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As a personal trainer, you should be constantly trying to improve what you can offer your clients. There are many steps you can take along the way on the journey from being a brand new trainer to becoming an elite in-person/online personal trainer.
Below, we'll breakdown the different ways that you can improve your personal training business in order to flourish as a trainer.
Certifications are the cornerstone of your business. You don't technically need to be certified to train clients, but it's highly recommended.
There are also so many certifications out there, so why stop at just one?
Check out this article we wrote on top certifications
Adding a nutrition plan and/or macro-tracking to your personal training package can be huge! If you're not certified, you should either get certified or partner up with a nutritionist to double your oferring!
On the WeStrive App, our trainers Hailey & Torra have partnered up to be an amazing Trainer + Nutritionist combo. If you can offer your clients the full spectrum of training (nutrition & fitness programs) then you'll be able to provide them a 10/10 experience!
Keep in mind, that when deciding to either work with a nutritionist or become one - it's way faster/easier to just work with a nutritionist, but it can be much more rewarding long term to become one. However, if nutrition isn't your passion then you should definitely pair up with someone who loves it.
Focus on what you love!
Getting a Bachelors of Science degree in something like Exercise Science is a long journey but completely worth it in the end. As a trainer, you definitely don't need a degree but going to a university for four years will educate you in a lot of the things your certification won't (primarily - business).
Plus, I know a lot of trainers who have seen massive benefits while working at their university rec center as a personal trainers. Making those early connections can be key to starting your career.
Utilizing apps to "up your training game" is becoming more and more popular. No longer are the days of having clients follow workouts in an Excel document from their phone. With apps like WeStrive, your clients will enjoy a beautiful workout interface, daily calendar, progression tracking, and so much more!
There are so many apps to help on their journey, like the app we partner up with for Nutrition - Lose It! - that can help your client track all of their daily nutrition intake.
Utilizing something as simple (and amazing) as Google Calendar will change your life. Google Calendar is a 100% free tool and it always blows my mind how often personal trainers don't use it.
From the calendar, you can schedule sessions, track client video calls, and organize your entire life all in the same place.
Side note: WeStrive will be adding scheduling software very soon!
If I were a trainer, I'd be eating up specialty certs like they were candy.
Especially when working at certain gyms, you can look at specialty certs as "hourly bonuses". A trainer with just their ISSA or NASM isn't nearly as valuable as a trainer with their NASM, a kettlebell cert, and a corrective exercise specialist cert.
Here are just a few certs to get:
And there are so much more!
At the end of the day, nothing comes over night. Just ask Mark Jenkins, who trained clients for free for years just to build up connections and progress himself as a trainer. Now? He's trained celebrities all over the world and has a thriving business.
Just like everything in life, it takes time to go from an "average joe" to a "pro" and there's no step-by-step plan to becoming the best you can. The more clients you train, the more people you work with, the more mentors you have... the more you'll learn.
All of the above can help you master your training business. If you have any questions on growth or want to be connected to one of our WeStrive business coaches, just reach out to us at Help@westriveapp.com
Keep Striving,
Make sure you're setup for online training with these articles:
About the Author:
Cory McKane is the CEO/Founder of WeStrive - a platform for personal trainers to manage & grow their personal training business. He enjoys working out and spending time working with trainers on WeStrive on how to manage/grow their business.
