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Four Ways to Boost Your Income From $2K To $5K+ Per Week
Brad Sheppard from Trainer HQ shares four ways that you can take your income to the next level.
The following information is for personal trainers and fitness professionals who are making at least $2,000 a week and want to grow and scale to $5,000+ a week in their fitness business.
Perhaps you’d like more money, time and freedom to do the things you love, like travel, or to buy the things you deserve for your hard work. Maybe you feel stuck or tied down by your current situation – while the money is coming in, if we take you out of the picture, the money stops!
It might just be that you know you are destined for more.
Whatever your reason, this article could be the very thing you need to read.
Learning from the mistakes of others is super effective and way less painful
In 1995, I began my career as a personal trainer. I was an excellent trainer but completely clueless on how to run a fitness business. I had no systems, no structure, no process in place. When I look back at my first five years in the fitness industry, it was an absolute rollercoaster ride. At some points things were going well, moving in the right direction, and then, for no apparent reason, I might lose one, two or three clients which would lead to stress and uncertainty. In hindsight, I realise I was running what I now call ‘the hope plan’ – where you crossed your fingers and hoped for the best!
Five years into my journey I met my first business coach, who showed me that there was a different way to do things. I then went from being burnt out and wanting to quit the industry, to becoming one of Australia’s highest paid personal trainers, charging up to $440 per session. I built a team of 13 personal trainers, all in one location, and was conducting more than 250, 45-minute PT sessions each week.
It’s possible for you to replicate this level of success (we’ve coached others through this), without adding hours to your day or burning you out in the process.
I went from being burnt out and wanting to quit the industry, to becoming one of Australia's highest-paid personal trainers, charging $440 per session.
Let's look at the road from $2,000 a week to $5,000+ a week.
For many PTs, the left-hand side indicates where we all start, usually on $0 per week!
The road from $0 per week up to $2,000 a week (the equivalent of $100,000 per year) is a really good goal and one that is fully achievable, even in your first 12 months.
Are you ready to ‘Cross The Canyon’?
‘Cross the canyon’ is the phrase I use to describe what is a different journey to the one that got you to $2,000/week.
To me, crossing the canyon means you’ve developed a more robust business. You have solid systems and processes in place. You have people working for you, who make it possible to increase your profits without adding more to your workload.
There are four main ways you can cross the canyon and achieve wealth and financial freedom. They are:
- build a team
- develop an online or hybrid model
- create a semi-private offering; or
- open your own facility.
build a team
Once you’ve developed an ongoing lead-generation and conversion strategy, you’ll get to the point where you become fully booked. What do you do with the additional leads that come your way? Well, it’s time to build a team. Support the development of new trainers, leverage your own time and service a greater number of your community.
This is exactly what ‘Off Tap Fitness’ (Brisbane, AUS) did when their face-to-face sessions got maxed out. With the success of an online offering, they were forced to begin building a team. That business now generates over $10,000 every week with a total of three people who work a moderate amount of contact hours each week.
Develop an online or hybrid model
For many face-to-face PTs there appears to be an ‘ideal’ amount of sessions that they like to deliver each week, which enables them to retain a high standard of quality. For some that number is 20 sessions, while others can do 30, 40 or even more!
Regardless of that number, an opportunity exists for trainers to add an online offering.
In our experience, the ‘sweet spot’ for trainers to charge for an online offering is between $50 and $100 per client, per week (note, some online coaches charge $150+).
Trainers who are used to working with 20 clients in a week can expand to as many as 50 or 60 clients. For example, an online offer at $80 per client per week x 50 clients equals $4,000 per week.
As well as additional income, the added benefit of an online offering is that it often helps trainers better value their own ‘Intellectual Property’ (knowledge, experience, skill, etc).
Alex Connor is a well-established PT on the Gold Coast at EMF Gym. Alex maxed out his face-to-face sessions, which were bringing in $3,000 per week. By adding an online model, he gained an additional $2,000 per week.
Create a Semi-Private Offering
This is one of the quickest ways to leverage your time as a solo-independent PT.
Let’s say that you currently change $90/session for your 1-on-1 PT sessions, and your gym allows you to train up to 4 people per session. If you worked off a $40 per person per session rate for your semi-private sessions, and you switched your model to 25 x 45-minute semi-private sessions per week (5 sessions per day, 5 days per week = 17.5 hours of contact work). You’ve just increased your potential earnings from $2,250 to $4,000 per week!
Open your own facility
If you feel like you’ve outgrown your training environment (not uncommon), or if you have a burning passion to launch your own studio, opening your own bricks and mortar facility may be an option. Obviously, there are many factors to consider – the biggest one being the investment required. Once the numbers have been crunched (and take this seriously), your next step is to add the growth metrics.
- By hiring team members who can deliver 30+ PT sessions per week, you’re in a position to generate between $600 and $900+ per week, per PT.
- By adding a semi-private (6-on-1) training option, where clients invest up to $40 per session, increasing your per session rate to $240 (6 clients x $40 per session)
- And the addition of an online or hybrid offering allows you to leverage the expertise and availability of your team, your facility and your growing reputation.
Brooke Cutts from Manjimup in Western Australia not only grew her own PT business, but was able to negotiate the purchase of the gym that she was operating in. She later went on to purchase the building too! This demonstrates the potential of the Multiplier Formula and the benefits that it can provide!
When you embrace a business growth mindset, you’ll begin to see the limitations of simply exchanging time for money. This can see you well positioned to reach the top one per cent of fitness industry earners. Good luck!
If you’d like to watch the video training on this topic that further explains the process, click here to get immediate access and as a special bonus, you’ll receive a copy of Brad’s ‘High Performer’s Guide’
Brad Sheppard
Brad is the co-founder of Trainer HQ, Australia’s largest Business Coaching and Mentoring program for Personal Trainers. Brad has taught thousands of Personal Trainers Internationally the methods on how to earn $100,000 or greater whilst working 20 hours or less per week.
