Lots of fitness entrepreneurs dream of owning their own personal training business. Why work for someone else when there is less job security and they are expecting more and more work from you?
However it is overlooked that to run a successful personal training business, especially in the early years you need a combination of motivation, focus, a willingness to work hard, self –reliance, the support of your family and finally – the ability to deliver results.
Starting your own training business takes determination, perseverance and self-discipline. Beware if you are starting for negative reasons, perhaps just because you dislike your boss at the club or you don’t want to have to answer to someone every day. Running your own fitness business is a big step. Take time to consider and plan.
It’s not playing golf when you want and taking vacations when you want. When I quit working for someone else and my business partner and I went out on our own, I took a $40,000 pay cut the first year. There is a lot of administrative work and responsibility to address when you own your own business. And in case you didn’t realize it – the client now becomes your boss and they pay your wages when you own your own training business.
It requires a different mindset and that’s what you’re going to need if you’re going to own a six-figure personal training business. Just look at the following statistics.
Of all the thousands of people who start service businesses (a personal training business falls into this category) in the U.S….
• By the end of the first year, 40% will have failed.
• Within 3 years, 56% will have failed.
• Within 5 years, 76% will have failed.
Of those who go past 5 years, there’s no guarantee they will survive the next 5 years. So what are the common problems suffered by a personal training business?
- The owners work too hard and for too many hours.
- Personal objectives of the owners such as hobbies and spending time with their family end up low down on the list of priorities.
- The owners spend too much time doing the day-to-day technical work rather than planning and managing the personal training business.
- The owners don’t understand the ‘behind the scenes’ work associated with running the personal training business.
- The owners don’t understand that in order for a personal training business to have a good resale value it must work without them.
- Many owners get frustrated and simply give up and go back to being an employee.
- The rewards don’t match the effort.
They often face common problems in managing their business…
- No consistency in delivery of their services if they have more than one person delivering them.
- They can’t depend on their employees to get it right.
- They focus on people rather than systems, which creates problems when the people leave.
- Systems that are in place are not documented but in the head of the person who leaves.
- The fitness business owner ends up doing everything.
- Employees are not as diligent as the owners.
- The owner spends too much time filled up with other people’s problems and administration.
- The owner always has to supervise and guide employees.
- They have no idea how they compare with other similar fitness businesses and competitors with respect to financial performance or non-financial areas such as human recourses, production, marketing, etc. They therefore don’t know where there are areas for improvement.
- No system for projecting income and expenditure.
- No system for measuring key financial indicators against their personal training business plan.
With regards to marketing these are common problems for a training business…
- It’s done haphazardly rather than in a systematized way.
- They don’t know what works.
- They don’t fully understand why their clients buy.
- They don’t know who their most profitable clients are.
- They don’t measure their marketing results against costs.
- They lose sight of marketing to their existing clients.
- They only market when they need new clients.
- They forget the fundamental truth that it is irrelevant how good you are at providing a service without clients.
Don’t let these problems discourage you if you’re interested in starting a personal training business. We’ve provided countless articles and resources to assist personal training business owners build the career, lifestyle and income that they want – so just do your homework and apply what you learn to avoid mistakes like these and reach all of your fitness business business goals.
