How to Become Financially Secure as a Personal Trainer

As a personal trainer, you’ll likely be self-employed or run your own small business. While this offers great flexibility and freedom, it also poses some financial insecurity.

If you’re wondering how to build your personal training business to a point where you can enjoy financial stability, we’ve got the guide for you. 

Starting Your Personal Training Business

Get a feel for the industry

Before launching your own personal training business, it might be smart to get a job as a personal trainer with a gym first. This will give you an insight into how much personal trainers get paid and teach you best practices that you can use within your own business. When you’re ready to start working independently, you’ll know exactly how much to charge your clients and how best to manage customer success.

Set an income goal

Not setting an income goal and tracking your progress can hold you back from financial success. It’s well worth doing some simple calculations to figure out how much you need to work in order to achieve your goal income. You’ll also want to factor in some time for holidays or sick days.

Let’s say you want to work 35 hours a week and earn $65,000 a year. You also want 4 weeks of holidays throughout the year.

$65,000/48 weeks per year is $1354, your required weekly income. This works out to be an hourly rate of $38.68. Make sure that this figure is enough to sustain you once you put aside money for taxes and super too. If not, you’ll have to think about raising your hourly rate.

Managing Your Finances

Lower your overheads

One of the things that quickly cripples new business owners is high overheads. Personal trainers often find themselves paying far too much for the facility they work at and the equipment they use. You can lower your costs by not buying an excessive amount of equipment, not investing too much in redecorating your space, and not being overstaffed.

Consider setting up a passive income stream

Securing work as a self-employed person can be difficult. From clients who cancel their contracts to sudden lockdowns, there are a number of things that could negatively affect your revenue.

One of the ways you can provide yourself some financial cushioning as a personal trainer is to create a passive stream of income. This might be through a monetised YouTube channel, an online course or even a recipe eBook. Once functional and profitable, this could provide you with a small amount of consistent income that’ll help you stay afloat should anything happen to your day-to-day work.

Of course, the above tips can only skim the surface of what it takes to be a financially secure personal trainer. To set yourself up for the best chance of success, consider our complete personal trainer course, the SIS40221/BSB50120 Complete Personal Training Course + Diploma of Business. As well as equipping you with the skills necessary to succeed as a personal trainer, this program includes fundamental business teachings to help you launch a profitable personal training career. If you’re simply wondering how to become a personal trainer, view our other fitness courses to get started.