Vision

“We live in a world of over-abundance and everything the heart could desire, with nothing standing between us and our desires, excepting lack of definite purpose.”- Napoleon Hill

“That which the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” - Napoleon Hill

“He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart, will one day realize it.” - James Allen

The first and most important step in a successful personal trainer is having a VISION

Know exactly where you want to go.

Without a vision, without what Napolean Hill would call a clear and definite major purpose, you’re career will most likely be mediocre at best.

But this one small step can take you leaps and bounds.

How are you going to get to where you want to go if you don’t know precisely where you are going?

Even if you know nothing about archery, you could beat the worlds best archer if he was blindfolded and spun around having know idea where his target is.

Without a clear target it’s liking shooting arrows blindfolded into the sky hoping they’ll land somewhere good. What the hell is that?

The thing is, that’s precisely how most trainers go about their business!

They have loose general goals like getting more clients or making more money. If you want more money go ask someone for a quarter, if they give it to you, you just achieved your goal of more money.

If you really want to be successful in personal training the first step is to have a clear and definite goal of where you’re going.

Here’s a basic formula that works amazingly well:

1. Know exactly how much income you want to make.

2. Know exactly how many clients and/or sessions you need to train to achieve that goal.

3. Decide what actions are you going to take to get those clients and then take those actions.

This model works awesome. Simple.1,2,3.

So let’s go over each of the ideas in more detail to give you a better understanding.

Step Number One - Know exactly how much income you want to make.

Let’s say you want to make $150,000 per year. That’s a good doable number to start with.

You would then break that figure down even farther. I like use a week.

$150,000 divided by 52 equals $2885

So having 52 weeks in a year you would need to make roughly $2885 per week.

Okay, say you have your target number. The next step is…….

Step Number Two - Figure out exactly how many clients and/or sessions you will need to train per week to achieve that goal.

Different factors that go into calculating Step Number Two.

A.) How many hours per week are you willing to/want to work?

Let’s say you want to work thirty hours per week.

B.) How much will you need to charge per hour to reach your weekly financial goal based on the amount of hours that you are willing to/want to work?

To earn $2885 per week 30 hour work week you will need to average roughly $96 per hour. ( Let’s round it up to $100 per hour for sake of simplicity and the fact that making $100 dollars per hour sounds pretty damn inspiring to me! )

C.) Decide what kind of training/pricing structure you will use to meet the $100 per hour you’ll be making.

You could either charge $100 dollars per hour for one on one sessions (or $50 per half hour for one on one workouts) or a smaller fee for semi-private/group sessions (we’ll get more into this in chapter 3).

I like combination of both.

Say you charge $100 for one on one training or say $25-$45 dollars per person to train in groups of let’s say 3-5 people.

I know trainer who consistently train 4-6 people hour at $35 per person. That works out to up $200 per hour. Not bad for a job where you also get to have a lot of fun and help a lot of people!

I like to keep my morning and evening hours (by far the busiest hours for most trainers) for group training only and allow one on one clients to train immediately before or after I start my groups.

My favorite type of scheduling looks something like this:

I train groups of usually 3-5people Mon., Tues., Thur. and Fri. from 6 or 7am until 10 or 11am and Mon. through Thur. from 4pm until 8pm

I’ll then take some privates at 11am and 3pm which is right before and after my groups. I like taking the middle of the day off for rest and other business projects.

It’s all up to you. Some trainers like keeping their price a little higher and trainer only 2 or 3 people at a time.

How many clients/sessions do you want/need to train to reach your goals?

It all come down to the numbers.

Okay, so know you know how much you want to and are going to make, how many clients and sessions you are going to be training to reach that goal and how much you will be charging them.

The next step is to…….

Step Number Three - Decide what actions you are going to take to get those clients and then take those actions.

You will be deciding how you are going to go about getting your clients.
There are many conventional ways which I will not really be getting into here. In this manual I’ll be getting into a few different ideas that are aligned with some very consistent Universal Principles and some other cutting edge tactics that work extremely well.

The ways to go about getting clients is only limited by your mind.

So I would suggest opening your mind and looking for answers.

One way is to ask yourself very specific questions regarding exactly how you want things to be. This simple process can really open your mind and make you extremely intuitive to the ideas and actions that will lead you right to your goals.

Questions like “How can I get 35 more quality clients who will love to be trained by me and that I can help to be healthier, happier, more confidant and more fit AND make $150,000 in the process” can really get the ball rolling.

It’s funny how once we know where we’re going and we have an open mind life seems to leave clues.

I will get into detail regarding many to get clients as well as laying out and following a solid business plan in upcoming chapters. The key is to be always be open and searching for new ways to build your business. If you search answers will come.

Once you discover your path, which by the way will be a constant journey of rediscovery and new ideas, you can then take the actions.

Between all of the conventional ways to get clients, the ideas you come up with on your own, the process presented here and from following the paths of other trainers who have succeeded you will always have an abundance of actions to take and clients to train.

Once you’ve chosen your path it’s time to take action. Sometimes those actions might have you walking through some personal fears.

I have found that most if not all of the fears I was intimidated to walk through to become a successful trainer we’re all based on my fear of what other people might think of me.

Funny thing is, they’re going to think what they’re going to think whether I make a dollar a day or a thousand dollars a day. And the less one cares what others think, the more highly people think of that person. What others think about me is totally out of my control and absolutely none of my business. So I might as well make a lot of money. Since they’re gonna think what they’re gonna think anyway.

Everybody feels fear, but the people who are truly successful and happy are the ones who act in spite of their fears. Fear can freeze you or you can walk through it and be happier and stronger for it.

Just walking through fears can relieve the fear itself. The inaction caused by fear actually creates more fear.

The key is decide and then act.

Not all actions will be fruitful but along the way you will learn what’ working and what isn’t and then make new decisions and take new actions.

Remember a pilot is off course over 90 percent of the time, but is he knows his destination and he keeps realigning until he reaches that destination.

Building a successful personal training business is an ever evolving process. The key is to know your destination/goal/vision and keep taking actions everyday (workday) towards your dream. Notice what works and what isn’t and change your actions and plan accordingly.

So again the three step process towards creating a successful personal training business is:

1. Know exactly how much income you want to make.

2. Know exactly how many clients and/or sessions you need to train to achieve that goal.

3. Decide what actions are you going to take to get those clients and then take those actions.

For a more in-depth teachings on having a clear cut vision I suggest the writings of Napoleon Hill, especially "Think and Grow Rich"