I sought out to investigate the revenue and profit potential of online personal training programs. You know, those online personal training services that promise to broaden your market base and increase your revenue potential by allowing you to create, market and sell your personal training programs to anyone on the web.
After questioning over 1,000 certified, educated and experienced personal trainers, the results we received were not only shocking, but downright lopsided, so much so that I now have a professional obligation to share these results with not only my listed trainers but all personal trainers - no marketing hype, no nonsense, no misinformation.
The Questions
Each trainer was asked the following questions:
- Do you offer online or web-based personal training using an online program or service?
- Who do you use?
- When did you start using them?
- How much direct revenue have you produced from the service?
- What does the service cost?
The Answers
Almost every trainer had tried one of the available online training services, yet not a single trainer reported making a dime, let alone a return on investment or profit! I couldn’t believe it. Many of the trainers reported that they felt misled by the marketing, that the guarantees they had been given never came to be. What’s more is the trainers who had been given guarantees had lengthy issues when obtaining product refunds.
The Other Side
Since the results of our research negatively impact many online training companies, I also had a professional obligation to get their side of the story. While I reached out to the different companies, only one, youPump’s founder Declan Condron, took a great deal of time to provide me with an in-depth explanation:
“I know that the online personal training business has gotten a bad rap, and a lot of trainers have not made money out of whatever programs they were using. The major reasons for this are because they did not do anything to promote themselves. Unfortunately, the sad fact is a lot of trainers are lazy. They want to make the easy buck, and they think, ‘Oh, all I have to do is sign up to this online training program, and I will make a ton of money.’â€
Don’t Believe the Hype!
Declan, to his credit, is correct. Too many of us get caught up at the industry shows with all the great ideas and the hype surrounding them that we are seemingly cast into a product- or service-buying frenzy without ever delving deeper into the details.
The point here is simple: If you don’t know what is required to make it work or you don’t take the time to learn how to make it work, you’ll spend a lot of your time and money - but won’t make a dime.
My advice: Find out what is required, test drive it, dig into the details, and if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Remember, personal training is just that: personal. One thing the web cannot yet do is make online training personal. While we seem to be getting closer, we certainly are not there yet.
What do you think of the potential and integrity of online training? Voice your thoughts >>
