So you know what nutritional supplements are, but you’re probably wondering what the heck you have in common with Dutch Speed Skater Sven Kramer, Olympic gold medalist in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

Allow me to show you the comparison between you and Sven: (1) You didn’t win Olympic Gold in the Men’s 10,000-meter Speed Skating event, and (2) You could earn income via product sponsorships.

A Different Kind of Gold

Okay, to be fair, you probably weren’t even in the running for the Men’s 10k Speed Skate. And since you didn’t win, like Sven, you sadly lost out on about a half a million dollars. But I’m not here to tell you how to win Olympic gold medals in Vancouver.

As a fitness instructor, you probably already know what it takes to reach that level of competition, and it starts at a much younger age than you are now (assuming you’re legally old enough to have a job.) Not to mention, it’s way too late to get qualified for Vancouver.

However, I *am* here to tell you how to make a bunch of gold – of the cash and coin variety – without really trying, and it’s all related to fitness product sponsorships. Read more…

Sure, you want as many customers in your fitness boot camp as you can possibly get. The more paying clients you squeeze in, the more money you make out of that single session.

But if you target the right clients for your boot camp, you may end up with new long-term relationships that will help your personal trainer business to grow. It’s like that old saying. If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day. If you teach a man how to fish, he vanishes into a life of peace, solitude, and healthy fish oils and brain-boosting, heart-healthy DHA.

Okay, maybe that’s not quite what they say.

But the point is that cramming your boot camp with every client you can get your hands on will only feed you for a day. Target those clients who will keep coming back for more, and you’ll have enough fish, and enough healthy fish oils, to keep your heart and mind healthy for years to come.

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By now, we’ve been shoulder-deep in recession (and snow, for a good chunk of the United States) for way too long. It feels like forever, and it’s getting old.

Even though you know it’s good exercise, you’re still thinking that if you have to get that shovel out one more time, you’re going to break it in half across your knee and jam the splinters into the snowman in your neighbor’s yard.

And you’re thinking that if one more client stiffs you out of his or her bill, you’re going to break that client across your knee and jam the splinters into one of those coin-counters at the grocery store.

Sob Stories

You hear sob story after sob story about why clients can’t pay, why they just need you to be patient one more month, or they promise to come back to you when they can afford it. So you continue to close accounts, even though you know they really want your help and most of them would probably pay if they could.

Meanwhile, other potential clients would really love your services but they never walk through your door in the first place, because hiring a personal trainer is just too expensive. The sad truth is that you’ve got bills to pay, too, and you need all the clients you can get.

Admittedly, paying clients are the best kind. Therefore, you need all the “paying” clients you can get. Read more…

New Trends Create Personal Trainer Jobs

When you’re in the market for personal trainer jobs, it is important to stay aware of the latest trends. While you may prefer fitness jobs that involve teaching core fundamentals, the average person might not have the patience to participate in the typical workout plan. Occasionally, hot new fitness techniques seize the attention of the unmotivated. If they want to try something, you better learn how to provide it.

For example, some intuitive marketers really cashed in on the meaning of sexy abs by creating cardiovascular routines from pole dancing styles. Fitness pole dancing became an instant craze that attracted new consumers to the industry. This provided more fitness jobs for everyone. While this is an extreme example that might not work for you, it illustrates how certain techniques catch fire overnight. If you miss the boat on something very important, you may run into a stumbling block on your path to a personal trainer career.

Recognizing New Trends That Could Offer Personal Trainer Jobs

While you’re developing skills, it is important to recognize future trends that could create your unique niche. Hot new fitness training styles tend to emerge in specific ways. When you understand how this happens, you can take advantage of an upcoming trend to create a personal trainer career.

Here are some tips that will help you recognize an upcoming fitness trend:

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If you want to make more money as a personal trainer and enjoy what you are doing a lot more, run it like a business.

You already know how to organize and run a training session, that’s what you do, after all. What you should do is learn to organize your fitness business so it runs as well as those personal training sessions. For your clients, your goals are to provide guidance on them reaching their goals and give them an education on strength training, cardio and nutritional.

You give them a reason to show up at the fitness center and you make them accountable, while showing them how to track their progress. Do the same for your business.

Develop a Business Plan

Every successful business has a business plan made up of all the elements necessary to achieve the goals of the business. That main goal of any commercial business plan is to make a profit so the business is sustainable. The plan does not have to be some long-winded treatise with a lot of marketing buzz-words. It only has to lay out the basic goals and what you have to do to achieve them. The business plan is made up of a lot of sub-plans, much like your training sessions are made up of different exercises to tone and condition body parts. Your plan should include the following:

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Have you ever thought of marketing your fitness business to Seniors?

This niche could fill in all of the “dead-time” in your schedule. Of all the market segments in the fitness and personal training industry, there is one group of people that will work their schedule to fit yours – Senior Citizens.

Retired seniors in particular have a lot of available time, particularly during the day. Enterprising personal fitness trainers can fill in the blanks in their schedule of corporate training sessions, fitness classes and one-on-ones with the busy executives by offering special classes for retirees, classes that are tailored for their needs and physical limitations. Senior classes could be put together to fill in mornings and afternoons, when most clients are still at work.

The seniors market will run the gamut from fit-as-a-fiddle to couch-potato-with-health-issues, but programs may be devised to achieve their fitness goals. Most seniors will appreciate low-impact exercises and those that don’t overextend their arthritic joints, but there will be those occasional very fit septuagenarians who have been athletic all of their lives. These folks will have maintained some semblance of fitness and are capable of handling a more strenuous regimen. The only cautionary note is to warm them up first, then get them stretching before launching into the program.

Marketing to Seniors

Some of the means of marketing to seniors are through many of the organizations that cater to that crowd. Also, it may be possible to establish a relationship with assisted living centers to provide morning and afternoon sessions for their residents. Not only will you be building your business during normally unproductive hours, but you will be performing a service for these aging people as well.

Special Considerations for Senior Fitness

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Your Personal Trainer Business Needs a Trim Budget

A personal trainer business should not require a huge budget – it doesn’t have to. The fitness business is about marketing your unique skills to clients, and helping them achieve their personal goals.

Having low overhead costs allows you to profit without having to charge your customers unreasonable fees. However, marketing can be a massive black hole that eats infinite money if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Don’t let yourself fall into this trap. With the right knowledge you can market your personal training business without spending a fortune.

Social Media Marketing Can Promote Your Personal Trainer Business Within Your Budget

Everyone loves social networking websites. Facebook, Twitter, and the like have taken over the Internet, and chances are most of your clients and potential clients are on them.

Your customers enjoy telling people what they’re up to, or bragging about their favorite products to friends. When your clients can easily talk about your personal trainer business on a status update, their pictures become testimonials to how effective your services really are. When they upload new pictures and family and friends see the changes in body fat and lean muscle, they’ll have good reason to tell everyone how much you helped them. This provides social proof that your fitness business delivers real results. Seeing is believing.

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Showing Up at the Gym

If your first stop in your Swartzenager-esque gym strength training regiment is the bench press, and all you are thinking about is whether you can hoist two plates, the same 45 lb plates the guy ahead of you just did, then maybe you should stop and think about your warm up.

Really Warming Up

Warming up is not the same as dropping your sweats, touching your toes, and then putting your gloves on to help manage the callus’. The problem for your body is that it performs very much like an engine and when you load on a bunch of weight, the heart pumps faster to help feed your muscles enough blood and protein to push the weight up. So, if you are beginning a gym strength training workout, you need to make sure the engine is running at its peak performance, but more importantly that the heart and muscles are warm.

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Have you ever seen a baby in an exersaucer? She jumps up and down with the help of springs, she twirls her seat around to see in every direction, and her hands and mouth are exploring several different items that move and make noise. The action is good for developing coordination and keeping her entertained.

As a personal trainer, I sometimes think of myself as a similar thing for adults. You sign up for it or get signed up with help from a friend or loved one. Baby gets put in it at regular intervals, sometimes by her own choosing if she crawls too close.  Read more…

You Can’t Sell Just Anything

There’s a real problem with being a personal trainer that tries to go the extra mile. You want to get the best results possible for your client, and that means more than just exercise advice. You’re their source for nutrition and even some lifestyle choices, but most importantly you should be their source for fitness supplements.

At the same time, you need to make a living. What you need is a product that can work for you and your client, not a product that you work for. You need to get with a company that is as reputable as you are. You need to show your clients a supplement that has helped professional athletes and millions of other users, which can now be of help to them.

Good Enough for Them, Good Enough for You

Call it professional suicide when you start recommending products that you wouldn’t take yourself. Your level of fitness advertises the results that are possible for your clientèle. In a similar way, the supplements that you take personally are also advertised to your clients. Your own use proves they work. But how about a product line that has been used by world class athletes? Professional athletes? Olympic athletes?

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