We always tell potential clients that “you can’t put a price tag on your health,” but let’s face it—the biggest drawback to personal training is the cost. It’s just too expensive for most people. They want to train their body, but they don’t want to spend an arm and a leg to do it!
The solution? Group training.
With group training, clients get all the benefits of personal training at a reduced cost. Trainers love it because they make more per session, and clients love it because they pay less per session.
Group training is hot right now, but there are three strikes against it:
- Individualization and logistics:
With fewer group participants, there’s less compromise to individual attention and better control over the workout (e.g., fewer people require less equipment!). Ideally, clients should be as homogenous as possible in terms of health history and physical ability. - Zoning restrictions:
If you operate a home studio like I do, local by-laws often won’t allow you to train large groups at once. Between traffic and parking, fire and safety issues, and not pissing off your neighbors, a small gym setting just isn’t conducive to group training. - Different goals:
If everyone’s on the same page, great! But what if they’re not? Can you still design and implement different routines for different goals? The answer is yes—it’s more work, and it can become a nightmare to supervise, but it’s doable.
Even with those three strikes, semi-private sessions are the current rave in the industry. They’re said to be the only way to make serious money in personal training.
Well, I beg to differ!
Sure, group training for yoga, stretching, and aerobic work (e.g., step/spinning classes, bootcamps, etc.) has its place. But for the average, non-athletic client who enters your gym, one-on-one training still rules—and it can be quite lucrative. Play your cards right, and you’ll earn a six-figure income with ease. Let’s do some quick math:
5 sessions a day × $80 per session = $400/day
$400/day × 5 days a week = $2,000/week
$2,000/week × 50 weeks = $100,000/year
There you go! You get weekends off, two weeks for holidays, and you only need five people a day (check out my book The Business of Personal Training, and I’ll show you how to easily make that daily quota)… and that’s at your bare minimum rate! Work an extra day, do an extra session, raise your rates—and watch how things start to multiply. You’ll still have time to read, write, train, plan your sessions, eat, sleep, and spend time with your loved ones. Who could ask for more?
And all of this is accomplished without killing yourself supervising a large group where you’re liable for any mishap. Trust me, there’s a lot less stress—and a lot more happiness! Quite frankly, my clients don’t want to share me with anyone else anyway. It’s their time, and they want me all to themselves… and they’re willing to pay for it! That’s fine with me.
In fact, I rarely train more than two people at a time anymore. Two people are enough—either two friends, two siblings, or a husband and wife. Any more than that, and it becomes a headache!
Training couples is popular today for many reasons:
Trainers love it because they can earn 50–70% more per session without all the hassles that come with group training. And couples love the motivation, convenience, and cost savings. Everyone wins!
Most couples usually have the same goals—often weight loss. When you help them shift their focus to body composition rather than body weight, they concentrate on the process rather than the outcome. They keep each other accountable, it becomes less competitive and more cooperative, and it turns into a far more positive endeavor.
So how do you design a program when training two people at once?
I go through all the details in the following 12-page report:
Every personal trainer and fitness professional should go through that report thoroughly. And for a step-by-step demonstration on how to design a body composition program when training two people at once, check out the following video presentation:
There you have it! Whether your clients are beginners or advanced trainees, whether they train at home or in a gym, or whether their primary goal is to increase muscle mass or lose body fat, the 12-page report and the video presentation provide all the information you need to train couples, earn more per hour, and grow your personal training business.
