Being a Successful Personal Trainer

Just as with any profession, being a successful personal trainer takes hard work and determination, and not just in the gym. When you're a personal trainer as you main method of income, you need to get your business setup in a professional manner so that you can forge ahead into a profitable career. Much of your pre-planning will allow you to create a business that both helps your clients with muscle gains as well as create financial gains for you.


Being a successful personal trainer means that you will need to have a business plan, just as any other business venture would. In this plan, you will want to list your goals and your plans for how your business will be setup. If you'd like, there are a number of business plan software systems and even online products that will guide you through the basic steps. What this plan should contain is the business details, from what kinds of clients you would like to help to the kind of training you would like to do.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Who is my targeted audience? Think about whom you want to help and who you feel that you can help the most. Are you interested in training athletes or just the average stay at home mom? Are you looking to help people that want to get in shape for a particular goal or those that want to create a long term relationship?
• What skills do you have to offer? This part will include your certifications as well as your particular expertise in other areas. For example, if you have a background in martial arts, perhaps you can include that as a part of your personal training business. If you're interested in yoga and have been a certified instructor in the past, maybe that will be a large part of your business plan.
• How will you be advertising or reaching your customers? Every business needs to have a plan in place to find new customers and clients. This might mean that you will need to create an advertising campaign through a gym or fitness center, create a website, or maybe just hand out business cards. But once you've determined the kinds of clients you want for your personal training business, you will more easily be able to figure out a way to reach them.
• What kind of financial support do you need? If you're running a personal training business out of your home or a gym, you might not need much financial support in the beginning : just your time. But if you're interested in training people at your home or in a shop setup, you will need to have financial resources to pay for your equipment and other fitness needs.

Your business plan should be in writing somewhere so that you can look at it often to see if you are following the goals that you've set out for your personal training business. If you need to ask for loans from a bank, they will want to see this kind of plan so that they understand why you need the money in the first place.

Once you've drafted a business plan, being a successful personal trainer relies on following that plan. When you've taken the time to make sure that you know what clients you want to reach and how to reach them, you will next want to consider how you can keep them once they've trained with you. There are a number of ways to retain clients and keep them happy. For example:

• Offer discounted rates for long term services
• Create discounts for referrals
• Go above and beyond what is expected of you
• Offer water during a training session
• Add on extra services that you are qualified in

A lot of retaining clients is in how you treat them. If you are prompt and deliver on your promises, you will start to become a trusted ally for your client's health. Trainers that are constantly late or canceling will seem disinterested in the goals of their client, and the clients will look elsewhere for training services.

Think of it this way, being a successful personal trainer is about treating each client as if they were the only client that you had. You need to give them your full support and attention, as well as create a safe environment in which they can reach for their fitness goals. Create a relationship with them that allows their input into the training process as well as acknowledges when they need more or less pushing in a certain direction. Personal training isn't something that can be forced onto someone, but you can act as a reliable guide.

The point is that being a successful trainer is more than just performing the exercises right : you need to make sure that you are giving all of your knowledge and your attention to your client, as you would expect someone to do for you.