5 Steps to Going Independent in Personal Training (Part 2)

This article is a continuation of Part I, where we went over steps 1-3 in taking your personal training practice independent.  Here are the next two steps in the process.

Step 4 - Getting Clients (Believe In Yourself)

Let's talk about getting clients.  Even after you make your move to quit your personal training job and go independent, the one thing that you still need as a trainer is the real belief that it's possible to succeed on your own.  No matter how easy we call it and how many other trainers have done it, going out on your own without any clients can be very scary. I can definitely relate.  That's the one thing of which I assure other trainers - here are the three things that were the gist of the advice I typically give to newly independent personal trainers.

1.  If you can do it in a gym you can do it solo.

If you've been struggling in a gym until now, fighting with other trainers for leads, always under the pressure of a quota, and having to train a ton of hours, then you can surely make it solo - it's in fact much easier than working for someone else in a typical gym environment.

2.  Push new clients hard for leads.

To be a successful solo trainer, you don't need all of the aggressive ninja hard sell and referral tactics -- those all have their place, but this level can be a more laid back and easy game.  But that doesn't take away from the fact that you do need to be aggressive, and that's most important when starting out.  You need to push to turn one client into two, then two into four, four into eight, etc. Every successful personal trainer will tell you about the one client that brought in tons of referrals and got their whole business started - you need to cultivate this type of phenomenon so you can get tons of clients without spending money on marketing costs.  Leads from referrals are free.

3.  Set training hour and income goals on a weekly basis.

You need to set a goal of how many hours you want to train and how much you want to make, and then push to hit that number.  Reschedule missed client sessions immediately, book sessions frequently, and if you have an hour already taken, then double it up and run a semi-private session - whatever it takes, get your sessions in! A session is money for us trainers, so the more sessions you can get in, the more you'll make.

Step 5 - Hustle

Once you made the clean break from the gym, you'll find that you have a ton of free time on your hands.  This is the time to hustle. There are a lot of on people and places to tap - you can find these places on your own, if you look in the right spots.

Time Management

The one thing I often remind new trainer about is the importance of time management.  It's very easy to waste a lot of time and gas driving around pursuing pointless things during this phase.  Instead, use the phone and tie down appointments and do as much detective work as possible.  Time management is most important for trainers - watching every minute, if for no other reason than so that you have more time to really take off, and do the things you want to do, which is what this is all about anyway.

If you were on the fence, I hope that shows you this is definitely something anyone can do.