prospects of becoming a personal trainer

juanveron45

My younger sister wants to become a personal trainer but im not so sure its the best idea,in this country especially the pay for fitness instructors is crap and there seems to be little oppourtunity for personal trainers however shes prepared to travel to england or australia to make it a success, can one make a good living as a PT in other countries?

mikemac

Define crap pay

Don't they make €50 per hour and upwards? That's what I've seen several charge here

juanveron45

I meant the fitness instructors at 10 euro an hour , whats this course like

http://www.focus-training.com/Courses/Level_3_Qualifications/Personal_Trainer/Personal_Training_Diploma.html

Cheeky_gal

juanveron45 wrote: »

My younger sister wants to become a personal trainer but im not so sure its the best idea,in this country especially the pay for fitness instructors is crap and there seems to be little oppourtunity for personal trainers however shes prepared to travel to england or australia to make it a success, can one make a good living as a PT in other countries?

Ehm, hello?? You wouldn't happen to be my brother would you? I JUST had this exact conversation with my brother today telling him how I have decided Personal Training is the root I'd like to take! WOW!

The FitnessDock

A lot of personal trainers started out as fitness instructors to begin with and then remained as fitness instructors while doing personal training outside of their work hours.

It's important to realise that while the pay as a fitness instructor is never great (no matter where in the world you work), you have the chance to market yourself and your skills all throughout your shift to all of the members in the gym. You don't have that opportunity as an independent personal trainer.

When you provide outstanding customer care and a service WAY beyond what other "10 Euro an hour" fitness instructors, people will want to hire you once they find out that you do personal training.

While working solely as an independent personal trainer seems very glamourous, the reality is that you have to constantly market yourself externally to a broad audience which may or may not be interested in what you do. As an instructor in a gym, you have constant communication with a huge number of gym members who know who you are and regularly get the chance to see how good you are.

An independent personal trainer also has to advertise and market his/her services - that costs a lot of money. As I mentioned, a fitness instructor does his/her marketing through doing such a great job during their shift that people want to hire (and pay) them for a 1-2-1 PT session.

5 clients each doing 2 sessions a week at €50-75 an hour is €500-750 a week for just 10 hours work.

A 40 hour week of €10 an hour would work out at €400.

Add them together and you get a total of between €900-1150 for just 50 hours of work.

Not such "crappy pay" huh?

Obesity is a big problem in Ireland. It's not in Australia where in general, people are far more active and in better shape than over here. Therefore, the potential market for PT is not actually as big as it is over here.

My advice would be to stay in Ireland, become a fitness instructor and then do PT on the side.

Hope that helps.

PAUL

crotalus667

The FitnessDock wrote: »

A lot of personal trainers started out as fitness instructors
PAUL

Paul as some one in the industry what courses would you recommend and what ones would you recommend avoiding ??

Boru.

This question comes up from time to time in the forum and I wrote a detailed and lengthy response to it here - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/archive/index.php/t-2055021424.html

To focus on the question asked here regarding pay. You can make a lot of money as a personal trainer. In my experience however most don't and it's for a variety of factors, burnout, lack of motivation etc - but the no.1 cause is bad business. Most fitness instructors are not taught about organizing and running a business, few have qualification or knowledge of marketing, few know how to even price themselves or to manage payments.

The unfortunate fact is the majority of instructors in this country don't know how to structure and manage their business and most are still working on a payment by session basis.

In the last few months I have coached 3 fitness instructors to leave the gyms they were working in and start up their own independent personal training companies. Within 1 month all of them were fully booked and making over 10,000 a month working less than 40 hours a week. It's not very hard when you know what you're doing. Furthermore that income is guaranteed for at least 6 months.

Your sister could make a great living if she's willing to work hard for it - but this isn't a trivial decision - its a tough job and you have to have a real passion for helping others. If you aren't willing to bend over backwards and do everything in your power to help a clients and ensure their results then don't do it. If your in it just for the money, people will pick up on that and you'll never have clients.

The FitnessDock

Boru wrote:

This question comes up from time to time in the forum and I wrote a detailed and lengthy response to it here - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/archive/index.php/t-2055021424.html

Fantastic post Boru

Boru wrote:

The unfortunate fact is the majority of instructors in this country don't know how to structure and manage their business and most are still working on a payment by session basis.]

Excellent point. Most fitness instructors and personal trainers read nothing but books about exercise and nutrition. To be successful in business, they should need to educate themselves about marketing, sales and business management.

You can be the most amazing personal trainer in the world and yet be struggling to make a living. Sad but very true.

crotalus667 wrote:

Paul as some one in the industry what courses would you recommend and what ones would you recommend avoiding ??

Well I'm a Sports Science graduate which is WAY more than you need to be either a fitness instructor or a personal trainer.

Basically all that really matters is that you know your stuff, are good with people and love what you're doing. No matter what qualification you have, it is ultimately just a piece of paper and says nothing about your ability to be a personal trainer.

So just make sure whatever qualification you get is recognised in whatever country you want to train, get a job in a gym and then just get very good at what you do. Boru's points are very very relevant to the degree of success you'll achieve as a personal trainer.

Transform

I agree with all of the above and do pretty ok at personal training