How To Grow a Personal Training Business WITHOUT Giving Up Your Entire Life To Do It

Right Now I'm a few thousand feet in the air flying back from an Internet marketing Seminar in Atlanta, Georgia… one of my biggest strategies for growing my personal training business was learning everything I could about marketing a business… and marketing seminars is one of the main places I learn this stuff at.

While I'm A HUGE fan of he seminars, I'm NOT a huge fan of flying… and every time I do it I'm pretty sure I've got about a 50/50 chance of making it out alive.

Plus, since I'm like 6'6" 300 pounds and first class was all sold old.. well.. let's just say it makes for a fun flying experience for myself and my poor wife sitting next to me… not only am I taking up my whole seat, but I'm taking up a third of the aisle and half her seat as well…

I have a good marketing book with me that I'm about to tear into… but first I want to give you a quick take away from some thoughts I had that the event inspired in me and tell you about a few of my favorite time management strategies you can use while growing your personal training business…

While the event kicked ass, there was one dude who KILLED IT on stage… it was Perry Belcher and he talked about using Social Media to grow your business. Now I can't talk about exactly what was said, because this was a private event and people pay like 10k a year to go… however I can talk about some thoughts Perry inspired in me.

( Here's me and Perry… the dude knows how to give one hell of a presentation filled with stories, laughs and GREAT "how to" info)

My thoughts… If you drive people from Social Media to your blog and your offering free stuff on your blog for an opt-in, make sure it's really good free stuff… because people are sick and tired of giving over their name and email for some useless, low end free report.

( Props to Perry for the pic)

If you're offering something for free, just make sure it has value, cuz at the end of the day we all know it's really not free, people are trading their email for it… so make sure you give them something really good in exchange.

And definitely don't drive people from social media to hard sell squeeze pages., drive them to a site that allows you to build a relationship first, before you start trying to shove a bunch of stuff down their throat (I'll admit… I've been guilty of the throat shoving)

Now, that's about all I'm gonna be able to say without pissing off a bunch of really cool people who ran he event.

If you're like me you probably love what you do…whether it's personal training, running boot camps, or being an info marketer… you probably love it and feel like it's what you were born to do… but sometimes we end up sacrificing too much to make our vision in to a reality.

Now, don't get me wrong… I'm all about sacrifice… not like virgins and lambs and shit… I'm talking about sacrificing lower level values for higher ones.

In fact, NOTHING good has come into my life without some level of sacrifice.

When I met my wife, I sacrificed being the mack daddy pimp playa that I was ( or at least thought I was… which is a little closer to the truth)..

When we had children I sacrificed the ability to go any where I wanted anytime.

I used to run my foul mouth 24/7 (having two little girls cut down my use of the word "fuck" by at least 90%… and hopefully they'll never read daddy's blog)… I do my best to never say it around them… now when I'm talking to one of my good buddies and there's no women or children around it's a different story, but it's still WAY less than it used to ( it was pretty bad, trust me)

Too Much Sacrifice

A problem I see is that too many trainers sacrifice their ENTIRE lives to grow their personal training business… they think that they can either have financial freedom OR free time… but they don't think they can have both.

Well I'm living proof to tell you it doesn't have to be like that.. sure, if you wanna work 80 hours a week to make a few hundred thousand dollars or even a few million dollars a year… by all means do so… there's certainly nothing wrong with that and I think it's actually a highly respectable thing to do.

HOWEVER…. I'm hear to tell you that you can grow one hell of a successful personal training business working part time ( if you want)… a business that works around your life… instead of the other way around.

While smart work and massive action are important… don't sacrifice your entire life to grow your business… make sure you spend time with your family… spend time to educate yourself.. spend time to enjoy your favorite hobbies.. even spend time doing absolutely nothing… and whatever else in life that is highest on your list of personal values.

Cuz having a successful business but a horrible family life would suck… and having a successful business without educating yourself along the way to be the best human being you can isn't all that great of a situation either.

If you want to have a successful business and a happy life you need balance.

Here's a few tips you can use to help you grow your personal training business without letting everything else in your life go to shit in the process.

Get good at time management

We're all given the same 24 hours a day to build our business… why not make the most out of the time we have?

Why not get the biggest bang for our buck?

… think about it… if you can do in 4 hours what takes most people 6, you'll either be able to get 50% more stuff done with the extra 2 hours a day OR you'll have a lot more free time.. time to say spend with your friends or family, start another project or another business.. or you could spend the time to educate yourself ( just like you're doing right now as your read this blog post)

I have found, at least for myself, that developing good time management and productivity habits will not only hep you get more done in less time… but you'll also have more time to spend how you want.

Here's a few of my favorite time management strategies for growing a helluva personal training business that still gives you the ability to have a lot of freedom in your life

Train Groups and/ or Boot Camps - Nothing against one on one personal training, and your like my friend celebrity trainer Valerie Waters and are able to get $400 an hour… then by all means do so… but most personal trainers I know just don't have the personality and self image to be able to command extremely high rates and work with only A-list celebrities

What works well in my own business and in the businesses of the majority if my coaching clients is training e number of people at a time… my favorite model for this is to train 4 - 6 people at a time and charge about $10 less per session than what your typical one-on-one trainer charges… so lets say instead of charging $50 per hour hour, you'd charge $40 per hour… but at $40 per person per workout multiplied by six people per hour your looking at $240 an hour… which is a much nicer income than the $50 ( or LESS) per hour that most personal trainers make

And if you train boot camps, yo can even make more per hour… I have one coaching client who makes $30k per month, and he groups will get as large as 90 people at a time… he barters with two girls to be his assistant and stand at the front of the class and help him demonstrate the exercises and keep peoples form in check… and he doesn't pay them a dime… it's a straight barter

Block your groups together

I was personally able to train 67 clients and average of two times per week only working 3 days a week ( and I charged an average of $50 per person per workout)

Here's how I did it, I trained 4-6 people together in a group per hour and only trained Mon, Tues and Thur 6-10 or 11am and 3 or 4pm to 8pm

Basically I chunked it all together and would ONLY train during those hours, and filled every single one of them with clients

Outsource/Insource/Delegate - Honestly, there's only so much work you can do on your own. In my business I focus on the big picture stuff like marketing and strategy, my wife and assistant do the admin and management I have about 15 personal trainer do all training, I have two kick-ass web guys who do my web work and a writer who does my writing, plus I'll occasionally take on link builders and people for special projects.

The point is I'm not the one doing all the work, if I was my business would be about a fourth of successful as it is now and I'd be working probably 184 hours a day which is impossible since were only given 24

If you can't afford to hire people to help you take care of all the busy work and the things you don't need to be spending your time doing, then I strongly suggest you barter it out. One of the best ways to do this is to contact old clients who stopped for financial reasons and offer them a trade, boot camps or group training for them to do three or four hours a week of work for you.

Zach Hunt does this with like 12 people, which adds up to like 60 hours a week of work they do him for him and all he does is toss them in his group workouts and top of his paying people.

(Hold on a second, the stewardess is about to ask me if I want one of those little bags of peanuts)

Auto-Debit - Put people on EFT and let the billing company handle all that stuff for you. Collecting checks from people every month is a TOTAL waste of time. Auto-debit is THE way to go… it works for more reasons than I can cover in this blog post

Chunk Down Put similar tasks together - for example, I'll do all my coaching calls and interviews on the same days, create content on another day, write sales copy another day, put all my meetings on anther day and film videos on another day.

Put similar projects together and you'll get a whole lot more done. Transitioning between different types of work can take up a lot of time

Have clear and defined goals - If you don't know EXACTLY where you're going you will never get there. If you don't already have clear and defined goals, then stop reading right now and go write some… make sure they are specific, believable, motivating and have time lines.

People without goals waste a whole bunch of time everyday going nowhere, and most of their time spent doing this just to keep their business afloat and the exact same it is now… if you wanna move forward, make sure you have a map that shows you exactly where you're going

Work off To-Do lists - Make sure that every day you work off of a list of the tp 3-7 things that you want to get done for that day. I have more millionaire friends than I can count, and not one of them doesn't live and die by their to do lists.

They treat it with a "gun to the head" type of seriousness…

Have "on the business" time each week - Make sure you a certain amount of time set aside aside everyday ( or at least multiple days each week) to work "on" our business… working "on" your marketing, on your conversions, on your sales process, on your systems, on your strategy, etc.

The trainers who only work "in" their business ( training the clients, making appointments, collecting checks, etc) don't have business, they have a job… even if they work for themselves, hey still only have a job, and that job is 100% dependent on them showing up to do it… make sure your business is ran by systems you've set in place, instead of relying on you to run it.

Batch process phone calls and emails - I personally only check my phone and email at certain times, It annoys the hell out of people sometimes… but if I spent all my time answering emails and phone calls I'd be putting other peoples needs and values above mine and would never be able to reach goals… don't be scared to be selfish with your time… even if it means sacrificing the approval and expectations of others.

Be passionate about what your doing - If your not 100% passionate about what your doing, get the fuck out and find something else to do that you're more passionate about. Otherwise you'll just be spinning your wheels and will never feel fulfilled. Personally, if I'm not passionate about something it is extremely hard for me to even spend 5 minutes on it… I mean I get a serious case of A.D.D. if I don 't have passion for what I'm doing (I make for a horrible employee)

Now It's Your Turn… I'd really like to kn ow I'm sure a lot of my readers would like to get the goods as well… what are some strategies you use to grow your own personal training business… without sacrificing your entire life to do it

By the way… my Kick Back LifeStyle Club is an in-depth membership site that shows you how to grow the hell out of your fitness business without slaving away night and day to do it. As of this time you can try the program for only a buck… check it out here

Click Here To Learn About The Kick Back Life Style Club

I think this plane's gonna land okay… if it does, maybe I'll see ya inside the lifestyle club