Maximizing Personal Training Profit

Personal Training has the second highest potential for revenue for a club after memberships. Is your club doing all it can to efficiently manage personal training and maximize profits? Here are some suggestions to help:

Marketing

• Market your personal training externally and internally — including to your staff. Present PT in a “results-oriented” manner. For example, use before and after pictures. Stress that personal training increases the likelihood of members reaching their goals and that PT can help members obtain results when other options (circuit, group exercise) don’t work.

• E-mail blast targeted groups interested in personal training. Some club management software allows you to survey members or prospects during the initial tour or later on, allowing for targeted marketing, including announcements of specials or new personal trainers.

• Market to area businesses or schools. Many clubs have success offering weight-loss contests, injury prevention seminars or sport-specific training. This can add additional revenue while creating awareness of your center.

Staffing/Pay

• Trainers with different attributes appeal to different types of clients. Know your audience and be sure you have the right trainers for your members.

• Don’t overcomplicate your pay structure. Some of the easiest, and perhaps most motivating, pay methods are to simply pay a percentage of the training session revenue. By paying 50 percent to all trainers, it’s easy to predict your profit margin.  Better trainers will charge more and have more clients. If a trainer questions his/her pay, help them boost their client base or gain the confidence to charge more for their services.

• Track training sessions through your club management software. Quality software can be a great revenue-tracking tool and easy to produce reports. Software also allows for easier payroll tracking.

Presentation/Pricing

• Create a cohesive link between the membership sale and the integration of the member into the fitness/personal training department. Provide members a personal training presentation at the time they join the club. Include some fitness education and a sample workout in this process — let the member feel comfortable with the trainer and your offerings.

• Use a standardized PT sales process. This creates a more consistent and powerful presentation and keeps the trainers focused while gathering important member data. Some club management software provides a process to follow: health history questionnaire; valuable questions and measurements; testimonials and an explanation of the benefits of training. Regardless of whether a sales person, manager or trainer is presenting benefits, a standard process will ensure your message is communicated, and will help maximize your closing percentage.

• Train your presenters in sales techniques like pre-handling objections, answering objections empathetically and having the confidence to close effectively.

• Offer a simple, yet comprehensive choice of packages to prevent confusion. Offer large packages (50 pack) for those clients that know they will need them; smaller packages (5 or 10 pack) for the unsure or the once-per-week clients.  With only a few options, it makes it easy to ask, “Which one is best for you?”

• Offer “small group” personal training for those who want to work with a trainer, but don’t have it in their budget. Many centers have had success attracting more members with this strategy. If your personal training rate is $60/hr for an individual, you could train three people for $75/hr (or $25 for each client). This significantly lowers the cost for the client while allowing the trainer, and the club, to capture additional revenue. When personal training can be as inexpensive as $100/month, it’s easy to explain how a prospect could cut back on poor nutritional choices, medications, cigarettes, etc. to afford a less-expensive package.

Outsourcing

For some clubs, it may be best to either hire an outside personal training company that pays you a percentage, but handles the management side, or rent space to personal trainers who would be in charge of building their business.

If your personal training profit hasn’t increased year over year, it makes sense to either institute some of the changes in this article or outsource to trainers or a company that can. -CS