Back on TFL Forum after 2 years.. re-introducing myself

[Fightrepreneur]

I’ve been meaning to return to the FL Forum for awhile…

It’s been almost 5 years since I first read TMF , and a year since I read Unscripted .

I doubt any of you remember my last post from nearly 2 years ago (nothing special) and I won’t bore you with a long story of what’s happened between then and now.

Long story short… I’ve been a strength and fitness coach (aka *gulp* Personal Trainer) for a year and a half.

I knew going into personal training that it was not, on its surface, a fastlane venture. The thing is… I needed SOMETHING… I had quit an awful job doing private residential security and was living off savings. I’m passionate about fitness, in great shape, and overall enjoy training people more than many other jobs I’ve had. I also did not have any fastlane ventures I was pursuing, and had jumped the gun on many different ventures without having anything in place… resulting in obvious and predictable failure.

So I banged out one of the more respected certifications in the field and found a job at a gym.

I quit the gym due to terrible pay and shitty management and started being self-employed. I used my network from training BJJ in addition to the reputation I built during my time at the gym to grow.

Took a bit at first but before the COVID outbreak I had 9 clients and was renting from a small studio that I have a good relationship with the owner.

Lot’s of serious downsides to this “business model” (time for money, lack of control, annoying hours).. But it did feel good to make 3x minimum wage with no boss and work around 20 hours per week… lots of additional time spent on admin, business growth, marketing (with not a ton of success, most growth was word of mouth), and learning new skills.

According to my Quickbooks, before Covid I was netting around 3k/month, give or take, with essentially a half-time schedule.

I’ve been intending to get into the Online training space and work towards finding areas in the fitness market that are more scalable, niched, and leveraged than having 1-on-1 sessions as the sole source of revenue... but I was comfortable enough training in-person, making enough to stay afloat and save for a bigger venture down the line, and had enough day-to-day crap that this always went on the backburner.

Well, now, due to COVID I can’t train in-person. I’ve transitioned to live sessions from my living room workout area via Zoom to the clients who wanted.

I also finally created an MVP of a more scalable solution - in-app training via recorded videos of myself performing the exercises in the program based on my own knowledge and programming...

Its relatively scalable (compared to strictly selling hour-long live sessions) given that selling 10 programs doesn’t require 10x the work as selling 1.

My 1 sale (so far) has been to a client I already had… so getting new leads/prospects is going to be the main challenge going forward.

Right now I’m marketing via social media, trying to maintain the clients I have and get training hours in, and figure out my next move.

Also doing some freelancing on Upwork in the BJJ niche for side-income. Not much but it helps in these times

I need to work towards a scalable product that doesn’t violate every tenet of CENTS..

The fitness industry may seem saturated, and it is, but the low-ish barriers to entry and the seeming ease of becoming a personal trainer means that there are a lot of trainers, coaches, and programs out there that ultimately don’t offer much value or succeed.

Furthermore, A lot of fitness trainers don’t share my goals of freedom, income, and time. They feel it is a business of passion (which it is to a degree), and therefore they don’t deserve the same income as other fields.

Nevertheless, the fitness business podcasts I listen to have countless examples of people who made serious money developing programs, certifications, and brands… to name just a few.

Exceptions? Of course… but that’s true of pretty much every market and niche. Especially when it comes to making millions.

The main point of this post is to re-engage with the TFL community, begin discussing fitness entrepreneurship at a higher level, and surround myself with more like-minded individuals.

Thank you in advance for being here.

-Fightrepreneur

 

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