Are you equipped with the necessary skillset and certifications needed to help people with achieving their fitness goals?
Are you passionate about and fascinated by the health and fitness industry, and want to make a career as a personal trainer and make money from it?
If you find yourself answering, yes to these questions, then welcome.
I will be covering extensively pragmatic ways to make money as a personal trainer.
It’s a beautiful thing that almost everyone wants to be physically fit and healthy.
Today, many people are taking up daily physical exercises primarily for this purpose.
A recent study showed that seven in ten people are taking up workout routines, specifically in weight loss, as a desideratum.
It’s not just about weight loss alone, people also take up daily workout routines for strength gain, muscular endurance, and muscle toning.
Also, others do so to improve their cardiovascular capabilities and their physical flexibility.
Another study published that, about 60-65% of people are asking what exercises could improve their cardiovascular health.
Most people are willing to spend their time and money on effective training that will improve their physical fitness and health in general.
It is worth the time and resources because the old saying that “health is wealth” is true.
Daily physical exercises are essential to maintain good health and body tone.
As a personal trainer, you are right at the heart of this.
As a personal trainer, you will be helping people reach their various fitness levels.
You will create or revise workout routines, specifically to your clients’ fitness goals.
You can either choose to work with clients one-on-one or in small groups.
You can also work in a gym or fitness center, or you can even work with a nutritionist in recommending diets and setting up a nutrition plan for your client.
There are various ways to make money as a personal trainer.
First, I will explain briefly what is needed for you to become a personal trainer.
Requirements to Become a Personal Trainer
1. Get a formal education
Basically, you will need to be able to read and write in order to communicate with your clients effectively.
A high school degree, at least, should be the standard for anyone.
2. Acquire basic physical health safety certification
Every job comes with its risks and rewards.
As we focus on how to make money as a personal trainer, it is also important to be ready for emergencies that may occur in the course of your job.
It is very possible that a client goes into shock or something.
A trainer should be able to perform CPR, check a pulse, and do regular checks before further ado.
3. Choose a specialty in physical fitness
No one is a jack of all trades even in physical training. Choose the specific area that you will like to specialize in e.g. cardio, physio, etc.
4. Apply for jobs and gather experience
Experience cannot be learned in school or acquired by certifications.
This is why it is important that you get to work with professionals whether the pay is great or not.
Assist someone who has been in that field for a while and learn.
5. Build your portfolio
In the process of learning with different training professionals, your portfolio is coming together.
Meet other professionals. Work with and for them.
Practice and these people will even refer you or call you up for jobs.
Let’s now see,
How you can make money as a personal trainer
By working at the gym
Apparently, the gym is the conventional place for personal trainers.
Aside from it being a fitness-friendly environment, the gym is a good place for a personal trainer to get networking.
A trainer can also get more information about the fitness industry, build a client base, and over time, you could even establish your own gym.
So, working at the gym is a good way to start off making some extra cash, not much, but not too bad for a start.
Most importantly you will have a cash flow.
Most gyms will require that you have some PT certifications from an accredited agency before you can be considered to work at their gym.
So, if you want to increase your chances of getting work at any gyms you would want to enroll for some professional PT certifications.
Offer online fitness training classes
Today with the online opportunity, businesses are increasing their reach.
And as a personal trainer, you can tap into this opportunity. The benefits can’t just be over-emphasized.
Just to mention a few perks you can get from offering online fitness training:
You will increase your audience reach,
You can sell general and personalized workouts without having to be at the gym,
By offering online fitness coaching you can increase your earns substantially.
This appeals to remote learning. One of the ways you can do this is by:
- Selling personalized workouts and diet plan
As a personal trainer, you should have a website or a blog where you share health and fitness-related information with your audience.
This website has your personalized workouts and diet, which will be a premium part of your content.
With a social media giant like YouTube, engaging your audience becomes much more fun.
You can now share follow-along workout videos on YouTube with your audiences.
Then, you can also provide a link to your website where your audiences can get access to your premium personalized workouts.
And if your YouTube workout videos are informative enough, you can monetize them.
Because then, you will get more views, thereby get some extra cash from your YouTube views.
What’s more? As we all know, that diet and nutrients have a strong impact on health and fitness.
If you have a nutritional certification, you could add that to your personal training deliverables by also offering premium diets and nutrition plans for your clients.
The key is “testimonials.”
Gather reviews from your clients, both online and offline clients, that can transit to online clients.
Generally, testimonials build your prospective clients’ confidence in your skills and thereby making them want your deliverables.
- Selling fitness products
The sale of fitness products that worked for you is another way of making money through offering online fitness training as a personal trainer.
The effective way to do this is by selling dropshipped fitness products.
All you have to do is look for wholesale fitness product companies that offer drop shipping.
Partner with them, then source fitness products from them.
List the products to your audience, and whenever they make a purchase for it, you pass the order to your source company.
Then they make the delivery straight up to your client.
Have an e-commerce site where you list your fitness products to your clients.
Your profit margin should be analyzed well beforehand.
Your profit is simply the difference between the price of your source company and the price on your site.
Also, you need to make sure that the fitness products you are dropshipping are of good quality, and at affordable prices.
- By selling ebooks
Every good personal trainer should have a way of answering their clients’ biggest questions.
Therefore, having an ebook is a good way of doing this.
As a personal trainer having an ebook is not much of a task as you can format your blog contents into an ebook.
Analyze your blog posts, observe the posts that attracted more engagements from your audiences then demystify those posts in your ebook.
Then sell them to your clients.
Affiliate marketing is no strange way of making good money, and a personal trainer is not exempted from this.
Personal trainers can promote other people’s fitness products on their website or blogposts to their audience, and make a commission on their every purchase.
- By launching your fitness app
The world has changed dramatically with the advent of the internet.
And, with the vast number of people with access to mobile phones, your clients can carry your fitness training right on the go.
In developing an app, you will need the skills of a software developer.
You can hire one on one of the freelancer sites like Fiverr, among others.
Then you offer your premium personalized workouts, and other related fitness products or services there, according to your niche.
So there you have it.
I have outlined ways you can possibly make money with the use of the internet as a personal trainer.
That’s not all. There are more ways to make money as a personal trainer.
Offer in-home-workout training services
This is a great way of making money as a personal trainer.
You typically help your clients reach their fitness goals by rendering one-on-one fitness training services.
This service is costly, thereby increasing your income as a personal trainer.
Rich clients who really want to attain their fitness goal or goals will not mind spending money on in-home fitness training services.
And, once clients start seeing the impact of your training, they will definitely retain them in their minds.
They will recommend your services, and through their referrals, you will get more clients which means more money.
By organizing boot camps
This is a very thoughtful thing to do as a personal trainer.
The cost of hiring a personal trainer for in-home training is high.
And, this most times, keeps the momentum down.
As a personal trainer, you wouldn’t want your clients with a leaner budget to be deterred from reaching their fitness levels.
Therefore, organizing boot camps are a great way of not making any of your clients stay off the field.
Boot camp sessions are relatively short. They last for forty-five minutes to an hour or so.
So, you take them in groups and charge a group rate. You can also take more groups due to the short time.
The catch here is that, the larger the group, the more the money. So, you need to put in effort in promoting your boot camp sessions.
Again, it is advisable that you demand that your clients for each boot camp session, pay upfront for their training.
No one wants to be running after clients for their money after a forty-five-minute to an hour training session.
You also want to consider beforehand your expenses for the venue.
Halls and training centers will be more expensive than, say, a training park.
Conduct workshops
Workshops are also great ways of sharing and connecting with your audiences.
It demonstrates the mastery of your industry.
As a personal trainer, you conducting workshops is also a good way to make extra cash.
You can do this by sharing informative content with a group of people on a particular topic.
You just have to give them value.
For instance, you can set up a workshop around your industry by expounding on effective ways to tone your muscle.
If your content is helpful, you will turn your audience into clients by making them subscribe to your premium workout routines.
By offering to model for fitness companies
Modeling for fitness companies is no strange way of making money as a personal trainer.
After all, you are epitomizing your industry.
This might sound funny, but, the truth is most of your clients take your fitness training just to be like you, physically.
This is something you can market.
There are fitness companies looking to work with physically fit models.
You can offer to model for them and get some extra cash.
Some fitness models make good money modeling for fitness companies.
This is where your social media handles come in handy.
With your LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook pages loaded with your pictures, which depict what these companies are looking for.
That’s a good start.
Do not halt your fitness training. You can offer to model for these fitness companies part-time, then you carry out your fitness training when you are not modeling.
Having said it all, the big question is:
How do you want to make money as a personal trainer?
It all boils down to your decision. Whatever decision you make, it’s all up to you.
Whether you choose to start off as a fitness instructor at a fitness center or a gym, then grow your clientele base.
Then, start offering one-on-one training, and over time, enroll for some PT certifications to expand your credibility and employability.
It is totally your decision to make.
But, one thing to bear in mind is that the health and fitness industry is growing, and is projected to even grow at a larger percent.
As a personal trainer, you are part of this growth.
Never stop learning, never stop trying, and never stop growing.
How far you will grow your business and income as a personal trainer all depends on you.
