Diversify Your Business and Start Online Personal Training

Running any type of business usually presents a myriad of problems to deal with. These can range from financial problems to issues with customer service and everything in between. All of this needs your attention.

Running your own personal training business is not different in this case. The problem, in most cases, is that a trainer works too many hours and still struggles. The trainer charges what they think is appropriate but is still not moving the needle in terms of finances. This becomes stressful and has a hugely negative impact on their mental health.

This might be you.

You simply love training and seeing your years of knowledge bring big results for your clients in the gym. But your love for your training business is waning. You are constantly working but not meeting financial goals and your business is not secure and sustainable. Working for a gym is out of the question and you feel like you are running out of options as an entrepreneur.

Meanwhile, you see all these online personal training businesses flourishing. They work the same or fewer hours as you, but yet, pulling in three or four times the money you are.

These businesses are enjoying the results of being a hybrid personal training business. Not only are they raking in face-to-face training clients, but they also run a successful online personal training business.

This combination of both online and offline personal training is what sets them apart from any other struggling fitness business.

In this article, we'll delve deeper into how to successfully diversify your in-person training business and start an online personal training business.

Let's get into it.

How is Online Personal Training Any Different from What I'm Doing Now?

Face-to-face businesses aren't always sustainable. If you can't reach your clients or they can't come to you, the business stops and so does the money.

Life happens and as a trainer, you are susceptible to injuries. If you sustain an injury and aren't able to physically train your clients and attend appointments, it could cripple your business. Leaving you out of work and unable to make ends meet.

Now when it comes to online training, even if your day-to-day clients stop making appointments, you can start marketing your business online to get new clients. Later in this article, you'll learn the best marketing tactics online personal trainers use to get clients.

Here's the thing, online personal training opens up a huge number of clients to choose from. This is because now you aren't limited to a certain demographic anymore.

It is different from a gym and a fitness facility that attracts clients from the surrounding area. You can now reach a diverse variety of clients from all over the world with your business.

But then you think to yourself, "I've run my business for so long without going online. It's such a hassle to get started online and the online market is so saturated anyway."

Not only are some of these assumptions not true, but they can limit your business's growth.

This brings us to our next point, where this gets even more interesting.

Do I Have to Change Everything to Start Online Personal Training?

Most people tend to stay stuck in their comfort zones and don't like change. Businesses often fail because they are unable to adapt and implement new ways of doing business.

For your in-person training business, you might be too comfortable with the way things are. Fear of failing in the online world might be holding you back. Or you just don't know where to get started.

A lot of personal trainers make the mistake of thinking that taking their business online means leaving their current clients and everything they know behind, like a traditional gym. This couldn't be any further from the truth. You must think like an entrepreneur would when looking for new opportunities.

Taking your business online is more like an addition to your business rather than starting over from scratch. So, getting a personal trainer certification is just the beginning.

In other words, you can keep your current clients and slowly start implementing the online version of your business.

This is huge!

Why?

Because not only does it allow you to keep your current cluster of clients, you can now expand your business to include online clients as well.

This approach gets you started as a hybrid personal trainer. This lets you take on both physical in-person clients and online clients at the same time.

Think about it, now the possibilities are endless. This means you can now exponentially increase your business revenue. You are now on track to introducing passive income streams and have better mental health as a result.

From a financial and business point of view, this is a no-brainer. More security for your business means you can sustain your way of life.

This also means you have more time to focus on those aspects of the fitness business you like most—training your clients and spreading your knowledge.

But you're probably thinking, all this sounds great, but how do I actually get started with introducing online personal training?

This leads us to our next point.

Introduce Online Personal Training and Diversify Your Training Business

Getting started with anything often brings up a lot of questions. This is even more so with a business because if you get it wrong, it could potentially put your business at risk.

So, as you venture out and start researching the best ways of becoming a hybrid personal trainer, a lot of questions come to mind. You might be wondering:

• Is online personal training profitable?

• How do you get online fitness clients?

• How much does it cost to develop an on-demand service app?

• Do I have enough skills to do all this?

These are all valid questions for a trainer to have. They form a good foundation for improving your business and properly introducing online personal training.

The thing is, your personal training business already has great potential for growth. Taking your business online opens a whole new world of possibility.

Why is this so?

Becoming an online personal trainer efficient and it can be one of the most sustainable ways to scale your fitness business.

Diversifying your business gives you an edge over other fitness trainers. Most training businesses are still doing things the old way. They work countless hours with endless one-on-one sessions in a gym just to make enough money to get by.

A smarter way of working, in this case, can be diversifying your training business and becoming an online personal trainer.

You might be wondering:

• How do you start your own online personal training business?

• How much do you charge for online personal training?

Again, these are just some more questions that come up.

To answer these and more, let's get into some steps you can take to get started as an online personal trainer.

Start with a Goal in Mind for Your Personal Training Business

Just like starting any new journey, you need to know your destination. With your personal training business, decide on a set of goals you want to reach.

These goals will differ from one person to the next. For example, you might have a financial goal to hit $85,000 a year with your business. You can break this down to 14 clients paying you $500 per month.

Maybe you do your research and find out that $500 turns out to be too much for your clients. You can then break it down even more to 28 clients paying you $250 a month.

In short, setting clear goals is important both in business and life. The clearer the goal the better.

So, a goal to get 28 clients, is more precise and gets you more focus than simply saying "I want more clients."

Keep in mind that with online personal training, clients won't be paying as much per session. This means you'll have to bring in more clients to meet your target.

For online personal training, finding more clients should not be a huge burden on your business. Unlike in-person clients or a brick and mortar business, you can reach out and advertise your business to a huge number of prospects with online marketing techniques.

In the case of marketing your online personal training business, you can build digital marketing campaigns. These marketing campaigns maximize exposure for your small business and target the right type of client for your online training venture.

This would involve:

• Building a personal fitness professional website

• Implementing social media marketing

• Starting and growing a blog

• Investing in your brand awareness as a personal fitness trainer

In an online venture, these marketing strategies can prove to be much more affordable. You'll also reach a huge number of prospects.

Having said that, if you have so many prospective clients to choose from, this also means a diverse range of clients much like you'd find in a traditional gym that caters to everyone.

This then brings us to our next point.

Decide What Types of Personal Training Clients You Want to Work With

If you're able to reach a diverse range of clients, you now have a new problem. Not everyone is looking for what you're offering. For example, if you are targeting athletes and do great in that area, there's no need to take on other types of clients.

It then becomes very important to ask yourself:

• What kind of clients do I want?

• Which area of expertise is most suitable?

• What kind of client would your colleagues send to you?

These questions make it clearer what types of clients you need. These can also help focus your marketing tactics to target a certain client demographic.

Once you have a clear target of your client type, begin refining your offer. Refining your offer simply means setting yourself apart from the competition, a skill that will come in handy as you grow your fitness business.

When first starting out in any niche or area of business, there'll always be competitors. What sets each one apart is what uniqueness they bring to the table.

In that light, you must figure out what unique offer you bring your clients. Something that when clients see it, says "this trainer offers way better value than most of their competitors."

Having figured out the type of clients you want to work with and what sets you apart from other online fitness trainers, it's time to move on to the next step.

The Actual Training for Your Online Clients

Most online personal training will involve the use of video to demonstrate your exercise routines to your clients. But how do you track the client's progress and how will you know if your training is making a difference for them?

Well, since your clients will mostly be online, you'll need to decide on a few things:

• How will you get the training material to your clients?

• How will you track exercise progress and maintain good results?

• How will you collect payment and feedback as a certified personal trainer?

Training Material

When it comes to the actual training, this is where your knowledge and certification as a trainer will shine the most. Your ability to take a clients' goals and turn them into reality is where you will add the most value as a fitness professional.

This is the most important part of fitness. For an online course, the typical way of delivering fitness material is through video. Much like an online course featuring a series of training videos you can go through.

Fortunately, you don't have to be a professional actor here. All you need to do is demonstrate your routines and exercises to your clients with the camera rolling. Just like you would when carrying out an in-person fitness workout.

A certified personal trainer knows how to illustrate the movements and any focused exercise for their client to follow along. Then compile these trainer videos in order and in stages. These stages are set in such a way that the client progresses through them as they get stronger and more confident. As they progress, the videos move up to harder and more advanced exercises to continue challenging the client.

What About Tracking Exercise Progress and Results?

Tracking results is important when exercising. Clients need to get a sense of progress for motivation and to know they're getting results.

For face to face workout sessions, you can run clients through a fitness assessment. This is easier because you can see the client losing weight or getting stronger if that's the goal.

But what about online clients?

With online clients, you can opt to use software or just keep it simple when just starting out.

With training software, clients get their own profile and can log in to their dashboard to find their next training video, workout plan, and schedules. They can also record their weight loss and other measurements.

The personal training software might be a bit expensive when starting out, so keeping it simple might be the best option. You don't need to dive into a full-blown computer program. Just create PDF including the workout plans, meal plans, or essential training session tips and send it to your client each week or so.

Another great alternative to software for a fitness professional would be a shared Google Drive file. You can share the file with the client, directing them throughout their training. The client also can share their progress and results, making it easier for you to improve their routines.

How to Collect Payment and Client Feedback

Payment collection shouldn't be an issue for your online clients. Almost everything you need for payment processing is online.

You want to keep this as simple as possible for both yourself and your clients. Online payment services like PayPal, Payoneer, or Stripe can be a good place to start. These are also great options if you have a website that has payment processing built-in.

The more important issue is to price your program competitively. You'll have to find a sweet spot. This means finding a balance between the value you're providing with your online training and how many clients are willing to pay that price.

This is a balancing act because too low a price and clients might deem it not valuable. Too high a price and you might struggle to find enough clients to cover your expenses.

Just make sure to cover base expenses such as insurance, equipment, and marketing costs. This will also put your skill as an entrepreneur to the test.

Once the payment is through, you want to get feedback. Feedback from clients is a greater motivator. Feedback from clients tells you whether you're on the right track with your small business.

This is also a great indication of whether your client's workout plan is working or not. A personal fitness trainer knows how to draw up and adjust a workout plan for their various clients.

You can capture client feedback with a form or questionnaire either during your programs or after the client makes payment. This can also work to filter out what processes aren't working in the business.

You'll typically also find loopholes where you can add more value to the clients. The more feedback you get, the more value you can add. This can gradually grow your authority as the go-to trainer in your niche and the fitness industry.

In Conclusion

It's no secret that becoming a trainer and running your own training business is a huge milestone. The problem becomes when you've done all the work to get started and not reap the rewards.

Choosing to become a hybrid personal trainer, where you are offering both in-person training and online training, can be one of the best decisions you've ever made for your business. You'll be confident that you're offering your clients both value for their money and results.

It won't all be smooth sailing when starting out. Many of the successful online personal training businesses that you see today probably went through the same hardships you are going to face. What got them to the top was hard work and consistency both when going after certification and starting their own business.

Now it's your chance.

What are some of the things you've implemented that have seen some growth in your personal training business? If you're a trainer and have some of the above concerns, let us know in the comments.

Take a look at the Fast Track Program to get a head-start on your competition. This program helps you check all the boxes with regards to being a great personal trainer. It also makes sure you are ready to make money enjoying what you do.