If you have a passion for fitness and you are a business-minded individual, then starting a personal training business can be the right move for you. As a professional personal trainer, you will be making money doing something that you love.

And, according to various industry reports and statistics, the career outlook for personal trainers looks promising. Jobs in this industry are expected to increase massively in the coming years.

In this article, we will share some tips for starting a successful personal training business. And with these tips, you should be able to launch your personal trainer business on the right foot.

Select Your Niche

The personal training field encompasses several specialized areas. They include group fitness coaching, one-on-one training, weight loss training, youth fitness training, bodybuilding, corrective exercises, senior fitness as well as strength and conditioning, just to name a few.

And, it will be highly advisable to specialize in one particular niche, instead of trying to be a jack of all trades. Specializing in a certain niche will help you to stand out from the crowd.

Furthermore, working within a certain niche will enable you to perfect your skills and help your clients get better results. And, this translates to more referrals coming your way from your satisfied clients.

So, how do you ensure you choose the right niche? Well, there are two steps to follow when choosing a personal trainer niche.

Consider Your Passion

First, consider your passion. There’s a high chance there’s a particular type of fitness or training that you enjoy or a field you would like to venture into. To this end, you should compile a list featuring all these different fitness niches.

Conduct Market Research

Second, conduct market research. Once you’ve compiled a list of the different fields you are passionate about or may want to venture into, you should then go a step further and conduct market research.

At the end of the day, you need to ensure there’s enough demand in the personal training field that you want to venture into. Market research will also help you to determine the level of competition in that field.

From this research, you should be able to narrow down to one or two fields where the demand for your services is high and you can compete effectively with the current service providers.

Get Certified

After choosing your niche, you should go a step further and earn your personal training certification. As much as you don’t need certification or a license to become a personal trainer, it will be highly advisable to get one in your chosen niche.

Most fitness centers will be hesitant to hire you if you don’t have a personal trainer certification. And, this is also the case with individual clients. Simply put, you will struggle to get hired if you don’t have a personal training certification.

Furthermore, you will struggle to get liability insurance if you don’t have a personal trainer certification. And, liability insurance is extremely important in the personal training field. Also, certification will equip you with the right skills and knowledge.

Fortunately, getting certified is not as expensive as it used to be a couple of years back. Also, it doesn’t take long to become certified. You can earn your personal trainer certification within three to six months.

Get Some Experience

By now, you’ve now earned your personal trainer certification, and you are ready to launch your business. But before you go ahead to launch your business, it will be highly advisable to get some experience. And, you can acquire this experience working in a fitness center.

Through this experience, you will learn how to relate and interact with potential clients, how to practice using various types of equipment, how to run or operate a fitness facility as well as how to handle various types of clients. Also, this experience will give you a better idea of your income potential and how much you should charge clients.

Start Building Your Clientele

At this point, you are now ready to start working as an independent personal trainer. But, you will need clients. So, how can you get personal training clients? Well, there’s only one way to go about it, which is marketing yourself.

Fortunately, there are several marketing strategies available that you can deploy to get personal training clients. These methods include approaching prospective clients, offering free trials, maintaining a powerful presence on social media platforms, and email marketing.

If you are launching a location-based personal training business, then you should also consider distributing business cards, flyers and leaflets in various places around your facility like coffee shops, beauty parlors, Laundromats, community centers, municipal buildings, check-out areas, bus stops, train stations and subways, parks, libraries and gas stations, among others.

Conclusion

Starting a personal training business isn’t as easy as it may appear. But, it’s manageable, with the right approach and proper planning. By following the tips we’ve shared in this article, you should be able to start a personal training business and make it profitable.
Image Credits: Image 2: Photo by Julia Larson