Learn How One Personal Trainer Earned One Million Dollars Working Only Three Hours a Day Using a Mind-Blowing Secret! If an unemployed, certified personal trainer, living outside
- Learn how the eight words can get millions of web surfers buying your fitness programs in only 22 minutes!
- Get $81,652 dumped into your bank account while you dream about fitness riches!
- Learn how to get the top television networks to send you nice, fat checks as they promote you as the hottest new fitness celebrity in town!
And as a special bonus if you order the million-dollar secret now, you'll receive four special bonuses, teaching you how to turn coal into diamonds, how to turn frogs into princes, how to make a supermodel fall in love with you and how to get your bathroom sink to spit out winning Lotto numbers.
Is this starting to sound just a little too good to be true? You bet it is! It's intended to. You were fooled. I tricked you, but I did it with the best of intentions. There isn't any trainer with a magic eight-word, million-dollar secret, but there are quite a few "gurus" promising you the world if you buy their purported wealth secrets. If you read the opening of this article with any interest, recognize that personal trainers can easily be victimized, much as your clients might have once fallen for the "quick, easy, magic" offerings on late-night TV.
Are there Really Eight Words of Power?
There is an eight-word formula that can stand as a guide to success for anyone pursuing a personal training career, but the eight words have nothing to do with magic. Rather, they have everything to do with discipline, passion, determination and responsibility. If you want to earn a living by guiding people through exercise-based programs that are aimed at positive physical change, live by the eight words. If you want to earn mega-mazillion dollars without lifting a finger, this isn't for you.
Are those words overly simplistic? Not any more simplistic than a football coach living by the strategy, "Defend, pass, run, move the ball and score." In fact, these are the rules of the game, and the game is fun, challenging and rewarding, much as the game of building a strong business as a personal fitness trainer. Instead of making over-the-top promises, by simply following these "rules," you can give yourself a raise, while eliminating costly cancellations and no-shows.
I understand the lure of "get rich doing what you love;" as human beings, fitness professionals included, we are driven by emotion and impulse. Advertisers prompt wise and sensible people to buy absurd devices and supplements by tapping into non-rational impulses. And now, strong copywriters with little substance behind their hype are using "impulse stimulation" to compel personal trainers to purchase "easy wealth" dreams. But "easy" is far less desirable than "fulfilling," and the power we have as fitness professionals is the power to grow financially, emotionally and professionally by bettering lives. If you want to succeed at the highest levels, marry sensibility and emotion. Merge your dreams with your passion just stay on course. If you set out to be a personal fitness trainer, commit to being the best personal trainer you are capable of being, and with adherence to the rules (the eight words) and a commitment to succeed, today's dreams can become tomorrow's reality.
The Power of the Mind Is Real
There are many books that have led people to success in their respective fields, evidenced by the longevity of Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich! Nowhere in his teachings does Hill promote laziness. He, in fact, follows along the lines of thinking also delivered by James Allen in As a Man Thinketh and by legendary motivator Earl Nightingale in his renowned teachings. "As you think, so shall you be." This quote doesn't mean wish for riches and you'll wake up in a pot of gold. Rather, it means decide that you can be successful, and then program your mind to use those traits and talents, which make you unique, to build whatever future you'd like. '
I have friends, mentors and associates who have learned to adopt a success-based mindset and have built enviable businesses founded in passion and determination, but I have never met a fitness professional who earned millions selling e-books, mailing magical letters or manipulating people without delivering genuine substance.
Get Clients
You have a genuine passion for fitness, and you interact with people every day. So, getting clients is as simple as telling people, passionately, what you do for a living and communicating to these potential customers how your abilities can have a profoundly positive impact on their lives. You don't have to do mailings, run ads or come up with hare-brained promotions. Create a discipline of talking to five people a day about what you do. Five people a day amounts to well over 1,000 people per year, a large enough field for any personal trainer to write his or her own paycheck.
Train Clients
"Training," at a professional level, goes beyond just "workouts." When an athlete works with a trainer, the athlete desires to find a vehicle for betterment. You have to become that vehicle in order to be perceived as being of extreme value to your clients. Training, therefore, means assessing, strategizing, implementing, directing, re-assessing and adjusting the course. With this approach, assuming you are competent and have the necessary people skills, the next steps will literally take care of themselves.
Thrill Clients
With an understanding of the synergistic principles that help human beings improve body composition, function and health, you'll go way beyond just satisfying your clients. Every successful personal trainer has had a client say, "Thank you. I'm in great shape, and this is unbelievable." That fact that they call it "unbelievable" says something about expectation because, in the fitness field, so many offerings fail people. If you simply deliver what you promise, your clients will become like evangelists who will spread the word of your extreme power.
Get Paid
The ideas of compromising fees, conducting free sessions and discounting rates in exchange for commitment are not based on business sensibility. These flawed systems are extensions of the health club industry's failure to recognize personal trainers as true professionals. Not only are legal and medical professionals paid consistent fees, but closer to our field, you will find golf pros and tennis pros commanding the dollars they believe they're worth. Jot down what you believe one hour of your time in one-on-one consultations with someone seeking betterment is worth. Compare that with the dollar value you actually command for every working hour. Most trainers find a disturbing gap between what they believe they're worth and the fees they establish. If this is your livelihood and you're thrilling people every day, then a simple mindset shift that aligns your fees with your value is the equivalent of giving yourself a significant raise. And if you begin to come up with a list of reasons why you can't charge what you're worth, it's time to make a change. Only you can decide what that change will be. "As you think, so shall you be."
Whether you announce to your clients that your fees are increasing (as professionals in every field do due to the rising cost of living), or whether you begin a new consistent fee structure with every new client you take on, or whether you stop discounting sessions that are bundled as packages and establish a firm per-session fee, you can give yourself a raise in an instant.
Even with consistent fees, if you follow the foibles of convention, you will be plagued by the income-eating challenges of cancellations and no-shows. For example, if you buy a seat at a Broadway show and you fail to attend, the seat ' remains empty. You bought the seat during the presentation, and, therefore, no refund is due. Apply this same principle to each booked hour of your time. If there is a distinctive dollar value to your time and a client books an hour, he or she has, in essence, prevented you from earning money from any other source within that hour. I'm asking you to place at least as much respect for the value of your time as you place upon the value of your clients' time. This mindset shift will allow you to establish a firm policy for your cancellations. For over 15 years, every client I've taken on has given me a retainer, one session paid in advance, and if they failed to give 48 hours notice for a cancellation, they forfeited the retainer. I'm encouraging you to establish a similar policy.
Can you make a million dollars as a personal trainer? If that's a genuine goal, then nobody deserves to think otherwise. But approach it not from the standpoint of undiscovered riches flowing to you but rather from the perspective of "the more people I help and the greater the value I deliver, the more prosperity I'll command."
In future articles, I might tell you of trainers who generate $150 per session, 35 sessions per week, with an income of $250,000 and a two-week vacation. I might also tell you about trainers who exponentially increased their revenue beyond $250,000 by hiring assistants who trained 35 hours per week at a $75-per-session rate. I might even discuss fitness professionals who opened studios, generated $100,000 salaries and built enough value to sell their studios for five-times-earnings, with annual earnings exceeding $
Nothing is out of your reach, but if you're a personal trainer at heart, stay true to your passion and work to generate that which you know you deserve. There is little security in a position that requires you to work endless hours with little compensation. But with some simple business sensibilities and an attachment to the eight-word formula, you can charge $50 per session, work 30 hours per week and generate a healthy $75,000 with free time to spend with your family and a pre-planned, two-week vacation. Whether you aspire to $75,000 per year or the million-dollar payday, examine your options carefully. Don't let go of dreams, but stay grounded with a clear vision and a focus on what is really important to you. And if your bathroom sink does start spitting out winning Lotto numbers, while I wouldn't stop training clients, I would like the name of your plumber.
Phil Kaplan is committed to helping fitness professionals find success and is committed to raising the bar to set a new standard of excellence. For more info, visit www.philkaplan.com.
