of knowledge that I want to develop expertise?___________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
Mentally and emotionally, I want to work on _________________________
until I have changed my mindset to ________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
How will I contribute to my community? Is it important to me in the future to
be a staple in the community?_____________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
Self-Evaluation
SWOT analysis is a great technique for helping you uncover goals that you
didn’t know you had and help you identify ammunition for reaching the goals
that you do set. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and
threats. Use SWOT analysis to take advantage of your abilities and talent.
Use it as a brainstorming tool to identify opportunities to exploit and pinpoint
the obstacles that may arise. It will also help you take a more exploratory
look at your competition and how they can impact your business. Strengths
and weaknesses are often seen as internal as threats and opportunities are
due to external factors.
Common questions when performing a SWOT analysis.
 What advantages do you have over your competition?
 What do you do better than anyone else?

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 What unique or lowest-cost resources can you draw upon that others
can't?
 What could you improve?
 What factors lose you sales?
 What good opportunities can you spot?
 What interesting trends are you aware of?
 What obstacles do you face?
 What are your competitors doing?
Free association, or brainstorming, helps to identify goals and objectives that
you haven’t yet identified. Just start doodling about your business. Whatever
comes to mind, write it down on the page.
• Threats• Opportunities
• Weaknesses• Strengths
What are your Strengths ?
Competitive advantages?
USP's (unique selling points)?
What do others perceive as
your strengths?
Own known vulnerabilities?
What do your competitors do
better than you?
What can you improve?
What do others perceive as
your weakness
What trends or conditions may
negatively impact you?
What are your competitors
doing that may impact you?
How will your weaknesses
negatively impact you?
What trends or conditions may
positively impact you?
What opportunties are
available to you?

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Now, you need a time capsule. Jot down where you want your business to be
in one year, three years and five years. Does the size of your business
matter? Do you want to remain a solopreneur your entire career?
What Type of Training Business Will You Have?
Personal training is a flexible business model that you can pretty much carve
out a space for anywhere. What sort of business do you want to run?
In-Home Personal Trainer
Many new trainers start off their personal training businesses out of their
homes. It saves money. But it requires you to build an area that is
exclusively for training. So it will not be cheap unless you have already
begun a studio in your home for your own training. It may be your home,
but you still should be professional in the face of your clients. Check with
your local government about city ordinances that may restrict you from
running a business out of your home.
You can also train by visiting your customers in their home. You’ll need
nothing more than reliable transportation and flexibility. You may have to
adjust your training regiment for the available space in your customer’s
home.
Independent Contractor
You can run your own personal training business and still work out of a gym.
Smart gym owners understand that they can still make money from
solopreneurs. They may be willing to rent you space in their gym for a fee. If
the space is available, negotiate a monthly fee deal instead of a per
customer commission. You can also rent space from hotels, corporations,
medical facilities, etc
Studio Trainer
Building your own facility can cost you as much as $200,000. If you are
planning on hiring other personal trainers to work for you, this may be the
way you want to go. You can always rent out space in the facility to help pay
for it. This way you will have total control on the look, feel and design of the
facility.

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Mobile Studio
A somewhat new rage is mobile studios. These are large vehicles that have
equipment bolted in place in the vehicle. It is driven to the customer’s home
or work location. The client enters the mobile studio, performs their workout
with you and returns back to work.
Cross-Trainer
Some trainers work specifically with professional and amateur athletes.
There are plenty of options out there for recruiting athletes as clients.
Sporting competitions are happening year round. Aspiring athletes are born
every day. Train one successful Olympic athlete and your telephone may be
ringing for the rest of your life from potential clients.
Specialist
Specialize in a specific area of fitness, such as weight loss for the extremely
obese, fitness for handicap people, or physical therapy for accident victims.
Specializing in a specific area of fitness could be a pathway to higher
income. By the very nature of being a specialist, customers expect more,
thus are often willing to pay more. The downside, if there is any, that
specializing requires you to truly be an expert in the niche that you’ve
chosen. Clients will not accept anything less.
Mission Statement
A mission statement is a summary of purpose. It’s the overall goal of your
business plan boiled down into a short statement. It’s where you tell yourself
why you’re in business and what you hope to accomplish beyond making a
profit. It’s a great place to start before you get into the details of fleshing
out your business plan. Use the worksheet below to help you create your
mission statement.

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Mission Statement Worksheet
What products and/or services do we produce?________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
What geographical location do we operate in?_________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
Why does our company exist? Whom do we serve? What is our purpose?
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
What are our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats?_________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
What is my most precious commodity? What assets, strengths, personality
traits, etc do I have that catapults me above others? What do I do better
than most? this is about what you bring above others. Could be skill,
personality, energy, fun, buzz, confidence, physiological or psychological etc
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
Considering the above, along with our expertise and resources, what
business should we be in?________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
What is important to us? What do we stand for?_______________________
_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
Now, go back over what you have written. Narrow down your answers to
one or two sentences that explain why you’re in business and what you hope
to accomplish beyond making a profit.

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Setting Goals
Set Goals. This is where you construct the blueprint for your dream life.
Picture your life in your head at your happiest moments. Decide how this
relates to your business.
What do you hope to accomplish with your business in 1 year? What do you
hope to accomplish with your business in 3 years? What do you hope to
accomplish with your business in 5 years? What will your personal life look
like in 1 year, 3 years and 5 years?
What do you expect from a career as a personal trainer? Does it fit into your
long-term and short term business goals?
This is your opportunity to discover the ways that your new business will
help you meet your lifestyle goals. How will it help you reach your financial
goals? Is this new business your ultimate goal or is it a stepping stone to a
different business?
Then make a list of the things that may keep you from reaching your goals.
Breakdown your plan into action steps. You may end up with a long to-do
list. Break your action steps into specific time frames. List all the actions you
can complete within the first month, second month, third month, six months,
nine month and the year.
Clearly define your goals and how you will reach them. Explain what you
want to accomplish as a trainer and by going into business for yourself.
Other questions to think about:
 What's going to happen to me if this venture doesn't work out?
 What will be the market share locally in that time frame?
 Will I just be training in 5 years or will I have additional income
streams?
 What are my plans for geographic expansion? Local? National? Global?
 Is it going to remain independent and privately owned, or will it
eventually be acquired or go public?
30 Day Goals
Goal Description_________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
Deadline

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Sub-Goal
Sub-Goal
Action Steps____________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
90 Day Goals
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
Deadline
Sub-Goal
Sub-Goal
Action Steps____________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
6 Month Goals
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
Deadline
Sub-Goal
Sub-Goal
Action Steps____________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
1 Year Goals
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
Deadline
Sub-Goal
Sub-Goal
Action Steps____________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________

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3 Year Goals
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
Deadline
Sub-Goal
Sub-Goal
Action Steps____________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
5 Year Goals
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
Deadline
Sub-Goal
Sub-Goal
Action Steps____________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
Financial Goals
Money is probably not your primary motivation, but you want to make
enough money so that you’re not stressed about your financial situation.
How will you manage your money in the early stages before you see a
profit? How will you manage your profit? What sort of profit do you want to
turn over annually?
Your financial goals for your business are eternally linked to your lifestyle
goals. How much money will you need to bring you the lifestyle you want?
You will need to determine what it will cost you to run your business,
advertise your business and live comfortably in your new world. Calculate
cost of living, inflation, insurances, etc.

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Be mindful that training clients is not your only potential source of income in
this business. You can branch out to teach classes, sell supplements, sell
workout videos or whatever creative income streams that you can think of.
Financial Questions Entrepreneur Magazine recommends every business
should ask:
1. What initial investment will the business require?
2. How much control are you willing to relinquish to investors?
3. When will the business turn a profit?
4. When can investors, including you, expect a return on their money?
5. What are the projected profits of the business over time?
6. Will you be able to devote yourself full time to the business,
financially?
7. What kind of salary or profit distribution can you expect to take home?
8. What are the chances the business will fail?
9. What will happen if it does?
Profit and Pricing
Profit is heavily reliant on price. You have to find a happy medium between
want customers are willing to pay and what you want to earn to be profitable
and to feel like the business is worth your time. Profit planning is an
important step in the business strategy stage.
What is the average price in the market? You’ll need to research your
competitors even if that means calling them up and pretending to be
prospects. You don’t want to price your services too high, but you don’t want
to be too low. Both can perceived as lacking value. Pricing too low can also
cut too deeply into your profits, requiring you to work more hours and
eventually burning yourself out. Do you offer a specialty that your customers
value very highly that will allow you to charge a little bit more for your
services?
What does it cost you to train your clients? It’s more difficult in the service
industry to determine cost to provide service. Figure out what your hourly
value is in the business. For each customer consider the time outside of the
scheduled training that you have to put in to create their unique training
program or travelling to their location. Start with the annual salary that you
expect to make. Break that down into the hours you’re planning to put into
the business each year. Match that with market pricing expectations.

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Small business advisor Nicole Fende advises following a simple formula:
(Target Income) Ã· (Hours Per Week) Ã· (Weeks Per Year) Ã· (% Revenue
Generating Activities)
1. How many hours a week do you want to work?
2. How many weeks in a year do you want to work?
3. What is your target income (i.e. your salary) for the year?
4. What percentage of your time is spent on revenue generating
activities?
With this formula you can determine the minimum amount your need to
earn every hour of training, how much time you should spend on revenue
generating activities, and whether your local market conditions requires you
to look for additional income streams.
To further determine your profit goals, Nicole offers this formula: Number of
Hours * Hourly Rate (Calculated Above) + Expenses = Solopreneur Price
Remove the myth from your mind that the lowest price is the only way to
compete. Competing on price is a dead end road that you should never
travel. High end fashion brands wouldn’t exist if low price was the only factor
in a customers buying decision.
Factors to consider when setting your rates
 Your education
 Your experience
 Your geographic location
 Rates charged by other personal trainers in your area
 The length of your sessions
 The location of your sessions
 Your cost of doing business
 Travel time
Once you get the business going, you will have to test your price. You can
add additional services or take away services depending on your real world
experience. If it takes you twice as long as you anticipated to create
individual training programs, you may want to increase your price. If you
find out that your price is turning people away because it’s too high,
consider ways of adding more value to your training program. If that doesn’t
work, you can lower it in incremental amounts. Never go below your
minimum.

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Scheduling Goals
Time is a personal trainer’s most precious commodity. Your schedule will
also play a factor in meeting your income and profit goals. Now that you’ve
determined how much you want to earn, now you have to create a schedule
that will coincide with those goals.
A few questions you’ll have to ask yourself to come up with your weekly
schedule:
 How much time will I need to complete paperwork, management my
financial accounts and perform the administrative duties for the
business?
 How much time will I spend marketing and prospecting each week?
 How many clients would you need to work with to meet your income
goals?
 How many hours are you working now?
 How many hours would you like to work?
 Which days of the week, and for how long each day?
The most successful businesses turn their daily duties into a system of
operations. Wherever you can systemize or even automate parts of your
workload, the less time you will have to spend performing each task.
Establish a daily and weekly system that works to meet the goals you set
forth earlier in this chapter. Some tasks you are going to perform daily and
others you may only need to perform weekly. Creating a system is all about
optimizing your work performance.
Following a schedule:
 Keeps you from wasting too many hours on unproductive tasks
 Gives you a strategic focus
 Gives you a method to evaluate your own performance in place of not
having a boss
 Forces you to properly use the time allotted for training and revenue
generating activities.

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Time
Management
Worksheet
Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri Sat Sun
6:00
7:00
8:00
9:00
10:00
11:00
12:00
1:00
2:00
3:00
4:00
5:00
6:00
7:00
8:00
9:00
10:00
11:00
Policies & Procedures
Clarifying your policies and procedures at this stage will save you from
headaches later on. Dealing with complaints, concerns and failures with
standards helps you overcome any future obstacles you may face. When in
doubt, refer back to the policies you’ve set for yourself. This helps you
remain consistent across the board with all your customer interactions.
Cancellation Policy
Clients may talk to one another. Consistency helps avoid any confrontations.
You don’t want one customer a little upset because you billed him for a
cancellation find out from another customer that you let them off the hook.
You’d put yourself in a situation were you might lose two clients in one shot.
Your time is your money so a cancellation policy is something you should
have in place. However, life happens and you want to be flexible. You can be
flexible, but you don’t want to be taken advantage of. When a customer
cancels at the last minute, that’s time you are not getting paid for, but could

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have been paid for if you had enough advanced notice to schedule someone
else in that slot.
24 hours cancellation policy is standard. If you know a day ahead of time,
then you may have enough time to add someone else to the slot. But you
may need more time. It depends on your relationship with your customers
and how you schedule your time. Set your cancellation policy, put it in
writing and have your customers sign it when they start training with you.
Injury Policy
Injury is a possibility when working with stretching and strengthening parts
of the body. There is a greater chance of injury when you’re working with
clients with physical limitations. To reduce the potential of lawsuit or
permanent damage for not addressing an injury fast enough, draft a policy
for how to handle injuries during your training session.
It’s a good idea to have a first aid kit. Also keep a list of local hospitals.
Create a relationship with doctors in the area who you can call for injuries
that are not serious medical emergencies. You always want a back-up
consultation when it comes to someone’s health.
Pre-screening Policy
Pre-screen your customers for medical conditions to reduce the possibility of
injury. The more you know in advance, the better it is to design a training
program specific to their needs. You know in advance whether they can
handle a stringent cardiac program or need a lower impact workout.
Leaving Room for Growth
When you are creating your plan, surmise ways that your business may
grow in the future. You don’t have to be limited to just you as a trainer. You
could plan to bring others on in the future. You could plan to go after a
certain type of customer after you’ve been established for a while. How far
you go is only limited by your imagination and your desire to pursue it.

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Choosing a Name
Your name will become synonymous with those brand emotions mentioned
earlier in this chapter. When people see your business name, they will think
those thoughts about your business. Great names attract new customers.
Great names are easy to spread and tell other people. There is a lot of
power in the name you choose for your business.
Inc Magazine writer and entrepreneur Josh Spiro writes “You want to choose
a name that will last and, if possible, will embody both your values and your
company's distinguishing characteristics.”
Big corporations use focus groups and millions of dollars of research before
they name a new business venture they are launching. They also hire firms
whose primary business is choosing business names. You probably can’t
afford that expense. But your business name is just as important as the
biggest corporations.
There is a tendency in starting a new business that we want to do what
others have done. This isn’t always the best practice. It doesn’t help you
stand out in a crowded marketplace. The first thing you want your name to
do is separate you from the rest of the marketplace.
Wordplay is often effective in choosing a name. Novel authors often use this
tactic to create a book title. They take well-known phrases or overused
clichés and spin them around or splice a different word in a place that the
reader was expecting something else. For example, a news show turned the
phrase, “Speed of Light” into a segment called “Speed of Life” that became
popular for content about regular people in the community. Be careful with
wordplay, because using some puns can make your name too silly and
become the butt of jokes instead of creating the brand identity that you
initially intended.
Keep it simple, clear and short. Yahoo! and Google are very simple names
even though people didn’t know what they meant at first. They are easy to
remember. Google even started getting used as a verb.
Don’t copy other business names because people will notice. Plus, you run
the risk of trademark infringement. A trademark infringement lawsuit could
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Also consider a business name that can also serve as the domain name for
your business website. Play around with phrases from other languages as
well. Avoid following trends. Your business name could be passé and
obsolete before you even know it.
There are lots of trainers, as well as gyms, which use their own names as
the business name. Avoid this if you can. It limits your future growth. It
makes it harder to sell your business if you’ve created this amazing training
program that others want to buy and spread internationally. It also makes
you sound smaller. People are more drawn to established companies over
individuals. You know your client base better than anyone. Consider what
they will respond to more readily.
Once you’ve chosen your name, you must register your business name with
your local government. Search for potential conflicts in our local market as
well as countrywide. Check for legal availability of the name. Verify if the
name is legally trademarked through a trademark search on the government
website.
Registering the Business
Once you’ve chosen a name, you can register your business with the local
government. The requirements for registering a business will vary from state
to state and country to country. Consult your local business registrar. In
some provinces, registering a fictitious business name is all that you need to
do to start doing business under that name. In others, you will have to
submit a formal application and license fee. Request a free consultation with
a certified public account before you register your business as a legal entity.
How you register will have tax implications later on.
In Australia registering a business name- http://www.asic.gov.au
In Australia registering an Australian business number -
http://www.business.gov.au/BusinessTopics/Registrationandlicences/Registe
rfortaxation/Pages/RegisterforanAustralianBusinessNumber(ABN).aspx

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Fitness Program Design
The fitness programs you choose should be based on your expertise. If you
aren’t an expert in the types of programs on your list, scratch them off. It’s
very dangerous to compromise your clients’ health by getting them to do
things that you’re not well educated about. The fitness programs you have in
place can also be the very thing that attracts new customers.
Service Types:
o Individual exercise programs
o Individual weight loss programs
o Nutrition consulting
o Strength and endurance training
o In-office personal training
o Senior-focused personal training
o Sports conditioning
o Wellness coaching
o Stress management programs
o Small group training
o Seminars and classes
o Personal defense training
To design your personal training program offerings you will have to combine
effective strategies for meeting fitness goals with what the customers want.
Clients are always reading magazines, watching talk shows, or news
programs spouting the latest fitness craze.
To remain competitive, you have to stay abreast of these trends. You’ll have
to find creative ways to incorporate new discoveries in the fitness world or
well-researched arguments for why your clients shouldn’t even entertain the
latest recommendation from Dr. Oz.
Effective research can lead to you creating your own innovations in the
fitness industry. Spend time in libraries, networking with other trainers,
subscribe to medical journals or any other creative methods to research and
find out if there is a solution out there already that can resolve this need. If
a solution already exists, can this be improved upon? There are all kinds of
niches in the personal training world, could you master one or combine
several of them to create the most awesome fitness package?
Follow the trends, but understand why they work. Dig deep and determine
what do customers like about them? Review trends that have fallen to the

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waste side. Why weren’t they effective? Did they fall out of favor with
customers because they weren’t effective or because a new fad stepped in?
Quiz clients at the gym. What aren’t they getting from the traditional
workouts? What kind of program can you create that will set yourself apart
from your competition.
 What type of training programs or packages can you offer that are in
line with your brand identity?
 Who will be excited about your package offerings, and why will they be
compelled to call you?
 What value does your package have that makes it unique from other
similar packages?
Fitness consultant and specialist Raphael Brandon advises, “The trainer
should be able to design workouts that cover all relevant fitness areas -
strength, flexibility, agility, aerobic and anaerobic endurance and speed.
These workouts must be both specific to the sport and suitable for the level
of the athlete.”
Remain flexible when creating fitness training packages. Every client you
have will not be in the same physical shape, have the same fitness goals, or
be able to perform all the same tasks. Use your expertise and specific skills
to design your core programs, leaving room for customization.
To establish customizable programs, review your client’s current health
status. Interview him thoroughly to determine his fitness goals. Advise the
client based on their age, weight, height and current health with your own
recommendations on where the fitness goals should be. Testing may be
required to assess the client’s true abilities. Test the client based on their
long-term fitness goals.
Strength and Power training is most effective when performed 2 to 4 times
per week. Endurance training should be infused into these strength training
sessions. Whether you use weights, machines or simply strength building
exercises will be determined by the client’s goals.
Aerobic Endurance is a favorite for new clients. Don’t get overwhelmed in
prescribing more aerobic exercises at the detriment of strength and power
exercises. Both are equally important.
Athletes require more speed and agility training than someone who works in
an office and just want to remain fit.

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Balance and coordination training fit well within any training program.
Movement matters in every day life. Speed, agility, aerobic endurance, nor
strength can be optimized without economy of movement.

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Fiscally Fit
As a personal trainer, you don’t want to think too much about money. You
want to help people. However, a major part of business is money. You’ll
need money to get started. You’ll need money to stay in business. You’ll
need money to grow.
Money management is a huge factor in the success or failure of most small
businesses. They get caught up in trying to understand the accounting
principles or other duties they have for running the business sidetrack them.
Setting up rules for yourself in the early stages will help you manage your
money more effectively for the long haul.
What is the best way to use the money you do have and the money you will
earn to best leverage your time and resources? How much money are you
planning to invest in your personal training business? Have you considered
the smaller expenses that will add up quickly and are necessary for your
professional image, such as telecommunications (phone, internet, office
supplies), advertising, fuel and car maintenance (if you travel to your
clients).
Separate your business finances from your personal finances. The easiest
way to do this is by opening a separate business account. Business banking
also helps to give your business a more professional image. Opening this
account will have a psychological impact on you as well.
Having a business banking account makes it easier during tax time to
account for your expenses and receivables. Shop around for the best bank.
Start with the bank you’re already banking with. Not all banks are small
business-friendly. Some of them cater more to large corporate accounts. You
may need to have a business registration or tax identification number to
show to open a business bank account.
Software, such as Peachtree, QuickBooks and Quicken make financial
accounting much easier for the laymen who hasn’t spent years in university
understanding accounting principles. Software can tell you if you’re spending
more than you are taking in. You can also print professional looking invoices
and financial statements with a click of a button.
If you are earning from your training sessions today, will that cash be there
for you tomorrow? Are you saving and re-investing your earnings in a
manner consistent with your personal and business goals?

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Record Keeping
In order to stay fiscally fit, you’ll have to start managing your money like the
corporations do. They keep meticulous records. Initiate a record-keeping
program at the beginning of your business. You never know when the
federal government may want to perform an audit. Keeping records also
helps you keep track of your performance.
Invest in a record-keeping system. A good old file cabinet is sufficient.
However, it’s advisable to use a digital filing system just in case your
physical records are destroyed. The accounting software mentioned above
will help you with digital record keeping. A cloud storage system may come
in handy to have additional room for safe storage.
Go to www.pttrainee.com for a FREE income-tracking sheet for your own
record keeping.
Billing Policy
To make record keeping easier, you should incorporate it into your billing
policy. Be clear on your policy to avoid disagreements with your customers.
Amateurs often run into financial problems because they aren’t clear on their
own billing policies.
Collecting payment from clients can make some trainers nervous. They
won’t ask for the payment or send an invoice for fear of offending the
customer. They will let the customer bring it up. You’re in business to
support your way of life. You need money to do that. Your customers are
well aware that they have to pay for your time. Don’t be afraid to ask for
your payment.
To make the process easier, set a billing policy in place that you will inform
each new customer of before you start training them. Be clear on your
payment terms (the time the payment is due, the payment methods that
you will accept, etc.)
Billing options are endless. You can accept payment at the end of each
session or you can bill the client in advance. Review the pros and cons of
your billing strategy. Billing after a session could result in slow payment, but
it can also encourage more clients who don’t always carry cash.

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John Peragine writes “Collecting payment is a delicate subject. You must
insist on payment for your services without alienating your clientele. Slow
payment is a common issue. Repeated billing should help.” (Ref 4)
There are many online companies that can assist you with direct debiting
clients in a simple and effective way. Shop around and see which option best
suits you. Here are some fitness industry leaders.
www.debitsuccess.com.au
http://www.ezidebit.com.au
*PT Trainee Tip
Direct debiting is one of the most powerful retention tools your business can
have.
Pricing Policy
As discussed in the previous chapter, your pricing policy is extremely
important to your success. Determine your pricing structure up-front. You
can always adapt it and change it later if competition or economic changes
warrant that you change your prices.
Check out other personal trainers in the area and gym’s providing similar
personal training options. You can compare our rates against the
marketplace. Price too low and you could be stealing profit from your own
pockets. This leads to burn out and dissatisfaction. Price too high and you
could be pricing yourself out of the market.
Accepting Payments
You don’t always have to deal in cash. Too many people these days don’t
carry cash. They use plastic. You can accept payments through an online
payment processing system such as Google Checkouts or . You can also sign
up for your very own merchant account. There are now apps and software
options that will let you process credit card payments, debit card payments
and checks directly from your phone.

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Online Payment Processing
Using a payment processing company, you avoid the hoops you have to
jump through to apply for a merchant account. The set-up is much faster. If
there is an application process, it’s much less stringent than a commercial
bank that offers merchant accounts.
Online payment processors give
you the flexibility of transferring
the money you get from your
payments directly into your
business checking account. Not all
payment processing companies
directly deposit the money into
your account. Some take up to 60
days to send payments to your
account.
PayPal offers business credit and debit cards which gives you more
flexibility. You don’t have to transfer the money anywhere. You can use the
account as one of your business accounts. Your customer does get sent to a
third party site to process their payment. Your products are added to their
shopping cart or basket. The third party system directs the customer
through the checkout system on their website. Once the payment is
processed, they send you a confirmation of the transaction.
Other Payment Processing Services:
 Authorize.net
 iTransact
 Google Checkout
Start-Up Costs
Your start-up costs will be determined by your goals. The type of personal
training business that you have outlined in your business proposal will
dictate whether you need to set aside expenses for equipment,
transportation or employee benefits.
Lack of start-up funds can kill even the most motivated trainers. It’s
recommended that you have enough money to last the business (and pay
for your personal expenses) for three months.
Checklists help manage the process:

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 List the equipment you will need for your training sessions
 List all the office supplies you need
 List marketing supplies that you will need, such as business cards,
brochures, website, etc.
 List all the legal expenses you may incur for starting your business,
such as permits and licenses.
 List all the fees you may incur monthly, such as rent, insurance, web
hosting, etc.
Give yourself some breathing room. Add an additional 10% to your
estimated cost expectations. Pad your number to create a safety net. There
are several ways that you can generate the money you need for starting
your business.
Equipment
You’ll need equipment to enhance your customers’ workouts depending on
what fitness programs you offer. If you decide to build your own studio, then
you will also need to furnish it with equipment. If you train them at their
own homes, then you don’t have to have the equipment. You can suggest
they buy the equipment that they want to use.
Fitness Equipment:
 Boxing mitts and pads
 Heart Rate monitor
 Blood pressure monitor
 Scales
 Screening chart
 Stability balls/resistance
bands
 Stationery bicycles
 Treadmills
 Elliptical machines
 Dumbbells
 Medicine balls
 And so on and so on
Office Supplies
Your office set up does not have to be lavish. Most likely, you won’t entertain
too many clients there to justify an exorbitant expense. At the very least,
you’ll need a laptop, a comfortable chair, a desk and a printer. Some
expenses you may be able to bypass. For example, if you don’t plan on
printing that often, you can save $100 on a printer and about $30 a month
on ink by going to a printing service when it’s necessary to print out physical
copies of documents.

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List of Office Supplies
 toner and ink cartridges
 pens and pencils
 markers and highlighters
 paper clips and binder clips
 stapler, staple remover, and
staples
 ring binders
 business-size envelopes
 shipping labels
 business cards
 brochures or pamphlets
 customer satisfaction surveys
 lead tracking forms
 customer thank you cards,
gifts, and certificates
 white computer and copy
paper
 Post-it® notes
Telecommunications
Today’s office set-up isn’t just in the back of someone’s home or a rented
commercial space. Today’s businessperson operates in a travelling office. It’s
a good idea to get yourself a Smartphone so that you can reply to emails
from prospects as quickly as possible, organize your appointment schedule,
and use map applications to get you to and from training sessions. The
basics you will need will include your mobile phone, web hosting service, and
domain name registry.
Transportation
If you travel to your customers’ homes or if you run some form of a mobile
studio, you will have to calculate the cost of a reliable vehicle. Consult with
your accountant. Being that you use your car to get you from session to
session, you may be able to write off the fuel mileage and maintenance
expenses on your taxes.
Finding Start-Up Funds
The best way to fund your business is through your own savings. Your
savings will keep you from owing someone or having to make loan payments
in the first few years of your business. Making loans payments adds
additional stress on small business owners that has lead to record numbers
of them to closing their doors.
Split the costs with a partner. It’s still like using your own money, but you
won’t have 100% say in what goes on in the company. You will have to
make decisions together.

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You can also avoid banks by getting the money from the people who are
closest to you. You can borrow it from family and friends. Be cautious that
borrowing money from family and friends can lead to strained relationships.
Be clear on the details from the start.
Clients and crowd-sourcing can also be a source of funding for your venture.
If you have been working with a group of clients for a very long time, they
may be open to helping you get things off the ground. Put out feelers before
you put yourself on the line by asking for the money. It could turn some
clients off. Let them make the suggestion. Crowd-sourcing is a method made
popular through the Internet. People that you have never met can offer
money to help you fund your venture.
The government offers small business loans as well as grants to specialized
businesses. Grant and loan information is generally available on any
government site. If you aren’t having any luck, you could always enlist the
help of a librarian who can guide you to some valuable resources.
The traditional method of funding a business is through banks. Banks require
you to submit a formal business plan along with the financial histories of the
primary principles involved. You will have to pay this money back with
additional fees. The fee percentage will be based on your personal credit
history and outside economic factors.

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Building Your Team
Every great business is built with the help of an organized team. Yes, you
can start a personal training business on your own, but you’ll still need
outside help to keep things running smoothly. Presidents and prime
ministers are only as effective as the team of thinkers they surround
themselves with. That’s why you always hear their names followed by
“administration” or “party” which signifies that the leader and his group of
thinkers came up with this idea.
Who’s got your back if you get a legal complaint from a former client? Are
you growing your business because you are sharing best practices with other
successful trainers through networking sessions? Are you following the
advice of a seasoned business veteran that helps you to reduce the number
of mistakes you make on your journey to success?
Lawyers and Liability
Lawyers will protect you in the event that one of your clients wants to sue
you for causing pain or injury. Of course, you will want to have public
liability insurance, but a claim against you won’t always be so cut and dry.
You’re dealing with people’s health and well-being. Anything could go wrong
that you can’t foresee. A lawyer will help you out of an unintentional jam.
Lawyers aren’t just for court cases. They can help you answer the tough
questions about running a business. They can tell you which business entity
to choose, such as corporation or limited liability. They can also review
contracts that you want to have your clients sign to make sure they are
legally binding.
Mostly, trainers are in the same boat as other health care professionals.
They have a duty of care to provide a healthy and safe environment to train.
Always be well prepared for a training session, this will lower the chance that
something could go wrong. Check with www.fitness.org.au for industry
providers. You will find most are quiet inexpensive and very valuable.
In the book, The Business of Personal Training, Scott Roberts writes, “A
smart approach to insurance is to find an agent who works with other
fitness-related businesses. The agent should be willing to help you analyze
your needs, evaluate the risks you’re willing to accept and the risks you
need to insure against, and work with you to keep your insurance costs
down.”

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Networking with Other Trainers
Other trainers could take the load off of you. It gives you the opportunity to
train more people that you couldn’t possibly get on your own. Hiring
employees does come with additional expenses. You have to pay
government mandated services such as payroll taxes and workers’
compensation insurance. Your lawyer can help you work out all the
necessary contracts and requirements to meet government employment
standards.
Develop partnerships with complementary business, such as health food
stores, juicing stands, and fitness retailers. Other small businesses like yours
can refer clients to you. Consider creating a compensation program for the
leads that they generate for you.
Attend local business networking events. Pass your card around. You might
get some clients out of the experience or find similar health conscious
business owners who you can partner with.
Accountant/Bookkeeper
Another equally important member of your team is your Accountant. A
certified public accountant is the person that will help you weather the
complexities of government and local tax codes. The money you pay them is
well worth facing the penalties of non-compliance with the federal or local
government tax requirements. They will also help you create expense
reports and financial statements to determine how well or poorly your
business is performing.
Mentor/Consultant
An invaluable member of your team is a consultant or a mentor. This will be
someone who has years more experience in the business than you do. This
is someone like us. This is someone who you can bounce ideas off of or ask
questions about and get practical answers. Consultants come in all styles.
Unlike mentors, you may seek a consultant in a specialized area, such as
marketing, training exercises, life coaching and many other areas where
your skill set may not be as strong.

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A small group of business owners who meet for coffee weekly can also serve
as a mentorship. You can share strategies with business owners from other
industries that you may be able to put to use to generate leads. It also helps
to have people to talk to when everything seems like it’s going in the wrong
direction. Other small business owners will be able to relate to what you’re
going through more than your friends who are still working their traditional
jobs.
IT Professional
In the digital economy, an IT specialist is going to be your unsung hero. This
is the person that will help you compete on a digital landscape. They are the
ones that build your website or your mobile application that works so
flawlessly, that you forget a human was involved in the construction.

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Digital Business

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The Virtual Trainer
In today’s global marketplace, a website is to businesses in the new
millennium what business cards were to business in the last century. Not
only does it advertise your business, it’s a form of legitimacy in today’s
market. It tells your prospects that you take your business seriously.
A website isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessary business tool. It advertises and
sells for you while you are sleeping. For the work a website does for you, it’s
fairly inexpensive. To generate the kinds of leads, close the amount of sales
and do the work to promote your business that a website does, you’ve at
least have to hire four to six full-time sales employees to cold call around
the clock.
Guess what the first thing people look for when you hand them your
business card?
Yes, your website address. The second thing is your email address. Having
your own website domain name will also give you a more professional
looking address. When you hand your business card over to someone
without a website address and an email address from one of the free
services, they question your business.
They think you’ve just started out. They think you must not be that good at
what you do if you can’t afford a website address.
They think of you as less professional than your competitors.
You have to be online. That’s where your customers are. They want and
expect the convenience.
 Be available to customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
 Inform customers about your company and your products and services
without cold calling.
 Introduce new products without the expense of high cost advertising.
 Expand your market reach from local to global.

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Your Website
Your website is another important location in your business venture. This is
the place that interested parties will come to find out more about you and
your service offerings before they decide to do business with you. It starts
with the domain name that you choose. Then, you want to design a simple,
informative site with easy navigation.
There are millions of web pages uploaded every day. That means that the
competition online is fierce. But don’t let that scare you. It’s actually
something that might work in your favor.
Because there are so many websites out there, consumers are just as
overwhelmed by the overload of information as you are. To block out the
clutter, they only search for information that appeals to them.
You can draw them in by focusing on creating a web page that promotes
your unique selling proposition. Plan out your website, define the goals that
you want your website to accomplish, and design the pages and navigation
to meet those goals.
Design your website by first creating a map of your website pages and how
they will be linked together.
The potential website pages that you may include are:
 Home
 Service Landing Page
 Contact Us
 About Us
 Help
 Frequently Asked Questions
 Testimonials/Feedback
Keep your design as simple and clean as possible. White or light background
pages are easier on the eyes to read. Multicolored backgrounds with text are
hard on the eyes. If you choose to use a dark background, it’s easier on the
eyes to use a lighter color text. Some texts, such as red or blues, bleed on
the page and may appear blurry.

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Domain Name
Picking a domain name is a task that should not be taken lightly. During the
infancy of the Internet, domain names were huge business. Premium domain
names sold for millions of dollars. This was in anticipation of what the
Internet would become. One word, easy-to-remember names in the early
part of the century created bidding wars.
Your domain name will become synonymous with your business identity. It
should be clear to your customers that they are directing themselves to your
site. Your domain name will also be a part of your email address. Email
addresses attached to a specific domain name are perceived as more
professional than those that are attached to @gmail.com or @yahoo.com.
If you’ve already establish a customer base in the offline world that is readily
identified by your business name, you want to carry that customer base
along with you to the Internet. If the domain is available, it should be your
first choice. If it’s not available avoid the desire to force strange spellings
until you find a version that is available.
Web Hosting
Your web host will be the one who stores your web pages that your
customers view. They save them or host them on their server. It keeps your
website connected to the Internet every day and all day.
In the digital world, you have to build your website and a host provider is
the one that stores your web pages so that they will be accessed whenever
someone types in your domain name.
A web host has a bunch of computers that they link to the Internet. You take
advantage of their connections to the rest of the web, so that other people
can see this wonderful website that you are building.

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Sales and Marketing

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Marketing
Marketing is the method by which you create awareness about your
business. The more people in your target market that you reach, the more
clients you will attract. Target market is the operative phrase. Your business
concept will not appeal to everyone. Even though everyone needs to take
fitness into consideration, everyone is not willing to pay you for your help.
Brand identity
First, you have to understand the market and what makes you special. You
need to become famous at your place of business. Evidence that you are
doing this will be the fact that more people know you, than you know
people.
This is the essence of branding. Branding is the imprint of emotion or
ideology that a customer feels about your company. The good part about
branding is that in the early stages, you have more control of how you want
customers to think, feel and react to your business model. Find that special
attribute about working with you that appeals to the customers that you
want to work with and exploit it. It will be the cornerstone of our marketing
campaign.
Marketing Goals
Next, you have to set goals for your marketing. It’s easy to believe that all
you want to do is increase your customer base. There is more to it. The
more specific you get, the more targeted your marketing efforts will be. If
you want to attract more wealthy customers, then you know that you need
to market in ways that wealthier people will be exposed to your message.
Questions to be answered:
 How do I attract potential clients?
 How do I market my services by stressing my unique attributes?
 How do I write an effective ad?
 How do I overcome a prospect’s objections to becoming a client
No training business can survive just on new customer acquisition. Your
longevity is determined by the number of people who schedule future
sessions with you or choose you as their sole trainer for the new couple of

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years. Building relationships is a loftier goal for personal trainers than just
getting new customers.
Refer to your goal setting lessons from the “Designing a Business” chapter.
Set your objectives for each marketing strategy that you test. For each
strategy give it a time limit. Map out the steps that you will take to initiate
that marketing strategy.
Word-of-Mouth
Word of mouth is the most powerful marketing tool known to man. A Jupiter
Media Metrix survey reveals that 70% of people who launched a search on
the net for a specific company are initiated by a friend or family member
telling them about the company.
Word-of-mouth can actually be both good or bad.
Good word-of-mouth is when a happy customer tells a friend how great you
are at helping them meet their fitness goals. Then, that person gives you a
call to schedule a trial session.
Bad word-of-mouth is when a customer has a bad experience with you and
tells everyone they know about it. Research shows that bad word-of-mouth
actually spreads faster than good word-of-mouth.
To encourage your customers to speak highly of you to others, you have to
first deliver unmatched customer service. Secondly, you have to give an
incentive to encourage them to tell others about you. Incentives can be
discounts on future training sessions or other add ons.
In the book, The Personal Trainer Handbook, Teri S O’Brien writes “Some
of the best methods of marketing won’t cost you anything! Without a doubt,
word of mouth is the very best source of new clients. The fact that your
current client recommends you sells you as a competent, professional
personal trainer. Referrals from other professionals also cost you nothing.”
Marketing Strategies
In your marketing material, remember your brand identity. Every piece of
content that you create as marketing collateral should reflect that brand

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image. In each piece, state what you do, who benefits from it, and your
unique selling proposition.
Email Capture
The best method for capturing email addresses is by offering something of
value for free in exchange for the prospect’s name and email address. On
the web, most websites use free eBook, reports, or free access to premium
content to encourage giving up email address. You can also gather email
address from business cards at trade shows.
Website Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization is creating content on a website that is designed
to attract search engines when users type in certain words or phrases. The
sites that are most relevant to the search terms show up on the first of
thousands of pages.
Podcast
Podcasting is a great avenue for personal trainers to build buzz around their
unique training programs. Thanks to web technology, you can now use
either audio or video for your podcast. Podcasts are easily recorded on a
computer or laptop. You don’t even have to spend any money to do one.
Free software, such as Audacity, is available for download online to help
you record your show. Podomatic is a website that distributes podcast
content to more than 100 different sources for your customers to find your
podcast.
Online Video
The amount of time that people spend on sites like YouTube is astonishing.
But, it works in your favor. As with podcasting, choose your topics, video
length, style and frequency based on your prospects expectations. YouTube
allows you to create your own Internet TV Channel.
 Demonstrate your training program
 Give health tips
 Plan classes.
 Give a video tour of your studio.
“The Quality of the content
you deliver is vital to the
success of your lead nurturing
program.” Maximizing Lead
Generation: The Complete
Guide for B2B Marketers
Ruth Stevens

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“Link Sharing”
Link sharing is like asking for a referral. You exchange links with website
owners with complementary products or services. You place a link to another
business’ website and they place a link back to your website on their own.
It’s as easy as asking for a link exchange during a social media conversation
or sending the website owner an email requesting a link swap.
Social Networking
The most popular social media sites right now are LinkedIn, Facebook and
Twitter. Using these media forms to suggest solutions to people’s problems
can raise their awareness of your company and your expertise.
The objective should never be to sell. People using social networks don’t
respond well to being pushed and prodded to buy something. They are
responding to Facebook advertisements, but these are not designed to sell,
but are designed to promote awareness of a company’s Facebook page or
project that they have going. Social networking users don’t feel pressured to
buy anything in this situation and are more susceptible to the marketing
message.
Online Sales Meetings
Video meeting rooms are now widely available online. More than a decade
ago, video conferencing was quite expensive. Both parties needed to have
the proper equipment in order for the video conferencing to be possible.
Video meeting rooms break down barriers to reaching your customers. Some
customers are visual and require a demonstration or would like to see the
person that they are dealing with. Remove their hurdles and objections and
excuses for not being able to meet with you to talk about opportunities.
Webinar
Webinars are seminars or conferences produced and distributed online.
Software has been created for you to be able to broadcast one of your
seminars live. Webinars are created for free consumption or admission is
sold to generate passive income.
Free Content
Offer free content that your prospects will find valuable. You may have read
that several times in this eBook, because it is a proven strategy.
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prospects to read is a great way to deliver short tidbits of information. Use it
to generate interest in your service and stay in touch with your audience.
Types of Free content
 Newsletters
 White Papers
 Magazine Articles
 EBooks
 Blogs

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Advertising
Advertising is the strategy of paying people who have access to an audience
for the privilege of delivering your message to your customers. Advertising
can turn into a huge expense that most small businesses are not prepared
for. It’s best to start advertising only after you have exhausted all your
marketing strategies.
As with your marketing strategies, your advertising campaign needs goals.
Setting goals may even be more important for your advertising campaign.
You will need to account for the money that you spend and make sure that
it’s effective.
Advertising buy definition is paying for placement of your brand message to
get in front of your prospective clients. The avenue could be anything. The
media for advertising can be distributed through television, radio,
newspapers, magazines, billboards or any other creative method for getting
the customer’s attention.
Pay-Per-Click
Pay-per-click is one of the most dominant forms of advertising online. Leads
tend to be more qualified because the prospect has initiated the contact. He
is specifically looking for what you have to offer. He is now open to your
sales pitch.
Pay-per-click works best when you point your ads to a specific product offer
or service. You’ll use Key Performance Indicators to manage your campaign.
Use KPIs to set limits on your bids, set sales goals and an overall budget for
your advertising campaign.
Competition and budget play a role in your success with pay-per-click.
Variations on the pay-per-click theme are:
o Pay per impression
o Pay-per sale
o Pay-per-click

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Web Banner Ads
Banner ads were one of the first advertising tools available on the Internet.
Just like billboards on highways, banner ads pop up at the top of web pages
that you are visiting. Banner ads were the billboards on the information
super highway when it was first made available to the public. Banner ads
still exist and are still quite effective. Graphics and technology have gotten
better so that these tools can be created with irresistible graphics and
interactive components that increase the likelihood that someone will click
on them. They are more successful when geared to a special promotion.
T-Shirts
T-shirts will advertise and generate leads for you years longer than a
television commercial. Print your name on the back of t-shirts, sweaters,
hats, or any other paraphernalia which turns the people who wear them into
walking billboards. Sponsor local sports teams to increase your exposure.
Classified Ads
Classified ads have dwindled in your daily paper. This is great news for
anyone wanting to generate leads. With less competition, that helps you
reach more people. Classifieds have also been placed online as well. This
market is tons more crowded than the print market. For as little as $19.95
you can advertise to a captive audience.
Find your category in your local paper. There is not enough room in the ad
to sell a product. Don’t try to. Write one enticing line of text and then
include your telephone number and website for them to use to follow up.
Send them to an online capture page or to a sales person dedicated to that
phone number to help collect names, email addresses and address. After
you capture their information, then you can plug them into your sales
system.
Outdoor Ads/Car Signs
Billboards, car door ads and bus stop ads all are cyclical for those who rent
those spaces. Sometimes, they run out of favor with the advertiser in favor
of online strategies. You may be able to negotiate with those who rent those
spaces to get a better rate.

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Include an interesting picture, your telephone number and email address in
a big enough fonts that cars can see them as they are driving buy or bus
loads of people can see them from the windows. Use a unique telephone
number or web address to track the response from your outdoor ads.
Tracking Performance
Tracking performance of your marketing campaigns is one of the most
important steps, yet one of the most overlooked. Without tracking, you
could be wasting your time. If you track emails that you send out, then you
know how many people opened them and how many people clicked on
through to see your offer. If this method has low numbers, then you know to
change the offer or focus on a different strategy.
You have to investigate your leads twice.
Firstly, before you initiate any type of contact or being pursue your lead
generation efforts.
Secondly, after you have launched your lead generation campaign and you
have started to receive feedback.
In the days before the technology boom, you would use reports or
spreadsheets to keep track of the performance of your lead generation
campaign. In today’s market, much of that data is calculated for you.
The tools you invest in to track your performance metrics pay for themselves
in the end. They inform you of what about your campaign is working and
what elements are not working to generate qualified leads.
Tracking has only one goal, helping you determine the best use for your
money and time. There are still some human elements of marketing and
advertising that can’t be quantified, but not very many.
Track the performance of every lead generation tactic separately and you
will have more accurate results.

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Prospecting
Prospecting is simply the art of sifting through the masses to find something
in particular. In the Old West, prospects searched for gold. In the modern
business world, prospecting is searching for your ideal clients.
Prospecting begins with defining the qualifications for your ideal clients. It is
good to know who these are, but be careful limiting your business to ONLY
these people.
It’s almost impossible for you to know when your prospect will be primed.
Therefore, you have to put a trail of breadcrumbs down that she’ll hopefully
gobble up. These breadcrumbs need to lead to your sales cycle.
In the book, Start Your Own Personal Training Business, the editors
from Entrepreneur Press advise that “People are besieged by
advertisements, infomercials, and sales pitches that promise a physical
transformation with little or no effort. Take these pills and your fat will just
melt away. Spend just five minutes per day using this machine, and in two
weeks you’ll have washboard abs… As a personal trainer, you will be
competing every day with the ‘quick fix’ gimmicks that don’t work and have
sabotaged people into believing they can look and feel great in a short time
if they can just find the right product to use.”
You’re fighting an uphill battle. The buzz is out there for fitness. You have to
figure out a way to identify the best candidates in this group that are a
perfect fit as clients for your business.
Prospecting is a way to narrow your marketing net. You’re not trying to
catch everyone that’s out there. Not all people will take the road that
requires a lot of sacrifice. You don’t want to waste your energy on the
masses. You want to pick through the crowd for those prime targets.
Targeting the appropriate audience will ensure that you will reduce the time
and resources you waste in attracting new business.
Identifying and locating prospects is the first step of the sales cycle. Identify
key traits and characteristics of your ideal customers.
Prospecting becomes easier when you use the power of the Internet. You
can use it as a net to capture your warmest leads.

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