I’m in the Midwest, and new to the business, what is appropriate to charge per hour for personal training/small group training?
As crazy as this sounds, the best way to find this is to check out what your competitors are charging. Somewhere along the way, you’ll notice the trends and figure out what the going rates are. From that, you can set and adjust your own rates accordingly.
The one thing that I’d advise is to be comfortable in what you charge. You should be able to justify why people should be paying you what you want to charge them (and no, this isn’t just listing the certifications you possess). You have to be able to sell yourself to your clients, and when you know what you are about and what type of clients you want to work with, then it becomes easy to justify your costs. Hope that helps.
Hello, Brenda!
You are the Certified ACE TRAINER, so the price should be no less than $50 an hour,for group training – $10 from person.
With regards, Miroslava,
www.mira-fitness.com
Based on your responses to our comments so far, I would say that you have to find out the things that will make you stand out from all the other trainers. So how are you going to market yourself so that clients will be drawn to you? What makes you unique?
I was at a conference recently where the speaker told us that if we wanted to find out what makes us unique, we have to know what our character is like. There is no point trying to draw in every client out there (if fact, even with the amount of people in the industry, we should still be at a point where competition shouldn’t really be an issue). She advise that we go back as far as looking at our old report cards from our days in school and see what our teachers have said about us. We’ll often find very similar comments year after year (hopefully there are positive ones). We want to find keywords that are frequently used to describe us. Those are the things that you use to describe yourself to others when you market yourself.
Likewise, you can always observe your circle of friends. Find the 3 people you closely hangout with. Have them try to describe you, or try to observe their behaviour. The people we closely hang around usually have the characteristics that are very close to us.
Afterwards, you have to be able to know who you want to train. While trainers should be flexible to train a variety of clientele, we know that we don’t want to deal with all sorts. For example, in my gym, I get all types of clients and I’ve work with them all (youth, seniors, pregnant women, sport athlete, weight loss client, absolute beginners, post-rehab, body builders, etc). Despite this, I find myself being drawn most to the sport athletes, absolute beginners, and those requiring corrective exercise and would prefer these clients over all others.
So, not only do you need to know the demographs in your area, you need to identify for yourself who you want to work with. That will help you avoid so many headaches in the future. Hope that helps you find your way.
Hi Brenda,
setting starting rates is always difficult. In all probability, you will have to go a little lower than the market rate because you do not have man clients yet to use as a reference.
I looked at your profile and noticed that you have not yet a liability insurance posted. Since I gather from your information that you plan to go to people’s homes, this is mandatory.
However, I read your blog which contains your own fitness personal story. I would use this as a selling point and contact organizations like the Arthritis Foundation or Weight Watchers to see whether this will get your foot into the door with a clientele that can relate to you. As Calvin said, we cannot be anything to all people. Once you find a good niche, it will be easier to set rates that reflect your competitive advantage.
Good luck.
Karin Singleton
www.meltnc.com
