Personal Trainer Consultant or Employee

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Step 1:
Is Personal Training
Right for Me?

Step 2:
Get Certified

Step 3:
Get the Job

Step 4:
Launch Your Business

Step 5:
Expand Your Income

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Personal Trainer Consultant or Health Club Employee?

Congratulations! You have what it takes to become a personal trainer. But get ready for a lot of decisions. Should you...

become a personal trainer consultant
or
work as an employee in a health club or gym?

The answer to that question will depend on many of your answers to the previous page. Let's begin the personal training evaluation.

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The personal trainer consultant has several key advantages over the employee:

* unlimited earning potential
* control over rates
* choose your clients
* control over schedule
* freedom to specialize on a niche
* tax benefits

But there are also some downsides to being a personal trainer consultant:

* uncertain income stream
* costs of doing business (liability insurance, legal, accounting, equipment)
* lack of benefits (vacation, sick time, health insurance, retirement account)
* high risk

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The employee option has some key advantages over the personal trainer consultant:

* stable pay check
* employee benefits (health insurance, vacation, sick days)
* low risk

But the downside of being an employee consists of:

* limited chance for advancement
* can't choose your clients
* work when the boss says so

So which one sounds more like you?

Many people want to jump straight to the personal trainer consultant option. And that's fine. But you may want to consider the one downside of "high risk". Starting your own personal training business is not easy. You will need to invest a lot of time and a fair amount of money getting started.

To maximize your success, you want to have your personal training evaluation and program development skills fully developed. This can take up to two years for people new to personal training.

I recommend spending some time as an employee while you learn and develop as a personal trainer. When you are confident in how the business works and you have many satisfied clients, then consider making the leap to become a personal trainer consultant. By making sure you are ready, you can eliminate a lot of the risk of starting a personal training business.

Next Page: How Much Money Can I Make?

Insider Tips

I couldn't agree more. When I first started as a personal trainer I knew almost nothing. Even after getting certified I was very "green". But after spending a year working in two different health clubs I learned how those businesses operate. At the same time my training skills got much stronger and I became more confident. When I just couldn't take working for the clubs anymore I launched my own business. And the best part is that many of my clients followed me!

- Lisa, New Haven CT

The hourly wages, working for a gym are not that great. We're talking about 9 or 10 bucks. Most gyms charge the client 20-30 bucks a session, but the trainer only gets a small percentage of that. I wish I'd known that prior. I have found that the real money comes in working for yourself. Training private clients in their homes or their gyms is much more lucrative. You can charge a fair wage and still make good money. You can accept as few or as many clients as you like in a day and still have time to do other things.

- Lloyd, New York

Ask as many questions as you can when you are working at a gym. Learn from the older trainers. Take copies of their forms. I didn't have money for a legal department when I started my business so I adapted a lot of my gym's forms for my purposes.

- Brad, Carlsbad CA

You definitely need to be really comfortable with clients. Once you can meet a new client and convert them to a long term client, then you will be ready to think about becoming a personal trainer consultant. Its so much better to learn and make mistakes (as you will when you first start) while working for somebody else. You still get to collect a pay check.

- Nigel, Canberra Australia

I have been training independently for about 2 years now and it has been the best decision I have ever made. The gym I train at charges $500/month. Which is a good deal. All of the private training gyms around charge anywhere between $10-$12 per session...which can add up to much more than $500/month.

- Los Angeles

Next Page: How Much Money Can I Make?

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