11 things you can do to get a headstart when becoming a personal trainer

The fitness industry is one of the best industries to work in for various reasons.

Almost all of the men and woman who are lucky enough to work in the industry have a real passion for doing so and you have the ability to make a HUGE difference to someone’s life (we also wrote this about the perks of being a personal trainer here www.ltbtraining.co.uk/blog/why-you-should-become-a-personal-trainer). But, how do you get into the industry & where do you start the process of trying to create a career for yourself in what is still a developing industry. Here are 11 things to do to accelerate your career:

1) Sign up to your PT course, make sure it’s the right course for you, consider your options based on the length of the course, the style of delivery and most importantly the support you get through the course.

2) When you’re on the course, make sure you use social media to blog your journey to getting qualified and who you are looking forward to working with when you do qualify.

3) When you are on your PT course, find the best trainer in your area and ask to either intern or book them as your PT. Get used to what a Client-Trainer relationship looks like before you qualify.

4) Set up social media pages (FB & Instagram) before you qualify, and start imagining you are writing/Video to the type of person you want to work with. Don't try and be clever, try to be understanding and empathetic - you don't know enough to be clever yet (No offence). A good choice here is women's fat loss because it's the biggest market available to us.

5) Spend time working as a Fitness Instructor - even voluntarily if need be - for a few hours a week in a gym. Get used to saying hello to strangers, being kind, being interested and aim to meet one person per day at least. Ask them about their training, show a thirst to learn from them - allow them to be interested in your passion to help.

6) Set yourself up as self-employed, get a business bank account and a separate bank account for tax. Get your PT insurance sorted, and an emergency first aid at work certificate.

7) If you have a full time job, start working out how many hours per week you would need to work as a PT (or even better, how many clients you need on monthly payments) to reduce your work contract in half. If you know your employer won't go for it, work out how you can match your salary with PT revenue outside of office hours. A clue here: 10 clients paying £300pm, with £500-800pm in rent to the gym would be around a £25k-ish income. YOU CAN DO THAT ALONGSIDE A FULL-TIME JOB. 6am, 7am, 6pm,7pm each day.

8) When you qualify announce on your channels that you have done so and that you want 5 willing volunteers to be your first guinea pig clients. Train them for free if need be - but now is the time to get an amazing result with 5 people who will be all of the evidence you need that you are good at your job. Believe it or not, people don't really give a crap that you can get shredded, they care that you can get them in shape. In order to choose the 5 willing volunteers to make people apply using a google form - it'll create a list of leads for a later date.

9) Add your 5 clients to a Facebook group called - (Your name) Client group - give them daily opportunities to ask questions. Do cooking demos for them, have laughs and enjoy creating a mini community. Every couple of weeks invite them all for group training....because if they don't stay as 1-2-1 clients after the trial, they may well see value in group training (Second chance to sell)

10) Vlog/Blog your client progress from the 5, showing the world how much you love working with them and how well they are doing. Open up 2 more places to work with you in the next few weeks - create an application form in Google forms, and run a Facebook advert promoting it. Send the FB advert directly to the google form and Also create a flyer for the gym using some client pics offering out 2 spaces for your next client spaces for Women who want to lose 2 stone in the next 12 weeks. You can also notify your email list that 2 places have come up. Why only 2 places? Well because you are already working with 5 people - now you have 7 clients to serve. Take on a few more clients after the 5 trials have finished (although ideally, they will stay on)

11) Create an amazing offer for the trialists to stay on.

And that's it really.

To get your first bunch of clients you have to realise that you probably know those people already, you just haven't done enough to show them that you are a trainer now and if you really need to - run a trial group, blog on your social media about them and their progress. Again, the applicants will be friends or friends of friends.

Luke.

Want to Learn More About Lift The Bar Training?

If you’re thinking about becoming a personal trainer who doesn’t become part of the statistic of not lasting longer than 18 months in the industry and you want to give yourself the best learning platform for becoming a trainer, our course is for you.
 
The Lift The Bar Training qualification is the industries first personal training course that merges both online and offline learning while also having an extended Applied phase that supports you in the early stages of your new career. Rather than just receiving your qualification and throwing you out into the world (like Sarah experienced above), we guide you so that you get a fantastic platform to build from in one the most challenging stages of your career.
 
Having worked with 1000’s of personal trainers, the education team at LTB Training have created a 12-month long industry leading personal training course that includes a foundation level 2 and entry level 3 qualification, which allows you to become a fully certified personal trainer. This has been created with practical application at the core and with cutting edge research in mind so that you’re left with no stone unturned for starting off your career as a personal trainer. You’ll then complete our qualification by going through a 6-month applied phase, which teaches you the essentials of how to work with personal training clients and arm you with the knowledge on how to build a business that lasts and helps as many people as possible.

Our next course launches on the 4th of February 2019. You can find out more about what it includes by clicking on the "certification" tab at the top of this page. Our early bird offer starts on 5th of November 2018!