Studio Personal Trainer Career

This article is based on your dream becoming a studio personal trainer and opening your own studio.

If you’re looking to work as a contracted personal trainer in an existing studio, this pathway is very similar to the fitness cub trainer pathway… check out the fitness club personal trainer page for more info.

Ok, so let’s take a look at studio personal trainer career path in more detail.

What will I be doing as a Studio Personal Trainer?

As a studio personal trainer you’ll be running your own training facility.  Your typical week will be split into:

1. Training your clients; and
2. Running the studio facility itself

Owning a personal training studio means you’ll be making all of the decisions, from location and equipment to additional trainers and staff.  This can be both exciting and scary!  So lets take a look at how this model can work for you.

Training and Administration

As mentioned above, you’ll split your time between training clients and ensuring the smooth running of your facility.  You’ll most likely train clients for 25 hours a week with the remainder spent on marketing and admin tasks.

When opening a personal training studio without an existing client base you need to either:

1. Spend a lot of time on marketing to build your initial client base
2. Hire a marketing consultant to implement your marketing strategy

Either way it will cost you something, so you’ll need to decide what to invest and where based on your capability levels.

In the fitness club personal trainer page we talk about clubs having a personal training manager to help, support and mentor you through your first 3-6 months.  As a studio personal trainer you will be the mentor to your trainer(s) if you have any.  This means you’ll need to allocate time each week to helping your personal trainers succeed.

What skills do I need to be a Studio Personal Trainer?

You’ll perform a number of different roles as a studio personal trainer, including but not limited to:

• Personal trainer
• Administrator
• Personal training manager
• Health and safety officer
• Cleaner
• Marketer
• Sales manager
• Financial controller

This means you have to be highly capable in a number of areas, particularly around marketing and sales.  Sales is important as you’ll be selling the idea of training at your studio rather than a club with a wider selection of equipment.  You’ll also be asking people to spend more as each visit to your studio will include a personal training session.

If you have other trainers working from your studio you may need to coach and mentor them to help grow their business.  This requires you to have previous experience in personal training.  If you’re new to the personal training then you’ll likely find this role quite difficult.

How much does it cost to start a Personal Training Studio?

Setting up a personal training studio is expensive as you’ll need to pay for:

• A lease
• Facility fit out
• Power
• Water
• Branding and signage
• Equipment

You’ll be incurring these costs from day one so it’s absolutely critical that you build your client base and income quickly, and that you have some cash reserves to see you through the start-up period.

If you’re starting without an existing client base, then you’ll need to build up to your 25 hours first before bringing in other trainers.  With 2-3 additional trainers you can collect a good rental fee from each to offset your studio operating expenses.

From a financial perspective, owning a personal training studio is high risk, without the ability to grow much more than a fitness club trainer.  This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it, just realise that you need to be highly capable in marketing and sales if you want to make it a success.

That’s why it’s sometimes better to start out as a fitness club personal trainer and get the experience you need before taking on the bigger beast that is your very own personal training studio.

Recap

Here’s a recap of the time, capability and money required to become a studio 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.