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The Business of Personal Training
280 Pages
Running a personal training business is not easy. From marketing and sales to budgets, staffing, and clientele issues there is much to consider. Getting it right takes time—time that you would probably rather spend improving your clients' fitness and wellness. The Business of Personal Training walks you through the business-based side of personal training while teaching you the valuable skills you'll need to start, build, and grow your business. Whether you are a personal trainer working for a fitness facility, an independent contractor, or the owner of a personal training business, you will benefit from the practical business guidelines and tools presented in this book.
Divided into two main parts, The Business of Personal Training will first give you an understanding of the various roles open to you and the expectations in each. The second part will lead you through key business concepts designed to grow your business. You'll learn how to structure your business, plan for startup expenses and financing, and get the right staff in place. You'll find critical information on marketing and promoting the services you offer, effectively selling and generating revenue, driving referral business and customer loyalty, and expanding and diversifying your business. Two appendixes offer sample templates and forms:
• Nine business plan templates: cover letter, executive summary, business or company description, market analysis and demographics, competitive analysis, management plan, financial plan, capital required, and marketing plan
• Seven personal trainer–client forms: PAR-Q+, personal wellness profile, physician's clearance, informed consent and release, assessment recording form, cleaning checklist, and facility and equipment maintenance log
As an added bonus, a companion web resource provides the templates and forms in an electronic format so you can customize them as needed. A third appendix provides a list of business resources.
There is no need to be overwhelmed with all that goes into running your personal training business successfully. The Business of Personal Training is a comprehensive, digestible, and applicable resource that will take your business to the next level, giving you more time for what's most important.
Part I. Understanding the Roles and Responsibilities of Personal Trainers
Chapter 1. Discovering Your Purpose and the Scope of What You Can Do
Chapter 2. Choosing to Be a Personal Trainer for a Fitness Facility
Chapter 3. Choosing to Be a Self-Employed Personal Trainer
Chapter 4. Choosing to Be a Personal Trainer and Facility Owner
Part II. Learning and Applying Business Skills
Chapter 5. Creating a Business Plan
Chapter 6. Determining Your Business Structure
Chapter 7. Screening and Hiring Your Staff
Chapter 8. Obtaining the Right Insurance
Chapter 9. Determining Your Offerings and Their Pricing
Chapter 10. Developing Forms and Contracts
Chapter 11. Becoming Financially Profitable
Chapter 12. Marketing Your Services and Your Business
Chapter 13. Learning the Art of Selling
Chapter 14. Communicating With Clients, Businesses, and the Community
Chapter 15. Identifying Options for Outsourcing Your Tasks
Chapter 16. Growing Your Business
Appendix A. Business Plan Templates
Appendix B. Personal Trainer–Client Forms
Appendix C. Business Resources
Mark A. Nutting, CSCS,*D, NSCA-CPT,*D, ACSM-HFD, ACSM-CEP, RCPT*E, is known for “training the personal trainer.” He has more than 37 years of experience in personal training and health club management and over 10 years of intensive study about business practices and how to apply them to the fitness industry. Mark is an early adopter of the newest technologies and social media applications, and he is an eight-year veteran blogger to his large network of top professionals in general business and the fitness business. In 2017, Mark was designated as a Recognized Certified Personal Trainer Emeritus by the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA). He was the recipient of the 2016 Personal Fitness Professional’s Trainer of the Year Legacy Award and NSCA’s 2009 Personal Trainer of the Year Award.
Training a client in a home or office
Some clients greatly value receiving personal training at home or at the office because it saves them time that would otherwise be spent in traveling to and from the health club. Their appreciation of this benefit makes them more likely to use the services of a personal trainer.
Some clients greatly value receiving personal training at home or at the office because it saves them time that would otherwise be spent in traveling to and from the health club. Their appreciation of this benefit makes them more likely to use the services of a personal trainer.
Benefits
I have held many positions in my personal training career, including that of independent personal trainer at various gyms. Through it all, one ongoing part of my business has been to train clients in their homes, offices, or apartment-complex gyms. Training in a client's space can be a great option for the following reasons:
- You don't have to make arrangements with anyone other than your clients. Do your schedules match? If the answer is yes, then book it.
- Getting paid is simple and easy - cash, check, or credit card. To accept credit cards, you can use a card reader that attaches directly to your smartphone or tablet; for example, this service is offered by Square, Intuit GoPayment, and PayPal.
- Some apartment or condominium buildings contain their own gyms, and some clients have their own home gyms. These options may offer a good choice in terms of both equipment and relative privacy as typically only residents are allowed to use them.
Challenges
The challenges of providing personal training in a client's home or office relate to space, equipment, and travel time.
- If you don't have access to a private or semiprivate gym, then you may need to get creative by working in some very different spaces. For instance, I used to train one celebrity client at her home, which included a large, comfortable space. I have also trained people in spaces where I would need to move the coffee table in order to have enough room to work out. Of course, the available space dictates the kinds of exercises that you will be able to use with the client.
- If your clients have no access to fitness equipment, then you may need to purchase some to carry from appointment to appointment. In this case, you certainly won't be able to use a lot of traditional equipment. Alternatively, you could require your clients to purchasetheir own equipment as part of your terms for working with them. Here are some equipment choices that offer versatility, portability, and compactness for use in smaller spaces:
- Resistance bands
- Yoga mats
- Suspension trainers or devices
- Jump ropes
- Small medicine balls
- Selectorized dumbbells (not portable but compact and versatile and therefore a possibility for clients to buy for their homes)
- Another challenge is travel time. Whereas a single location would allow you to do, say, four 30-minute sessions in two hours, traveling to a client might occupy 30 minutes each way in order to conduct a single 30-minute session. That's an hour and a half of your time. With this impingement in mind, you must decide how far you're willing to travel for a client and how much to charge for travel time so that your compensation is comparable to that of working in a single place. Clients do know that they will pay more for the convenience of having you meet them at a place of their choosing. In working out these details, recognize and plan for the possibility that your travel time will vary depending on traffic, bus, or subway delays.
One of the big challenges with training clients in their homes was the distractions of home life (kids, pets, phone calls, etc.). I just had to do my best to manage the emotions and personalities that would come into play in their home space.
Joe Drake, MS, NSCA-CPT; co-owner, Gravity & Oxygen Fitness, Boca Raton, Florida
Even when you work in a client-selected space, it remains your duty to ensure that the space and equipment used are safe for your client. This responsibility includes moving loose rugs, safeguarding breakable items, and keeping animals and small children at a safe distance. Consider everything that might happen and adjust the space accordingly.
Learn more about The Business of Personal Training With Web Resource.
The importance of writing a business plan
A business plan is a detailed description of your company, its concept, how it will run, what it will cost to run, and where you want it to go. As you learn about the world of business, you may come across varied opinions about how to write a business plan or even whether it’s worth it.
A business plan is a detailed description of your company, its concept, how it will run, what it will cost to run, and where you want it to go. As you learn about the world of business, you may come across varied opinions about how to write a business plan or even whether it's worth it. For instance, you may hear skeptics say that it's just a guess - an educated guess if you've done your homework, but still a guess - so how accurate and useful can it be? What's more, we can't know anything with certainty. The zombie apocalypse could start tomorrow, and wouldn't that throw a monkey wrench into your business plan?
On the other hand, all of science starts with an educated guess in the form of a hypothesis: "I think ______ will take place when I do __________." You then test the hypothesis, and if it pans out - great! If it doesn't, you develop a new hypothesis and try again. And that's what must be done with a business plan. Once you get up and running, you refer back to it, and if things are not going as planned, then you change your plan to reflect your updated best (educated) guess.
Some discussions of how to write a business plan advise you to project your business as far as 10 years into the future. However, the further out you project, the more likely you are to be off the mark. For that reason, I favor extending your business plan only to the point where you can get started, get established, and set a direction for growth, which means about three years for most of the business options we've discussed.
Could you simply bypass the writing of a business plan? Why should you bother putting in the time and effort if you'll probably have to change it anyway? Here are two big reasons:
- A business plan enables you to start the business with a good sense of your strengths and weaknesses, the challenges that may arise due to competition or economic factors, and your chances of succeeding. If you can't make it work on paper - that is, in a business plan - then it's not going to make it in real life.
- If you need to acquire additional financing, a business plan will show potential investors that you've done your research and are willing to put in the work to make your business succeed. No savvy businessperson will invest in a casual idea that doesn't consider all of the details - good, bad, and ugly.
One final question before getting started: How long should a business plan be? Answers vary widely. Some sources say that a typical plan runs 15 to 20 pages, whereas others say it should be at least 50 pages long. My own belief is that the page count is secondary to the content. Your business plan needs to include sufficient detail in each section for you to know - and show - that you have thought through all relevant variables that can be known at this time. The number of pages then depends on what you need to say in each section. For example, if there is literally no other fitness facility within an 8- to 12-minute radius of your proposed site, then your competitive analysis section will be very short.
You can find a business plan template in appendix A and in the web resource (www.HumanKinetics.com/TheBusinessOfPersonalTraining); you can use it to develop your own business plan. In addition, each section of this chapter fleshes out part of the template. If you are thinking about starting your own personal training business, consider taking notes as you read this chapter and jotting down brainstorm ideas for your own business plan.
As mentioned in chapter 4, my wife, Heather, and I are (as I write this) in the process of opening a boutique fitness studio. Thus I use a business model very similar to ours in the following discussion of the details of writing a business plan.
Components of a Business Plan
A business plan consists of nine key components:
- Cover letter (optional)
- Executive summary
- Business or company description
- Market analysis and demographics
- Competitive analysis
- Management plan
- Financial plan
- Capital required
- Marketing plan
Learn more about The Business of Personal Training With Web Resource.
This is why insurance matters
Lawsuits can be brought against health clubs, personal trainers, and instructors. If you’d like to get a taste of the possibilities, a simple web search will provide you with many examples (see, for instance, Eickhoff-Shemek, 2013).
Lawsuits can be brought against health clubs, personal trainers, and instructors. If you'd like to get a taste of the possibilities, a simple web search will provide you with many examples (see, for instance, Eickhoff-Shemek, 2013). Regardless of whether a given lawsuit is valid, it involves you in legal action rather than in running your business. Even if you have never been sued for anything and don't anticipate having to deal with legal action, it is crucial for you to think about insurance for your business in the same way that you think about health insurance.
There was a time when I didn't have health insurance. I stayed fit and was never sick, and health insurance was expensive, so I decided that I didn't need it. Eventually, I got a job that not only provided health insurance but also paid 100 percent of the premiums (a great deal, especially these days). Now that I had insurance, I started to use it, and I realized that everyone should have it, just in case. For example, I recently needed to have a full shoulder replacement. My injury had gotten to the point where I couldn't even lift my arm, and that's a big problem for a fitness professional. A quarter-of-a-million dollars later, I have a brand new shoulder. Imagine if I didn't have health insurance! My shoulder replacement could have wiped me out financially. It takes only one "thing" to change your life.
It's the same with liability insurance. The fact that you have never been sued doesn't mean that it can't or won't happen tomorrow. What's more, lawsuits rarely stop at $250,000 (the price of my shoulder surgery). And here's another reason for obtaining liability insurance: "Maybe you were negligent, maybe you weren't. Either way, to defend yourself will cost you more than you have" (Leve, 2015). When even the cost of defending yourself could put you out of business, do you really want to take the risk of going without coverage?
Thus there are many reasons to get insurance, but these stand out:
- It is sometimes required by a governmental body.
- It helps offset the risk of owning a business or providing services to others.
- It protects your physical assets, such as fitness equipment and furniture.
- It provides a defense against claims related toinjuries and damages resulting from professional mistakes.
- It helps you recover from a dramatic event and safeguards you from a resulting loss of income.
- It attracts and maintains high-quality employees.
Yes, You Need Insurance
If you find it tempting to begin your business operations without liability insurance, consider these examples:
- In a group fitness class at a Manhattan fitness club, a 35-year-old woman suffered eye injuries when exercise tubing anchored by her feet slipped off, snapped back, and struck her in the face. She sued for $1 million, claiming that the broken band had blinded her (Ross, 2014).
- A 62-year-old woman was awarded $750,000 in a suit against a gym in Branford, Connecticut (Schoenfeld, 2015). She fell and broke her hip and wrist when her personal trainer had her get on the platform side of a domed balanced device during their fourth session.
- A 58-year-old woman claimed that her ACL was torn when she was pressured to jump from a 10-foot wall during the first session of a fitness boot camp (Boniello, 2015).
- A California health club paid $2.9 million to settle an employee lawsuit related to overtime wages and meal breaks (Turner, 2015).
Learn more about The Business of Personal Training With Web Resource.
Training a client in a home or office
Some clients greatly value receiving personal training at home or at the office because it saves them time that would otherwise be spent in traveling to and from the health club. Their appreciation of this benefit makes them more likely to use the services of a personal trainer.
Some clients greatly value receiving personal training at home or at the office because it saves them time that would otherwise be spent in traveling to and from the health club. Their appreciation of this benefit makes them more likely to use the services of a personal trainer.
Benefits
I have held many positions in my personal training career, including that of independent personal trainer at various gyms. Through it all, one ongoing part of my business has been to train clients in their homes, offices, or apartment-complex gyms. Training in a client's space can be a great option for the following reasons:
- You don't have to make arrangements with anyone other than your clients. Do your schedules match? If the answer is yes, then book it.
- Getting paid is simple and easy - cash, check, or credit card. To accept credit cards, you can use a card reader that attaches directly to your smartphone or tablet; for example, this service is offered by Square, Intuit GoPayment, and PayPal.
- Some apartment or condominium buildings contain their own gyms, and some clients have their own home gyms. These options may offer a good choice in terms of both equipment and relative privacy as typically only residents are allowed to use them.
Challenges
The challenges of providing personal training in a client's home or office relate to space, equipment, and travel time.
- If you don't have access to a private or semiprivate gym, then you may need to get creative by working in some very different spaces. For instance, I used to train one celebrity client at her home, which included a large, comfortable space. I have also trained people in spaces where I would need to move the coffee table in order to have enough room to work out. Of course, the available space dictates the kinds of exercises that you will be able to use with the client.
- If your clients have no access to fitness equipment, then you may need to purchase some to carry from appointment to appointment. In this case, you certainly won't be able to use a lot of traditional equipment. Alternatively, you could require your clients to purchasetheir own equipment as part of your terms for working with them. Here are some equipment choices that offer versatility, portability, and compactness for use in smaller spaces:
- Resistance bands
- Yoga mats
- Suspension trainers or devices
- Jump ropes
- Small medicine balls
- Selectorized dumbbells (not portable but compact and versatile and therefore a possibility for clients to buy for their homes)
- Another challenge is travel time. Whereas a single location would allow you to do, say, four 30-minute sessions in two hours, traveling to a client might occupy 30 minutes each way in order to conduct a single 30-minute session. That's an hour and a half of your time. With this impingement in mind, you must decide how far you're willing to travel for a client and how much to charge for travel time so that your compensation is comparable to that of working in a single place. Clients do know that they will pay more for the convenience of having you meet them at a place of their choosing. In working out these details, recognize and plan for the possibility that your travel time will vary depending on traffic, bus, or subway delays.
One of the big challenges with training clients in their homes was the distractions of home life (kids, pets, phone calls, etc.). I just had to do my best to manage the emotions and personalities that would come into play in their home space.
Joe Drake, MS, NSCA-CPT; co-owner, Gravity & Oxygen Fitness, Boca Raton, Florida
Even when you work in a client-selected space, it remains your duty to ensure that the space and equipment used are safe for your client. This responsibility includes moving loose rugs, safeguarding breakable items, and keeping animals and small children at a safe distance. Consider everything that might happen and adjust the space accordingly.
Learn more about The Business of Personal Training With Web Resource.
The importance of writing a business plan
A business plan is a detailed description of your company, its concept, how it will run, what it will cost to run, and where you want it to go. As you learn about the world of business, you may come across varied opinions about how to write a business plan or even whether it’s worth it.
A business plan is a detailed description of your company, its concept, how it will run, what it will cost to run, and where you want it to go. As you learn about the world of business, you may come across varied opinions about how to write a business plan or even whether it's worth it. For instance, you may hear skeptics say that it's just a guess - an educated guess if you've done your homework, but still a guess - so how accurate and useful can it be? What's more, we can't know anything with certainty. The zombie apocalypse could start tomorrow, and wouldn't that throw a monkey wrench into your business plan?
On the other hand, all of science starts with an educated guess in the form of a hypothesis: "I think ______ will take place when I do __________." You then test the hypothesis, and if it pans out - great! If it doesn't, you develop a new hypothesis and try again. And that's what must be done with a business plan. Once you get up and running, you refer back to it, and if things are not going as planned, then you change your plan to reflect your updated best (educated) guess.
Some discussions of how to write a business plan advise you to project your business as far as 10 years into the future. However, the further out you project, the more likely you are to be off the mark. For that reason, I favor extending your business plan only to the point where you can get started, get established, and set a direction for growth, which means about three years for most of the business options we've discussed.
Could you simply bypass the writing of a business plan? Why should you bother putting in the time and effort if you'll probably have to change it anyway? Here are two big reasons:
- A business plan enables you to start the business with a good sense of your strengths and weaknesses, the challenges that may arise due to competition or economic factors, and your chances of succeeding. If you can't make it work on paper - that is, in a business plan - then it's not going to make it in real life.
- If you need to acquire additional financing, a business plan will show potential investors that you've done your research and are willing to put in the work to make your business succeed. No savvy businessperson will invest in a casual idea that doesn't consider all of the details - good, bad, and ugly.
One final question before getting started: How long should a business plan be? Answers vary widely. Some sources say that a typical plan runs 15 to 20 pages, whereas others say it should be at least 50 pages long. My own belief is that the page count is secondary to the content. Your business plan needs to include sufficient detail in each section for you to know - and show - that you have thought through all relevant variables that can be known at this time. The number of pages then depends on what you need to say in each section. For example, if there is literally no other fitness facility within an 8- to 12-minute radius of your proposed site, then your competitive analysis section will be very short.
You can find a business plan template in appendix A and in the web resource (www.HumanKinetics.com/TheBusinessOfPersonalTraining); you can use it to develop your own business plan. In addition, each section of this chapter fleshes out part of the template. If you are thinking about starting your own personal training business, consider taking notes as you read this chapter and jotting down brainstorm ideas for your own business plan.
As mentioned in chapter 4, my wife, Heather, and I are (as I write this) in the process of opening a boutique fitness studio. Thus I use a business model very similar to ours in the following discussion of the details of writing a business plan.
Components of a Business Plan
A business plan consists of nine key components:
- Cover letter (optional)
- Executive summary
- Business or company description
- Market analysis and demographics
- Competitive analysis
- Management plan
- Financial plan
- Capital required
- Marketing plan
Learn more about The Business of Personal Training With Web Resource.
This is why insurance matters
Lawsuits can be brought against health clubs, personal trainers, and instructors. If you’d like to get a taste of the possibilities, a simple web search will provide you with many examples (see, for instance, Eickhoff-Shemek, 2013).
Lawsuits can be brought against health clubs, personal trainers, and instructors. If you'd like to get a taste of the possibilities, a simple web search will provide you with many examples (see, for instance, Eickhoff-Shemek, 2013). Regardless of whether a given lawsuit is valid, it involves you in legal action rather than in running your business. Even if you have never been sued for anything and don't anticipate having to deal with legal action, it is crucial for you to think about insurance for your business in the same way that you think about health insurance.
There was a time when I didn't have health insurance. I stayed fit and was never sick, and health insurance was expensive, so I decided that I didn't need it. Eventually, I got a job that not only provided health insurance but also paid 100 percent of the premiums (a great deal, especially these days). Now that I had insurance, I started to use it, and I realized that everyone should have it, just in case. For example, I recently needed to have a full shoulder replacement. My injury had gotten to the point where I couldn't even lift my arm, and that's a big problem for a fitness professional. A quarter-of-a-million dollars later, I have a brand new shoulder. Imagine if I didn't have health insurance! My shoulder replacement could have wiped me out financially. It takes only one "thing" to change your life.
It's the same with liability insurance. The fact that you have never been sued doesn't mean that it can't or won't happen tomorrow. What's more, lawsuits rarely stop at $250,000 (the price of my shoulder surgery). And here's another reason for obtaining liability insurance: "Maybe you were negligent, maybe you weren't. Either way, to defend yourself will cost you more than you have" (Leve, 2015). When even the cost of defending yourself could put you out of business, do you really want to take the risk of going without coverage?
Thus there are many reasons to get insurance, but these stand out:
- It is sometimes required by a governmental body.
- It helps offset the risk of owning a business or providing services to others.
- It protects your physical assets, such as fitness equipment and furniture.
- It provides a defense against claims related toinjuries and damages resulting from professional mistakes.
- It helps you recover from a dramatic event and safeguards you from a resulting loss of income.
- It attracts and maintains high-quality employees.
Yes, You Need Insurance
If you find it tempting to begin your business operations without liability insurance, consider these examples:
- In a group fitness class at a Manhattan fitness club, a 35-year-old woman suffered eye injuries when exercise tubing anchored by her feet slipped off, snapped back, and struck her in the face. She sued for $1 million, claiming that the broken band had blinded her (Ross, 2014).
- A 62-year-old woman was awarded $750,000 in a suit against a gym in Branford, Connecticut (Schoenfeld, 2015). She fell and broke her hip and wrist when her personal trainer had her get on the platform side of a domed balanced device during their fourth session.
- A 58-year-old woman claimed that her ACL was torn when she was pressured to jump from a 10-foot wall during the first session of a fitness boot camp (Boniello, 2015).
- A California health club paid $2.9 million to settle an employee lawsuit related to overtime wages and meal breaks (Turner, 2015).
Learn more about The Business of Personal Training With Web Resource.
Training a client in a home or office
Some clients greatly value receiving personal training at home or at the office because it saves them time that would otherwise be spent in traveling to and from the health club. Their appreciation of this benefit makes them more likely to use the services of a personal trainer.
Some clients greatly value receiving personal training at home or at the office because it saves them time that would otherwise be spent in traveling to and from the health club. Their appreciation of this benefit makes them more likely to use the services of a personal trainer.
Benefits
I have held many positions in my personal training career, including that of independent personal trainer at various gyms. Through it all, one ongoing part of my business has been to train clients in their homes, offices, or apartment-complex gyms. Training in a client's space can be a great option for the following reasons:
- You don't have to make arrangements with anyone other than your clients. Do your schedules match? If the answer is yes, then book it.
- Getting paid is simple and easy - cash, check, or credit card. To accept credit cards, you can use a card reader that attaches directly to your smartphone or tablet; for example, this service is offered by Square, Intuit GoPayment, and PayPal.
- Some apartment or condominium buildings contain their own gyms, and some clients have their own home gyms. These options may offer a good choice in terms of both equipment and relative privacy as typically only residents are allowed to use them.
Challenges
The challenges of providing personal training in a client's home or office relate to space, equipment, and travel time.
- If you don't have access to a private or semiprivate gym, then you may need to get creative by working in some very different spaces. For instance, I used to train one celebrity client at her home, which included a large, comfortable space. I have also trained people in spaces where I would need to move the coffee table in order to have enough room to work out. Of course, the available space dictates the kinds of exercises that you will be able to use with the client.
- If your clients have no access to fitness equipment, then you may need to purchase some to carry from appointment to appointment. In this case, you certainly won't be able to use a lot of traditional equipment. Alternatively, you could require your clients to purchasetheir own equipment as part of your terms for working with them. Here are some equipment choices that offer versatility, portability, and compactness for use in smaller spaces:
- Resistance bands
- Yoga mats
- Suspension trainers or devices
- Jump ropes
- Small medicine balls
- Selectorized dumbbells (not portable but compact and versatile and therefore a possibility for clients to buy for their homes)
- Another challenge is travel time. Whereas a single location would allow you to do, say, four 30-minute sessions in two hours, traveling to a client might occupy 30 minutes each way in order to conduct a single 30-minute session. That's an hour and a half of your time. With this impingement in mind, you must decide how far you're willing to travel for a client and how much to charge for travel time so that your compensation is comparable to that of working in a single place. Clients do know that they will pay more for the convenience of having you meet them at a place of their choosing. In working out these details, recognize and plan for the possibility that your travel time will vary depending on traffic, bus, or subway delays.
One of the big challenges with training clients in their homes was the distractions of home life (kids, pets, phone calls, etc.). I just had to do my best to manage the emotions and personalities that would come into play in their home space.
Joe Drake, MS, NSCA-CPT; co-owner, Gravity & Oxygen Fitness, Boca Raton, Florida
Even when you work in a client-selected space, it remains your duty to ensure that the space and equipment used are safe for your client. This responsibility includes moving loose rugs, safeguarding breakable items, and keeping animals and small children at a safe distance. Consider everything that might happen and adjust the space accordingly.
Learn more about The Business of Personal Training With Web Resource.
The importance of writing a business plan
A business plan is a detailed description of your company, its concept, how it will run, what it will cost to run, and where you want it to go. As you learn about the world of business, you may come across varied opinions about how to write a business plan or even whether it’s worth it.
A business plan is a detailed description of your company, its concept, how it will run, what it will cost to run, and where you want it to go. As you learn about the world of business, you may come across varied opinions about how to write a business plan or even whether it's worth it. For instance, you may hear skeptics say that it's just a guess - an educated guess if you've done your homework, but still a guess - so how accurate and useful can it be? What's more, we can't know anything with certainty. The zombie apocalypse could start tomorrow, and wouldn't that throw a monkey wrench into your business plan?
On the other hand, all of science starts with an educated guess in the form of a hypothesis: "I think ______ will take place when I do __________." You then test the hypothesis, and if it pans out - great! If it doesn't, you develop a new hypothesis and try again. And that's what must be done with a business plan. Once you get up and running, you refer back to it, and if things are not going as planned, then you change your plan to reflect your updated best (educated) guess.
Some discussions of how to write a business plan advise you to project your business as far as 10 years into the future. However, the further out you project, the more likely you are to be off the mark. For that reason, I favor extending your business plan only to the point where you can get started, get established, and set a direction for growth, which means about three years for most of the business options we've discussed.
Could you simply bypass the writing of a business plan? Why should you bother putting in the time and effort if you'll probably have to change it anyway? Here are two big reasons:
- A business plan enables you to start the business with a good sense of your strengths and weaknesses, the challenges that may arise due to competition or economic factors, and your chances of succeeding. If you can't make it work on paper - that is, in a business plan - then it's not going to make it in real life.
- If you need to acquire additional financing, a business plan will show potential investors that you've done your research and are willing to put in the work to make your business succeed. No savvy businessperson will invest in a casual idea that doesn't consider all of the details - good, bad, and ugly.
One final question before getting started: How long should a business plan be? Answers vary widely. Some sources say that a typical plan runs 15 to 20 pages, whereas others say it should be at least 50 pages long. My own belief is that the page count is secondary to the content. Your business plan needs to include sufficient detail in each section for you to know - and show - that you have thought through all relevant variables that can be known at this time. The number of pages then depends on what you need to say in each section. For example, if there is literally no other fitness facility within an 8- to 12-minute radius of your proposed site, then your competitive analysis section will be very short.
You can find a business plan template in appendix A and in the web resource (www.HumanKinetics.com/TheBusinessOfPersonalTraining); you can use it to develop your own business plan. In addition, each section of this chapter fleshes out part of the template. If you are thinking about starting your own personal training business, consider taking notes as you read this chapter and jotting down brainstorm ideas for your own business plan.
As mentioned in chapter 4, my wife, Heather, and I are (as I write this) in the process of opening a boutique fitness studio. Thus I use a business model very similar to ours in the following discussion of the details of writing a business plan.
Components of a Business Plan
A business plan consists of nine key components:
- Cover letter (optional)
- Executive summary
- Business or company description
- Market analysis and demographics
- Competitive analysis
- Management plan
- Financial plan
- Capital required
- Marketing plan
Learn more about The Business of Personal Training With Web Resource.
This is why insurance matters
Lawsuits can be brought against health clubs, personal trainers, and instructors. If you’d like to get a taste of the possibilities, a simple web search will provide you with many examples (see, for instance, Eickhoff-Shemek, 2013).
Lawsuits can be brought against health clubs, personal trainers, and instructors. If you'd like to get a taste of the possibilities, a simple web search will provide you with many examples (see, for instance, Eickhoff-Shemek, 2013). Regardless of whether a given lawsuit is valid, it involves you in legal action rather than in running your business. Even if you have never been sued for anything and don't anticipate having to deal with legal action, it is crucial for you to think about insurance for your business in the same way that you think about health insurance.
There was a time when I didn't have health insurance. I stayed fit and was never sick, and health insurance was expensive, so I decided that I didn't need it. Eventually, I got a job that not only provided health insurance but also paid 100 percent of the premiums (a great deal, especially these days). Now that I had insurance, I started to use it, and I realized that everyone should have it, just in case. For example, I recently needed to have a full shoulder replacement. My injury had gotten to the point where I couldn't even lift my arm, and that's a big problem for a fitness professional. A quarter-of-a-million dollars later, I have a brand new shoulder. Imagine if I didn't have health insurance! My shoulder replacement could have wiped me out financially. It takes only one "thing" to change your life.
It's the same with liability insurance. The fact that you have never been sued doesn't mean that it can't or won't happen tomorrow. What's more, lawsuits rarely stop at $250,000 (the price of my shoulder surgery). And here's another reason for obtaining liability insurance: "Maybe you were negligent, maybe you weren't. Either way, to defend yourself will cost you more than you have" (Leve, 2015). When even the cost of defending yourself could put you out of business, do you really want to take the risk of going without coverage?
Thus there are many reasons to get insurance, but these stand out:
- It is sometimes required by a governmental body.
- It helps offset the risk of owning a business or providing services to others.
- It protects your physical assets, such as fitness equipment and furniture.
- It provides a defense against claims related toinjuries and damages resulting from professional mistakes.
- It helps you recover from a dramatic event and safeguards you from a resulting loss of income.
- It attracts and maintains high-quality employees.
Yes, You Need Insurance
If you find it tempting to begin your business operations without liability insurance, consider these examples:
- In a group fitness class at a Manhattan fitness club, a 35-year-old woman suffered eye injuries when exercise tubing anchored by her feet slipped off, snapped back, and struck her in the face. She sued for $1 million, claiming that the broken band had blinded her (Ross, 2014).
- A 62-year-old woman was awarded $750,000 in a suit against a gym in Branford, Connecticut (Schoenfeld, 2015). She fell and broke her hip and wrist when her personal trainer had her get on the platform side of a domed balanced device during their fourth session.
- A 58-year-old woman claimed that her ACL was torn when she was pressured to jump from a 10-foot wall during the first session of a fitness boot camp (Boniello, 2015).
- A California health club paid $2.9 million to settle an employee lawsuit related to overtime wages and meal breaks (Turner, 2015).
Learn more about The Business of Personal Training With Web Resource.
Training a client in a home or office
Some clients greatly value receiving personal training at home or at the office because it saves them time that would otherwise be spent in traveling to and from the health club. Their appreciation of this benefit makes them more likely to use the services of a personal trainer.
Some clients greatly value receiving personal training at home or at the office because it saves them time that would otherwise be spent in traveling to and from the health club. Their appreciation of this benefit makes them more likely to use the services of a personal trainer.
Benefits
I have held many positions in my personal training career, including that of independent personal trainer at various gyms. Through it all, one ongoing part of my business has been to train clients in their homes, offices, or apartment-complex gyms. Training in a client's space can be a great option for the following reasons:
- You don't have to make arrangements with anyone other than your clients. Do your schedules match? If the answer is yes, then book it.
- Getting paid is simple and easy - cash, check, or credit card. To accept credit cards, you can use a card reader that attaches directly to your smartphone or tablet; for example, this service is offered by Square, Intuit GoPayment, and PayPal.
- Some apartment or condominium buildings contain their own gyms, and some clients have their own home gyms. These options may offer a good choice in terms of both equipment and relative privacy as typically only residents are allowed to use them.
Challenges
The challenges of providing personal training in a client's home or office relate to space, equipment, and travel time.
- If you don't have access to a private or semiprivate gym, then you may need to get creative by working in some very different spaces. For instance, I used to train one celebrity client at her home, which included a large, comfortable space. I have also trained people in spaces where I would need to move the coffee table in order to have enough room to work out. Of course, the available space dictates the kinds of exercises that you will be able to use with the client.
- If your clients have no access to fitness equipment, then you may need to purchase some to carry from appointment to appointment. In this case, you certainly won't be able to use a lot of traditional equipment. Alternatively, you could require your clients to purchasetheir own equipment as part of your terms for working with them. Here are some equipment choices that offer versatility, portability, and compactness for use in smaller spaces:
- Resistance bands
- Yoga mats
- Suspension trainers or devices
- Jump ropes
- Small medicine balls
- Selectorized dumbbells (not portable but compact and versatile and therefore a possibility for clients to buy for their homes)
- Another challenge is travel time. Whereas a single location would allow you to do, say, four 30-minute sessions in two hours, traveling to a client might occupy 30 minutes each way in order to conduct a single 30-minute session. That's an hour and a half of your time. With this impingement in mind, you must decide how far you're willing to travel for a client and how much to charge for travel time so that your compensation is comparable to that of working in a single place. Clients do know that they will pay more for the convenience of having you meet them at a place of their choosing. In working out these details, recognize and plan for the possibility that your travel time will vary depending on traffic, bus, or subway delays.
One of the big challenges with training clients in their homes was the distractions of home life (kids, pets, phone calls, etc.). I just had to do my best to manage the emotions and personalities that would come into play in their home space.
Joe Drake, MS, NSCA-CPT; co-owner, Gravity & Oxygen Fitness, Boca Raton, Florida
Even when you work in a client-selected space, it remains your duty to ensure that the space and equipment used are safe for your client. This responsibility includes moving loose rugs, safeguarding breakable items, and keeping animals and small children at a safe distance. Consider everything that might happen and adjust the space accordingly.
Learn more about The Business of Personal Training With Web Resource.
The importance of writing a business plan
A business plan is a detailed description of your company, its concept, how it will run, what it will cost to run, and where you want it to go. As you learn about the world of business, you may come across varied opinions about how to write a business plan or even whether it’s worth it.
A business plan is a detailed description of your company, its concept, how it will run, what it will cost to run, and where you want it to go. As you learn about the world of business, you may come across varied opinions about how to write a business plan or even whether it's worth it. For instance, you may hear skeptics say that it's just a guess - an educated guess if you've done your homework, but still a guess - so how accurate and useful can it be? What's more, we can't know anything with certainty. The zombie apocalypse could start tomorrow, and wouldn't that throw a monkey wrench into your business plan?
On the other hand, all of science starts with an educated guess in the form of a hypothesis: "I think ______ will take place when I do __________." You then test the hypothesis, and if it pans out - great! If it doesn't, you develop a new hypothesis and try again. And that's what must be done with a business plan. Once you get up and running, you refer back to it, and if things are not going as planned, then you change your plan to reflect your updated best (educated) guess.
Some discussions of how to write a business plan advise you to project your business as far as 10 years into the future. However, the further out you project, the more likely you are to be off the mark. For that reason, I favor extending your business plan only to the point where you can get started, get established, and set a direction for growth, which means about three years for most of the business options we've discussed.
Could you simply bypass the writing of a business plan? Why should you bother putting in the time and effort if you'll probably have to change it anyway? Here are two big reasons:
- A business plan enables you to start the business with a good sense of your strengths and weaknesses, the challenges that may arise due to competition or economic factors, and your chances of succeeding. If you can't make it work on paper - that is, in a business plan - then it's not going to make it in real life.
- If you need to acquire additional financing, a business plan will show potential investors that you've done your research and are willing to put in the work to make your business succeed. No savvy businessperson will invest in a casual idea that doesn't consider all of the details - good, bad, and ugly.
One final question before getting started: How long should a business plan be? Answers vary widely. Some sources say that a typical plan runs 15 to 20 pages, whereas others say it should be at least 50 pages long. My own belief is that the page count is secondary to the content. Your business plan needs to include sufficient detail in each section for you to know - and show - that you have thought through all relevant variables that can be known at this time. The number of pages then depends on what you need to say in each section. For example, if there is literally no other fitness facility within an 8- to 12-minute radius of your proposed site, then your competitive analysis section will be very short.
You can find a business plan template in appendix A and in the web resource (www.HumanKinetics.com/TheBusinessOfPersonalTraining); you can use it to develop your own business plan. In addition, each section of this chapter fleshes out part of the template. If you are thinking about starting your own personal training business, consider taking notes as you read this chapter and jotting down brainstorm ideas for your own business plan.
As mentioned in chapter 4, my wife, Heather, and I are (as I write this) in the process of opening a boutique fitness studio. Thus I use a business model very similar to ours in the following discussion of the details of writing a business plan.
Components of a Business Plan
A business plan consists of nine key components:
- Cover letter (optional)
- Executive summary
- Business or company description
- Market analysis and demographics
- Competitive analysis
- Management plan
- Financial plan
- Capital required
- Marketing plan
Learn more about The Business of Personal Training With Web Resource.
This is why insurance matters
Lawsuits can be brought against health clubs, personal trainers, and instructors. If you’d like to get a taste of the possibilities, a simple web search will provide you with many examples (see, for instance, Eickhoff-Shemek, 2013).
Lawsuits can be brought against health clubs, personal trainers, and instructors. If you'd like to get a taste of the possibilities, a simple web search will provide you with many examples (see, for instance, Eickhoff-Shemek, 2013). Regardless of whether a given lawsuit is valid, it involves you in legal action rather than in running your business. Even if you have never been sued for anything and don't anticipate having to deal with legal action, it is crucial for you to think about insurance for your business in the same way that you think about health insurance.
There was a time when I didn't have health insurance. I stayed fit and was never sick, and health insurance was expensive, so I decided that I didn't need it. Eventually, I got a job that not only provided health insurance but also paid 100 percent of the premiums (a great deal, especially these days). Now that I had insurance, I started to use it, and I realized that everyone should have it, just in case. For example, I recently needed to have a full shoulder replacement. My injury had gotten to the point where I couldn't even lift my arm, and that's a big problem for a fitness professional. A quarter-of-a-million dollars later, I have a brand new shoulder. Imagine if I didn't have health insurance! My shoulder replacement could have wiped me out financially. It takes only one "thing" to change your life.
It's the same with liability insurance. The fact that you have never been sued doesn't mean that it can't or won't happen tomorrow. What's more, lawsuits rarely stop at $250,000 (the price of my shoulder surgery). And here's another reason for obtaining liability insurance: "Maybe you were negligent, maybe you weren't. Either way, to defend yourself will cost you more than you have" (Leve, 2015). When even the cost of defending yourself could put you out of business, do you really want to take the risk of going without coverage?
Thus there are many reasons to get insurance, but these stand out:
- It is sometimes required by a governmental body.
- It helps offset the risk of owning a business or providing services to others.
- It protects your physical assets, such as fitness equipment and furniture.
- It provides a defense against claims related toinjuries and damages resulting from professional mistakes.
- It helps you recover from a dramatic event and safeguards you from a resulting loss of income.
- It attracts and maintains high-quality employees.
Yes, You Need Insurance
If you find it tempting to begin your business operations without liability insurance, consider these examples:
- In a group fitness class at a Manhattan fitness club, a 35-year-old woman suffered eye injuries when exercise tubing anchored by her feet slipped off, snapped back, and struck her in the face. She sued for $1 million, claiming that the broken band had blinded her (Ross, 2014).
- A 62-year-old woman was awarded $750,000 in a suit against a gym in Branford, Connecticut (Schoenfeld, 2015). She fell and broke her hip and wrist when her personal trainer had her get on the platform side of a domed balanced device during their fourth session.
- A 58-year-old woman claimed that her ACL was torn when she was pressured to jump from a 10-foot wall during the first session of a fitness boot camp (Boniello, 2015).
- A California health club paid $2.9 million to settle an employee lawsuit related to overtime wages and meal breaks (Turner, 2015).
Learn more about The Business of Personal Training With Web Resource.
Training a client in a home or office
Some clients greatly value receiving personal training at home or at the office because it saves them time that would otherwise be spent in traveling to and from the health club. Their appreciation of this benefit makes them more likely to use the services of a personal trainer.
Some clients greatly value receiving personal training at home or at the office because it saves them time that would otherwise be spent in traveling to and from the health club. Their appreciation of this benefit makes them more likely to use the services of a personal trainer.
Benefits
I have held many positions in my personal training career, including that of independent personal trainer at various gyms. Through it all, one ongoing part of my business has been to train clients in their homes, offices, or apartment-complex gyms. Training in a client's space can be a great option for the following reasons:
- You don't have to make arrangements with anyone other than your clients. Do your schedules match? If the answer is yes, then book it.
- Getting paid is simple and easy - cash, check, or credit card. To accept credit cards, you can use a card reader that attaches directly to your smartphone or tablet; for example, this service is offered by Square, Intuit GoPayment, and PayPal.
- Some apartment or condominium buildings contain their own gyms, and some clients have their own home gyms. These options may offer a good choice in terms of both equipment and relative privacy as typically only residents are allowed to use them.
Challenges
The challenges of providing personal training in a client's home or office relate to space, equipment, and travel time.
- If you don't have access to a private or semiprivate gym, then you may need to get creative by working in some very different spaces. For instance, I used to train one celebrity client at her home, which included a large, comfortable space. I have also trained people in spaces where I would need to move the coffee table in order to have enough room to work out. Of course, the available space dictates the kinds of exercises that you will be able to use with the client.
- If your clients have no access to fitness equipment, then you may need to purchase some to carry from appointment to appointment. In this case, you certainly won't be able to use a lot of traditional equipment. Alternatively, you could require your clients to purchasetheir own equipment as part of your terms for working with them. Here are some equipment choices that offer versatility, portability, and compactness for use in smaller spaces:
- Resistance bands
- Yoga mats
- Suspension trainers or devices
- Jump ropes
- Small medicine balls
- Selectorized dumbbells (not portable but compact and versatile and therefore a possibility for clients to buy for their homes)
- Another challenge is travel time. Whereas a single location would allow you to do, say, four 30-minute sessions in two hours, traveling to a client might occupy 30 minutes each way in order to conduct a single 30-minute session. That's an hour and a half of your time. With this impingement in mind, you must decide how far you're willing to travel for a client and how much to charge for travel time so that your compensation is comparable to that of working in a single place. Clients do know that they will pay more for the convenience of having you meet them at a place of their choosing. In working out these details, recognize and plan for the possibility that your travel time will vary depending on traffic, bus, or subway delays.
One of the big challenges with training clients in their homes was the distractions of home life (kids, pets, phone calls, etc.). I just had to do my best to manage the emotions and personalities that would come into play in their home space.
Joe Drake, MS, NSCA-CPT; co-owner, Gravity & Oxygen Fitness, Boca Raton, Florida
Even when you work in a client-selected space, it remains your duty to ensure that the space and equipment used are safe for your client. This responsibility includes moving loose rugs, safeguarding breakable items, and keeping animals and small children at a safe distance. Consider everything that might happen and adjust the space accordingly.
Learn more about The Business of Personal Training With Web Resource.
The importance of writing a business plan
A business plan is a detailed description of your company, its concept, how it will run, what it will cost to run, and where you want it to go. As you learn about the world of business, you may come across varied opinions about how to write a business plan or even whether it’s worth it.
A business plan is a detailed description of your company, its concept, how it will run, what it will cost to run, and where you want it to go. As you learn about the world of business, you may come across varied opinions about how to write a business plan or even whether it's worth it. For instance, you may hear skeptics say that it's just a guess - an educated guess if you've done your homework, but still a guess - so how accurate and useful can it be? What's more, we can't know anything with certainty. The zombie apocalypse could start tomorrow, and wouldn't that throw a monkey wrench into your business plan?
On the other hand, all of science starts with an educated guess in the form of a hypothesis: "I think ______ will take place when I do __________." You then test the hypothesis, and if it pans out - great! If it doesn't, you develop a new hypothesis and try again. And that's what must be done with a business plan. Once you get up and running, you refer back to it, and if things are not going as planned, then you change your plan to reflect your updated best (educated) guess.
Some discussions of how to write a business plan advise you to project your business as far as 10 years into the future. However, the further out you project, the more likely you are to be off the mark. For that reason, I favor extending your business plan only to the point where you can get started, get established, and set a direction for growth, which means about three years for most of the business options we've discussed.
Could you simply bypass the writing of a business plan? Why should you bother putting in the time and effort if you'll probably have to change it anyway? Here are two big reasons:
- A business plan enables you to start the business with a good sense of your strengths and weaknesses, the challenges that may arise due to competition or economic factors, and your chances of succeeding. If you can't make it work on paper - that is, in a business plan - then it's not going to make it in real life.
- If you need to acquire additional financing, a business plan will show potential investors that you've done your research and are willing to put in the work to make your business succeed. No savvy businessperson will invest in a casual idea that doesn't consider all of the details - good, bad, and ugly.
One final question before getting started: How long should a business plan be? Answers vary widely. Some sources say that a typical plan runs 15 to 20 pages, whereas others say it should be at least 50 pages long. My own belief is that the page count is secondary to the content. Your business plan needs to include sufficient detail in each section for you to know - and show - that you have thought through all relevant variables that can be known at this time. The number of pages then depends on what you need to say in each section. For example, if there is literally no other fitness facility within an 8- to 12-minute radius of your proposed site, then your competitive analysis section will be very short.
You can find a business plan template in appendix A and in the web resource (www.HumanKinetics.com/TheBusinessOfPersonalTraining); you can use it to develop your own business plan. In addition, each section of this chapter fleshes out part of the template. If you are thinking about starting your own personal training business, consider taking notes as you read this chapter and jotting down brainstorm ideas for your own business plan.
As mentioned in chapter 4, my wife, Heather, and I are (as I write this) in the process of opening a boutique fitness studio. Thus I use a business model very similar to ours in the following discussion of the details of writing a business plan.
Components of a Business Plan
A business plan consists of nine key components:
- Cover letter (optional)
- Executive summary
- Business or company description
- Market analysis and demographics
- Competitive analysis
- Management plan
- Financial plan
- Capital required
- Marketing plan
Learn more about The Business of Personal Training With Web Resource.
This is why insurance matters
Lawsuits can be brought against health clubs, personal trainers, and instructors. If you’d like to get a taste of the possibilities, a simple web search will provide you with many examples (see, for instance, Eickhoff-Shemek, 2013).
Lawsuits can be brought against health clubs, personal trainers, and instructors. If you'd like to get a taste of the possibilities, a simple web search will provide you with many examples (see, for instance, Eickhoff-Shemek, 2013). Regardless of whether a given lawsuit is valid, it involves you in legal action rather than in running your business. Even if you have never been sued for anything and don't anticipate having to deal with legal action, it is crucial for you to think about insurance for your business in the same way that you think about health insurance.
There was a time when I didn't have health insurance. I stayed fit and was never sick, and health insurance was expensive, so I decided that I didn't need it. Eventually, I got a job that not only provided health insurance but also paid 100 percent of the premiums (a great deal, especially these days). Now that I had insurance, I started to use it, and I realized that everyone should have it, just in case. For example, I recently needed to have a full shoulder replacement. My injury had gotten to the point where I couldn't even lift my arm, and that's a big problem for a fitness professional. A quarter-of-a-million dollars later, I have a brand new shoulder. Imagine if I didn't have health insurance! My shoulder replacement could have wiped me out financially. It takes only one "thing" to change your life.
It's the same with liability insurance. The fact that you have never been sued doesn't mean that it can't or won't happen tomorrow. What's more, lawsuits rarely stop at $250,000 (the price of my shoulder surgery). And here's another reason for obtaining liability insurance: "Maybe you were negligent, maybe you weren't. Either way, to defend yourself will cost you more than you have" (Leve, 2015). When even the cost of defending yourself could put you out of business, do you really want to take the risk of going without coverage?
Thus there are many reasons to get insurance, but these stand out:
- It is sometimes required by a governmental body.
- It helps offset the risk of owning a business or providing services to others.
- It protects your physical assets, such as fitness equipment and furniture.
- It provides a defense against claims related toinjuries and damages resulting from professional mistakes.
- It helps you recover from a dramatic event and safeguards you from a resulting loss of income.
- It attracts and maintains high-quality employees.
Yes, You Need Insurance
If you find it tempting to begin your business operations without liability insurance, consider these examples:
- In a group fitness class at a Manhattan fitness club, a 35-year-old woman suffered eye injuries when exercise tubing anchored by her feet slipped off, snapped back, and struck her in the face. She sued for $1 million, claiming that the broken band had blinded her (Ross, 2014).
- A 62-year-old woman was awarded $750,000 in a suit against a gym in Branford, Connecticut (Schoenfeld, 2015). She fell and broke her hip and wrist when her personal trainer had her get on the platform side of a domed balanced device during their fourth session.
- A 58-year-old woman claimed that her ACL was torn when she was pressured to jump from a 10-foot wall during the first session of a fitness boot camp (Boniello, 2015).
- A California health club paid $2.9 million to settle an employee lawsuit related to overtime wages and meal breaks (Turner, 2015).
Learn more about The Business of Personal Training With Web Resource.
Training a client in a home or office
Some clients greatly value receiving personal training at home or at the office because it saves them time that would otherwise be spent in traveling to and from the health club. Their appreciation of this benefit makes them more likely to use the services of a personal trainer.
Some clients greatly value receiving personal training at home or at the office because it saves them time that would otherwise be spent in traveling to and from the health club. Their appreciation of this benefit makes them more likely to use the services of a personal trainer.
Benefits
I have held many positions in my personal training career, including that of independent personal trainer at various gyms. Through it all, one ongoing part of my business has been to train clients in their homes, offices, or apartment-complex gyms. Training in a client's space can be a great option for the following reasons:
- You don't have to make arrangements with anyone other than your clients. Do your schedules match? If the answer is yes, then book it.
- Getting paid is simple and easy - cash, check, or credit card. To accept credit cards, you can use a card reader that attaches directly to your smartphone or tablet; for example, this service is offered by Square, Intuit GoPayment, and PayPal.
- Some apartment or condominium buildings contain their own gyms, and some clients have their own home gyms. These options may offer a good choice in terms of both equipment and relative privacy as typically only residents are allowed to use them.
Challenges
The challenges of providing personal training in a client's home or office relate to space, equipment, and travel time.
- If you don't have access to a private or semiprivate gym, then you may need to get creative by working in some very different spaces. For instance, I used to train one celebrity client at her home, which included a large, comfortable space. I have also trained people in spaces where I would need to move the coffee table in order to have enough room to work out. Of course, the available space dictates the kinds of exercises that you will be able to use with the client.
- If your clients have no access to fitness equipment, then you may need to purchase some to carry from appointment to appointment. In this case, you certainly won't be able to use a lot of traditional equipment. Alternatively, you could require your clients to purchasetheir own equipment as part of your terms for working with them. Here are some equipment choices that offer versatility, portability, and compactness for use in smaller spaces:
- Resistance bands
- Yoga mats
- Suspension trainers or devices
- Jump ropes
- Small medicine balls
- Selectorized dumbbells (not portable but compact and versatile and therefore a possibility for clients to buy for their homes)
- Another challenge is travel time. Whereas a single location would allow you to do, say, four 30-minute sessions in two hours, traveling to a client might occupy 30 minutes each way in order to conduct a single 30-minute session. That's an hour and a half of your time. With this impingement in mind, you must decide how far you're willing to travel for a client and how much to charge for travel time so that your compensation is comparable to that of working in a single place. Clients do know that they will pay more for the convenience of having you meet them at a place of their choosing. In working out these details, recognize and plan for the possibility that your travel time will vary depending on traffic, bus, or subway delays.
One of the big challenges with training clients in their homes was the distractions of home life (kids, pets, phone calls, etc.). I just had to do my best to manage the emotions and personalities that would come into play in their home space.
Joe Drake, MS, NSCA-CPT; co-owner, Gravity & Oxygen Fitness, Boca Raton, Florida
Even when you work in a client-selected space, it remains your duty to ensure that the space and equipment used are safe for your client. This responsibility includes moving loose rugs, safeguarding breakable items, and keeping animals and small children at a safe distance. Consider everything that might happen and adjust the space accordingly.
Learn more about The Business of Personal Training With Web Resource.
The importance of writing a business plan
A business plan is a detailed description of your company, its concept, how it will run, what it will cost to run, and where you want it to go. As you learn about the world of business, you may come across varied opinions about how to write a business plan or even whether it’s worth it.
A business plan is a detailed description of your company, its concept, how it will run, what it will cost to run, and where you want it to go. As you learn about the world of business, you may come across varied opinions about how to write a business plan or even whether it's worth it. For instance, you may hear skeptics say that it's just a guess - an educated guess if you've done your homework, but still a guess - so how accurate and useful can it be? What's more, we can't know anything with certainty. The zombie apocalypse could start tomorrow, and wouldn't that throw a monkey wrench into your business plan?
On the other hand, all of science starts with an educated guess in the form of a hypothesis: "I think ______ will take place when I do __________." You then test the hypothesis, and if it pans out - great! If it doesn't, you develop a new hypothesis and try again. And that's what must be done with a business plan. Once you get up and running, you refer back to it, and if things are not going as planned, then you change your plan to reflect your updated best (educated) guess.
Some discussions of how to write a business plan advise you to project your business as far as 10 years into the future. However, the further out you project, the more likely you are to be off the mark. For that reason, I favor extending your business plan only to the point where you can get started, get established, and set a direction for growth, which means about three years for most of the business options we've discussed.
Could you simply bypass the writing of a business plan? Why should you bother putting in the time and effort if you'll probably have to change it anyway? Here are two big reasons:
- A business plan enables you to start the business with a good sense of your strengths and weaknesses, the challenges that may arise due to competition or economic factors, and your chances of succeeding. If you can't make it work on paper - that is, in a business plan - then it's not going to make it in real life.
- If you need to acquire additional financing, a business plan will show potential investors that you've done your research and are willing to put in the work to make your business succeed. No savvy businessperson will invest in a casual idea that doesn't consider all of the details - good, bad, and ugly.
One final question before getting started: How long should a business plan be? Answers vary widely. Some sources say that a typical plan runs 15 to 20 pages, whereas others say it should be at least 50 pages long. My own belief is that the page count is secondary to the content. Your business plan needs to include sufficient detail in each section for you to know - and show - that you have thought through all relevant variables that can be known at this time. The number of pages then depends on what you need to say in each section. For example, if there is literally no other fitness facility within an 8- to 12-minute radius of your proposed site, then your competitive analysis section will be very short.
You can find a business plan template in appendix A and in the web resource (www.HumanKinetics.com/TheBusinessOfPersonalTraining); you can use it to develop your own business plan. In addition, each section of this chapter fleshes out part of the template. If you are thinking about starting your own personal training business, consider taking notes as you read this chapter and jotting down brainstorm ideas for your own business plan.
As mentioned in chapter 4, my wife, Heather, and I are (as I write this) in the process of opening a boutique fitness studio. Thus I use a business model very similar to ours in the following discussion of the details of writing a business plan.
Components of a Business Plan
A business plan consists of nine key components:
- Cover letter (optional)
- Executive summary
- Business or company description
- Market analysis and demographics
- Competitive analysis
- Management plan
- Financial plan
- Capital required
- Marketing plan
Learn more about The Business of Personal Training With Web Resource.
This is why insurance matters
Lawsuits can be brought against health clubs, personal trainers, and instructors. If you’d like to get a taste of the possibilities, a simple web search will provide you with many examples (see, for instance, Eickhoff-Shemek, 2013).
Lawsuits can be brought against health clubs, personal trainers, and instructors. If you'd like to get a taste of the possibilities, a simple web search will provide you with many examples (see, for instance, Eickhoff-Shemek, 2013). Regardless of whether a given lawsuit is valid, it involves you in legal action rather than in running your business. Even if you have never been sued for anything and don't anticipate having to deal with legal action, it is crucial for you to think about insurance for your business in the same way that you think about health insurance.
There was a time when I didn't have health insurance. I stayed fit and was never sick, and health insurance was expensive, so I decided that I didn't need it. Eventually, I got a job that not only provided health insurance but also paid 100 percent of the premiums (a great deal, especially these days). Now that I had insurance, I started to use it, and I realized that everyone should have it, just in case. For example, I recently needed to have a full shoulder replacement. My injury had gotten to the point where I couldn't even lift my arm, and that's a big problem for a fitness professional. A quarter-of-a-million dollars later, I have a brand new shoulder. Imagine if I didn't have health insurance! My shoulder replacement could have wiped me out financially. It takes only one "thing" to change your life.
It's the same with liability insurance. The fact that you have never been sued doesn't mean that it can't or won't happen tomorrow. What's more, lawsuits rarely stop at $250,000 (the price of my shoulder surgery). And here's another reason for obtaining liability insurance: "Maybe you were negligent, maybe you weren't. Either way, to defend yourself will cost you more than you have" (Leve, 2015). When even the cost of defending yourself could put you out of business, do you really want to take the risk of going without coverage?
Thus there are many reasons to get insurance, but these stand out:
- It is sometimes required by a governmental body.
- It helps offset the risk of owning a business or providing services to others.
- It protects your physical assets, such as fitness equipment and furniture.
- It provides a defense against claims related toinjuries and damages resulting from professional mistakes.
- It helps you recover from a dramatic event and safeguards you from a resulting loss of income.
- It attracts and maintains high-quality employees.
Yes, You Need Insurance
If you find it tempting to begin your business operations without liability insurance, consider these examples:
- In a group fitness class at a Manhattan fitness club, a 35-year-old woman suffered eye injuries when exercise tubing anchored by her feet slipped off, snapped back, and struck her in the face. She sued for $1 million, claiming that the broken band had blinded her (Ross, 2014).
- A 62-year-old woman was awarded $750,000 in a suit against a gym in Branford, Connecticut (Schoenfeld, 2015). She fell and broke her hip and wrist when her personal trainer had her get on the platform side of a domed balanced device during their fourth session.
- A 58-year-old woman claimed that her ACL was torn when she was pressured to jump from a 10-foot wall during the first session of a fitness boot camp (Boniello, 2015).
- A California health club paid $2.9 million to settle an employee lawsuit related to overtime wages and meal breaks (Turner, 2015).
Learn more about The Business of Personal Training With Web Resource.
Training a client in a home or office
Some clients greatly value receiving personal training at home or at the office because it saves them time that would otherwise be spent in traveling to and from the health club. Their appreciation of this benefit makes them more likely to use the services of a personal trainer.
Some clients greatly value receiving personal training at home or at the office because it saves them time that would otherwise be spent in traveling to and from the health club. Their appreciation of this benefit makes them more likely to use the services of a personal trainer.
Benefits
I have held many positions in my personal training career, including that of independent personal trainer at various gyms. Through it all, one ongoing part of my business has been to train clients in their homes, offices, or apartment-complex gyms. Training in a client's space can be a great option for the following reasons:
- You don't have to make arrangements with anyone other than your clients. Do your schedules match? If the answer is yes, then book it.
- Getting paid is simple and easy - cash, check, or credit card. To accept credit cards, you can use a card reader that attaches directly to your smartphone or tablet; for example, this service is offered by Square, Intuit GoPayment, and PayPal.
- Some apartment or condominium buildings contain their own gyms, and some clients have their own home gyms. These options may offer a good choice in terms of both equipment and relative privacy as typically only residents are allowed to use them.
Challenges
The challenges of providing personal training in a client's home or office relate to space, equipment, and travel time.
- If you don't have access to a private or semiprivate gym, then you may need to get creative by working in some very different spaces. For instance, I used to train one celebrity client at her home, which included a large, comfortable space. I have also trained people in spaces where I would need to move the coffee table in order to have enough room to work out. Of course, the available space dictates the kinds of exercises that you will be able to use with the client.
- If your clients have no access to fitness equipment, then you may need to purchase some to carry from appointment to appointment. In this case, you certainly won't be able to use a lot of traditional equipment. Alternatively, you could require your clients to purchasetheir own equipment as part of your terms for working with them. Here are some equipment choices that offer versatility, portability, and compactness for use in smaller spaces:
- Resistance bands
- Yoga mats
- Suspension trainers or devices
- Jump ropes
- Small medicine balls
- Selectorized dumbbells (not portable but compact and versatile and therefore a possibility for clients to buy for their homes)
- Another challenge is travel time. Whereas a single location would allow you to do, say, four 30-minute sessions in two hours, traveling to a client might occupy 30 minutes each way in order to conduct a single 30-minute session. That's an hour and a half of your time. With this impingement in mind, you must decide how far you're willing to travel for a client and how much to charge for travel time so that your compensation is comparable to that of working in a single place. Clients do know that they will pay more for the convenience of having you meet them at a place of their choosing. In working out these details, recognize and plan for the possibility that your travel time will vary depending on traffic, bus, or subway delays.
One of the big challenges with training clients in their homes was the distractions of home life (kids, pets, phone calls, etc.). I just had to do my best to manage the emotions and personalities that would come into play in their home space.
Joe Drake, MS, NSCA-CPT; co-owner, Gravity & Oxygen Fitness, Boca Raton, Florida
Even when you work in a client-selected space, it remains your duty to ensure that the space and equipment used are safe for your client. This responsibility includes moving loose rugs, safeguarding breakable items, and keeping animals and small children at a safe distance. Consider everything that might happen and adjust the space accordingly.
Learn more about The Business of Personal Training With Web Resource.
The importance of writing a business plan
A business plan is a detailed description of your company, its concept, how it will run, what it will cost to run, and where you want it to go. As you learn about the world of business, you may come across varied opinions about how to write a business plan or even whether it’s worth it.
A business plan is a detailed description of your company, its concept, how it will run, what it will cost to run, and where you want it to go. As you learn about the world of business, you may come across varied opinions about how to write a business plan or even whether it's worth it. For instance, you may hear skeptics say that it's just a guess - an educated guess if you've done your homework, but still a guess - so how accurate and useful can it be? What's more, we can't know anything with certainty. The zombie apocalypse could start tomorrow, and wouldn't that throw a monkey wrench into your business plan?
On the other hand, all of science starts with an educated guess in the form of a hypothesis: "I think ______ will take place when I do __________." You then test the hypothesis, and if it pans out - great! If it doesn't, you develop a new hypothesis and try again. And that's what must be done with a business plan. Once you get up and running, you refer back to it, and if things are not going as planned, then you change your plan to reflect your updated best (educated) guess.
Some discussions of how to write a business plan advise you to project your business as far as 10 years into the future. However, the further out you project, the more likely you are to be off the mark. For that reason, I favor extending your business plan only to the point where you can get started, get established, and set a direction for growth, which means about three years for most of the business options we've discussed.
Could you simply bypass the writing of a business plan? Why should you bother putting in the time and effort if you'll probably have to change it anyway? Here are two big reasons:
- A business plan enables you to start the business with a good sense of your strengths and weaknesses, the challenges that may arise due to competition or economic factors, and your chances of succeeding. If you can't make it work on paper - that is, in a business plan - then it's not going to make it in real life.
- If you need to acquire additional financing, a business plan will show potential investors that you've done your research and are willing to put in the work to make your business succeed. No savvy businessperson will invest in a casual idea that doesn't consider all of the details - good, bad, and ugly.
One final question before getting started: How long should a business plan be? Answers vary widely. Some sources say that a typical plan runs 15 to 20 pages, whereas others say it should be at least 50 pages long. My own belief is that the page count is secondary to the content. Your business plan needs to include sufficient detail in each section for you to know - and show - that you have thought through all relevant variables that can be known at this time. The number of pages then depends on what you need to say in each section. For example, if there is literally no other fitness facility within an 8- to 12-minute radius of your proposed site, then your competitive analysis section will be very short.
You can find a business plan template in appendix A and in the web resource (www.HumanKinetics.com/TheBusinessOfPersonalTraining); you can use it to develop your own business plan. In addition, each section of this chapter fleshes out part of the template. If you are thinking about starting your own personal training business, consider taking notes as you read this chapter and jotting down brainstorm ideas for your own business plan.
As mentioned in chapter 4, my wife, Heather, and I are (as I write this) in the process of opening a boutique fitness studio. Thus I use a business model very similar to ours in the following discussion of the details of writing a business plan.
Components of a Business Plan
A business plan consists of nine key components:
- Cover letter (optional)
- Executive summary
- Business or company description
- Market analysis and demographics
- Competitive analysis
- Management plan
- Financial plan
- Capital required
- Marketing plan
Learn more about The Business of Personal Training With Web Resource.
This is why insurance matters
Lawsuits can be brought against health clubs, personal trainers, and instructors. If you’d like to get a taste of the possibilities, a simple web search will provide you with many examples (see, for instance, Eickhoff-Shemek, 2013).
Lawsuits can be brought against health clubs, personal trainers, and instructors. If you'd like to get a taste of the possibilities, a simple web search will provide you with many examples (see, for instance, Eickhoff-Shemek, 2013). Regardless of whether a given lawsuit is valid, it involves you in legal action rather than in running your business. Even if you have never been sued for anything and don't anticipate having to deal with legal action, it is crucial for you to think about insurance for your business in the same way that you think about health insurance.
There was a time when I didn't have health insurance. I stayed fit and was never sick, and health insurance was expensive, so I decided that I didn't need it. Eventually, I got a job that not only provided health insurance but also paid 100 percent of the premiums (a great deal, especially these days). Now that I had insurance, I started to use it, and I realized that everyone should have it, just in case. For example, I recently needed to have a full shoulder replacement. My injury had gotten to the point where I couldn't even lift my arm, and that's a big problem for a fitness professional. A quarter-of-a-million dollars later, I have a brand new shoulder. Imagine if I didn't have health insurance! My shoulder replacement could have wiped me out financially. It takes only one "thing" to change your life.
It's the same with liability insurance. The fact that you have never been sued doesn't mean that it can't or won't happen tomorrow. What's more, lawsuits rarely stop at $250,000 (the price of my shoulder surgery). And here's another reason for obtaining liability insurance: "Maybe you were negligent, maybe you weren't. Either way, to defend yourself will cost you more than you have" (Leve, 2015). When even the cost of defending yourself could put you out of business, do you really want to take the risk of going without coverage?
Thus there are many reasons to get insurance, but these stand out:
- It is sometimes required by a governmental body.
- It helps offset the risk of owning a business or providing services to others.
- It protects your physical assets, such as fitness equipment and furniture.
- It provides a defense against claims related toinjuries and damages resulting from professional mistakes.
- It helps you recover from a dramatic event and safeguards you from a resulting loss of income.
- It attracts and maintains high-quality employees.
Yes, You Need Insurance
If you find it tempting to begin your business operations without liability insurance, consider these examples:
- In a group fitness class at a Manhattan fitness club, a 35-year-old woman suffered eye injuries when exercise tubing anchored by her feet slipped off, snapped back, and struck her in the face. She sued for $1 million, claiming that the broken band had blinded her (Ross, 2014).
- A 62-year-old woman was awarded $750,000 in a suit against a gym in Branford, Connecticut (Schoenfeld, 2015). She fell and broke her hip and wrist when her personal trainer had her get on the platform side of a domed balanced device during their fourth session.
- A 58-year-old woman claimed that her ACL was torn when she was pressured to jump from a 10-foot wall during the first session of a fitness boot camp (Boniello, 2015).
- A California health club paid $2.9 million to settle an employee lawsuit related to overtime wages and meal breaks (Turner, 2015).
Learn more about The Business of Personal Training With Web Resource.
Training a client in a home or office
Some clients greatly value receiving personal training at home or at the office because it saves them time that would otherwise be spent in traveling to and from the health club. Their appreciation of this benefit makes them more likely to use the services of a personal trainer.
Some clients greatly value receiving personal training at home or at the office because it saves them time that would otherwise be spent in traveling to and from the health club. Their appreciation of this benefit makes them more likely to use the services of a personal trainer.
Benefits
I have held many positions in my personal training career, including that of independent personal trainer at various gyms. Through it all, one ongoing part of my business has been to train clients in their homes, offices, or apartment-complex gyms. Training in a client's space can be a great option for the following reasons:
- You don't have to make arrangements with anyone other than your clients. Do your schedules match? If the answer is yes, then book it.
- Getting paid is simple and easy - cash, check, or credit card. To accept credit cards, you can use a card reader that attaches directly to your smartphone or tablet; for example, this service is offered by Square, Intuit GoPayment, and PayPal.
- Some apartment or condominium buildings contain their own gyms, and some clients have their own home gyms. These options may offer a good choice in terms of both equipment and relative privacy as typically only residents are allowed to use them.
Challenges
The challenges of providing personal training in a client's home or office relate to space, equipment, and travel time.
- If you don't have access to a private or semiprivate gym, then you may need to get creative by working in some very different spaces. For instance, I used to train one celebrity client at her home, which included a large, comfortable space. I have also trained people in spaces where I would need to move the coffee table in order to have enough room to work out. Of course, the available space dictates the kinds of exercises that you will be able to use with the client.
- If your clients have no access to fitness equipment, then you may need to purchase some to carry from appointment to appointment. In this case, you certainly won't be able to use a lot of traditional equipment. Alternatively, you could require your clients to purchasetheir own equipment as part of your terms for working with them. Here are some equipment choices that offer versatility, portability, and compactness for use in smaller spaces:
- Resistance bands
- Yoga mats
- Suspension trainers or devices
- Jump ropes
- Small medicine balls
- Selectorized dumbbells (not portable but compact and versatile and therefore a possibility for clients to buy for their homes)
- Another challenge is travel time. Whereas a single location would allow you to do, say, four 30-minute sessions in two hours, traveling to a client might occupy 30 minutes each way in order to conduct a single 30-minute session. That's an hour and a half of your time. With this impingement in mind, you must decide how far you're willing to travel for a client and how much to charge for travel time so that your compensation is comparable to that of working in a single place. Clients do know that they will pay more for the convenience of having you meet them at a place of their choosing. In working out these details, recognize and plan for the possibility that your travel time will vary depending on traffic, bus, or subway delays.
One of the big challenges with training clients in their homes was the distractions of home life (kids, pets, phone calls, etc.). I just had to do my best to manage the emotions and personalities that would come into play in their home space.
Joe Drake, MS, NSCA-CPT; co-owner, Gravity & Oxygen Fitness, Boca Raton, Florida
Even when you work in a client-selected space, it remains your duty to ensure that the space and equipment used are safe for your client. This responsibility includes moving loose rugs, safeguarding breakable items, and keeping animals and small children at a safe distance. Consider everything that might happen and adjust the space accordingly.
Learn more about The Business of Personal Training With Web Resource.
The importance of writing a business plan
A business plan is a detailed description of your company, its concept, how it will run, what it will cost to run, and where you want it to go. As you learn about the world of business, you may come across varied opinions about how to write a business plan or even whether it’s worth it.
A business plan is a detailed description of your company, its concept, how it will run, what it will cost to run, and where you want it to go. As you learn about the world of business, you may come across varied opinions about how to write a business plan or even whether it's worth it. For instance, you may hear skeptics say that it's just a guess - an educated guess if you've done your homework, but still a guess - so how accurate and useful can it be? What's more, we can't know anything with certainty. The zombie apocalypse could start tomorrow, and wouldn't that throw a monkey wrench into your business plan?
On the other hand, all of science starts with an educated guess in the form of a hypothesis: "I think ______ will take place when I do __________." You then test the hypothesis, and if it pans out - great! If it doesn't, you develop a new hypothesis and try again. And that's what must be done with a business plan. Once you get up and running, you refer back to it, and if things are not going as planned, then you change your plan to reflect your updated best (educated) guess.
Some discussions of how to write a business plan advise you to project your business as far as 10 years into the future. However, the further out you project, the more likely you are to be off the mark. For that reason, I favor extending your business plan only to the point where you can get started, get established, and set a direction for growth, which means about three years for most of the business options we've discussed.
Could you simply bypass the writing of a business plan? Why should you bother putting in the time and effort if you'll probably have to change it anyway? Here are two big reasons:
- A business plan enables you to start the business with a good sense of your strengths and weaknesses, the challenges that may arise due to competition or economic factors, and your chances of succeeding. If you can't make it work on paper - that is, in a business plan - then it's not going to make it in real life.
- If you need to acquire additional financing, a business plan will show potential investors that you've done your research and are willing to put in the work to make your business succeed. No savvy businessperson will invest in a casual idea that doesn't consider all of the details - good, bad, and ugly.
One final question before getting started: How long should a business plan be? Answers vary widely. Some sources say that a typical plan runs 15 to 20 pages, whereas others say it should be at least 50 pages long. My own belief is that the page count is secondary to the content. Your business plan needs to include sufficient detail in each section for you to know - and show - that you have thought through all relevant variables that can be known at this time. The number of pages then depends on what you need to say in each section. For example, if there is literally no other fitness facility within an 8- to 12-minute radius of your proposed site, then your competitive analysis section will be very short.
You can find a business plan template in appendix A and in the web resource (www.HumanKinetics.com/TheBusinessOfPersonalTraining); you can use it to develop your own business plan. In addition, each section of this chapter fleshes out part of the template. If you are thinking about starting your own personal training business, consider taking notes as you read this chapter and jotting down brainstorm ideas for your own business plan.
As mentioned in chapter 4, my wife, Heather, and I are (as I write this) in the process of opening a boutique fitness studio. Thus I use a business model very similar to ours in the following discussion of the details of writing a business plan.
Components of a Business Plan
A business plan consists of nine key components:
- Cover letter (optional)
- Executive summary
- Business or company description
- Market analysis and demographics
- Competitive analysis
- Management plan
- Financial plan
- Capital required
- Marketing plan
Learn more about The Business of Personal Training With Web Resource.
This is why insurance matters
Lawsuits can be brought against health clubs, personal trainers, and instructors. If you’d like to get a taste of the possibilities, a simple web search will provide you with many examples (see, for instance, Eickhoff-Shemek, 2013).
Lawsuits can be brought against health clubs, personal trainers, and instructors. If you'd like to get a taste of the possibilities, a simple web search will provide you with many examples (see, for instance, Eickhoff-Shemek, 2013). Regardless of whether a given lawsuit is valid, it involves you in legal action rather than in running your business. Even if you have never been sued for anything and don't anticipate having to deal with legal action, it is crucial for you to think about insurance for your business in the same way that you think about health insurance.
There was a time when I didn't have health insurance. I stayed fit and was never sick, and health insurance was expensive, so I decided that I didn't need it. Eventually, I got a job that not only provided health insurance but also paid 100 percent of the premiums (a great deal, especially these days). Now that I had insurance, I started to use it, and I realized that everyone should have it, just in case. For example, I recently needed to have a full shoulder replacement. My injury had gotten to the point where I couldn't even lift my arm, and that's a big problem for a fitness professional. A quarter-of-a-million dollars later, I have a brand new shoulder. Imagine if I didn't have health insurance! My shoulder replacement could have wiped me out financially. It takes only one "thing" to change your life.
It's the same with liability insurance. The fact that you have never been sued doesn't mean that it can't or won't happen tomorrow. What's more, lawsuits rarely stop at $250,000 (the price of my shoulder surgery). And here's another reason for obtaining liability insurance: "Maybe you were negligent, maybe you weren't. Either way, to defend yourself will cost you more than you have" (Leve, 2015). When even the cost of defending yourself could put you out of business, do you really want to take the risk of going without coverage?
Thus there are many reasons to get insurance, but these stand out:
- It is sometimes required by a governmental body.
- It helps offset the risk of owning a business or providing services to others.
- It protects your physical assets, such as fitness equipment and furniture.
- It provides a defense against claims related toinjuries and damages resulting from professional mistakes.
- It helps you recover from a dramatic event and safeguards you from a resulting loss of income.
- It attracts and maintains high-quality employees.
Yes, You Need Insurance
If you find it tempting to begin your business operations without liability insurance, consider these examples:
- In a group fitness class at a Manhattan fitness club, a 35-year-old woman suffered eye injuries when exercise tubing anchored by her feet slipped off, snapped back, and struck her in the face. She sued for $1 million, claiming that the broken band had blinded her (Ross, 2014).
- A 62-year-old woman was awarded $750,000 in a suit against a gym in Branford, Connecticut (Schoenfeld, 2015). She fell and broke her hip and wrist when her personal trainer had her get on the platform side of a domed balanced device during their fourth session.
- A 58-year-old woman claimed that her ACL was torn when she was pressured to jump from a 10-foot wall during the first session of a fitness boot camp (Boniello, 2015).
- A California health club paid $2.9 million to settle an employee lawsuit related to overtime wages and meal breaks (Turner, 2015).
Learn more about The Business of Personal Training With Web Resource.
Training a client in a home or office
Some clients greatly value receiving personal training at home or at the office because it saves them time that would otherwise be spent in traveling to and from the health club. Their appreciation of this benefit makes them more likely to use the services of a personal trainer.
Some clients greatly value receiving personal training at home or at the office because it saves them time that would otherwise be spent in traveling to and from the health club. Their appreciation of this benefit makes them more likely to use the services of a personal trainer.
Benefits
I have held many positions in my personal training career, including that of independent personal trainer at various gyms. Through it all, one ongoing part of my business has been to train clients in their homes, offices, or apartment-complex gyms. Training in a client's space can be a great option for the following reasons:
- You don't have to make arrangements with anyone other than your clients. Do your schedules match? If the answer is yes, then book it.
- Getting paid is simple and easy - cash, check, or credit card. To accept credit cards, you can use a card reader that attaches directly to your smartphone or tablet; for example, this service is offered by Square, Intuit GoPayment, and PayPal.
- Some apartment or condominium buildings contain their own gyms, and some clients have their own home gyms. These options may offer a good choice in terms of both equipment and relative privacy as typically only residents are allowed to use them.
Challenges
The challenges of providing personal training in a client's home or office relate to space, equipment, and travel time.
- If you don't have access to a private or semiprivate gym, then you may need to get creative by working in some very different spaces. For instance, I used to train one celebrity client at her home, which included a large, comfortable space. I have also trained people in spaces where I would need to move the coffee table in order to have enough room to work out. Of course, the available space dictates the kinds of exercises that you will be able to use with the client.
- If your clients have no access to fitness equipment, then you may need to purchase some to carry from appointment to appointment. In this case, you certainly won't be able to use a lot of traditional equipment. Alternatively, you could require your clients to purchasetheir own equipment as part of your terms for working with them. Here are some equipment choices that offer versatility, portability, and compactness for use in smaller spaces:
- Resistance bands
- Yoga mats
- Suspension trainers or devices
- Jump ropes
- Small medicine balls
- Selectorized dumbbells (not portable but compact and versatile and therefore a possibility for clients to buy for their homes)
- Another challenge is travel time. Whereas a single location would allow you to do, say, four 30-minute sessions in two hours, traveling to a client might occupy 30 minutes each way in order to conduct a single 30-minute session. That's an hour and a half of your time. With this impingement in mind, you must decide how far you're willing to travel for a client and how much to charge for travel time so that your compensation is comparable to that of working in a single place. Clients do know that they will pay more for the convenience of having you meet them at a place of their choosing. In working out these details, recognize and plan for the possibility that your travel time will vary depending on traffic, bus, or subway delays.
One of the big challenges with training clients in their homes was the distractions of home life (kids, pets, phone calls, etc.). I just had to do my best to manage the emotions and personalities that would come into play in their home space.
Joe Drake, MS, NSCA-CPT; co-owner, Gravity & Oxygen Fitness, Boca Raton, Florida
Even when you work in a client-selected space, it remains your duty to ensure that the space and equipment used are safe for your client. This responsibility includes moving loose rugs, safeguarding breakable items, and keeping animals and small children at a safe distance. Consider everything that might happen and adjust the space accordingly.
Learn more about The Business of Personal Training With Web Resource.
The importance of writing a business plan
A business plan is a detailed description of your company, its concept, how it will run, what it will cost to run, and where you want it to go. As you learn about the world of business, you may come across varied opinions about how to write a business plan or even whether it’s worth it.
A business plan is a detailed description of your company, its concept, how it will run, what it will cost to run, and where you want it to go. As you learn about the world of business, you may come across varied opinions about how to write a business plan or even whether it's worth it. For instance, you may hear skeptics say that it's just a guess - an educated guess if you've done your homework, but still a guess - so how accurate and useful can it be? What's more, we can't know anything with certainty. The zombie apocalypse could start tomorrow, and wouldn't that throw a monkey wrench into your business plan?
On the other hand, all of science starts with an educated guess in the form of a hypothesis: "I think ______ will take place when I do __________." You then test the hypothesis, and if it pans out - great! If it doesn't, you develop a new hypothesis and try again. And that's what must be done with a business plan. Once you get up and running, you refer back to it, and if things are not going as planned, then you change your plan to reflect your updated best (educated) guess.
Some discussions of how to write a business plan advise you to project your business as far as 10 years into the future. However, the further out you project, the more likely you are to be off the mark. For that reason, I favor extending your business plan only to the point where you can get started, get established, and set a direction for growth, which means about three years for most of the business options we've discussed.
Could you simply bypass the writing of a business plan? Why should you bother putting in the time and effort if you'll probably have to change it anyway? Here are two big reasons:
- A business plan enables you to start the business with a good sense of your strengths and weaknesses, the challenges that may arise due to competition or economic factors, and your chances of succeeding. If you can't make it work on paper - that is, in a business plan - then it's not going to make it in real life.
- If you need to acquire additional financing, a business plan will show potential investors that you've done your research and are willing to put in the work to make your business succeed. No savvy businessperson will invest in a casual idea that doesn't consider all of the details - good, bad, and ugly.
One final question before getting started: How long should a business plan be? Answers vary widely. Some sources say that a typical plan runs 15 to 20 pages, whereas others say it should be at least 50 pages long. My own belief is that the page count is secondary to the content. Your business plan needs to include sufficient detail in each section for you to know - and show - that you have thought through all relevant variables that can be known at this time. The number of pages then depends on what you need to say in each section. For example, if there is literally no other fitness facility within an 8- to 12-minute radius of your proposed site, then your competitive analysis section will be very short.
You can find a business plan template in appendix A and in the web resource (www.HumanKinetics.com/TheBusinessOfPersonalTraining); you can use it to develop your own business plan. In addition, each section of this chapter fleshes out part of the template. If you are thinking about starting your own personal training business, consider taking notes as you read this chapter and jotting down brainstorm ideas for your own business plan.
As mentioned in chapter 4, my wife, Heather, and I are (as I write this) in the process of opening a boutique fitness studio. Thus I use a business model very similar to ours in the following discussion of the details of writing a business plan.
Components of a Business Plan
A business plan consists of nine key components:
- Cover letter (optional)
- Executive summary
- Business or company description
- Market analysis and demographics
- Competitive analysis
- Management plan
- Financial plan
- Capital required
- Marketing plan
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This is why insurance matters
Lawsuits can be brought against health clubs, personal trainers, and instructors. If you’d like to get a taste of the possibilities, a simple web search will provide you with many examples (see, for instance, Eickhoff-Shemek, 2013).
Lawsuits can be brought against health clubs, personal trainers, and instructors. If you'd like to get a taste of the possibilities, a simple web search will provide you with many examples (see, for instance, Eickhoff-Shemek, 2013). Regardless of whether a given lawsuit is valid, it involves you in legal action rather than in running your business. Even if you have never been sued for anything and don't anticipate having to deal with legal action, it is crucial for you to think about insurance for your business in the same way that you think about health insurance.
There was a time when I didn't have health insurance. I stayed fit and was never sick, and health insurance was expensive, so I decided that I didn't need it. Eventually, I got a job that not only provided health insurance but also paid 100 percent of the premiums (a great deal, especially these days). Now that I had insurance, I started to use it, and I realized that everyone should have it, just in case. For example, I recently needed to have a full shoulder replacement. My injury had gotten to the point where I couldn't even lift my arm, and that's a big problem for a fitness professional. A quarter-of-a-million dollars later, I have a brand new shoulder. Imagine if I didn't have health insurance! My shoulder replacement could have wiped me out financially. It takes only one "thing" to change your life.
It's the same with liability insurance. The fact that you have never been sued doesn't mean that it can't or won't happen tomorrow. What's more, lawsuits rarely stop at $250,000 (the price of my shoulder surgery). And here's another reason for obtaining liability insurance: "Maybe you were negligent, maybe you weren't. Either way, to defend yourself will cost you more than you have" (Leve, 2015). When even the cost of defending yourself could put you out of business, do you really want to take the risk of going without coverage?
Thus there are many reasons to get insurance, but these stand out:
- It is sometimes required by a governmental body.
- It helps offset the risk of owning a business or providing services to others.
- It protects your physical assets, such as fitness equipment and furniture.
- It provides a defense against claims related toinjuries and damages resulting from professional mistakes.
- It helps you recover from a dramatic event and safeguards you from a resulting loss of income.
- It attracts and maintains high-quality employees.
Yes, You Need Insurance
If you find it tempting to begin your business operations without liability insurance, consider these examples:
- In a group fitness class at a Manhattan fitness club, a 35-year-old woman suffered eye injuries when exercise tubing anchored by her feet slipped off, snapped back, and struck her in the face. She sued for $1 million, claiming that the broken band had blinded her (Ross, 2014).
- A 62-year-old woman was awarded $750,000 in a suit against a gym in Branford, Connecticut (Schoenfeld, 2015). She fell and broke her hip and wrist when her personal trainer had her get on the platform side of a domed balanced device during their fourth session.
- A 58-year-old woman claimed that her ACL was torn when she was pressured to jump from a 10-foot wall during the first session of a fitness boot camp (Boniello, 2015).
- A California health club paid $2.9 million to settle an employee lawsuit related to overtime wages and meal breaks (Turner, 2015).
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