#9 Successful Personal Trainers Maximize Their Time

One of the limitations of having a pay-per-service career is that there are only so many hours in a day to help people, and through that, make a living. Successful Trainers know that the one person/hour training is old school. While it may still be effective and rewarding, it isn’t always the most efficient use of our time.

Small Group Training (SGT) and Boot Camps have become more popular. in part because of the recession and their decreased cost per participant, but also because Trainers realized that by training more than one person at a time, they could increase their ability to reach more people and increase their revenue/hour.
Small Group Training may be equipment specific (i.e. a TRX or BOSU SGT) or it may be goal specific programs such as a ski conditioning, weight loss, or low back health SGTs. Personally, I believe that the more program specific your SGT (know your niche), the more specific/targeted your marketing can be. The groups typically range from 2 to 10 participants (at some point you have to differentiate what number is SGT and what is Group Exercise).

Group Exercise is an extension of SGT, allowing for more participants and, as long as it’s a pay-for service, greater income for the Trainer.

Boot Camps have become all the rage with Personal Trainers and there are now many Boot Camp success “systems” being marketed. Boot Camps are, just for the record, Group Exercise classes with a particular style. Typically they require little equipment, can, and often are, done outside, offer a lot of variety, and have a participant expectation of “This is going to kick my #@*.” When people expect to work hard and do work hard, they see greater results. This helps feed the success seen with Boot Camps.

A word of caution, what truly separates the top Trainers from the rest is that, with more people in the mix, there is a much greater responsibility on the Trainer. You have to work harder to see and correct everyone in a group than you would in a one-on-one scenario.

Another way successful Personal Trainers maximize their time is by creating passive sources of income such as writing books, producing dvds, webinars, podcasts, etc. These sources, once produced, can keep revenue coming in with little to no additional work.

Successful Personal Trainers maximize their time by utilizing Small Group Training, Group Exercise, Boot Camps and through passive sources of income. Which ones are you currently using and which would you like to do? Let us know in the comments below.

Check out the full series.

Top 10 Traits of Successful Personal Trainers #1
Top 10 Traits of Successful Personal Trainers #2
Top 10 Traits of Successful Personal Trainers #3
Top 10 Traits of Successful Personal Trainers #4
Top 10 Traits of Successful Personal Trainers #5
Top 10 Traits of Successful Personal Trainers #6
Top 10 Traits of Successful Personal Trainers #7
Top 10 Traits of Successful Personal Trainers #8
Top 10 Traits of Successful Personal Trainers #9
Top 10 Traits of Successful Personal Trainers #10

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