The #6 benefit when you become a personal trainer is:

Your Friends and Family will come to you for advice! Okay, for some that may be more of a nuisance than a benefit, but what I'm really saying is, the folks around you - the folks you care about the most, will have even more respect for you than they did before. They will see you as an expert.

Personal trainers go through several years of training and education. When you finish your training program, you will be very knowledgable about the mechanics of the human body. Since you will most likely apprentice with a gym while you are completing your education, you will also learn how to conduct yourself professionally as a service provider. It's a great way to learn and earn.

By developing the expertise needed to become a Personal Trainer, you will develop yourself into a better being mentally, physically and professionally. Those closest to you will notice the improvement. Many trainers report an increased sense of pride once they dedicate themselves to training others. Being a Personal Trainer can be very rewarding.

Become a personal trainer today!

#7 on the List of Top 7 Benefits When You Become a Personal Trainer:

You get to be on the cutting edge of research reagrding health, nutrition, fitness and overall wellness. Not only do you use this information in your personal training practice, but you benefit from it personally as well!

This is the information that helps you improve LONGEVITY, the length of life, dramatically. With solid health and fitness information you can extend your best years 10 years or more. Real Age estimates that you can be 10 years younger on the inside if you choose to incorporate strength training programs and an additional 5 years younger when you are socially engaged. Becoming a Personal Trainer allows you to do both!

Enjoy the camraderie of being surrounded by fitness minded people AND look and feel like you are 25 when your birthday cake says 40!

Do you want to become a personal trainer this year? Are you confused about how to get into the field without a degree in sports medicine or substantial training for certification? Do you wish there was a shortcut?

Well, I can't offer much of a shortcut, because you really do need all that training, but I can offer a little bit of a shortcut that will at least get you into the field, training clients much faster than if you were to do it on your own.

Find a mentor.

With a mentor you can save yourself years of time studying. You can also save yourself thousands of dollars in marketing mistakes . . .

When you build a personal training business you must advertise for clients. Everyone talks about Viral Marketing and the WOM, word-of-mouth, explosion that will bring clients to you, but what they don't share is that viral marketing and WOM don't happen overnight and they don't happen without a lot of effort on your part.

Sure you have to be a great trainer, but more importantly, you have to be a great marketer.

So how does having a mentor cut your time and expense? If you find a mentor who is very successful and just at the point where he has to turn down clients because he is overbooked. You can offer to work with some of his clients (the more knowledgable ones) under his direct supervision and ask for a smaller part of the fee. So if his clients pay $80/session, maybe you ask to be paid $30/session. That way you both win. AND, you can learn from someone who is doing a good job marketing his services in your market.

Is he sending out direct mail pieces? Is he placing ads int he commuter paper? Is he putting up flyers at Starbucks? You get to know what he has tried. What worked, what didn't and why he thinks certain things worked and didn't work. Then when you finish all of your certifications and are ready to start on your own, you will have a HUGE wealth of knowledge.

So go become a personal trainer this year. It's worth it to see the transformation you can make with your clients' bodies and minds. A mentor is the best shortcut I know to getting into the personal training business. If you want more ideas, join our newsletter. We send out free tips and discounts on personal training courses.

Let me know how it goes!

How do you become a personal trainer that clients just absolutely, positiviely must see? How do you make yourself irresistable to clients?

LISTEN!

What?

Listen. We might know that we need to listen, but often times we are so busy trying to prove to potential clients how great we are while we build a personal training business that we lose sight of what the potential client wants to hear.

What is it your potential client wants to hear? She wants you to paint the picture of what her life will be like while you are training her and what it will be like when you are through. She wants you to sell her on being fit/fast/slim/sexy/strong/fabulous. Pick one and try it out. What is it your potential client wants to hear?

If you can learn how to listen to her messages inbetween her actual words (body language, verbal cues), get a intuitive sense about her, then you can paint the picture she wants to hear. Then get to it! Her help create that vision. That's what you've worked so hard to know how to do. Go become a personal trainer clients fight to see.

Your personal trainer salary has natural limits based on your time and your location.  To expand your take-home pay, you will have to be creative and leverage your time as discussed here.

Can you create more time? No, seriously. Create more time.

I create more time for MY most valuable work activities by hiring Virtual Assistants to do the work they can do more efficiently than I can. For example, I write a lot of articles….

MARKETING TIP: **A good way for you to get in front of a homeowners association and neighborhood is to write articles for their local paper**

Back to the point . . . I write the articles by hand because I feel most productive working from my "office" and writing while I have a hot tea after the morning trainings. My "office" happens to be a Starbucks and I prefer to NOT bring in my computer because I spend 6-10 hours in front of the computer every day. So what do I do with my messy handwritten articles?

I scan them in on my scanner at my home office (2 minutes) and e-mail them to one of my virtual assistants: Karen, Joy and Tina. Whomever is available that day will type up my chicken-scratch and have it to me by the time I need to post the article online for my daily deadline. That's how I create time. It saves me the 45-90 minutes I would otherwise spend typing and editing. If you charge training clients more than $25/hour, you can't afford to spend your time on activities like typing - you should be out TRAINING ANOTHER CLIENT!!

Here's the rest of the story. Tina lives and works 45 miles from me here in the US. Karen and Joy work from Canada. All three are native English speakers and understand how to make an article work. There are lots of great Virtual Assistants. I pay $12-$25/hour for the work they do. Since I typical charge $80-$270*/hour for training, do you think it makes sense to hire a VA at $25/hour so I can train another client . . . you betcha!

Boost your personal trainer salary by creating more time.

How to become a personal trainer - five great starts:

1. Shadow a Personal Trainer you respect.

Find a great personal trainer who will let you "intern" for a few weeks/months so you can get your certification and get hands on experience. Added bonus, often the personal trainer is willing to help you get your first few clients to lighten her own load.

2. Attend a seminar hosted by one of the Certification Boards: IFPA, AFPA, AFAA, ACE, etc.

While this will cost you money, you can start earning your certification education credits

3. Start teaching group exercise classes at a gym that also has personal trainers on staff.

Often it is easier to get into working for a gym by offering classes. You will get practical experience handling your future clients. The certifications accepted to teach classes are less expensive than those to become a full personal training. Try before you buy!

4. Get serious about a sport you really enjoy.

This one throws folks, but it is my favorite way to get into personal training! First, you get to know potential future clients. Second, you develop your own skills in something you enjoy (running, hockey, rock climbing, yoga). Third, tie it all together . . . you

develop the exact skills you need to create your own market niche:

personal training for runners, personal training for hockey players, etc. Who would you go to if you wanted to get better at running? A personal trainer who knows all about running or a personal trainer who specializes in Olympic style weight lifting…. No brainer!

5. If you can't shadow a personal trainer, interview him.

Consider interviewing local personal trainers so you can learn what they consider the most important things for you to learn. Each trainer will have his own opinion. It is good to get multiple perspectives, there is no one right way to do it.