There are many potential opportunities tobuild your fitnessbusinessoutside of pure 'face-to-face' training. You justneedto look outside the box to find these easy to implementoptions.In fact, you could actually be doing your clienteleadisservice by not offering some of these profitablewaysto increase your bottom line.
Everyoneis looking to increase their fitness results and decrease the timeinvestedin pursuing their fitness goals. You should have a similar goal as a personaltrainer,gym owner or entrepreneur.
LeverageYour Time: Offer Group Training
Wouldn'tyou like to increase your financial bottom line and decreasethenumber of hours you work? If you straight across trade time for dollars,youcould be working long and intense hours. However, one waytoreduce your hours is by leveragingyour time; hence the popularity ofsmallgroup and boot camp training. It makes financial sense for trainersandclients alike.
It'swin-win. Clients pay a lower fee for personal training services in asmallgroup or boot camp setting, benefit from the energy of the groupandcan afford more sessions. You can bill a smaller fee per person, persessionbut will yield greater overall earnings per session. Group trainingalsoallows you to spice-up a tired routine and lock in more sessionswitheach client.
Inaddition to the financial benefits to both trainers and clients, there is amultitudeof training options in small group and boot camp training availabletokeep everyone happy and offer better results. Aside from changes to yourtrainingprograms, you can rework your business structure to increase profitwithoutsacrificing -- and often adding -- services to your clients.
Online Client Management Software
In an effort to decrease hours of paperwork, billing andscheduling andall the other behind-the-scenes tasks involved in running asuccessfulprogram, it makes sense to use an online program designedspecificallyfor this. There are several programs that make the most of yourtime bykeeping you organized. MyClassPro.com and MindBodyOnline.com aretwo multifunctional management websites that come to mind, amongthemany out there. Some are as simple as pay-as-you go onlinetracking, whileothers offer more expansive plans and software.
Depending on your needs, these and other services like them arewellworth the low monthly fee. Make sure to shop around to find aprogramthat does everything you want it to at a price that is right foryou. Also takea few minutes to see what the program offers for support; onlineprogramsare a great way to ease your workload--until something goes wrong.
In order to build your business, it's important to outsource some of themore time-consuming tasks and this is one aspect of your businessthat canbe fairly easily outsourced. These programs make you look moreprofessionaland help you focus on what you do best: training your clients, notchasingthem for payment or scheduling them into a boot camp or trainingprogram.
Email Marketing Platforms
Speaking of looking professional, it's important to be in front ofyour clients,even when you aren't physically in front of them. You may want toconsider an email marketing platform that allows you to sendnewslettersand content-rich emails on a regular basis to your clients andperspectiveclients. Fitpronewsletter.com, Aweber.com and Icontact areexamples ofprograms that are well worth the monthly fee to position yourselfas thetop fitness expert in your area and gain credibility. You want 'topof mindawareness' with your clients; that is, when anyone thinks fitness,you wanthim or her to think of you. By sending regular emails anddone-for-younewsletters you can be that 'go-to' trainer.
Online Training
We live in a virtual world, and virtual training is gaining inpopularity. Thereare a number of services available that trainers can use to thisend. Workoutscan easily be created, saved and duplicated. You can reduce thetime neededto create several new programs by tweaking an already-made programtopersonalize it to any client's specifications. You'd be surprisedby how manypeople are interested in these types of programs. This is acost-effective wayto retain clients who may no longer be able to afford yourone-on-one orsmall group training, or if a client moves, travels or goes onvacation, this is agreat way to retain them and provide them with your services. Afew servicesthat you could investigate include HiTechTrainer.com andTrainerForce.comfor everything from program creation and delivery to nutritionprogrammingfor your online clients.
Phone Coaching
Another form of leveraging virtual training is with phonecoaching. Now youneed to think bigger than one client on one line: thinkconference-call formatand think recorded calls. If you have just one client on the phoneline, it's nodifferent than training one-on-one and trading time for dollars.Remember,your goal is to leverage your time. When doing phone coaching, you'retheexpert, but you'd be surprised at how the power of a group canprovide answersand support as your role eventually becomes more of a facilitatorofthe group call. These calls can be done to address anything fromtrainingquestions to nutrition-related issues to event preparation (thinkmarathon,triathlon) or whatever your area of expertise. There are a varietyof free phoneconferencing services, like FreeConferenceCall.com, that allow youto providea call-in phone number to clients as you can moderate the call andeven recordit to repurpose later.
Online Meal Plans
As a trainer, you likely get a number of nutrition-relatedquestions, includinga request for daily meal plans. This is a time consuming task andmay beout of your scope of practice. There are a number of onlineservices that youcan subscribe to that will do this for you, allowing you toprovide the toolsyour clients want without taxing your time.
Some services allow you to provide access directly to your clientsso theycan use the software themselves, while other services provide youwith toolsto create meal plans for you to email. These meal plans areregistered-dietitianapproved and they can be personalized for each client since itrequires the client'spersonal data. There is generally a low monthly fee for theseservices.
You can then turn around and either use the nutrition program asan added-valueservice to your clients or monetize it by charging clients a lowmonthlyfee. Often these services allow you as the trainer to personalizethe programwith your own name and logo. Vitabot.com andMealPlansForTrainers.comare great options to explore.
Affiliate Sales
Another profit center for you is the option of affiliate sales forproducts andservices. If you are already endorsing a product, you can easilyearn a commissionwhen you promote it through a newsletter, an email or on yourwebsite.It's as simple as contacting the creator of the product or serviceand requestingan affiliate web link. When you send clients to this link and whenyourclient makes a purchase, you will automatically be paid acommission on thesale. Sales commissions can range anywhere from 25-90% dependingon theproduct. Product creators often have entire affiliate areas ontheir website fortheir programs and products and also have websites that aredesigned to helpyou very simply market their product for them.
Digital products such as online training programs or ebooksgenerally havea higher commission rate than physical products due to the addedcost of productionand shipping. An example of a physical product your clients wouldbenefit from may be something like a digital timer such asGymboss.com. Abeneficial digital product may be an online workout program thatclients coulduse when they are not training with you, such asTurbulenceTraining.com.As a fitness professional, you have many potential avenues foradded revenue.Your goal should be to build many streams of income rather thanrelying strictly on one income source. Leveraging your time, usingbusinesssystems for non-fitness related issues, online training andnutritionalresources and introducing affiliate sales are just a few ways tobring morevalue to your clients as well as adding more to your bank account.
Shawna Kaminski is a former teacher and longtimepersonal trainer. She successfully runsmultiple Fit BodyBoot Camps in Calgary, Canada and helpshundreds ofwomen with her online program called FemaleFat LossOver 40, www.FemaleFatLossOverForty.com.
