Small Group Personal Trainer Career

The small group personal trainer career is a hybrid of the bootcamp and 1-1 personal training career paths.  The best of both worlds, it allows clients to have one or the other, or a combination of both.  You could run small group personal in a fitness club, at home, at a park or a community hall.

In the guide below, we’ll base the small group personal training career in a fitness club as that’s the most likely scenario.

What will I be doing as a Small Group Personal  Trainer?

As a small group personal trainer you’ll be running group of 4-10 people through a circuit type training session.  The training session could be:

• Equipment based
• Skill based; or
• Goal based

You’ll run a few of these sessions per day, at set times for people to turn up and get a quality, fun and affordable workout.

• Quality because the ratio of personal trainer to client allows for technique correction
• Fun because they’re working out in a group environment; and
• Affordable because they all chip in less money than they would for a 1-1 training session

You could have these small group training sessions running for 6-10 weeks at a time, depending on who you’re targeting and what they want to achieve.

For example, a 10-week program that included:

• 3 small group sessions per week; and
• 1 personal training session per week (one-on-one)

This package would allow your clients to have fun in the group sessions, while achieving their goals and getting some 1-1 training time with you.  Some of these clients may also want some 1-1 training to accelerate their progress which will help to fill in any gaps you have available.

Training and Administration

Where will your time most likely be spent?

With 3-4 small group sessions per day you’ll be looking at 15-20 hours per week delivering training sessions.  Add in 10-15 hours of one-on-one training and your contact hours will be maxed out.  With an additional 15 -20 hours of:

• Program design
• Support activities
• Updating of client records
• Business admin

… you’ll be around the 45-50 hours total.

Marketing

During start-up you’ll be spending a similar amount of time as the fitness club personal trainer.  When you start your personal training business you’ll have a lot of time on your hands because you won’t have any clients.  So you can spend a lot of time running trial sessions or trial weeks to members so they can get a feel for what its like to train with you.

Although long term you shouldn’t discount your services, at start-up its a useful tactic while you’re trying to drum up business – and it keeps you busy!  If you spend enough time on the product itself and design effective and fun small group training sessions, then people will come back and be happy to pay.

The hard part is done because as soon as other members see people returning and having fun, they’ll want to join in as well.  You will have created a quality product that’s effective and fun that basically markets itself.

What skills do I need to be a Small Group Personal Trainer?

The beauty of being a club-based small group personal trainer is that your marketing can be a lot simpler than the bootcamp personal trainer if you do it correctly.  The people who will buy are already in the club so its face-to-face marketing and the ‘try before you buy’ option I talked about above.  You have to be capable in marketing but not to the Jedi-Ninja level required in other personal training businesses such as the studio or bootcamp trainer.

Product

In terms delivering an experience, not everyone is well suited to large groups (bootcamps of 10-20) where escapism and the entertainment aspects of a session are important.  You have to create that with your personality and your energy and confidence.  As a small group personal trainer, you still need this energy and confidence, but in smaller quantities.  Sound program design and session delivery to groups is vitally important so you’ll have to be on point with this.

With the one-on-one training sessions, it’s back to designing the sessions around what the clients goals and preferences so you’ll have make the sessions:

• Aesthetically pleasing
• Educational
• Escapism based; or
• Entertaining

So let’s now talk a look at the costs involved in being a small group personal trainer…

How much does it cost to start as a Small Group Personal Trainer?

When starting up as a club based small group personal trainer you’ll be faced with the same setup and operating costs as the fitness club personal trainer.  There will be the ‘license fee’ for your uniform and marketing materials as well as the weekly rent to pay.  Again, it will depend on the club, but you could receive the same deal where you get the first 4 weeks for free before your rent staircases in.

We generally say that a personal trainer should be at full capacity between 3-6months, so if you dropped a few free trial sessions in over the 4 weeks you’d have enough paying clients to kick on and make a good living.

Recap

Here’s a recap of the time, capability and money required to become a club based small group personal trainer:

Got Questions?

If you have any questions about getting qualified and starting a personal training career, feel free to contact us and one of our friendly careers team will be happy to help you out.