Can you make money as a health and fitness professional?
When it comes to being a personal training, coach, or gym owner, many people think they can start a new business and tell a few people that they are now a qualified fitness professional that can help them “get fit” or ”become the best version of themselves.” Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. It’s even harder to build an online business with this approach.
Let’s start with who am I to tell you about building a successful and profitable career in the health and fitness industry?
I’ve worked in the health and fitness business for over a decade and delivered my fair share of one-to-one sessions, group classes, and online training programs.
I’ve worked in a large chain gym. I’ve hired a personal training studio and built a successful personal training business.
I’ve owned and managed a successful gym business of 250-300members and ten staff.
I’ve coached professional athletes to an international level.
I’ve built an online training business, and I’ve recently started a mentoring program called Protect The Asset for health and fitness professionals looking to create fulfilment, freedom and financial abundance.
I know what it means to work in the health and fitness industry, and I know what it takes to succeed. I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way, and I’m still learning. I’m a big believer in the statement, “the day you stop learning is the day you should stop coaching." As Charles Poliquin would say, “You must learn more to earn more."
There are many reasons why working in the health and fitness industry can be a real financial struggle:
Our salary is not set; we only get paid when we are training clients
The salary can fluctuate depending on the season.
Clients cancelling session
There are no overtime rates.
There is no sick leave.
There is no holiday pay.
There is often no pension.
Is a competitive industry that rewards quantity over quality
There are a lot of limitations, but there is also a lot of opportunities. Not every coach can make good money, and not every coach is successful. There is a 40% annual turnover rate among health and fitness professionals — meaning that by this time next year, four in ten will have left a field they were once deeply passionate about. The struggle is real.
What is the difference between a successful health and fitness professional and those that fail to make the cut?
If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you must consider what it takes to succeed in business. You can sign up to as many courses and workshops as you like, you can read as many books as you like, you can accumulate an abundance of training and health-related knowledge. But, if you don’t know how to run a business, you will struggle to survive in the fitness game. Not only do you need to learn more to earn more, but you also need to learn how to run a business. Most health and fitness professionals know an awful lot about exercise, nutrition, sleep, and stress management, but they know very little about building a successful brand.
When you become a personal training, a coach, or a gym owner, you are becoming a business. You are an entrepreneur. You are a brand owner. You might be thinking that you became a coach to help people, and your skillset is purely based on training and health. How many health and fitness entrepreneurs understand what it takes to run a successful brand? We spend a lot of time working IN our business and not a lot of time working ON our business.
The great news is, the health and fitness industry is booming. As a society, we are fatter and sicker than we have ever been before, and the health and fitness industry has a pivotal role in helping people create and sustain healthy lifestyle habits. People want to improve their health, and they are willing to pay good money for it.
In the beginning, we often make the mistake of training anybody that walks in the door. We are often broke AF, and we need to train as many clients as possible to pay the bills and increase our coaching experience. Right? This is a BIG mistake that the majority of health and fitness entrepreneurs make, they position themselves to train everybody, and in doing so, they become the same as 95% of health and fitness professionals. They do not stand out; they are just another fish in the big blue ocean.
If you don’t want to become another statistic, you would be wise to invest in self-discovery to figure out WHO you are as a coach and WHO your best clients are. What is your Unique Ability? What are your strengths? What are your values? What are your purpose, visions, and goals?
The more you’re able to recognise and develop your inner coach, the more freedom, happiness and success you’ll experience.
Do you have specific clients that you enjoy training?
The clients that show-up every session and appreciate your support and guidance. The clients who are willing to experiment with you suggest and who continue to move closer to their health and fitness goals.
OR
Do you have clients who don’t seem to be making any progress because they’re not ready to experiment with healthy behaviour changes? The clients who play the victim and often complain about a lack of time, a lack of motivation, a lack of resources, a lack of progress, etc.
Which clients do you prefer to work with? Imagine all of your clients are in group one. How would this impact your job satisfaction? How would you feel if all of your clients were making progress and feeling optimistic about working with you as a health and fitness professional? By choosing the clients you work with, you can increase your productivity and become a subject matter expert that people will seek out and pay good money to work with.
How do you become a subject matter expert?
Do you know what your unique abilities are? Do you know what your strengths as a fitness entrepreneur are? Do you know what your values are? What is your purpose, visions and goals? WHO are you as a coach? Do you employ staff? Do you know what their unique abilities are? Do you know their strengths and talents? How are you intensifying your team to show up and be the face of your business? As business owners, our success depends on the coaches that work face-to-face with our members.
How often do you look internally and ask yourself powerful questions about the type of coach or business owner you want to be? Do you “walk-the-talk” or are you merely going through the motions, stuck in survival mode like 95% of health and fitness professionals?
Many people in today’s world focus almost entirely on what’s wrong with them – their problems, their struggles, and their stressors – and often lose sight of what is good and strong in them. But, there’s much more to life than problems. Knowing your talents and abilities is a way for you to take a strengths-based approach in life, and will help you shift your focus from what’s wrong to what’s strong.
A strength-based approach:
• Is honest - acknowledges problems, but doesn’t get lost in them
• Is positive (focuses on what is best and good)
• Is empowering (encourages and advances the individual)
• Is energising (uplifts and fuels the person)
• Is connecting (brings the person closer to others, aiding in mutual connection)
Our strengths are part of our identity; they uniquely make you ”you.” Our strengths give us a sense of authenticity when we are expressing them, and if we are not able to utilise our strengths, we can feel that something is missing. If we can not successfully use our strengths, we are very unlikely to accomplish the things we want to achieve in life, and we often lack motivation. Utilising our strengths will increase our productivity and leave us feeling engaged and energised.
By applying our strengths, we can produce outcomes we want while having a sense of personal authenticity and engagement that will help us contribute to the betterment of those around us.
Once you know WHO you are as a coach, you have the power to decide who you work with. You have the ability to say “no” to the clients who do not align with your coaching identity. Choosing the right clients to work with is essential in building a sustainable fitness business that offers job satisfaction and financial abundance. This can be a hard concept to swallow, so let me explain further…
It may seem counter-intuitive to limit your services to a particular client niche. How can you turn away clients when you have bills to pay? However, being a generalist in the health and fitness industry makes building a reputable brand hard work. Most health and fitness professionals are generalists - they do not have a niche - which means you are competing with 95% of the industry. You are a needle in a haystack - something that is impossible or extremely difficult to find.
Being a generalist and working with various clients is not the best way to set up a health and fitness business. How can you possibly stand out as a professional if 95% of the fitness industry targets the general fitness audience?
Let’s say you are a trainer who has high levels of empathy, you are very patient, you love learning about anatomy, and you’ve done a lot of research on injury rehabilitation due to your injuries in the past. You enjoy working with clients who are recovering from injury. You have trusted connections with a physio, chiropractor, sports masseuse, and acupuncturists. Your unique ability is empathy, patience, attention to detail, building trusted partnerships, and working with injuries. You would wise to build a career based on your strengths and work with clients that need injury rehabilitation. If you can help these clients recover, they will trust you to take care of them, and they will often stay on as long-term clients.
Think of it this way. If you were struggling with lower back pain and you had the choice of picking one of these three trainers...
Trainer one: “I help people with injuries get relief through sustainable training and holistic lifestyle practices.”
Trainer two: “I help you take your health to the next level.”
Trainer three: “I help you to become the best version of yourself."
Which one would you go for? Trainer one is going to appeal to you because they are marketing to your needs, injury rehabilitation. Understanding your unique ability can help you determine WHO you are as a coach and the type of clients you enjoy working with. This will not only make your marketing easier, but it will help you get more ideal clients faster and allows you to charge more because you stand out as the expert in this specific area.
The benefits don’t stop there. If you are working with a specific type of client, you can spend more of your time research and building content that supports your audience. You can attend courses and workshops that offer knowledge and skills that apply to your client niche. You can ignore the seminars and workshops that are not related to your audience, making it easier to choose what you invest your time and money towards.
The content you create for your blog posts, social media accounts, YouTube videos, or podcasts can be targeted towards your ideal clients. Your experience and knowledge will continue to grow as you work with these clients and listen to their needs. This flows back into your research and marketing as the needs of your audience are the arrows that point you towards the common problems your clients are trying to overcome.
Why did they choose to train with you?
What problems have they faced in the past?
How does your training method support and guide clients to overcome these problems?
What do they enjoy about training with you?
How can you improve your service over time? What areas are lacking?
Besides exercise, what additional services can you upset to your clients (nutrition guidance, rest and recovery tips, stress management tools, social connections, seminars, etc.
Client’s don’t stay awake at night wondering how they can improve their general fitness levels.
What keeps your specific clients up at night?
What are the problems they need help with?
What are the search terms they are reaching for?
By building a sounds understanding of your client's problems and needs, you can start to connect the dots and improve the quality of your service.
Can you see how this helps you build a reputable brand?
When it comes to building a sustainable health and fitness business, you need to know WHO you are as a coach - what are your unique abilities, strengths, talents, values, purpose, vision and goals? How can you use your strengths daily to build a business that delivers freedom, fulfilment and financial abundance?
As I mentioned at the start of this video, I’ve been in the health and fitness industry for many years, and I’ve worked in many different roles. Over the last few years, I’ve been mentoring personal trainers, coaches and gym owners to create fulfilment, freedom and financial abundance. It's hard to “walk the talk” in an industry that promotes health but fails to support it.
Gym owners, personal trainers and coaches feel their true purpose is being overshadowed by the fast, fun, and easy approach to fitness. We struggle to find joy in our work as we lack financial security and career growth. Our health and dreams of a balanced lifestyle are on hold as we allow the agendas of others to dictate our lives. When will we find the courage to be authentic and work towards our visions and goals?
Success in our industry starts with protecting our number one asset. Through self-discovery, we can build healthy, sustainable habits. With integrity, we can enhance our self-worth and self-motivation. When we learn to protect the asset, we start to lead by example and cultivate more pleasure in our lives. As health and fitness professionals, we want to help as many people as possible, but we don't want to compromise our health and relationships in the process.
In level 1 of the Protect The Asset course, I work with health and fitness professionals to uncover their unique ability, their strengths and values, and their purpose, visions, and goals. Together we work to implement sustainable behaviour change and create new habits that support our health, happiness, and career success.
If you would like to find out more, please sign-up for a qualifying call as I’m curious to hear about your health and fitness journey and WHO you would like to be as a health and fitness professional.
