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About becoming a personal trainer


Funny one though I've got another mate PT and he gets the odd bloke that is retired and the wives have already paid for the PT session for them. When they get there for the session they tell him that there going to the pub and he is welcome to join them if wants.

Easy gig if you can get it.
 
It's a niche market that I'd imagine is hard to get into

Cruise ship gig for a few months would be pretty sweet, but normally they want a 12 month contract
I've started getting some clients, unfortunately none are paying atm lol hopefully i go alright with the girls footy side cos with 40+ a session i dont have to charge too much per head to get some ok coinage
 
I'm getting a lot of exposure right now with my volunteer work with AFL Tasmania & Weightlifting Tasmania. It's opened a lot of doors. I know a lot of interesting people. I've met some kids who should be doing weightlifting, met some who should be doing other sports.

The stuff with AFL tas has been interesting in terms of fixing / showing them good lifting technique. Very rewarding & frustrating.
 
Bazza20 said:
Funny one though I've got another mate PT and he gets the odd bloke that is retired and the wives have already paid for the PT session for them.
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Certainly. And there are also some stay-at-home mums who pay for PT out of the household income or from their part-time work - one of them is a client of mine, and there are several at least at my gym. And there are students, the occasional cashed-up one wanders in - that's another client of mine. Lots of retired people, and self-employed, too. And these are all happy to train during business hours.

You'd have a hard time if you only wanted to work 9-5 as a PT, though. Some might be able to do it, most won't.
 
Kyles explanation of a gym in that Clayton area is pretty accurate, but you can change a few things to help.

Rent is $600pw. Get 4 PT's in and charge them $100pw rent, thats VERY cheap. They'll work at bringing clients in. Your rent outlay is now $200pw and you have no wages to pay.

With your overheads so low, charge less membership, get more clients.

Forget electronic training devices. Dont compete with FF, offer something different.

BB's, DB's, KB's, sandbags, racks, ropes, theyre not free, but you wont go broke.

If the 4 PT's dont work out, get 4 more, theyre pumping out hundreds of them lol

Until you try, you have no real idea, I didnt when I started.

Were 3 years old now and got big enough to have to move.

I can see that in another 2-3 years, I may have to make one more final move.

The key is to keep overheads and expenses down
 
Charge PTs rent, well yeah. If you have no morals there's always a way to do things cheaper. Plus imagine the headaches with all the PTs coming and going, as soon as one gets more than 5 clients they'll wander off by themselves, you're left with the slugs with 0-4 clients. Of course you can sign the PTs up for a 12 month agreement, so they keep paying even when they're not there anymore, but then we come back to morals.

Anyway, easier just to start small and build up from it. As your reputation and client base grow, people will offer you opportunities that make things cheaper. I hear some guy in Frankston did that.
 

If your paying for a space and someone wants to use that space then you charge them - $100 a week like Markos said is cheap to charge a PT - got nothing to do with morals..its called business.
 
If they're using entirely for their own business, and they get all incomings, then yes charging them rent is moral.

If you also require that they do work in your place, and give you a cut of the PT session fees, and if even when they leave they still have to pay for it, then really you're exploiting them. You're putting them on in that way because they expect to succeed and you expect them to fail. That's not moral.
 
I thought Markos was saying they just pay a flat $100 regardless of the number of clients?
And to be successful in the business world occasionally you have to let morals slide a bit
 
 
The Hamburgler said:
I've never met a successful businessman that didn't have a bit of c*nt in them (is more what I was getting at)
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Well put.

I don't think it's being immoral though, the PT knows exactly what they're getting into when they sign the contract, just like any other business dealing.
 
knoted said:
I don't think it's being immoral though, the PT knows exactly what they're getting into when they sign the contract, just like any other business dealing.
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Yes and no. Choices must be informed choices. Most new PTs overestimate how many clients they'll have, and how easy it'll be to get and keep them - like Bazza's mate he described above.

"It's $300 a week rent, and when you do PT, you get $40 an hour."
"Cool so if I have 10 clients doing 2 x 1hr sessions each a week that's 20 hours, $800, I get $500 change for 20 hours, that's alright for a part-time job."

Then they get into it and find that if they can get 1 new client each week they are doing very well, and most clients will want 1 or 2 half hour sessions each week, and after a few weeks some of their clients might drift off and if the client fails to show they are not paid, and... the maths doesn't look so good.

Of course, ideally before getting into things a PT will have an idea of all this. But how? The school won't tell them - they might not sign up for the course! The gym manager charging them rent's not going to tell them - they might not sign the contract! Current PTs?

Current PTs do not talk about their client numbers, or how many sessions a week they do. They sometimes tell other trainers at the same gym they work at, because after all you can figure it out. But outside that. they won't tell you.

Choices are moral when they are informed choices. Most of the PTs signing up to pay rent at gyms are not making informed choices, because no-one will tell them anything.
 

Good point.

I'm speculating, but is everyone so tight lipped because the entire physical trainer thing really isn't all it's cracked up to be?
 
I've found that guys/girls who are extremely tight lipped about client numbers are the overly arrogant ones. It's almost a competition as to who can have the most clients.
As for me, I'll always happily talk to up and comers as long as they're enthusiastic (this may be because I'm an up and comer myself atm lol)
 
knoted said:
I'm speculating, but is everyone so tight lipped because the entire physical trainer thing really isn't all it's cracked up to be?
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Sure. But I think this is less concealing how the industry as a whole is doing, and more about the individual's pride.

But I mean, it's the same in any business. Try finding out the monthly turnover in a local milk bar, 7-11, Just Jeans, hairdresser's, or whatever. Nobody will tell you how much business they're getting. Everyone's scared they're earning not much compared to others.

Me, I'd tell people anyway, I don't give a shit, I have no pride about that shit. But one of my workplaces publishes the figures internally each month, each PT can see how everyone is doing. Others aren't as open. But the managers at each place discuss their figures with other managers of the chain.

I can't share those figures, they're not mine. But the purpose of this thread was to give information to prospective PTs, so what I've given - my own figures and earnings - I think is enough for that.

Put it this way: one PT I know is also a teacher at a PT school. He said, "You can't really call yourself a PT unless you're doing at least 10 to 12 hours of personal training sessions a week. Most PTs aren't, really." So what that means is that most PTs are doing less than 10-12hr/week of PT.

The typical client does one or two half-hour sessions a week. 10 hours is 20 sessions, or at 1.5 sessions (45') each is 12 clients, basically. Most PTs have less than 12 clients. I would say most have less than 6, in fact.

And who wants to admit that?
The Hamburglar said:
I've found that guys/girls who are extremely tight lipped about client numbers are the overly arrogant ones. It's almost a competition as to who can have the most clients.
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If you have a lot of clients, no reason to be tight-lipped about it. Only reason to keep quiet is if you have few or none - or at least think you have few compared to others.

I had 15 clients in early December, 7 now. You lose a lot over Christmas/New Year, and I stopped working at one of my two gyms (my car rear-ended a truck, I couldn't get there). One client came back today, so it'll probably go to 8 this week. The other place, well I'll just have to try to build up again from nothing.

See? No shame
 
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