7 Best NASM CEU Courses

Top NASM CEU Courses:

As a NASM-certified personal trainer you are required to recertify your CPT every two years. You’ll need to get 1.9 CEUs (19 hours) through a course or seminar to fulfill this requirement in addition to earning 0.1 CEUs (1 hour) by maintaining your CPR and AED certifications (20 total credit hours).

Just a few years ago, personal trainers only had one option for recertification and this involved finding and visiting in-person workshops. Today, trainers have the option to do their continuing education in-person or get their necessary credits online.

While in-person and online CEUs each have their pros and cons, it’s nice to have options. Here is a breakdown of the five best NASM CEU courses that includes both in-person workshops as well as online courses.

Best NASM CEU Courses

NASM Corrective Exercise Specialist

Our top pick for NASM-specific certifications, the Corrective Exercise Specialist teaches you how to be a trainer that can minimize injury while still focusing on strength and athleticism. Learning about muscular imbalances makes you an extremely valuable asset to your clients and often provides trainers the confidence to charge more for their services.

While the CES certification is available online, the face-to-face time you’ll get with a live person is highly recommended and is why we recommend in-person workshops over online learning for this specific class. The material is quite in-depth, meaning that you’ll likely be challenged and having an instructor next to you to answer your questions can be a valuable asset.

Cost: $899 for Self-Study

Enrollment Period: 365 days a year

CEUs: 1.9

Small Print: At a price range of $899 the CES course is fairly expensive. Because the course is so intense (and lends itself well to the progression of your career), having solid CES study materials are recommended to ensure completion the first time around.

FM-Certified Online Personal Trainer

There has never been a better time than now to become an online personal trainer as the world of in-person personal training has been challenged by COVID-19. The Fitness Mentors Certified Online Personal Trainer course is the best college-level course for trainers who are serious about training clients virtually.

From learning how to start an online personal training business, to learning the online mediums to sell, to generating online leads, and growing a business while you sleep, this is the ideal CEU course for the new world of online training.

Cost: Only $699

Enrollment Period: 365 days a year

CEUs: 2.0 (or 20 hours)

Small Print: The FM-COPT fills a growing need in the personal training world due to the rules of social distancing. It is also the only online certification that is recognized by the National Board of Fitness Examiners

Business and Sales: The Guide to Success as a Personal Trainer

Successful business owners are created, not born. The often unfortunate case with many trainers is that they don’t know how to structure their businesses for success or put leads into a sales funnel, leading to their ultimate failure. The Business and Sales: The Guide to Success as a Personal Trainer was created by a successful personal trainer for exactly that reason and helps lead trainers down a path to financial growth.

Trainers have plenty of options for continuing education that have to do with physical fitness or nutrition, but little when it comes to actionable advice on how to create a system that generates sales. With coursework touching on creating a personal brand; creating and registering a business entity locally, statewide and with federal agencies; how to give away free information to get the attention of your chosen market; how to engage prospects and how to close, this class covers it all.

Cost: Only $249

Enrollment Period: 365 days a year

CEUs: 1.9

Small Print: This class provides valuable real-world business advice and might be less fun than exercise-based classes. It also forces you to be an actionable business owner, so it might not work for the moonlighting personal trainer who just wants CEUs and nothing else. At $249, this is definitely one of the least expensive NASM CEU courses out there.

NASM Certified Nutrition Coach

The NASM CNC is hands-down the most well-regarded nutrition certification in the fitness industry. Adding a nutrition-based certification to your NASM-CPT will give you the confidence to make client recommendations and possibly even charge more for your services.

The other great thing about the NASM CNC certification is that it requires no recertification so you’ll have it for life. You know that without proper nutrition, exercise programs won’t work to their full potential. Add this certification to your list to help your clients accomplish all their health and fitness goals.

Cost: $899

Enrollment Period: 365 days per year

CEUs: 1.9

Small Print: Not a great option for those looking for last minute CEU options.

Bonus: Free NASM CEUs

Looking for some free NASM CEUs to round out your criteria for the two-year recertification period? As a bonus to the other five listed on this page, check out Build Your Marketing Muscle: The FREE Guide to Marketing for Personal Trainers. This coursework is entirely online and focuses entirely on marketing.

NCSF Certified Strength Coach

Just as Precision Nutrition’s Level 1 is the most highly regarded course of its kind in the nutrition industry, the NCSF Certified Strength Coach course is true to athletic training. If your goal is to work for a university or at the professional athlete level, it is likely you’ll be required to have this exact certification as a prerequisite for getting the job.

The coursework covers sport-specific training for America’s most popular professional and college sports, and also covers exercise techniques, how to design sport-specific programs, and organizational and administrative elements that are essential in professional environments.

Cost: $475 plus study materials

Enrollment Period: 365 days a year

CEUs: 1.9

Small Print: Detailed and loads of science so mentally prepare to study.

Best NASM CEUs Recap

Furthering your continuing education is a requirement, but shouldn’t be viewed as one. Rather, NASM CPTs should view this obligation as an opportunity to further their interests in fitness and training and increase the ways in which they can help their clients. If you are unsure how to go about choosing the next CEU course for your career, we invite you to consider the “three P’s:

Purpose: How will you use the knowledge you learn from a specific course or workshop?
Population: Who will benefit from the new skills and education you receive? Is this the target population you want to work with? Is the population you want to target abundant in nature?
Passion: Will you actually enjoy learning about this topic?

If you have questions about which NASM CEUs are right for you we would love to help. Leave a comment, call (424) 675-0476, or email us directly. We are always here to assist you in choosing the most successful path for your fitness career.

For more information on becoming a successful personal trainer click the below link and check out our business and sales course.

Business and Sales: The Guide to Success as a Personal Trainer

How to Set a Pricing Structure for Your Personal Training Business

When I first started out as a certified personal trainer, I charged my friends and family a meager $25/hour to get some experience. Soon after, I applied at the fanciest gym in town, got the job, and thought the big money would start pouring in.

Like many trainers who don’t have any structure to their pricing, I struggled to get any clients for the $85/hour this particular gym wanted me to charge. What I later found out was that I had no confidence in selling sessions at $85/hour as I only thought myself to be a $25/hour trainer. I was great at building value and selling benefits but lacked confidence in discussing prices.

When I finally got my first client after two months (thanks to my manager stepping in), I gained more confidence because I saw the results they got. I then knew I was worth every bit of $85/hour, and my clientele at that price point increased quickly soon afterward.

Setting Your Prices Correctly as a
Personal Trainer

The goal of becoming a certified personal trainer is to make a living as one. Making a living is directly correlated to how much you can make based on your rates and being confident in how you present them.

If you’re not working for a commercial gym, it’s up to you to set your own pricing structure. You can now become a certified online personal trainer and add additional revenue by setting prices based on all services you offer.

The goal of becoming a certified personal trainer is to make a living as one.

Today we’ll look at basing factors such as location, the economy, target population, cost to train client, and how self-worth factors into your personal training prices. I’ll also teach you how to discuss pricing with clients so you can do it confidently and you can avoid the mistakes I made when I first started out.

Location: how where you work affects your rates

When setting your hourly rates as a personal trainer, you have to consider how much your clients expect to pay based on the rates in your city. For example, clients in Manhattan would likely think that $100/hour is pretty reasonable while those in the Bronx would laugh at you.

Consider how much your clients expect to pay based on the rates in your city.

The socioeconomic conditions within the respective regions differ and your pricing model will need to be aligned with whatever it is people are willing to pay. Check out a few websites of other trainers in the area to see if they publish their prices and to see if there is some consistency to get a feel for the location-based pricing factors in your target market’s community.

Economy: a thriving economy merits higher prices than a downturn

Personal training is considered to be a luxury item, similar to getting massages, manicures and pedicures, and even the occasional teeth whitening. As these items are not a necessity, they will be amongst the first things cut from a client’s budget should the economy take a downturn.

Thus, it is important to have a pulse on the economy and be sensitive to recessions so that you can continue to maintain or attract new clientele. This may mean dropping your prices by $10 or $15 an hour or adding more services for the same price.

Target population: set a price that is attainable to them to entice sales

Your target population differs from your local neighborhood in that different types of clientele will have different interests. For example, the pricing structure for a toning client would differ from that of an extreme weight loss client.

Understanding the prices that your target audience expects to pay – and that are attainable – will be crucial to your ability to foster sales.

Cost to train client: the investments you make for training are passed on to the client

There are generally three things to consider when factoring in your costs to train a client:

Travel time
Gym fees
Equipment costs

If you are a trainer that visits clients at their home or a facility of their choice they should expect to pay more than your local clientele. Generally, the farther away the client the more that you can charge (provided they won’t shop around for a local trainer).

Gyms charging personal trainers to use their facilities is common in the industry. This typically ranges from $10 to $25 and should be passed on to the client.

Investing in specific equipment for your client’s benefit affords you the justification to charge a bit more. If you are training at your gym that has a full set of free weights, kettlebells, a TRX, and a prowler you can charge more than if you were training at the local park with some stability balls and bands.

Self-worth: believing what you charge is worth every penny

In the above example of my lack of confidence selling $85/hour packages, I mentioned I had a tough time selling because I didn’t truly believe my services were worth that much. It wasn’t until I saw the results my clients were getting that I finally realized that people should pay me that much for my services because of the mutual benefit involved.

That said, your self-worth is one of the most important factors to setting your price. Think about some famous Hollywood personal trainers you admire; they can easily justify charging $150/hour because they have high self-worth and recognize people are willing to pay them that much.

I’ve found that the following factors influence self-worth:

Experience – How long have you been getting people to their goals?
Education – Do you have a CPT Certification? An Online Personal Training Certification? More than one? Bachelors? Masters? Loads of continuing education training? The more education you have the more confidence you will gain, therefore the more you can charge.
Personal Belief – What do you believe you are worth?

If you want to charge more but aren’t confident enough to do so, consider how you can expand the above areas of experience and education so that you have more self-assurance in increasing your rates. Once you start to see your clients have a new outlook on their health, you’ll know the value you provide.

How to Confidently Discuss Prices with Your Personal Training Clients

Confidence is a must when the inevitable question “So, how much do you charge?” comes up. For most trainers, there are three different types of pricing models:

Brochure-based pricing: This pricing model, taking its roots from commercial gyms, is when you have premade prices with a list of the types of training you provide. These brochures should also describe economy of scale pricing models, or the savings clients get when they purchase multiple sessions at once. The benefit of brochure-based pricing is that gives the client a sense of confidence as they know they are getting a consistent price.
Open pricing: This pricing model is a verbal one and is based on the trainer’s ability to set a custom pricing structure based on the client’s goals and timeline. This model also takes into account travel time, gym fees, and equipment costs. In example, “If you want me to travel to your house to train it would be $80 per session due to the extra time it would take to get there. If you want to train in my home-based gym it would be only $65 per session. If you would like to train in a gym near your house it would be $80 plus the gym fee of $15 totaling $95 per session.”
One price: Often best-suited to the expensive trainer, the one price model is a fixed, set-in-stone dollar amount that does not fluctuate based on location, equipment, or gym fees. I recommend this pricing model when you have optimal confidence and your schedule is already full.

Confidence is a must when the inevitable question “So, how much do you charge?” comes up.

Examples of Personal Trainers Pricing Structures

Pricing Structure Example 1: based on a goal rate of $60/hour

Sessions Per Week	Payment Schedule	Pricing Incentive	The Math	Notes
4	Monthly	2 free sessions	4 sessions x 4 weeks = 16 sessions16 sessions x $60 = $960 total for the month	Including the 2 free sessions for paying up front, monthly brings your hourly rate to $53 per hour. However, this can normally be recouped as most clients will miss one or two sessions so the hourly rate is maintained at $60 per hour. It is up to you to negotiate price if the client wants to make up the missed sessions.
4	Bi-weekly	1/2 price on one session – or $30 off	4 sessions x 2 weeks = 8 sessions8 sessions x $60 = $480 Bi-weekly $480 – $30 discount = $450 every two weeks	Bi-weekly means a check every other week so you will need to budget accordingly. Since they are paying every two weeks (28 days) and most months have 30-31 days, they do not receive the extra free sessions from paying monthly.
4	Weekly	No discount	4 sessions x 1 week =4 sessions4 x $60 = $240 total per week	Some clients simply cannot afford to pay monthly, but this could also be an indicator that they are not entirely ready to commit. Have a good cancellation (i.e., no refunds) policy in place the client has both read and signed.
4	Daily	No discount	1 session x $60 = $60 per session	This is not a desirable training environment so use your best judgment. Again, have a good cancellation policy in place.
3	Monthly	2 free sessions	3 sessions x 4 weeks = 12 sessions12 sessions x $65 = $780 total for the month	Including the 2 free sessions for paying up front, monthly brings your hourly rate to $56 per hour. However, this can normally be recouped as most clients will miss one or two sessions so the hourly rate is maintained at $65 per hour. It is up to you to negotiate price if the client wants to make up the missed sessions. Also, notice the $65 per hour rate. Adding $5 to the price may encourage the client to consider the 4 sessions per week package (whereby they would save $80 because the price per session is $60 versus the $65).
3	Bi-weekly	1/2 price on one session – or $30 off	3 sessions x 2 weeks = 6 sessions6 sessions x $65 = $390 Bi-weekly $390 – $30 discount = $360 every two weeks	Bi-weekly means a check every other week so you will need to budget accordingly. Since they are paying every two weeks (28 days) and most months have 30-31 days, they do not receive the extra free sessions from paying monthly.
3	Weekly	No discount	3 sessions x 1 week =3 sessions4 x $65 = $260 per week	Some clients simply cannot afford to pay monthly, but this could also be an indicator that they are not entirely ready to commit. Have a good cancellation (i.e., no refunds) policy in place the client has both read and signed.
3	Daily	No discount	1 session x $65 = $65 per session	This is not a desirable training environment so use your best judgment. Again, have a good cancellation policy in place.
2 or 1	All	No Discount	$75 per session	The rate is raised to increase the sale of the above package types.

Pricing Structure Example 2: for targeting long-term packages

Package	Per Session Rate	Duration	The Math
48 Session	$60	4 Months	48 sessions x $60 = $2,880
36 Session	$65	3 Months	36 sessions x $65 = $2,340
24 Session	$70	2 Months	24 sessions x $70 = $1,680
12 Session	$75	1 Month	12 sessions x $75 = $900

How Much to Charge for Personal Training

Now that you are familiar with some pricing models for personal training and have seen some examples of pricing structures, you should have a good idea of where you want to set your prices.

If you are a new trainer and are trying to get more clients under your belt, you may want to experiment with some cheaper pricing models to get some cash flow going. If you are a more experienced trainer and simply want to add a few more clients to your base, your demand may merit a higher pricing structure.

Regardless of where you place your pricing, the most stable approach to growing your personal training business is recurring income. With a recurring pricing model, you are able to forecast your monthly income and won’t have to scramble to generate new clients once you get a few to start committing to long-term plans. Your income can grow further with this method if you add online personal training to your services and utilize an online personal training software to run your business. Ongoing client relationships also allow you to hone your craft and give you time to establish results for your clients. These results will translate into your best form of advertising, thus helping you get even more clients.

Common Personal Trainer Rates Per Hour

Setting your initial hourly rate — or readjusting it — can be a confusing aspect of your job. If you work in a big box gym chances are they have this pricing model preset for you. If you are an independent trainer, you’ll have to understand how to set your personal trainer rates per hour and why people should pay them.

Now, you probably have a good idea of what the local personal trainers cost at the big box down the street. Keep in mind that the trainer gets a piece, a piece goes back to the gym’s overhead, and the gym owners also get a bit of profit. Depending on your personal trainer business structure (at-home, virtual, personal gym, visit clients at their location, etc.), you may or may not be dealing with the same overhead and can adjust your pricing accordingly.

For example, perhaps the trainers at your local 24-Hour Fitness charge $60 an hour and $45 for half an hour. You know that the trainer themselves don’t earn that full amount, but as an independent trainer you would. Therefore, you can undercut the big box gym and charge $45 for an hour and $35 for a half an hour and still make more per hour than the trainer at the gym.

Another example takes into account market rates. If you are in New York City and are traveling to meet clients at the gym in their condo, you may be able to charge more per hour than a personal trainer who lives in Madison, WI where there is less demand for your services.

If you have any questions about your specific situation, feel free to leave them in the comments and I’ll respond with my opinion on how much you should charge your clients.

For more information on becoming a successful personal trainer click the below link and check out our business and sales course.

Business and Sales: The Guide to Success as a Personal Trainer

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How Personal Trainers Will Know When They’re Ready to Open a Gym

Not sure if you are ready to take the leap from employee to boss? This guide will help you answer some hard questions about your ability to make the transition to a business owner. Because let’s face it, isn’t the goal of all personal trainers to go out on their own?

Today we will cover a few different aspects of gym ownership as well as make some assumptions about the type of gym you’ll be opening. For starters, we’ll look at the following three areas:

Financial Development
Personal Development
Business Skillsets

There are plenty of articles on opening a gym that will tell you “put a business plan together” or “figure out your credit score.” This is not one of them.

After reading through this you should be able to answer the following questions about yourself:

Do I know the estimated costs of running my business each month?
Do I know how much revenue I’ll be making given my current client workload?
Do I actually have what it takes to be a business owner/entrepreneur?
Do I have the business skillsets required to carry out running a business or can I afford to hire professionals who do?

Assumptions about Personal Trainers who are Considering Opening a Gym

Let’s make some assumptions about you, the potential gym owner.

You’re not trying to open a big box gym: If you are, and you’re reading a blog to teach you how, you’re definitely not ready to open a big box gym.
You’re a solo trainer or have a small team: You’re probably in that stage of moving on from being a trainer in a big box gym or as an employee in another small gym, to going out on your own and taking your clients with you. Or, you and a few colleagues are ready to take the plunge and share expenses of starting a partnership of sorts.
You have a fitness niche: You’re in CrossFit, yoga, Pilates, Zumba, sports fitness, martial arts, weight loss, strength training, or any number of specializations that you already have a reputation for.
You’ll be looking to open your gym in the next one to three years: Opening a gym and starting a business takes a lot of planning. Let’s assume you didn’t listen to a Beyonce song and now you want to start a gym because you “woke up like this.”
You love Fitness Mentors: Are we wrong?

Financial Development Considerations for Future Gym Owners

Unless you’re a trust fund baby, there’s some real financial questions you’ll want to ask yourself before understanding if you’re ready to take the plunge into gym ownership. If you are a personal trainer the good news is you’ll always have income from your consistent flow of clients.

However, opening a gym means that you’ll simply be adding to your expenses and making something of an estimate that in time, operating your own gym will be more profitable and rewarding than working for someone else.

Basic Income Rule of Thumb:

You are booked, consistently, for 30 sessions a week for $50 a session. This would equate to about $6,000 in income a month, which , based on many small business gym models, should be the minimum income you are receiving that will still allow you to eat while the rest of your income goes back into the business.

So, if you can make about $1,500 a week and carry that over into your business, you may afford yourself the pleasure of not struggling too much. Of course, this will vary state to state. $1,500 in Manhattan would rent you a dumpster whereas that kind of money would give you a damn Costco-sized space in the middle of Indiana somewhere. I hear there’s some big corn-fed cats out there; maybe it is a good place to start a gym?

Leasing Space: how big, how much?

That said, understand the local market rents so that you know what you might be paying in rent. A good resource for this is CBRE, a commercial real estate resource site where you can get industry trends as well as look up rents of commercial space in your hood.

Considering you’re just starting out, you’ll probably want to get some space in the 500 SF to 1,500 SF range. I’m also going to go ahead and recommend that you lease and not buy; you’ll still have to prove that you can make your business model work, and given that you likely don’t have a proven business record, getting a loan for commercial real estate will probably be tough because of the level of risk the bank will have to take on you (which they probably won’t).

Equipment: how much, lease or buy?

The amount and cost of the equipment you need will greatly depend on your business model. If you run a yoga studio you don’t need anything other than special flooring and some mirrors. If you run a CrossFit gym, the equipment you buy can probably keep you in a nice $10,000 price range.

A personal training studio of about 1,000 SF would likely run like $15 to $30k in equipment costs. If you are in need of more expensive equipment, leasing it is often a safer bet. Leasing gym equipment means you’ll have to worry little about wear and tear (the leasing companies will generally help with maintenance), and you’ll be able to upgrade to new equipment when you start to make a little coin. Leasing equipment is also much more affordable up front, making it a good option for trainers who need to scale their businesses as they grow them out.

Utilities: what are your fixed costs?

Utilities fall under the essential expenses category and are fixed, meaning they are the same from month-to-month. These include things like:

Water
Sewage
Trash service
Telecommunications- TV, internet, phone
Electricity

Before entering a lease, try to get some hard numbers of what these numbers were for the previous/existing business owner so you can compare location-to-location.

Insurance: what types do I need?

I think it was Chris Rock who said “they should call insurance ‘in case [expletive] happens.’ But if [expletive] don’t happen, shouldn’t I get my money back?”

In your case, you’ll have to buy two forms insurance:

Personal trainer insurance– this is liability insurance for trainers who have clients who may get hurt while on their watch. There are different forms of this, like Sexual Abuse Personal Trainer Insurance or Products Liability Insurance. These aren’t super expensive – some as little as 50 cents per day – but are necessary and should be included as an expense.
Business Renters Insurance- you’ll also need liability insurance for your business as this may be required by your lease. If you rent property, you are responsible for any damage you cause to it. Or, if your equipment gets stolen or damaged, you’ll be able to file a claim to get reimbursed. Best advice is to talk to an insurance professional about the types of business renters insurance you need versus what you should consider.

Build-out Costs: what is it and what are your limitations?

You find the perfect gym space. A nice shell of a warehouse that you’ve already mapped out the locations for your little office, water fountain and stretching area.

Right before you sign the lease you find out that the landlord puts the burden of the construction to do these things on you.

Some leases will allow you some wiggle room to place the burden of the buildout on the landlord while others will not. Construction costs can be expensive and therefore prohibitive to new business owners so before you sign, find out if the landlord will carry out buildouts or if they fall on you. You can also negotiate these into the lease, so make sure anything you do is penned on the contract.

Marketing and Advertising: how much will this set you back compared to ROI?

In addition to using my charm to get new clients, I’ve had to invest my fair share of money into attracting new ones. Chances are, so will you.

There are a lot of different forms of marketing – search engine optimization, mailers, networking events, workshops, etc. – and you’ll want to ensure that you’ll know how much you can dedicate to these versus the kind of return you can get.

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, most small businesses should dedicate about 7 to 8 percent of their gross revenue to marketing. Rather than thinking of marketing as an expense, think of it more as an investment that pays itself back.

Staff- do I need them and how much do I pay them?

It is likely that you’ll be wearing a lot of hats at your new gym. In addition to running the day-to-day operations such as paying the bills and training, you’ll be pulled in a ton of different directions that make it seem like you can work 80 a week and still not get anything done.

A lot of business owners need to learn how to delegate tasks that don’t require their expertise, and this is where hiring someone will come in. Often, a small business can get away with hiring someone to answer the phones, maintain a presence in the gym while their training or away, and handle some remedial work that doesn’t necessarily require the expertise of the owner.

Budgeting for an employee is tough, but if you find that you can make more money by hiring someone than you would by not having them there, try to get an intern or someone you can pay minimum wage.

Personal Development Considerations for Future Gym Owners

Personal development. Sweet, this is where I get to tell you that you’re an awesome person and you can do anything you set your mind to.

Actually, I’m not. That’s what your mommy is for and I ain’t your mommy.

Here’s some hard and fast truth. You might fail. You might not have what it takes to be a business owner. You might be a great trainer but a terrible business man/woman and you may flop.

Do you have drive?

This has a lot to do with your drive as a person and as an entrepreneur. Being an entrepreneur means you are in the mindset of short and long term planning. In business, as in life, things may not happen overnight and even the smallest wins may take months of work.

Drive is a character trait that allows you to persevere through tough times, make decisions that are good for your business (but not necessarily what you want), and to act in ways that improve your chances of success.

Do you have what it takes to open a gym?

This should be more of a quantitative answer than a qualitative one. For instance, were you successful enough as an employee to get 30 sessions a week? If so, you probably have the ability and drive to move onto the next step. If not, what makes you think that opening a gym will mean that it gets any easier to attract new clients?

If you are still uncertain how you will sustain your new venture that is ok. At least you’re honest enough with yourself to know that opening a gym before you are good at marketing your services is probably a bad and risky decision.

If you need a little fine-tuning, check out our Business and Sales: The Guide to Success as a Personal Trainer class. You’ll learn step-by-step how to grow your personal brand and land enough clients to open that gym you want. Like I said earlier, opening a business is often a well-planned process that is one to three years in the making.

Are you good at saving money?

Saving money is a characteristic of someone who is ready to start a business. If you get a few extra clients one month and have a few extra bucks you have a few options. You can reward yourself with something nice or you can make the smart decision and put it back into the business. Being a business owner often means staying committed to your goals and giving up things that aren’t related to the growth and success of your venture.

There is often this pipe dream that business owners are all loaded. They have no limit to how much they can make and are always busy so therefore they must be killing it, right?

While this is certainly a lofty ambition, it’s not always the case. Getting to that place can take years of hard work and planning. Investing in your business – saving money – is often the first step to provide yourself and your business the long term goals it needs when the unexpected happens, you suddenly lose five clients, or your rent goes up.

Are you willing to sacrifice your free time?

Another inaccurate assumption about business owners is that they can make their own schedules and have free time whenever they need it. This can be true for some, but for trainers ours schedules are based around those of our clients.

When we are not training, we are often tasked with making business and marketing decisions, networking, cleaning the gym, or a number of other things that we’d all much rather do later and get beers with the homies instead.

Be prepared to put what little free time you may have as a new business owner back into your business for the first few years. This requires sacrifice and dedication but is a must-have characteristic of a business owner who is growing their gym.

Are you a social butterfly?

Anyone can workout with someone else, but do you have the communication skills necessary to attract people to you? Personal trainers, and especially personal trainers that want to become business owners, need to have an outgoing nature and a keen ability to talk to people.

You’ll find (if you haven’t already) that people are paying you because they think you’re cool to hang out with and make the experience of working out less brutal.

Some people are just too introverted to manage relationships appropriately and this type of personality trait makes it hard to run a business that puts relationships at its core. Be prepared to give your clients or potential clients 100 percent of your attention and make them feel good about themselves regardless of what stage they are in their lives.

Business Skillsets for Future Gym Owners

Alas, the boring yet highly important skills you’ll want to learn or familiarize yourself with before opening your gym.

Accounting

While you don’t need to be a QuickBooks ninja, you’ll want to learn a few things about Profit and Loss, balancing your accounts at the end of the month, and profit to expense ratios for starters. Hiring a bookkeeper or CPA for the end of the year accounting purposes is well-advised, and many firms actually offer free accounting software classes (like QuickBooks software) so that you learn how to keep your business and personal accounts separate and understand what you can attribute to business and how to pay yourself as well as your employees.

Negotiation

Whether it involves the contract for your lease, buying supplies for your gym, or hiring employees or marketers, you’ll want to go into every business relationship with the mindset that everything is negotiable.

Like the example of negotiating tenant buildouts into your lease, understanding that both sides of the contract may be after different things will help you get more of what you want and for cheaper. A good book on this topic is Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In and will help you understand that listening can often be the difference between getting what you want and arguing for something that the other party doesn’t care about.

Understanding Contracts

A sort of subcategory of negotiation, learning how contracts work (or don’t) is a valuable business skillset. For the most important ones such as real estate or contracts involving large sums of money, it may be worthwhile to enlist of the help of attorneys.

For the other ones, don’t blindly sign them without reading through them first. Your ability to avoid long-term contracts that may be better suited for short-term contracts may help you be more nimble with vendors or other financial obligations.

Marketing

Marketing will likely be the lifeblood of your gym. It helps bring leads in the door and helps to upsell existing clients.

For me personally, social media has been a major proponent to my success. Joining conversations, “liking” other people’s posts, and publishing interesting or engaging content on my networks has started a lot of conversations that would otherwise never have happened. Some areas of marketing that are especially important to a small business:

Advertising- deciding where, how and how often you will advertise your services is important. Obviously coming up in search engines is great as is getting featured in local publications where your potential clients hang out.
Graphic design- the professional creation of logos, flyers, handouts or other printed material goes a long way in providing a professional image. Check out sites like fiverr.com for affordable graphic designers or look into learning the ins and outs of Canva.com, a freemium graphic design software that allows you to do the work yourself.

Investing in the right assistance

In business, there are a lot of things you can do yourself and a lot of things you may choose to hand off to a professional and pay for. For me personally, I knew that getting my site to rank in the search engines was going to be way too big of a learning curve so I hired a professional SEO company.

Similarly, I wanted my books to be consistent and didn’t want to raise any red flags with the IRS so I enlisted the help of a CPA firm to help with my accounting.

I had the patience to learn how to use the aforementioned Canva graphic design site so I actually save a lot of money on graphic design.

The point is, spend your time doing the things you can and be smart enough to know when it’s best to hand off things to a pro.

Time management

Your time is the most precious thing you have and is often the thing that can be wasted the most. Time management is an inherent skill but is also one that can be learned. If you are wondering how you might be able to improve your time management skills use this nifty little Priority Matrix to help you put your tasks in order of importance.

Source

Common sense

Does it make sense to advertise in the Yellow Pages to Millennials? Does it make sense to send out mailers to an area that is mostly commercial? No? Well, then you practiced good common sense there.

Some business decisions are highly technical and require tons of research and risk and others are just pure common sense. Don’t spend more than you make, don’t bite off more than you can chew, don’t put all your eggs in one basket, etc. You get the idea.

Passion for what you do

It’s one thing to be passionate about helping people and personal training and another to love doing the small things that allow you to put time into your website, mailers, art, logos, marketing, contracts, etc. If you don’t also have an interest in that other business stuff you might as well stop now.

Are You Ready to Start Your Gym?

You’ll notice that a lot of the advice and tips in this guide are a bit subjective. That’s because every business is different and the decisions you make and the risks you take will be your own.

The overarching theme of understanding if you’re ready to open a gym has a lot to do with previous/existing success, your ability to plan and forecasts expenses and your finances, and taking a hard look at yourself to determine whether you have the drive and ambition to go out on your own.

Jump on in, the water’s fine.

Bonus: use this checklist to see if you’re ready to take the leap.

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Foods in Nature Lecture

Recently there has been a lot of interest around the quality of food and how that might affect the body. We wanted to share with you a lecture delivered by Fitness Mentors CEO, Eddie Lester to help clear up some confusion around how foods exist in nature and how processing xenical 120 mg might be an issue. His recent visit to California State University Long Beach was to help students understand how certain foods might work for you, while some might work against you.

Click play below and let us know what your thoughts are by commenting below.

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Fitness Mentors CEO Eddie Lester Featured On AccuroFit Blog

Check out the Expert Interview Series of Fitness Mentors CEO Eddie Lester as featured on the AccuroFit.com Blog. He delivers some great insight into personal training and how to incorporate technology into your training.

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The 5 Best Continuing Education Courses for Personal Trainers

We all know this to be true:

If you know more about your craft, you can further assist the people paying for your services.

The Fitness Continuing Education scene can be pretty confusing. It is dominated by the large fitness education companies trying to kindle your spending by stroking your eagerness to learn new and exciting fitness topics. Let us help you unravel this confusion as we explore the purposes of continuing education and give you our 5 most recommended courses and/or seminars.

Learning more about the peak athletic training can create better strategies for improving performance, but this matters little if your main clientele is people with osteoporosis. Make the right choice on building your credentials based on the following three factors:

Purpose: Why are you choosing a specific course or seminar? What will you use it for?
Population: What type of client will benefit from the skills or knowledge you will attain? Are they abundant? Is this the population you want to work with?
Passion: Do you enjoy learning about this topic?

Analyzing these factors will allow you to make proper decisions based on your career and training goals.

Furthermore, there may be different reasons you are now looking into continuing education. Some of you may have procrastinated and are now desperate for last minute CEU’s that you need for your recertification. On the other end you might be eager to continue learning and growing in your craft, and have all the time in the world. Some of our recommendations below may be good for the short term and inexpensive, while some require big bucks, time and travel to complete. Choose based on your timeline and budget needs as well.

LAST TIP:

It is important to understand if you are new to the game your continuing education focus should be on one thing: Business. Other education is not needed unless you have what it takes to build a sustainable career. This is one of the biggest mistakes made by new trainers and contributes to the failure of over 50,000 fitness pros per year.

Below we have laid out 5 of our most highly recommended continuing education courses for recertifying your CPT. For further ease we have listed the pros and cons of each course.

1 Certified Online Personal Trainer

The Fitness Industry is rapidly changing. COVID-19 came in and destroyed the conventional path of the fitness professional. With gyms being closed for many months, people turned to online options to continue getting their workouts in. This forced change created so much discord for personal trainers but also created something that will reshape the career path of all trainers: consumer trust in online fitness training.

For the trainer that is ready to take advantage of this newly formed trust the Certified Online Personal Trainer Certification teaches you how to train clients online, build every aspect of your online services, get 5-10 new online clients per month and truly help people achieve their health and fitness goals online.

Pros:

More Personal Freedom
More Financial Freedom
Ensure Your Future Job Security
Help More People
Offer New Services to Grow Your Revenue Streams
Contains all the CEU’s you need to recertify your CPT Certification

Cons:

Cost is listed at $699 (Use Code WOW25 for 25% off)
Will force you to change your perspective on helping clients.

2 NASM's Certified Nutrition Coach (CNC)

If you are looking for the current most prestigious certification in the Fitness Nutrition scene, NASM’s Certified Nutrition Coach is your go-to.

The course feels like a college level class an focuses on science backed nutrition and Behavioral studies. It is an at home course that allows you to study at your own pace. The content focuses on a two headed approach, nutritional coaching and nutritional sciences.

Once finished with this course you will feel confident in addressing nutrition with any type of client goal. One thing that makes this course less attainable is that the cost is high. It also only has two enrollment dates per year which may be bad for those of you looking for a quick way to get the CEU’s needed for recertification.

Pros:

Most respected nutrition certification in the fitness industry
College level learning and structure
Go at your own pace online
Contains all the CEU’s you need to recertify (20 credit hours)
Teaches nutrition coaching as well as the nutritional sciences

Cons:

Almost $1000 (Check Pricing Here)
Mainly government backed nutritional science (not much on newer strategies).

3 Business And Sales: The Guide To Success As A Personal Trainer

Business and Sales: The Guide to Success as a Personal Trainer, will teach you a system all about generating leads and closing client sales. With an emphasis on ACTION, this course will teach you how to create the necessary documents and tools that lead to creating an easy road to success. The value from a course like this far surpasses that of other topics in continuing education, as the knowledge you attain goes directly toward financial gain.

Getting new clients and closing sales can be tough. I can’t stress enough how important it is to have a system, to combat this difficulty. Most trainers mosey about the gym and wait for people to make eye contact, with the intent to spark up a conversation. Although this may lead to a new client here and there, taking action and relying on a proven system will create boundless opportunity.

The course is $349 (use code WOW25 for 25% off) and it is an online, home-study course. It can be completed relatively fast for those of you in need of last minute CEUs.

REMEMBER: You can be the most educated personal trainer in the world, but if you don’t have any sales technique or clients your education is pointless.

Pros:

Only $349
Contains all the CEU’s you need to recertify
Home study which allows you to go at your own pace
Build your business step by step from the ground up
Actionable documents to assist your business processes
Learn how to increase sales
Great for new trainers and experienced trainers
Will build the most value to your resume when being hired at a commercial gym
The best business and sales certification in the industry
Receive the title of Fitness Sales Specialist (FSS)

Cons:

Forces you to take action and create your business
Might be less fun than learning exercise based continuing education

4 Pain Management Specialist

The Pain Management Specialist certification is absolutely one of the best certifications to have. It forces you to understand origins of pain based on postural analysis and teaches you how to fix it.

My biggest concern with my own training was learning how to always progress in strength, athleticism and body image, while avoiding any training associated injury. NOTE: If you don’t have efficient flexibility and muscle balance, you are on your way to creating an injury.

When taking the Pain Management Specialist course you learn about all the issues in flexibility and movement patterns that can lead to injuries.

You can also build a ton of value describing why someone might have pain or a nagging injury. Explaining to someone how their overactive hip flexors are giving them that back pain they have had for years, and then immediately assisting them in alleviating that pain via stretching goes yards for an initial impression.

It is an at home study course which allows you to go at your own pace and you have one year to complete it from your purchase date. The final exam is a bit tough but forces you to know your stuff, which is good thing for you and your clients.

Pros:

In-depth education on posture and causes of pain
Learn the corrective exercise continuum for treating postural imbalances
Great for assisting older clientele in pain management
Best corrective exercise certification available
Contains all of the CEUs needed for recertification
Increase your practical knowledge of muscles
Receive the title of Pain Management Specialist

Cons:

Cost is $399 (use code lift30 for 30% off)
Final Exam is a bit challenging
The study hours are higher than other courses

5 NCSF Strength Coaching Specialist

The NCSF Strength Coach Specialist is the most prestigious athletic conditioning certification in the fitness industry. In fact, it is so prestigious, it is required by almost all college and professional teams to work as a conditioning coach.

The content is quite expansive and covers everything you would need to know about training the most popular sports like Baseball, Basketball, Football, Hockey, Track and Field; and other major sports. The textbook is large, but typically if you are going after this certification your passion will encourage your reading. One downfall to training athletes is that it is typically not very lucrative. Don’t expect this certification to make you more money.

Pros:

Needed to train for a college or professional team
Most prestigious athletic conditioning cert in the industry
Great content for learning about athletic conditioning.

Cons:

$399 (check pricing here)
Requires a Bachelor’s degree to sit for the exam
Lengthy study hours
Difficult final exam
Requires you to take further continuing education every 2 years

You have a lot of choices when choosing your continuing education courses and we hope this settles some of the confusion. Remember to apply the three factors to your decision making process. We believe the above five courses will bring the most value to you and your business.

If you have any questions we would love to hear from you. Contact us via comment, call (310) 227-9261, or by using the contact button on this page. We are always here to assist you in choosing the most successful path for your fitness career.

For more information on becoming a successful personal trainer click the below link and check out our business and sales course

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21 Personal Training Marketing Ideas that will get You More Clients

Would you like to know how the most successful personal trainers market their personal businesses?

Consider yourself lucky because today we are going to provide you with a laundry list of the best sources of personal training marketing ideas that you can use to grow your business today.

If you’re interested in learning how to apply these strategies to get clients as an online personal trainer check out our How to Become an Online Personal Trainer Blog.

We are bringing the heavy-lifting stuff. Ready?

1 Write for industry blogs to get touted as an expert

One of the most highly impactful ways to showcase that you are an expert and an authority in the fitness industry is through other well-established media outlets. But how do you break into these industry blog sites, trade journals, or magazines?

There is a process to this mayhem:

First, you must invest some time in creating impactful content on your own website (you do have a website right?). Before you can start reaching out to others and offer them insights on their publications you’ll have to prove you know what you are talking about on yours.

When you approach a fitness blogger or other media outlet as an unknown, they will likely look at your website to see the quality of writing you do. When they make it to your site, they may also click around on your social media links to see the kind of following you have. While your social presence may be in the beginning stages, you can do your part to create some really great content on your own site that assures the other blog owners you’ll do the same for them.

So how do you find these sites?

You probably already know some influential people in the fitness industry. Start by writing down their names on an Excel spreadsheet or Google Doc.

Next, do some Google searches on the topic you want to cover to find people in your niche.

For example, let’s say your niche is high-intensity circuit training (HIIT). Google “HIIT workout tips” and here’s what you’ll get:

Next, make a list of the sites that appear on the first two pages of the search results (without making note of the paid ads). In the above search, the sites that appear are:

Chances are many of the searches you do in the fitness industry will reveal these sites in the search results. I know what you’re thinking:

“How am I going to get featured on BodyBuilding.com?”

You’d be surprised how receptive some of these sites are to fitness posts from knowledgeable professionals. But sites aren’t people, and you’ll have to narrow down your list to the people who write for those sites to get featured on them.

Here’s how to connect with those authors you’ve found on these sites:

The first step is to find the author of one of the posts that came up in your search. In this example, we look at the BodyBuilding.com article and find the author, Dr. Jim Stoppani, prominently displayed along with his contact information:

You can connect with Jim on Twitter and Facebook and also visit his website to see if you can find an email address or contact form. Then you simply start a dialogue and let him know you are a fan of his work.

Be careful not to jump right into asking for a guest blogging opportunity; nurture your contact a bit, share their content and you’ll increase your chances of them being open to a guest blogging opportunity or at least, sharing some of your content too.

But let’s take this a step further and use Jim’s name to look for more sites you can add to your list and repeat this same process. Remember that 80-90% of these people you reach out to will decline or not even respond. This means you better have a pretty decent list.

That said, let’s Google “Dr. Jim Stoppani” to see where else he writes:

Now we have a few more sites that Dr. Stoppani has written for that we may be able to approach as well. Check out the gym-talk.com site. It is a review and not a site you would want to add to your list. You have to be discerning about who you reach out to so we included that one as an example.

The more you reach out, the better you’ll get at building relationships. The more relationships and articles you get published the more exposure you will get, and the more your business will grow. This is especially important to help you grow your online personal training client list.

2 Stay top of mind with existing clients
with email

It is all too often personal trainers don’t utilize their existing client base to upsell or to help expand their reach. One of the best ways to do this is through email, a form of direct response marketing.

Consider this fact: email has nearly three times as many user accounts as Facebook and Twitter combined. That’s 8 billion accounts.

Email is one of the most personal mediums that exists, and you know what? Personal training is personal too. You develop relationships with your client based on their habits, diets, and goals; email is a great way to connect with them with personalized messages, links to relevant articles, or other business-related affairs.

Plus there’s the fact that email will help stay top of mind. This means that the client you have who only comes in twice a month will still be thinking about you every week as you make it a point to send them emails that are catered to them or are helpful for your client base as a whole.

Consider investing in a personal training client management software like Trainerize or email software like Mail Chimp or Constant Contact to store all of your past and previous clients’ emails and to send out bulk emails with fitness and nutrition information that keeps them involved with your fitness philosophies and educates them on how to live healthier lives.

3 Make referrals easier on your clients by providing them with tangible, shareable, referral documents

If you’re like 90 percent of personal trainers out there you probably get most of your business from word-of-mouth referrals. That is great, and you never want to push referral marketing out the door as a long-term and ongoing source of clients.

However, you still want to make sure you are doing as much as you can to maximize referral-generating behavior:

Referral-generating behavior is the idea you put in place that make your clients want to talk about you.

Think of the common way a word-of-mouth referral is initiated:

You are at a BBQ with friends, and the topic of the host’s beautiful grass comes up; someone asks how he does it, and he tells them about the company that comes out and sprays twice a month. Boom. Word-of-mouth referral for the lawn company.

The host doesn’t walk around telling everyone about the lawn care company; it just sort of came up in conversation. But he might mention the lawn care company if they incentivized him with some kind of reward.

Lucky for you, you don’t have to wait for the BBQ to get a referral. You can create referral-generating behavior on your own.

In your personal training business, referrals are a bit easier to come by because the results speak for themselves. Incentivize your clients to get their friends in to see you by letting them know that their referral will result in something free for them and their friends.

In a study conducted on referrals, it was shown that the person who gave the referral was more interested in helping out one of their friends than they were in helping themselves to the reward for the referral.

In other words, provide an incentive for both sides of the referral – the referrer and referee – to make both of them happy. One free personal trainer session for each is always a good idea, but you can get more creative if you want.

To take it a step further, make the process of referring that much easier. Sure you can tell your clients about your referral incentive program and see what happens — or, you can draft some kind of document or email that can easily be shared with the friend. This way your client has something tangible to pass on – like a card or an email – and the recipient has the card to bring in or the email in which to redeem with you.

It is perfectly fine to ask your clients for referrals on a weekly or monthly basis. Just don’t look desperate – give your clients the perception that you are really busy by saying something like “My schedule just opened up, and I can take on new clients. If you know anyone that is interested, please let them know I have some slots available.”

Reinforce your verbal message with a tangible email referral they can forward to their friend or the referral card.

Hint: If you really are busy, don’t give your clients the impression that you are not. A busy personal trainer is looked at as an excellent personal trainer. Pick the times that you want to ask for referrals discerningly, so you don’t look desperate. The email approach works here because it is a bit softer than the verbal ask.

4 Build your brand on social media

While it may seem like a given, this is a step many don’t know the proper way to do. Your current and past clients are some of your best referral sources. But, you have to keep them in the loop and let them know what’s going on with your business. One way to do this is by having a good online presence on social media.

You can use your social media to network with your clients by inviting them to events, such as open houses, workshops, or client appreciation parties.

But what are some key ingredients to a good social media page? Let’s break it down by service.

Creating a Facebook Business Page

If you’re a personal trainer, the first thing you should do is create a business page on Facebook. This will allow you to post updates about your business, events, and blog articles. To create a Facebook business page:

Go to facebook.com/business
Click Create a Page.
Choose the type of business page you want to create.
Enter your business information, then click Continue.
Follow the prompts to finish creating your business page. Be sure to fill out your business information completely, including your website address, business hours, and contact information.
Invite friends, family and clients to “like” your business page, which will essentially subscribe them to anything you post.
Start posting! Try to keep it to a maximum of once per day, and make it interesting enough to provoke engagement.

Remember, your posts shouldn’t be salesy. Following the 80/20 rule is the most beneficial. 80% of your posts should be useful to your audience – interesting topics or posts that can be related to your business but not a sales pitch.

Creating a Tik Tok For Your Personal Training Business

Tik Tok is a social media platform that allows you to share short videos with your followers. It’s a great way to show off your personality and build trust with potential clients.

Once you create a Tik Tok account, there are a few ideas for content you can post on Tik Tok:

Introduce yourself and your business
Share why you got into personal training
Offer workout tips
Share healthy recipes
Offer advice on staying motivated
Highlight success stories from your current or past clients
Offer a behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like to train with you
Do a Q&A session
Go live to answer questions from potential clients
Announce any promotions or events you have coming up

Here are some additional tips for creating content for your Tik Tok:

Keep it short and sweet – People on TikTok have a short attention span, since its what they’ve grown to expect, so make sure your videos are under 60 seconds.
Be creative – Be creative with your content and try to stand out from the crowd.
Be yourself – Be authentic and show off your personality. This will help people connect with you and build trust.
Use hashtags – Use relevant hashtags so that people can find your videos easily.
Use call-to-actions – Include a call-to-action in your videos so that people know what to do next. Now that you know how to create content for your TikTok, it’s time to start posting! Try to post 1-2 videos per day, and make sure to engage with other users on the platform.

Creating an Instagram Business Page

If you’re a personal trainer, chances are you’re already using Instagram. But did you know that you can create a business page on Instagram? This will allow you to share updates about your business, events, and blog articles.

To create an Instagram business page:

Go to instagram.com and log in.
Tap the hamburger icon in the top right-hand corner.
Scroll down and tap Create a Business Profile.
Enter your business information, then tap Done.
Follow the prompts to finish creating your business page. Make sure to fill out your business information completely, including your website address, business hours, and contact information. 6. Tap Promote Your Page (optional). This will allow you to promote your page with ads.

Once you’ve created your business page, start posting! Try to keep it to a maximum of once per day, and just like with Facebook, make sure your posts are high-quality and interesting enough to provoke engagement. And remember here too, your posts shouldn’t be salesy – focus on providing value to your audience.

If you’re struggling to come up with ideas for what to post, here are a few ideas, the same tips apply as with Tik Tok!

5 Invest in your own education to become more valuable

What can you do to become more valuable as a personal trainer? Certifications.

The major accrediting bodies: NASM, ACE, Fitness Mentors, ACSM, NSCA, etc…

All require some sort of continuing education. Why not use this opportunity to get additional credentials that make you:

More knowledgeable
More desirable
More valuable

Take Fitness Mentors Certified Online Trainer Certification for example. This will allow you to help more clients by training people online. In turn, your clients will see you as certified to train people online, leading to more trust and a larger client base.

Instead of a personal trainer who helps people lose weight or get in shape, you have now elevated your title to someone who can help them anywhere and at any time as a Certified Online Personal Trainer.

Speaking further on continuing education, our Business and Sales CEU Course offers all the CEUs you need to recertify your CPT credential and it contains actionable steps to build your business way beyond what this blog is providing. Call us at (800) 614-7004 or learn more here.

Obviously, there are multiple specializations you can go after all depending on your interests and goals. Most accreditation bodies have certifications for things like nutrition, weight loss, group training, martial arts, youth fitness, senior fitness and even golf.

The more you know the more valuable you are. The more valuable you are the more you can market yourself on guest blogs and fitness sites (see idea #1).

In addition to studying for certifications and adding more plaques to the wall, you’ll want to have a radar on the types of information your clients are consuming.

Any new fitness trends or nutritional trends may come up in conversations with your clients and you don’t want to be blindsided by them.

Here’s why:

If a client asks you a question about a current fitness trend and you give a deer in the headlights response, your credibility may be in question.

On the other hand:

If you are asked a question about some new fitness trend and can intelligently provide your insight on what it means to them or you, your client will trust you even more and value you as a resource.

Just remember, studying hard, attending conferences and workshops and getting additional certifications shouldn’t be looked at as expenses. They are investments in your business and your future.

6 Brand your personal training strategies and techniques

Have you ever heard of “Koga Fitness?” How about “8-minute abs?” Zumba? Tae-bo? You get the idea?

These are all examples of workout routines that are branded.

If you have a unique fitness strategy, tactic or technique, slap a name on it and talk about it.

Instead of telling your female clients that you’ll be working on their legs and butt today why not tell them you’re working on your signature “Brazilian Booty Blast” workout instead?

If you design something people like it will catch on and you’ll be known for coming up with a great workout rather than relying on the generic term “personal trainer.”

Who knows, maybe you’ll even create your own viral YouTube video and make millions on advertising?

Make sure you document (legally and otherwise) your branded fitness strategies so that you can create marketing materials to support it. You’ll be handing these out to clients and posting them on your website so you’ll want to be sure you don’t skimp on the graphic design and quality you put behind these little used marketing gems.

7 Get listed on the most popular online directories to maximize website referrals

This particular personal training marketing idea can also fall into what is called SEO or search engine optimization.

Check out this below search for “personal trainer west palm beach” on Google:

You’ll see that the first three results all appear in what is called the “map pack.”

Now, you don’t need a website to appear in this map pack but you are strongly advised to try to get some leads from common searches like this one.

The first thing you’ll want to do is claim your business with Google. You can do that by visiting their site and creating your business citation for free:

https://www.google.com/business/

While Google is likely the most important citation (also known as directory) listing, there are others you’ll definitely want to try to get on.

Using this same search example of “personal trainer west palm beach” we can see some of the other popular directory sites you’ll want to be on lower in the search results:

Jump on these sites and see if you can add your personal training business to their directory. Along with Thumbtack, Ideafit, Your Trainer, and AngiesList, another good place to get listed is on RightFit Personal Training.

You’ll want to build out as many citations as possible, getting in that “40 to 60 range or more” according to digital marketing expert Daniel Lofaso of the biotech marketing agency Digital Elevator.

“Citations can influence your ability to rank locally,” says Lofaso.

He also mentioned a quick Google search for “local business citation service” if you want to find a company that will help you affordably build out the most important citations for your personal training business.

8 Sign up for every online personal trainer site (niche directories)

Niche directories, as mentioned above, can be very valuable for personal trainers who are looking to get exposure online. To be included on these industry sites you simply need to add your listing to their directory and you’ll benefit from the exposure that these popular sites provide.

It can be challenging to find the exact locations on these sites where you can add your contact information but the listing portal can usually be found in the footer.

For example, one of the most popular personal trainer sites in which to get listed is Ideafit.com (which you’ll also notice from the example above came up second in a search for “personal trainer west palm beach”).

On this site, there is a link in the footer that says “Get Listed.”

Other sites may have the portal in the footer as well and this is usually the most logical place to look for it (unless it is front and center on the homepage). Also, many of these sites, like Ideafit.com, allow you to list your information within their directories for free but there may be some paid options as well.

How to Find Personal Trainer Listing Directories

The aforementioned way to find these niche personal trainer directories is to simply type in “personal trainer [city]” into Google search and see which ones are the most popular in your area. You’ll want to get on those first.

You can also get some solid directory listings by dong a search for “personal trainer directory listings” on Google. Here are a few popular one’s to get you started:

These sites tend to rank better than your ordinary personal trainer website so it pays to get on as many of them as possible.

9 Use Your Local Chamber of Commerce to Sell Group Fitness Packages to Business Owners based on Employee Productivity Research

As a personal trainer you know that if you don’t work out, you usually feel like crap. Well, the good news for marketing yourself as a personal trainer is that there is some scientific research that backs the aforementioned un-scientific statement and you can use that to get in front of lots of potentially great clients.

The scientific stuff, which was even covered by an article in Forbes, goes something like this:

Businesses are more profitable when workers are more productive;
Employees that workout are more likely to be productive because they have greater energy levels as well as higher self-esteem. These healthy employees take fewer sick days, have lower absenteeism, and cost the company less in health care costs, all things that lead to money saved for the business;
Thus, companies that encourage or offer employees fitness programs can benefit from increases in productivity, lower costs, and ultimately profitability.

This stuff practically sells itself if you know who to sell it to. Guess what? I’m going to tell you who to sell it to (hint: here’s where your local Chamber of Commerce fits in).

A great place to sell the idea of employee group fitness packages is at a place where business owners congregate. One of the first places that comes to mind is the local Chamber of Commerce (although you can approach any other organization that may have business owners).

I know what you’re saying, “Aren’t Chambers the types of places where realtors and florists go to try and get business?” Well, yes, but you are smarter than that because you’ll make these people want to come to you rather than you having to awkwardly try to shake a million hands to hunt down the decision-makers and tell them about your great employee productivity/profitability idea

.

Here’s what you do (assuming you are a member of the organization you are going to approach):

Contact your local Chamber of Commerce (do a Google search “[city] Chamber of Commerce”) and visit the About or Board of Directors page to track down the contact information for the President or Executive Director. You may even want to call the general number to see who the appropriate person to speak with might be.
Next, tell them that you want to host a workshop on “How Group Fitness Programs can Increase Company Profitability”

Hell, let’s make this easy for you. Here’s a script you can use:

Hello Director Gluteus,

I’m a new Chamber member, and I’d like to get more involved within the organization. I’d like to hold a workshop at the Chamber offices on the topic of “How Group Fitness Programs can Increase Company Profitability.” This is a research-backed topic that shows how an investment in fitness programs for employees results in increased employee productivity and profitability.

Please let me know if this is something that you think the members would be interested in attending and I can provide more details.

Regards,

Personal Trainer Bob

Now that you’ve gone directly to the source and asked for their help in organizing an event that benefits their members, you’ll probably get a resounding “yes” for your request. Now you’ll have to begin to put together your presentation you built up so much.

Using the following studies (A, B, C, and D) as reference points, create a PowerPoint presentation that hits the following points:

Uses science to show how fitness results in decreased absenteeism, increased productivity and profitability.
Shows them your recommendations for group fitness programs that meet your criteria for helping employees stay physical fit (for example, twice a week sessions).
Shows them that you have already created an amazing program that they can enroll their employees in today!

Now, the Chamber is useful because they will market your workshop for you. To give them a proper nudge, request that they send out the news about your amazing workshop to their entire email list as well as their social media networks.

Also, make sure you emphasize that the workshop is for business owners or decision-makers so these type of people show up. The email will likely also attract general personal training clients as well and that ain’t a bad thing!

To take it a step further, try to mention in the marketing that space is limited and that the follow up email should say “only a few seats left” or something like that that showcases demand for your workshop. Get a list of all the attendees before or after the workshop so you can follow up on your own and thank them for attending.

Chamber memberships are around $500/year (give or take) so if you get just one client it is likely it will pay for itself.

10 Partner with local health-conscious businesses

In the above example we learned how to leverage the power of a much larger organization to help us market our own services. You can do the same thing by partnering with other health-conscious businesses.

By doing this you not only get the exposure that the business can provide due to their much larger network, but you also get a statement about your credibility if a credible business mentions your services.

For example, in my neighborhood, a local coffee shop that attracts a lot of young, active people, hosts donation-only yoga classes every weekend. There are generally about 10 to 15 people who show up for the hour-long classes, generating the instructor about $10 per student times the two or three classes she gives each day. At $300 to $450 a day and only three hours of work, it’s not a bad partnership.

Plus she gets to make relationships with people who may be interested in her services whom can become clients the rest of the week.

What local businesses do you think would make for good partnerships in your community? Take some time to explore opportunities and determine if your services would also be a good fit for the businesses you’d like to approach.

11 Charitable donations

Charitable donations are good for two reasons – tax deductions and free exposure – and for the purposes of this personal trainer marketing idea we will be focused on the latter (click the previous link to vet the potential charities for specific tax info).

This is actually a bit of a diamond in the rough marketing tip that I have used before and that has landed me quite a few new clients. Here’s how it works, it’s pretty simple.

Do some research on upcoming charitable events in your area by Googling “charitable events [city].” After finding one that you particularly resonate with, contact the event director to let them know that you are interested and to see if you could donate some personal training sessions as a prize.

If this is agreeable, see if you can get mentioned by name (or website or brand) during the charity as well as on their website and their marketing materials. I found that offering a free 3-pack of sessions is a great way to get exposure, gives you the opportunity to turn that offer into a client, and allows you to get a nice little tax write-off if you do it right.

12 Attend Local events

Another great way to market your personal training services is by attending local events as a vendor. This could be anything from a health fair at the mall to an event put on by another local business.

The key is to have some kind of interactive element that will help you engage with people and start building relationships. For example, you could offer free body fat testing or mini-consultations where people can come and talk to you about their health and fitness goals.

If you have a laptop or tablet with you, you can even get people to sign up for your email list on the spot so you can follow up with them later. And of course, don’t forget to bring plenty of business cards!

Another great way to market your personal training business is by networking with other local businesses, which we get more into later. This could be anything from partnering with a local gym to co-sponsoring a charity event. But the key is to find businesses that complement your own (think: health food stores, yoga studios, etc.) and that attract your ideal clientele.

By partnering with these types of businesses, you can not only get exposure to their network of customers, but you can also start building relationships with other like-minded business owners in your community through various local events.

You can even offer to speak for free at events. This is another excellent way to get your name and face out there in the community, build relationships with potential clients, and position yourself as an expert in your field.

And don’t forget to follow up with everyone you meet! Whether it’s a potential client or a new business connection, make sure you take the time to send a personal email or give them a call so they remember who you are and what you do.

13 Offer healthy shopping outings

As a trainer you know that nutrition is, for most, more important than working out. This is why offering to take your clients to the grocery store, and educate on what you recommend that they eat, is a great way to provide more value as well as show them how much you care about their results.

This works best if you take one client at a time to their favorite grocery store, and show them how to eat right based on their budget, likes and fitness goals. The idea is not to criticize them if they go straight for the Twinkies, but to educate them on how balance in their diet can really help them perform at their peak.

As a bonus, or if you want to upsell an additional service, let them know that you will create a nutritionally balanced meal plan for them so that they can easily follow it and get results.

Whether their goal is weight loss, weight gain or muscle gain, your expertise will allow you to create something valuable and that will keep them wanting to keep coming back for more of your advice.

14 Host competitions against clients and get local sponsors involved

If you really want to make a splash and go after some big time public relations exposure, this idea is for you. Hold your very own “Biggest Loser” type contest with your clients and set a start date where you take measurements on weight, or, if you specialize in another area, gains in the chest or biceps.

Once you have your pool of contestants, start sounding the horn. Get local businesses involved (health-conscious businesses are recommended but not mandatory) and ask them to provide gifts, in exchange for exposure, as part of a grand prize (and runner-up prizes).

From there you’ll also want to get the local media involved to see if they will cover the story. The media loves these type of feel-good stories so if you can get ahold of them and get them to agree to cover your contest you’ll benefit from a lot of free exposure (as will the local businesses that you involve).

After the initial time period is up, let your participants and the media know who the winner is.

You’ll want to take before and after pictures and promote them on your website, at the gym and on social media to show progress and how great your training is. You can also use the contest to continually market yourself and use the client testimonials to get social proof on your efforts.

15 Advertise a personal training session “bring a friend to any session, anytime” promotion

Allow existing clients to bring a friend in to any session, anytime, or advertise that you are opening up sessions to include the ability to bring in friends.

This works well because friends like to work out with friends and if you open up this promotion for free, your clients will actually feel good about giving the gift of health to their friends.

This practice works best if your clients tell you that they want to take you up on the promotion and you provide them with a signed waiver with a specific date (you’ll especially need a signed waiver if you train at a corporate gym).

The idea is to give your clients something tangible – the nicer looking the waiver the better – that they can hand to their friends.

When the friend comes in to work out with you and your client it will be easy to get to know them quickly. When they see how badass you are and how great it is to share your fitness knowledge, they’ll be more likely to sign up for their own sessions.

16 Offer package pricing to encourage longer-term relationships

You may have heard the old marketing cliché that getting new clients costs five times as much to acquire than an existing one does to retain. Whether this is true or not, the reality is that more time should go into wowing your existing clients than trying to drum up new business.

Think of the cell phone companies – does it piss you off too that all the promotions are for new clients and existing, long-term clients get the shaft? The lesson here is don’t be like the cell phone companies; benefit from existing clients by upselling them and keeping them around for the long haul.

One of the best ways to do this is to offer package pricing – something like “buy five sessions get one free” – to create real value for your clients. This not only extends your relationship, giving you more time to prove results but also shows your clients that you care about their wallets.

17 Host a free live virtual workout on Zoom

In the aftermath of the pandemic, many are still feeling isolated and cut off from their usual workout routines. As a personal trainer, you have the ability to help people stay on track (or get back on track) by hosting a free live virtual workout.

This can be done easily through Zoom (or another video conferencing platform), and all you need is a laptop or smartphone. You can promote the workout on your website and social media platforms, and people can sign up to participate from anywhere in the world.

The best part about this idea is that it can be done entirely for free, and it’s a great way to show your expertise and get exposure to your business. You can also use it as an opportunity to upsell people on your personal training services by offering a discount for those who sign up for sessions after the workout.

18 Do fitness competitions yourself

Enroll in a bodybuilding competition yourself – such as a “figure competition” – and the exposure you get from the comp, as well as the marketing you’re doing to promote how good you are looking via social media, will help spur leads.

CrossFit trainers do this all the time. You’ll often see a trainer in a CrossFit Games or similar competition sporting their gyms’ attire, all the while doing wonders for their exposure.

Not only do people get to see you in action, putting your strength and training techniques to practice, but they also see that you train at a gym, providing you instant credibility and attracting attention to your gym or brand.

19 Embrace the power of cross-referring

Personal trainers are not isolated in their aim to help clients get healthy. There are lots of other health and fitness professionals that help people become their best that may not necessarily involve weight training or exercise.

These are the types of professionals you should seek out – start with five – so that you can cross-refer clients to one another.

Think of local nutritionists, chiropractors or physical therapists, physicians, hair stylists, massage therapists, sports coaches, etc. who your clients may benefit from. The referral partnership should be communicated – don’t just refer them without letting the other professional know that you’d like to try to cross-refer – and be proactive about your referrals consciously.

When referring, go the extra mile and call the professional with your client standing next to you or shoot them an email and CC your client so that the connection is actually generated. Don’t just say “go visit Dr. Jones,” form the connection and benefit from instances when your referral network does the same for you.

20 Leverage fitness forums to display your expert knowledge

Fitness forums are a great way to generate leads as a personal trainer because they allow you to show off your expert knowledge.

You can find fitness forums by doing a quick Google search or by looking on social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. Once you’ve found a few that look promising, take some time to read through the posts and get a feel for the type of questions people are asking.

Once you’ve got a good understanding of the kinds of questions people are asking, start chiming in with your answers. Be sure to include your website or contact information with your answers so that people can reach out to you if they’re interested in working with you.

Over time, you’ll start to develop a reputation as an expert in the fitness industry, and people will be more likely to reach out to you when they’re looking for a personal trainer.

21 Buy gear that starts a conversation

We’re not only talking about gear with your logo on it here. We’re talking about wearing something that provokes engagement, like a sticker that says “I’m a Personal Trainer – Ask me a question!”.

This is a great way to start conversations with potential clients, and it allows you to promote your services.

You can also buy promotional items like water bottles or keychains that have your website or contact information on them. Hand these out to people you meet so that they have a way to reach out to you if they’re interested in working with you.

Personal Trainer Marketing Is Important!

By adequately marketing and growing your personal training business, you can have a positive impact on the lives of your clients and make a great living doing something you love. But it takes more than just being a great personal trainer to be successful in this industry. You also need to be savvy about marketing and business.

Our course, Business and Sales: The Guide to Success As A Personal Trainer, will teach you everything you need to know about marketing and growing your business. You’ll learn how to find new clients, how to promote your services, and how to run your business so that it’s profitable and sustainable.

Enroll now and get started on growing your personal training business!

Fitness Mentors Featured on thePTDC.com

Recently, Fitness Mentors founder Eddie Lester was featured on thePTDC for a very informative article for personal trainers called 3 Monetization Strategies for How to Earn More Money as a Trainer.

The PTDC, or Personal Trainer Development Center, is one of the largest collaborative blogs for trainers on the internet and a great place to learn how to grow your personal training business. As such, it was pretty cool that they featured Eddie on their site (even though he is boss).

Check it out when you get a chance. Here are some of the “cliff notes” from the article.

Utilize Amazon Affiliate Marketing Through Your Website

If you have a reputable personal training website and are driving a good amount of traffic you can set up an affiliate marketing account through Amazon and earn commissions on the sales of products people buy as a result of visiting your site and following your link to Amazon.

You will, of course, want to have a professionally designed website (hint, hint we do that now) and you’ll want to mention items that are relative to what your articles discuss. So, for example, if you are recommending a certain type of protein powder or juicer, link to it using your xenical diet pill weight loss Amazon affiliate account and enjoy the commissions if people take you up on your advice.

Sell Group Fitness Packages to Local Businesses

Getting in front of business owners with a lot of employees is something that can be very good for business. In this strategy to make more money as a trainer, the idea is to approach your local Chamber of Commerce and ask them if you can present a workshop on how to do something like “Increase Corporate Profitability with Health and Fitness Programs.”

You’ll likely get a bunch of CEOs to show up and hear what you have to say and then get a bunch of new group fitness clients. Check out the full post for the play-by-play on this strategy.

Train Trainers

The personal training industry is speculated to grow by 13 percent each year until 2022. This means that if you are a savvy trainer not only can you whip America into shape but you can also capitalize in the growing trend in people who will be training other people.

You can train trainers how to be more successful in their businesses, sell them products that they can sell their clients, or come up with cool website ideas that help trainers learn. Check out the full post for some other actionable ideas.

Personal Trainer Career Roadmap

Featured Posts

Best Personal Training Certification

How to Become a Personal Trainer in 5 Simple Steps

How to Become an Online
Personal Trainer in 2020

Personal Trainer Salary

Top 5 Exercise Science Careers

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Careers with Great Work-Life Balance

It seems that the more technology we introduce into our lives the harder it is to disconnect and spend time doing the things we like with the people we love. Increasingly, we are becoming more connected and the responsibilities of work are taken home with us, seemingly always just an email away, making it hard to balance the time we should be relaxing with the time we put in at our jobs.

While we would imagine a world where technology allows us to be more productive the reality for many is that we are working longer hours, having less fun on the job, are stressed out and lack the flexibility we need from our jobs to spend time doing other things that are important.

In fact, nine out of ten Americans feel that they don’t have the flexibility in their jobs to meet their families’ needs and over half feel that they could perform their jobs better if they were allowed a more flexible schedule. It is, for this reason, why many Americans are seeking employers that offer more flexibility or are leaving jobs that don’t offer their desires for a good work-life balance for careers that do.

Below is an informative infographic on Careers with Great Work-Life Balance to showcase what many data-driven and opinionated articles cite as the best jobs for a happier work-life balance.

Indicators of Work-Life Balance

Just what do American’s look for when seeking careers with great work-life balance? According to the OECD Better Life Index, six of the major indicators are:

Total hours worked per week– this is an obvious one, but the fewer hours worked per week the more favorably a job is looked at.
Fun rating– some jobs are a lot more fun than others and many careers actually provide this type of balance within the job.
Average pay– pay is an important consideration for any career and for those people who want a job with great work-life balance and good average pay, these professions should be considered.
Growth potential– upward mobility is important to many professionals and is a major factor when deciding a career path.
Flexibility– having a schedule that is flexible is becoming more and more important to many individuals.
Stress– finding a balance between work and stress can be a career decision that makes you happier and healthier.

The Top Jobs for Work-Life Balance

According to career website Glassdoor and our own analysis of jobs with great work-life balance, some of the most promising careers that meet this criteria include:

Lifeguard– while saving lives is no joke, lifeguards enjoy flexible schedules, casual environments such as the beach or a swimming pool, and are highly regarded by society.
Data Scientist– ranking at the top spot of Glassdoor’s list, the data scientist is in high demand, boasts great pay, and is integral to the success of their employers.
Personal Trainer– personal trainers consistently come up on lists of professionals with a great work-life balance due to their flexible working hours, benefit to society, and low-stress jobs.
SEO Specialist– another career that is in high demand, the SEO specialist helps rank websites in search engines and can virtually work from anywhere there’s an internet connection. This makes it highly appealing for business travelers and those that like to see the world while making a living.
Social Media Manager– the social media managers job is to create fun, engaging content across their clients’ social networks and can also work from nearly anywhere.
Hollywood Stuntman– the most fun job on this list, the Hollywood stuntman is no stranger to excitement and hanging with celebrities.
Solutions Architect– a solutions architect is one of those jobs no one knows about but wishes they did because of the high pay and ability to work remotely.
Dental Hygienist- coming in hot for one of the best part-time jobs as well as a great job for working moms, this jobs offers great flexibility and pay.
Hair Stylist- according to career site CareerCast, the hair stylist has the least stressful job of 2015 and has considerable job growth opportunities.
Tour Guide- another job with low stress and that tends to be a lot of fun, the tour guide is a top job for those seeking great work-life balance.

Best Jobs Under 40 Working Hours
Per Week

According to financial website 24/7 Wall Street, the airline pilot has the best job with the highest pay and most time off. Working about half of what most consider a full-time job at 21 hours, these professionals have a median annual income of over $100k and can make as much as $139,330 per year.

While pilots work the least and make a great income, personal trainers should also be mentioned on this list. With the ability to set their own hours and rates (if they are self-employed), the typical personal trainer works less than 40 hours per week and still makes a respectable median salary, all while helping others design and carryout effective workout plans.

Fun Rating

Along with working with celebrities, hanging on the sets of exciting action and adventure movies, and doing crazy stunts like crashing Ferrari’s, getting set on fire and doing martial arts with kung-fu experts, stunt men can make as much as $250,000 a year if in high demand.

Another job that easily makes our list of top jobs on the fun scale is a video game tester. These professionals test for bugs while playing video games and can make as much as $55k each year. Does anyone remember Grandma’s Boy?

Best Average Pay

If you’re seeking a job with great work-life balance but want a higher xenical xenical orlistat average pay than most, check out the solutions architect position. These professionals have a median salary of $112k and a solutions architect in a TechCrunch interview said it’s not uncommon for him to get shot in the face by a NERF dart while on the phone with a customer. Money and NERF darts? Where do I sign up?

Growth Potential

A great work-life balance can mean different things to different people. For some, the ability to have a lot of opportunity for upward mobility or income is very important. For those who value growth potential in their careers, consider jobs in either mobile applications development or personal training.

The personal training industry is speculated to grow 13 percent through 2022 and the salary increase of a mobile applications developer is forecasted to grow 10.2 percent each year.

Flexibility

Is flexibility in your work hours something that’s important to you? Check out these professions that offer considerable flexibility in specific sectors:

Best telecommuting or remote job: SEO Specialist– these professionals can work from home, the beach, or anywhere there’s internet.
Most flexible schedule (hours determined by worker): Consultant– consultants don’t have employers that dictate specific work hours making this an extremely flexible job.
Best freelance job: Graphic Designer– for the self-employed contractor, perhaps there is no better job than a graphic designer.
Best part-time job: Dental Hygienist– working less than 40 hours a week and still making decent money is why a dental hygienist position is so appealing.
Best short-term or seasonal job: Photographer– if long-term obligations aren’t your thing, consider a career as a professional photographer.

Stress

Stress can lead to headaches, elevated blood pressure levels, and trouble sleeping according to WebMD. Our jobs can often be the center of these problems which is why many job seekers look for jobs with low stress levels.

A hair stylist is a career with considerably low stress and offers job growth in the area of self-employment. A career as enlisted military personnel has been identified as one of the most stressful careers for obvious reasons although this job is held in very high esteem by society and us at Fitness Mentors in particular. Big thanks to our troops!

Best Work-Life Balance by Background

When considering work-life balance in careers we also wanted to identify with a few popular sub-sectors of professionals. What we found was that the following three professional-types were increasingly looking for jobs that offered great work-life balance:

Working Moms
Business Travelers
Digital Nomads

Best Jobs for Working Moms

Working moms have a lot going on. They have to take care of a lot of household responsibilities as well as the kids and also provide for their families. The two best jobs that help working moms maintain a good work-life balance are jobs that offer considerable flexibility as well as attractive pay.

According to Monster.com, two of the best jobs for working moms are a dental hygienist and fitness trainer. Dental hygienists can often work part-time or very flexible hours so that they have time to tend to their family lives. Similarly, fitness trainers can create their own schedule and make a competitive hourly pay if they are motivated.

Best Jobs for Business Travelers

Do you love to travel but think that a permanent career means that you’ll be glued to your desk? Think again, Business News Daily identifies a travel agent and traveling nurse as two excellent jobs for jet-setters.

Part of a travel agent’s responsibility when providing sound vacation advice is to actually have firsthand experience with the suggestions that they make. This means travel is a work requirement and can be written off as a business expense while also allowing you to form relationships with luxurious resorts or dining destinations that might actually compensate you for recommending their properties.

Traveling nurses make Business News Daily’s list of great jobs for people who love to travel because the position allows you to move from location-to-location, enjoy great pay and benefits and a rewarding career that is always in demand.

Best Jobs for Digital Nomads

If you work in the digital realm and like the idea of being able to set up shop anywhere, a digital nomad lifestyle is for you.

Topping work and travel website Global Goose’s jobs that allow you to plug in and get it done are jobs for web designers and SEO specialists. Building websites is a skill that is in high demand and if you have a good reputation it could mean the work will continue to allow you to live your nomadic lifestyle how you want.

A similar profession is the SEO specialist, a digital professional that often works as a marketing consultant or with a team to help clients achieve superior search engine rankings. Both these jobs allow you to work on a laptop and travel as you please.

What Does Work-Life Balance Mean
to You?

There are lots of jobs out there that afford you great work-life balance, but the definition is subjective. Before you quit your job or pursue one of the above ask yourself what type of balance is most important to you and you’ll have a good idea of jobs that may or may not fit that criteria.

In the end, you’ll be happier that you opened up your life to spend more time with the people that you love and doing the things that make you smile.

Personal Trainer Career Roadmap

Featured Posts

Best Personal Training Certification

How to Become a Personal Trainer in 5 Simple Steps

How to Become an Online
Personal Trainer in 2020

Personal Trainer Salary

Top 5 Exercise Science Careers

Subscribe
To Our Blog

Personal Training Website Ideas

If you really want to progress your career in personal training – either as a trainer or a fitness guru – there’s no better place to get exposure than your website.

A personal trainer’s website can be the place where they attract clients, share their expertise about fitness and wellness, reach a global audience, and promote their personal brand.

But I’m not going to lie, the health and fitness industry is saturated with 100s, if not 1,000s, of websites all vowing for a piece of the market, making it all the more difficult to make your site stand out.

Below we will take a look at some various personal trainer website ideas that will give you an edge on the competition and help you to progress your personal training career and personal brand to heights you never thought possible.

Effective Website Marketing from Other Popular Personal Trainers

A good place to start for personal trainer website ideas is to look at what some other successful trainers have done with their sites. Here are some examples of marketing strategies and designs that help them convert website visitors into clients.

Email Lead Capture

Did you know that 91 percent of consumers check their email daily, 74 percent prefer to receive communications via email, and 66 percent have a made a purchase as a result of an email marketing message?

These are just a few of the amazing statistics behind email marketing that make it so important to your success. When a potential lead visits your site, odds are they won’t just pick up the phone and schedule a meeting with you.

However, if you can capture their email you can continue to stay in front of them with your blog or other interesting workout-related content and eventually build their trust.

Here are a few examples of email lead capture from other personal xenical in usa trainers that are a good idea to implement into your personal training website:

Examples of Email Lead Capture

Right when you get to the http://tonygentilcore.com/ website one of the first things you see is your opportunity to get “fresh content.” A blog subscription is one of the ways Tony is getting leads who, over time, will learn to trust Tony while he stays top-of-mind each time they get an email with great content from him.

Another example of effective email lead capture is from the http://www.ericcressey.com/ website. Right when you get to the homepage this popup comes up with a free offer incentivizing something valuable – a free deadlift tutorial – in exchange for your email.

Podcast Lead Capture

If blog writing or the creation of video tutorials is not your thing, consider doing what http://www.jcdfitness.com/ did and create a podcast. You’ll be able to speak your mind and do things like JC where you field questions from your audience.

Plus you can post podcasts on iTunes and get even more exposure from searches there. Learn more about starting a podcast and marketing it here.

Use Social Proof

Although most new sites or trainers won’t have the kind of media exposure as John Romaniello of Roman Fitness Systems, any indications of your credibility as a personal trainer will help earn the trust of potential clients visiting your site.

This site, and many others, use the “As seen in” section in a place that is visible on their homepage to build instant credibility.

Social proof is not just limited to media exposure however, nearly any personal trainer can take advantage of the type of social proof that personal trainer Neghar Fonooni establishes on her http://www.negharfonooni.com/ site.

She uses testimonials to showcase what real people have said about her and backs up her results with actual before and after pictures of clients. This way her results can speak for themselves.

The Call-to-Action (CTA)

The CTA of a website is one of the most important components. It has been said that the average person now has the attention span of about 2.5 seconds, less than that of a goldfish.

When someone lands on your website you need to do two things, fast:

Let them know what your site’s all about (in under 3 seconds)
Tell them what to do next

Let’s look at some examples of sites that have strong CTAs.

The site http://jasonferruggia.com/ has a really simple, yet genius homepage that helps Jason do a few things:

The “Why You’re Not Making Any Gains” appeals to people who can relate to that and lets them know what the site is all about – helping clients get gains.
The huge “Get Exclusive Content” button tells you exactly what you will be getting if you subscribe to the blog.
By subscribing, Jason is also gathering lead information.
Below the lead capture section we also see the often used social proof element of “As featured in…” that adds credibility.

Good job Jason!

Again we look at the Roman Fitness Systems site, one of my favorites in terms of leading the customer down a path. For personal trainers who are just starting out or are not selling specific workout materials or products online, this is a good site to emulate.

In terms of the CTA, there are two:

“Start Here”: It’s so simple yet efficient at helping guide people through the site. If you are a trainer and want to let people know where to find out more information about you, use your own “start here” button to lead them down your sales path.
Two options: Also very simply done is the option to either get hot or get huge. This too is a CTA that helps lead people down a very specific sales path.

One thing you may have noticed from the above examples is that some personal trainers monetize their sites in different ways. That is something you’ll also have to consider when building your website.

Deciding on the Type of Site You Want
to Promote

Just like there are different types of personal trainers there can be different types of personal training websites. Obviously there can be some overlap between different areas of health and fitness but it’s usually easier to start narrow and deep rather than go broad and shallow.

Here are the three main types of personal trainer sites that you’ll want to consider and an explanation of their purpose:

Client-centric and local: this is the type of site you’ll want to build if your goal is to get new personal training clients in your local area.
Topic-specific: these sites focus on specific topics – like strength training, weight loss or bodybuilding – and usually have some type of monetization strategy that doesn’t involve one-on-one or group personal training.
Brand-specific: the other type of personal training site is the brand-specific site. As the name implies, these are for brands with multiple trainers and/or facilities.

Client-centric and Local Personal Trainer Websites

With this type of website your main goal is to have people who are searching for personal trainers to find you or to have a place to collect leads. Here are some tips to have success with this type of website:

Get a professionally-designed personal training website: your website is a reflection of your brand and is also a reflection of the type of work you provide. If you have a badass website with cool pictures, lots of information on your process and other trust-building signals, you’ll look as if you have a successful personal training business even if you’re just starting out.
Don’t just build a site, build your personal brand: when building your client-facing site, you’ll have to consider how you’ll sell your fitness theory. This means having your website describe the following items so that clients know what to expect from you and can get excited about working with you:
- What health means to you
- What your daily routine is to promote health
- What you eat and why
- Your strategies to create a new habit or behavior
- What exercises you use to get in the best shape
Marketing your website (SEO): the easy way to market your website is through your personal interactions, with business cards and through word-of-mouth referrals. But the long-term and personal-training-website-marketing-that-should-be-on-your-radar will come in the form of what’s called search engine optimization, or SEO. SEO, a form of marketing that sees your website will be found by people who are searching for personal trainers on search engines, is like personal training for websites. It helps them get strong, get attention, and become sexy in the eyes of Google. SEO will be one of your greatest assets if you are trying to get new clients on a continual basis.

For an example of a client-centric personal training website check out http://www.eddielester.com/, the website of Fitness Mentors founder Eddie Lester. Eddie’s site does a few things right: first, it is clear that it was designed by professionals and not by amateurs. Second, Eddie’s website focuses on images to tell the picture of what he is selling.

Thirdly, Eddie has a robust About page that talks about his background and as well as his certifications.

Fourth, Eddie makes good use of the services page and speaks about the services that are unique to his business. He also mentions his price points, something that most potential clients will want to know right off the bat.

Finally, Eddie adds social proof with an up-to-date testimonial page. His contact information is also clearly displayed so that people can get in touch with him via phone, email or through social media.

Topic-specific Personal Training Websites

One of the other, and perhaps most competitive, of personal training websites are the ones that cover specific topics. You know these sites well because the popular ones come up again and again when you do fitness-related searches.

These types of sites include, for example, Bodybuilding.com, MuscleandFitness.com, Shape.com and the more individualized versions of these sites like RomanFitnessSystems.com or JillianMicheals.com.

The difference between these websites and client-centric sites is that they create revenues in a different way than individual or group personal training sessions. In other words you can’t actually hire the trainers on these sites, they exist to sell you on something else.

What do these topic-specific sites sell? Let’s take a closer look at the examples of the sites to see if any of these relate to what you’d like to achieve:

com: Sells supplements from is online store.
com: Sells advertisements and magazine subscriptions as well as supplements.
com: Sells advertisements and magazine subscriptions.
com: Sells online coaching, books and gadgets.
com: Sells diet and exercise plans and ads.

While many of these sites feature personal trainers, the end goal of the sites is not to help the visitor’s book sessions with them. The personal trainers are mainly responsible for the content on the site or have a reputation that they use to sell products they put their names on.

If you are not yet a big name personal trainer but want to create a website that is monetized some other way, here are some website ideas that will get you on your way:

Amazing personal training websites start and end with great content: with the exception of Jillian Michaels site, all of the abovementioned sites all got to where they were by creating amazing content. Take Bodybuilding.com for example, do a Google search for almost any topic on workouts and you’ll find them in the first or second spot. This is because their content is superior to almost anything else on the web. This doesn’t only apply to written form, they also have loads of videos, pictures, graphs and illustrations to make their content even more appealing. Furthermore, the writers on their site are true authorities in the health and fitness field which only leads to their credibility.

If you are going to create a website with the goal of selling products or ads, you can follow Bodybuilding.com’s model of putting the content on your shoulders and moving ahead from there.

Outreach is just as important as content creation: after you begin to create really great content for your website you’ll want to start the outreach portion. Unlike in Field of Dreams, the “if you build it they will come” idea doesn’t work on websites. One way to start is to spread the word on social media but where you’ll really have success is by forming relationships with other personal trainers who have bigger networks. Asking them to share your content on their social networks is one way to get more eyeballs on your content and to expand the reach of your content.

Traffic is the Most Important Thing for Monetizing Topic-specific Personal Training Websites

The amount of visitors you get to any website is important but this is especially true for these topical sites. This is because the amount of ads you sell, or the amount of meal plans you sell, or the amount of books you sell, etc. will depend on your ability to drive big numbers of visitors to your site.

For comparison sake, the personal trainer who gets 1,000 people to visit their site will probably gain the interest of about 10%, or 100 of those people. Then, only about 10% of those 100, or 10 people might actually reach out to that personal trainer. If he or she is a good closer, they can expect to turn 10% of those 10, or 1, into a client.

But one new client a month for a personal trainer is probably something that could sustain a business that already had a decent number of clients (but not an entirely new business).

With a topic-specific personal training site you’ll need to have a lot more traffic to keep the money coming in which is why these types of sites are amongst the most challenging. As a rule of thumb, you’ll probably need to get your topic-specific personal training website into the 100,000 visitors per month range before you really start monetizing it.

For comparisons sake, Bodybuilding.com gets about 26 million hits per month and RomanFitnessSystems.com about 200,000 based on traffic estimates from https://www.websiteiq.com/.

In this case, you’ll probably also want to invest in search engine optimization marketing if you are looking to monetize your site.

Brand-specific Personal Training Websites

These are the types of websites that are for multi-trainer personal training companies or for the personal trainer who has aspirations of growing their business beyond themselves.

Like the client-centric sites, these tend to market to clients in the local area but can grow to farther reaching chains not unlike a CrossFit or similar gym. These sites can also venture into group training or other trendy workout movements like yoga, Pilates or even sport-specific training.

Because the focus of these types of businesses tends to be narrow and deep, these websites should focus on the following approach:

A full explanation of the benefits: when people look for a specific type of training they are either a) very interested in that type of training and need to be persuaded why they will try it for the first time with you, or b) already love this type of training but need a reason to visit your facility/gym/experience to convince them it may be better than what they have done before.
Lots of pictures: going along with the above, making the change to your business is going to take some visuals of your operations to help seal the deal. Your website should be highly visual with professional-grade photographs of your equipment, people doing exercises and perhaps most importantly, the trainers who dedicate their lives to helping others.

You’ll Want Online Exposure Here Too

Yup, it’s that word again, SEO, the one you knew was coming. If you want more exposure than what you’re going to get from word-of-mouth you’ll want to take advantage of search engine optimization.

SEO will help you to rank for your specific services so that people who want them and don’t know about your brand will find you, call you and contribute to your continued success.

Personal Training Website Ideas Recap

Now you have learned a few things about personal trainer websites. You should be able to take this knowledge and decide the type of lead capture, marketing tools or call-to-actions you want to use.

You should also know the type of personal trainer website you want: local, topic-specific or brand-specific.

With these fundamentals you’ll be able to build a better website and a better career. Don’t forget, you can get a professionally-made website from a name you can trust – Fitness Mentors.

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NASM Reviews: Personal Trainer Certifications – CES, CNC, PES, WLS, MMAS, GPT, YES, WFS, SFS, GFS

NASM Reviews: Personal Trainer Certifications –
CES, FNS, PES, WLS, MMAS, GPT, YES, WFS, SFS, GFS

Last Modified On: April 23, 2024

Watch Our Video: ACE vs NASM: Which CPT is Right for You?

NASM Reviews

Certified Personal Trainer, CPT The NASM-CPT is the most widely chosen certification among fitness professionals, making it the most widely accepted in the industry. As a future personal trainer it is important to align yourself with the most reputable certification and we believe that NASM is just that, which is why we are giving you an objective way to learn about NASM reviews.

The way that you receive your CPT credential is by passing the NASM CPT Exam. This is done by learning the information from the NASM CPT Textbook that is most relevant to succeeding as a personal trainer. NASM will provide you with education packages ranging from $800 – $2500 dollars, but most people agree that their education is confusing, which is probably why the pass rate is at 79% (proctored/accredited) and 90% (non-proctored/non-accredited).

The best and least expensive way to pass their exam and learn the information you need to be successful, is by taking our Free NASM Study Course (we use to charge $500 for this course) and then purchasing the exam and textbook separately. Our course goes into specific detail regarding what makes it onto the test so you can better prepare yourself for what to expect. The course also adds real world experiences and examples that teach you how to use the material to train your clients more effectively. Whichever way you chose to learn, the NASM certification should be your top choice as it is accepted at almost any training facility.

Other NASM Reviews for Specialty Certifications

Extra Credentials are like super setting your favorite two body parts, it pumps you up! (insert Arnold voice). When you are already a NASM Certified Trainer, I highly recommend focusing your continuing education on sales or sticking with their other certifications, as they transfer to equal the amount of CEU’s you need to recertify (1.9 CEU’s + 0.1 CEU for CPR). When choosing your additional certs, think purpose. What credential is going to make you more valuable to the type of clientele you want to attract? Below is an honest breakdown:

Corrective Exercise Specialist, CES:

Train people in pain

The CES certification is far and away NASM’s best cert, as you will learn extremely applicable information. It forces you to understand origins of pain and how to fix it. My biggest concern with my training was learning how to always progress in strength, athleticism and body image, while avoiding any training associated injury. Here’s the truth, if you don’t have perfect flexibility and muscle balance, you are on your way to finding injury. In the CES materials you learn about all the mobility issues that can lead to these injuries. Beyond this, the value you can build knowing and understanding your clients’ pain is immense. Imagine you look at the most basic movement patterns of someone in their everyday life and are able to tell them about how their overactive Pec Major is giving them that shoulder pain they have been dealing with for months. They are blown away. Another great thing about this cert is that the test you have to pass, which is NASM’s hardest by far, makes sure you have completed your studies and understand these difficult topics. All of this combined makes the Corrective Exercise Specialist Certification a true educational experience that is held to the highest standard.

Certified Nutrition Coach, CNC:

With a huge mess of information out there on nutrition, it is extremely important to be able to differentiate the good from the bad. When put simply we can say things like, avoid processed food; eat whole foods; avoid Trans fats, but we need to understand why these things are important. The Certified Nutrition Coach by NASM takes a detailed college level textbook and goes to town on understanding everything you need to know about PRO, CHO and FAT, as well as all of the vitamins and minerals, what they do and where to get them. Although there is no definitive way to eat (some may argue otherwise), being able to analyze the true nutritional content of what you are eating and understand why you are eating it, the knowledge gained through the Certified Nutrition Coach will help you to boost your own and your clients’ fitness goals.

Performance Enhancement Specialist, PES:

Unless you are planning on focusing your fitness career in sports specific training or you are a competitive athlete yourself, the Performance Enhancement Specialist may be of little use. The market for sports training is not a large one, and typically caters to high school and college aged clientele, which usually don’t have room in their budget for private training. It’s not too frequent that business men come to personal trainers looking to become a better running back or shortstop. In review of what you are learning there are great things about the PES. Through the assessments chapter you are introduced to some great sports specific assessments that can expand your repertoire when considering performance as a goal. Also they have a great Olympic Lifting chapter that is essential to understand for improving explosiveness and power in sports that have those needs. Same goes for the plyometric chapter. If you like understanding concepts behind why these types of training will benefit athleticism, then the science based information throughout the book will be a great resource. Overall the PES is great, but remember it has a very specific and small market. Certifications to explore that will benefit your sports based training knowledge would be the USA-Weightlifting’s (USAW) Sports Performance Coach and National Strength and Conditioning Association’s (NSCA) Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist. These certifications are very focused on the college and pro level setting and it would not be easy to carry out their training programs in your typical commercial gym.

Weight Loss Specialist, WLS:

I may sound a little harsh towards this certification, only because they beat the law of thermodynamics to death (calories in vs calories out). When will NASM jump off the government recommended nutrition band wagon and realized there is more to altering body composition; ie. Hormonal Optimization, Macronutrient Ratios, and eating low inflammatory profile foods to name a few. Unfortunately they don’t discuss any alternative methods to weight loss, and just repeat what you already know, to slightly more detail. I do have to say that having this title will make you sound great, but recognize your investment in furthering your education provides little return.

Mixed Martial Arts Specialist, MMAS:

Is this your target audience? Then get it. Similar to the Weight loss Specialist, if you expect to get great insight into how to train someone like MMA fighters you are understandably misled. Mixed Martial Artists are athletes and you are better off applying the PES principles to understand and program toward the demand of the sport, rather than take them through circuit training with added kicks, knees and elbows. I really only see this as a clever way to capitalize on the recent MMA influenced fitness training boom. Once again the education is lacking, so the title is all you’re really paying for.

Group Personal Training Specialist, GPT:

Did you know that no gyms require you to have this to train their group exercise classes? I can only see this benefiting you in a few ways; one of them being that you’re starting a boot camp or private group class and want to bring attention to the fact that you are qualified, and the other being that you really suck at training groups and you need more insight, which is unlikely. If you fall into one of these categories I guess you could try it?

Women’s Fitness Specialist, WFS:

If this is your target market, adding this certification may be of value. It dives a bit deeper into the uniqueness of female clients including monthly cycles and hormonal factors. Sounds okay but you decide. I will be waiting for the Men’s Fitness Specialist to arrive. Any day now…

Youth Exercise Specialist, YES:

Teach them how to play and perform speed, agility and quickness drills. Once again if this is your target market it may hold value. The special considerations for youth can be found in chapter 16 in the NASM Essentials of Personal Fitness Training Textbook. The additional information in this cert does not add to much benefit beyond what the basic standards are for youth training.

Senior Fitness Specialist, SFS:

Great title if this is your main focus for your business. Besides that your money is better spent on the CES, learning ways to address musculoskeletal pain.

Golf Fitness Specialist, GFS:

Do you already kick ass at golf? Is this your Target Market? I love golf. If you love golf this does provide some great baseline knowledge for you to build upon in the real world, but check out the Titleist Performance Institute if you are serious about getting to golf training.

Highly Recommended: CES, CNC, PES

Honorable Mention: MMAS, WLS

Convinced NASM is the way to go?

Your next steps for NASM certification:

Get Fitness Mentors’ Free NASM CPT Study Course
Begin Your Studies Using the Fitness Mentors’ 4 & 8-week Study Timeline
Purchase NASM’s Cheapest Study Package Here
Begin Your Career as a NASM Certified Personal Trainer!

Written by:

Eddie Lester BS, NASM-CPT, CES, PES, FNS, WLS, MMAS, GFS, YES, SFS

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The 5 Hardest NASM CPT Test Questions (and Answers)

The NASM CPT exam is notorious for being one of the most difficult fitness certification exams out there. They purposely try to make it difficult in many ways, like reaching into the depths of the text book to locate the one sentence where that test question can be found [take our free NASM CPT Exam Study Course and we’ll show you each sentence]. They also have many questions that you must truly understand the concept to get right. Regardless of the reason for these questions being hard, let us help you by explaining the top 5 hardest questions from the NASM CPT Exam. (This has been updated to reflect the newest version of the exam: Version 6)

If you haven’t yet purchased a NASM Study Package click here to receive 30% off.
If you want an in depth review of the NASM CPT Exam click here.

BONUS!

Try our free NASM Practice Test below to see how you’d fair on the real exam:

1 Which of the following is released into the synaptic terminal to stimulate muscular contraction?

Calcium
Troponin
Acetylcholine
Actin

To immediately analyze this question, it is a science-based and from chapter two, which they do point out in their study guide. Specifically, they tell you to memorized Figure 2.38. When memorizing this chart, the answer is only 1 of the 10 steps in initiating a muscular contraction. All of the above answers are also located in this chart, making it that much more difficult. Thirdly, the actual answer is abbreviated in the text, making you second guess yourself. All of these answers participate in muscular contraction, but the key words you must look at in the question is the ‘synaptic terminal’, as this will tell you which part of the muscular contraction they are focusing on.

Answer: C : Acetylcholine

2 Anything asking you about Altered Length Tension Relationships or Altered Force Couple Relationships.

To vent a smidge, they don’t tell you what these topics are when you are reading in the book. They discuss the Length Tension Relationship and Force Couple, but never define what an altered version of either actually is. Yes, you could say its common sense, but the way they ask the questions leaves a little room for argument as to what the correct answer is. For example, “When the feet turn out due to tightness in the calves, which of the following has occurred? A. Altered Reciprocal Inhibition B. Altered Length Tension Relationship C. Altered Force Couple Relationship D. Muscle Imbalance”. Well we definitely know that this is an example of a muscle imbalance. But by definition, which they do not have in the book, misaligned joints or poor posture is an Altered Length Tension Relationship. This is your correct answer. My guess is they are trying to get you to use the principles they discuss as opposed to just saying it is a muscle imbalance. Tough stuff, but you just got it right for reading this.

3 Which muscle can internally rotate the hip when the foot is in the planted position touching the floor?

Gluteus Maximus
Adductor Longus
TFL
Vastus Medialis

Overall just a tough question as this would require you to memorize all the concentric actions of most the muscles in Appendix D. Luckily they don’t ask many muscle action questions, so don’t waste too much time, but knowing the basics to the larger muscles can help. In the back of the book the TFL does perform internal rotation, but adding, “when the foot is in the planted position touching the floor” throws most people off. The others are going to be external rotators of the hip or perform no rotation of the hip at all. The TFL is also associated with many muscle imbalances, so be aware this is not the only place that the TFL makes an appearance on the NASM CPT Test.

4 Which exercise follows the Half Foam Roll in the lower extremity proprioceptive progression continuum?

Bosu Ball
Balance Beam
Foam Pad
Balance Disc

This question is one of the questions that point to a very specific section of the book that you would not think to memorize. Most of us have some basic training sense that would give us a good guess, but the answer can be found in table 10.1 in Balance Training Program Design section. The correct answer is the Foam Pad, but noting the asterisk at the bottom, “theses modalities come in many shapes and sizes that will dictate proper progression”. This tricks many test takers as the balance disk and foam pad are tough to choose from when thinking of the next progression logically. Studying the right material is sometimes better than relying on logic, (insert shameless plug here) and that’s why we highly encourage checking out Free Fitness Mentors Study Guide for the NASM CPT Exam.

5 Which of the following supplements have the greatest potential for excess dosage in adults?

Selenium, Magnesium, Vitamin D and Thiamin
Vitamin A, Vitamin D, Iron and Zinc
Vitamin A, Iodine, Potassium, Vitamin K
Vitamin E, Vitamin B12, Biotin and Manganese

Uggghhhh. Pure agony. Of course you studied this, right? Well you know a few that might be considered toxic in excess amounts, but you can’t recall all of them can you? I know the feeling and this one gets most all test takers. Looking to Chapter 18 – Nutrition and Supplementation. You’re going to find this in the first two paragraphs after Table 18.3 – Comparison of Dietary Reference Intake Values (for adult men and women) and Daily Values for Micronutrients with the Tolerable Upper Intake Levels, Safe Upper Levels, and Guidance Levels; they couldn’t have named that chart any better. Every supplement has the potential for excess dosage when taken in extreme amounts, but NASM is looking to make sure you know the ones that are most common for our society, eating the American diet. Looking at the paragraph below Table 18.3, they list 3 vitamins and 2 minerals that specifically that can cause serious adverse effects, which are Vitamins A, D, B6, Iron and Zinc.

These questions will now be a ton easier once they show up on the test. 5 questions down, 115 to go. NASM can pull questions from any sentence in the book which makes the 600+ pages daunting for the unmotivated reader (Our Free Audio Lectures take you page by page through the text and explain everything to make this process easier). Check out more of our tips and tricks to passing the exam by signing up to receive the “5 Secrets to Passing Your NASM CPT Exam”. Also if you need more help we have some great premium materials, like our Practice Tests for the NASM CPT Exam that make this test a breeze. Check them out here. (If you can score above a 108 out of 120 on all three of our practice final exams you are ready to test.)

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Setting Your Prices Correctly as a Personal Trainer

The goal of becoming a certified personal trainer is to make a living as one.

Location: how where you work affects your rates

Consider how much your clients expect to pay based on the rates in your city.

Economy: a thriving economy merits higher prices than a downturn

Target population: set a price that is attainable to them to entice sales

Cost to train client: the investments you make for training are passed on to the client

Self-worth: believing what you charge is worth every penny

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How Personal Trainers Will Know When They’re Ready to Open a Gym

Assumptions about Personal Trainers who are Considering Opening a Gym

Financial Development Considerations for Future Gym Owners

Basic Income Rule of Thumb:

Leasing Space: how big, how much?

Equipment: how much, lease or buy?

Utilities: what are your fixed costs?

Insurance: what types do I need?

Build-out Costs: what is it and what are your limitations?

Marketing and Advertising: how much will this set you back compared to ROI?

Staff- do I need them and how much do I pay them?

Personal Development Considerations for Future Gym Owners

Do you have drive?

Do you have what it takes to open a gym?

Are you good at saving money?

Are you willing to sacrifice your free time?

Are you a social butterfly?

Business Skillsets for Future Gym Owners

Accounting

Negotiation

Understanding Contracts

Marketing

Investing in the right assistance

Time management

Common sense

Passion for what you do

Are You Ready to Start Your Gym?

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The 5 Best Continuing Education Courses for Personal Trainers

If you know more about your craft, you can further assist the people paying for your services.

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