Fitness business success:

From personal trainer to business leader.

By Nate Green
You can help people improve their lives and make a great living at the same time! In this article,
Nate Green (together with Precision Nutritions Dr. John Berardi and Net Profit Explosions Sean
Greeley) outlines the key stages in a successful fitness business. Then he helps you figure out what
to do to make your business grow and thrive.
[Note: weve also prepared an audio recording of this article for you to listen to. So, if you'd
rather listen to the piece, click here.]
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If youre a fitness pro near the start of your career, you have a simple dream. You want to help
people improve their health. And you want to make good money at the same time. Easy.
So why dont most personal trainers and coaches turn their love of fitness into anything other than a
glorified part-time job?
Heres one answer: Until now, its been fairly easy to improve your skills as a trainer. But it hasnt
been easy to get good instruction in nutrition, in coaching, or in business systems for the fitness
professional.
No wonder so many well-meaning fitness pros flounder within a year or two of striking out on their
own.
I know I did.
As a cocky 22-year-old, I was a decent trainer. I had a good client base. And I had a big dream. But
I wasnt all that clear on the particulars.
Within a year, I was ready to quit. I was working harder but making less money than Id made at the
big box gym. Plus, I was so stressed out that I probably wasnt meeting my clients needs.
Now, my story has a happy ending. I started writing for fitness magazines and went on to work for
Precision Nutrition. For me, thats a better fit.
But sometimes I wonder: What would have happened to my business if Id known more about what
to expect, or where to turn for help?
And my business is hardly the first to falter for want of better systems. How many others have
crashed because their owners lacked some basic knowledge or a plan?
Meanwhile, how many clients have missed out on getting the help they need?
Luckily, theres hope.

Get the help that I didnt when starting out.

Need to know the science of nutrition and the art of coaching? No problem, that exists nowadays.
(In fact, Precision Nutritions Certification programs fill that gap quite well).
Business coaching? No problem either.
Sean Greeleys Net Profit Explosion (NPE) has already helped thousands of fitness pros turn their
dreams into practical realities instead of sad statistics. (And with Seans expert guidance and advice,
its easy to prime your business for continued stability and growth).

Not long ago, I talked with him and very our own Dr. Berardi who has, after all, built the
thriving Precision Nutrition from the ground up for the inside scoop on how to build a better
fitness business. Read on for the details.

The 5 phases of a successful fitness business

Like all businesses, says Sean, fitness businesses go through several predictable developmental
stages.
If you know the stage that your business is at, you can make smart decisions now, and plan
more intelligently for the future.
Phase 1: Get clients and money.
Phase 2: Move out on your own.
Phase 3: Figure out how to grow the business into something sustainable and fun.
Phase 4: With strategic planning, commit to long term freedom, success, and
prosperity.
Phase 5: Re-evaluate and seek new challenges.

For the purposes of this article, were going to assume that youre relatively new to the field, so
your business probably falls into one of the first three categories.
Lets take a closer look at what you can do to for continued success.

Brand new to the fitness industry?

Start with Phase 1: Get clients and money.
Oh, sure, youre probably thinking. If only it were that easy!
But in fact, it is reasonably easy, if youre good at what you do and you keep a few key pointers in
mind:
Dont quit your day job. Get your first 10 clients before even thinking about quitting. You
need to know that you even like doing this before you think of making it your lifes work.
Commit to becoming a complete fitness professional. Before you focus on growing
your business, you must be absolutely confident that you can get great results with every
client you work with. Get the training and experience you need to do just that. (Heres an
outline of the fitness curriculum we recommend.)
Brainstorm your dream lifestyle and write it down. Why are you thinking of joining the
fitness industry anyway? What kinds of things do you want your business to allow you to
do? Knowing this will guide your decisions going forward.
Determine the kind of clients you want to work with. Athletes? Kids? Overweight or
medically fragile people? When you get clear on who exactly your ideal client is, youll
know where to find them, how to talk with them, and how to actually help them.
Create your primary offer. This is how you get people in the door and turn them into
clients. It might be a complimentary consultation, a 21-day offer, or a kick-start program.
But whatever it is, it will get people in the door so you can start building genuine
relationships.

Working in a gym or fitness center?

It may be time for Phase 2: Move out on your own.

If youre working for a gym or fitness center and you enjoy it, youve built a decent client base, and
your clients regularly get great results, high five!
But while you probably feel pretty good about your clients success, you might also be starting to
feel a bit bored and ready for a new challenge.
In that case, it may be time to consider setting up your own studio. But before you sign that lease,
consider these tips:
Ask: Do I really want to work for myself? Owning a small business is great, but its not
for everybody. Theres no shame in that. Its a lot of responsibility, and it also means doing a
lot of grunt work. Make sure youre willing and able to do that work, or come up with an
alternate plan.
Focus on increasing net profit. Remember the equation: Gross revenue gross expenses =
net profit. And net profit is the only number that matters. Always run the numbers before you
make any major purchases. Is this going to improve your situation, or add to your debt load
(and headaches)?
Dont quit your training job yet. Wait until you have the time, money, and concrete plans
before jumping ship.

Already own a studio or gym?

Its time for Phase 3: Figure out how to grow the business into something sustainable and fun.
Once youve taken the leap and set out on your own, you still need ongoing planning and
management to ensure that your business doesnt stagnate, or worse yet collapse under the
weight of your unmet expectations.
To ensure continued success:
Realize that you need to turn your job into an actual business. Start thinking about
the next stage of your business and what itll take to grow into something that lasts. You
need to ensure you can maintain service, improve marketing, and hire somebody to help you
or you wont have the freedom to work on the business versus in the business.
Develop systems for how you do everything. First, make sure youre doing the right things.
Then make sure theyre written down somewhere and repeatable. Otherwise, youll just be
re-inventing the wheel again, and again, and again. That leads to stagnation, boredom for
you, and frustration for your clients.

A final note: The world needs you

Working in the fitness industry is your opportunity to do work that matters.
Its your chance to make a great living doing something you love, and helping people change their
lives in the process.
But for every 100 fitness professionals out there, only a couple have thriving businesses.
It doesnt have to be that way.
Just like you can become a better trainer and coach, you can also learn how to build a
business that serves you, your family, your clients, and your community.
Start by asking yourself one question:
What phase am I in?

Then, do the opposite of what I did:

Get the help you need.

Your career in fitness:

A success guide for personal trainers & coaches.
By Nate Green
Every year, thousands of fitness and nutrition enthusiasts consider switching careers. They consider
starting a new path as a personal trainer or coach. Most have no idea how to make their dream a
reality.
But its not just new trainers who struggle with success. Many established professionals arent sure
how to round our their skill set. How to start driving business growth and career opportunity.
Should they go back to school? Get certified? Sign up for mentorships? Something else entirely?
This article weighs the positives and negatives of those big questions. And it even introduces a new
curriculum for trainers and coaches.
[Note: weve also prepared an audio recording of this article for you to listen to. So, if you'd rather
listen to the piece, click here.]

Change your body, change your career?

Becoming passionate about health and fitness put the rest of my life into perspective.
I caught the fitness bug early. I started working out and reading articles about nutrition and fitness
when I was in high school. By the time I was 21, Id put on 30 lb of muscle, felt awesome, and
vanquished my skinny guy genetics.
Like many people who start living the healthy lifestyle, I quickly became the go-to fitness and
nutrition expert for my friends and family, a position and responsibility I enjoyed and cherished.
My new-found love for exercising and eating healthy coupled with the results I saw in the
mirror and my ability to help others get in shape made me feel like a brand new person.
Well, almost.
(Heres where the life perspective thing comes in.)
Even though I looked and felt different, the rest of my life seemed tethered to the old
me. Sure, Id transformed my mind and body but I was still doing the same old stuff.
Working the same unsatisfying job. Going through the motions at my local community college.
Following the same routines.
Taking control of my own health and fitness had shown me how much potential I had to change
things in my life. To become happier. To find meaning and purpose. To make a difference.
So why the hell was I doing all the boring stuff I was supposed to do when I could do something
that actually mattered?
A crazy idea popped into my head: What if I became a personal trainer and tried helping others
transform their bodies and minds? What if that was my job?
As I thought about the possibilities, I got excited. This could really work, I thought.
Then reality slapped me in the face. The way I saw it, I had one huge problem:

I had no formal education, no certification, and worse absolutely no idea where to start.

How do you become successful in the fitness industry?

I wasnt alone. And Im still not.
There are thousands of people out there who are passionate about health and fitness and considering
a career change.
But like me back then, they dont know where to start.
Should they go back to school for a new degree? Get certified as a personal trainer? Or maybe
something else entirely?
I remember thinking through the positives and negatives of each before deciding on a course of
action.

Option 1: Go back to school.

Positives:
Earn a degree. (Duh.)
Learn all about biochemistry, anatomy, and exercise physiology.
Go to frat parties. No, wait, Im too old for that crap. Put that on the negatives list. Darn
rowdy kids!
Negatives:
Takes at least 2 years to finish (and more likely, 4-6 years).
Costs tens of thousands of dollars and could leave me deep in debt.
Doesnt prepare me for the day-to-day work of training real people (i.e. doesnt show me
how to write training programs or nutritional plans people will actually follow).
Delivers few (if any) classes or resources on change psychology or business development.

Option 2: Get certified as a personal trainer.

Positives:

Faster than going back to school (Usually self-study, so I could go at my own pace.)
Costs way less money.
Learn enough anatomy and physiology to feel semi-competent.
The certificate I earned after taking the test would make me seem more credible to potential
clients.

Negatives:
Doesnt seem as credible as a degree.
I dont know which certification is good and which certification is bad.
Still doesnt teach me much about change psychology or business development.
So what did I do?
I got a rather crappy personal training certification, sweet-talked my way into a job as a fitness
assistant at a local gym, and started training clients.
(I eventually earned a better certification.)
At times, I felt like I was on top of the world. I had gamed the system! Here I was working with
people, building my business, reading nutrition and exercise text books, and attending seminars.
Screw college! I felt like I had a big head-start.
But at other times, I felt like a fraud. I worried that everyone would look at my lack of formal
education and know I was unfit to work with people, even if I was a certified trainer.
I worried that because I didnt follow any sort of path, my new career in fitness was a joke. It was
debilitating and even a little depressing.
But as I would later learn, my lack of a formal fitness and nutrition education put me in good
company.

Be a world-class strength coach in 3 easy steps

When people ask renowned strength coach Dan John what they should do to become a successful
trainer or coach, heres what he tells them:
Step 1: Get a degree in English, study Theology, score a job as a high school teacher.
Step 2: Spend evenings teaching an online religious studies course.
Step 3: Volunteer as a strength coach with your high school track team.
Voil, just 25 years later, youll be a household name in strength and conditioning!
While Dan laughs when he says this, thats exactly what he did.
And his hint of sarcasm isnt missed, largely because Dan knows something most people dont:
Unlike in certain fields like law and medicine, there are no clear, predetermined paths in fitness.
In other words, there is no single or obvious path to becoming a successful health and
fitness coach.
When I realized that, I felt a huge burden lift off me. I wasnt a fraud. I was just a guy who wanted
to help people get in good shape. And, like Dan, I had simply taken an unconventional path to get
there.
Whats that mean for you?
It means that you can find the path that suits you. The path that matches your experience. Your
personality, character, and principles. Your interests. Your real life.

YOU create your own unique path to the dream job you want.
Wow. Thats exciting.
How?

Start here: The new fitness industry curriculum

Of course, even though theres no single template, you can still follow and adapt some of the
patterns of the top coaches. (Hey, why re-invent the wheel?)

1. Start coaching immediately

You dont have to do anything fancy from the start. You dont need to get a degree. Or rent space in
a gym. Or start your own studio.
In other words, you dont need permission from anyone to get started.
All you have to do is help someone get in shape and improve their life, one step at a time.
It doesnt matter if that someone is a friend, family member, or a paying client. The only way to see
if you actually enjoy working with people is to start working with people.
And if youre not feeling confident enough to coach on your own, ask if you can shadow a
personal trainer or another experienced coach for a day.
Remember: You dont have to know everything about exercise and nutrition to help someone get in
shape and improve their life. All you need is to know a little bit more about health and fitness than
the person youre trying to help.
Becoming great at something (like coaching) is always about trial and error.
No matter how well prepared you think you are, no matter how many tests you pass, no matter how
many internships you do, you will eventually have to try and err. On your own.
So start erring and learning now.
In fact, stop reading this article for a moment. Write down 3 small things you could do today to get
started immediately, even if thats just, Call mom and ask if she wants to help test my kale chip
recipe.
Ill wait.

2. Get certified
While youre coaching, start earning your credentials.
Yes, we all know that most certifications in fitness are considered a joke. Many require a single
weekend of effort (and I put that in quotations deliberately).
Most barely scratch the surface of what a trainer really needs to know to work effectively with a
client. (In other words, to help real people get real results in the real world.)
But if you want to be viewed as a professional and if you want insurance youll need the
paperwork. So get some kind of certification anyway.
Start with a basic but quality certification like one of the following:

American College of Sports Medicine Certified Personal Trainer

International Sports Sciences Association Personal Trainer Certification
National Academy of Sports Medicine Certified Personal Trainer
National Strength and Conditioning Association Certified Personal Trainer

Once youve cleared the initial hurdle and have rounded out your skill set (see below), you can
consider more advanced certifications and mentorships.

3. Become a Trainer Plus

Okay, so youre certified as a personal trainer, and Mom loves your kale chips. Thats awesome.
However, we now know that exercise alone wont get your clients the kind of results theyre hiring
you for.
And your clients will need more help than just the 2-3 sessions a week they have with you.
So what you should you do?
Nutrition education
First, learn more about nutrition, so you can feel more confident discussing food and diet with your
clients.
Nutrition is where people 1) need the most help and 2) will see the greatest results.
In fact, including nutrition coaching with your training advice can increase your effectiveness
as a trainer by at least five times.
In other words:
That could be 25 lb lost, instead of 5.
That could be 20 points knocked off the blood pressure score, instead of 4.
That could be 5 inches off someones waist, not 1. (Or 2 inches added to their arms, instead
of a measly 0.4.)
That could be at least five times more client commitment, confidence, motivation, retention,
and satisfaction with five times less effort from you.
Once you know what to do and how to do it, and once you have a system for applying it, you
put in less work. You worry less. But you get vastly better client results.
Less anxiety and effort for better client outcomes, on top of living your dream? Sounds like a pretty
good deal.
Since a high-quality, real-world nutrition certification didnt exist a few years ago, we set out to
create one. The result? The Precision Nutrition Certification. (Its quickly become the industrys
most respected nutrition certification.)
Precision Nutrition Level 1 Certification
Of course, if youre already a student or graduate of the Level 1 program, weve got something for
you too. Check out this Level 2 page where you can learn more about the Master Class.
Also, if you want more research on the different nutrition education options out there, check out this
site. It compares and contrasts the best schools and online education platforms. That way you can
make an educated decision on whats best for you.
Nutrition Education and Certification Reviews
Movement education
After establishing your nutrition system, I recommend one more thing to round out your basic skill
set: improving your ability to assess movement.
Most exercise programming assumes that clients move well to begin with. And that might be true, if
you were training child circus performers, instead of office workers or athletes and manual laborers
with years of repetitive stresses and strains.

As physical therapist Gray Cook says, dont load dysfunction. Adding weight to a structure that
cant support it isnt going to make that structure any better.
Your exercise programming can actually hurt your clients if you dont first learn how to help them
fix their dysfunctional movement patterns.
So, consider checking out one of the following education tracks for better understanding and
programming movement.
Functional Movement Systems (FMS)
Z-Health Performance

4. Learn how to coach real people.

Youve spent some time learning about movement, nutrition, and exercise programing and you have
a strong foundation of knowledge. Awesome.
Now, learn how to work with and legitimately coach your clients.
Coaching clients to lasting success depends on saying the right things in the right ways at the right
times and really connecting.
You can have someone do all the squats and eat all the broccoli you want, but until you learn
change psychology and the art of coaching, youll never be able to actually help your clients change
their habits. Even with the best intentions, youll both end up frustrated.
On the other hand, if you truly understand how to communicate with real people, how to build
meaningful connections, and how the process of change actually works then youll be
amazed at what you can accomplish.
But where should you start?
Here are two must-read (and free) resources to check out:
Effective coach talk: What to say to clients and why it matters
10 things elite coaches do (And 6 things they read)
Note: In the second article we share 6 books that will teach you the basics of change psychology.
Use it as a jumping off point for digging deeper into this area.
And if youve done all that and youre ready to level up, you might consider these courses:
Precision Nutrition Level 2 Certification
Excellence in Motivational Interviewing

5. Get some business training

Youve gotta keep the lights on, your financials in order, and clients coming in the door. How?
If youre considering opening your own personal training studio or gym or if you work at a
bigger gym and want to learn how to get more clients youll need to get some business training.
And Im not talking about a MBA here (although thatd be nice). Im talking about fitness-specific
training taught by people whove actually had success in the field.
In my opinion, this is the best business coaching program out there for fitness professionals:
Net Profit Explosion
(And heres a great article outlining the 5 key stages of a successful fitness business).
Other great options are:

Results Fitness University

Fitness Consulting Group
National Fitness Business Alliance
100K Info Group (for online businesses)

The better you get at marketing and running your business, the more people you can help, and the
more money you can make.

6. A career of learning and development

Now youve built a strong foundation of training, nutrition, movement, change, and business
knowledge. You even have a bunch of new certifications hanging on your wall!
Whats next? A lifetime of learning and personal development.
Feel free to pick the books, courses, internships, and certifications that most resonate with you. Or
will most help your clients.
Geek out about advanced programming for different populations, nutrient timing, soft-tissue
therapy, hormonal issues, advanced exercise and diet techniques, and more.
These internships and mentorships come highly recommended:

World Athletics Center

EXOS (formerly Athletes Performance)
Cressey Sports Performance
IFAST
Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning

If youre interested in different areas of nutrition:

Nutrition Education and Certification Reviews
If youre interested in more athletic populations:
Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS)
Certified Physical Preparation Specialist (CPPS)
Certified Functional Strength Coach (CFSC)
If youre interested in high intensity and group training:
Training for Warriors
Crossfit Certification
TRX Courses
If youre interested in special populations:

Corrective Exercise Specialist (NASM)

Fitness and Exercise Therapy Certification (ISSA)
Youth Fitness Specialist (IYCA)
Senior Fitness Certification (ISSA)
Golf Fitness Certification (TPI)

Remember: There is no one right way to make it in the

fitness industry
Fitness and nutrition is still a young industry. There is no one right path to success. In fact, there
may never be.
And I kinda like it that way. It means that possibilities are infinite.
The best trainers can come from anywhere: 4-year colleges. Doctoral programs. Theology
school. College drop-outs. Someone who found a gym flyer in the parking lot.
It doesnt matter.
All that matters is your dream and your desire to help people your passion for health,
fitness, and nutrition.
If youve got the energy, the drive, and the interest to do this work, you can eventually do it no
matter what youre doing as a career now.

What to do
While there isnt one right path, there are 5 things you can do to set yourself apart from 99% of
other trainers out there:
1. Start coaching now even if its just family or friends.
2. Get certified even if its a basic entry-level certification.
3. Become a Trainer Plus someone who understands exercise, but also nutrition and quality
movement.
4. Learn how to coach real people by focusing on change psychology and connections.
5. Get business training so you can take your fitness pipe dream and turn it into something

meaningful and profitable.

6. Commit to a career of learning and development geek out on advanced programs and build
your skills and specialties.
(By the way, shouldnt you call your mom about the kale chip thing?)