It can seem like a natural progression for a busy personal trainer to think about opening their own gym.
Hell, I've thought about it myself loads, even as recent as a few months ago, but I decided against it for fear of spreading myself too thin and other personal reasons.
How It Usually Works
Trainer gets busy with clients and thinks they are paying too much rent in their current gym, so they start looking for a space to turn into a gym / studio of their own.
They sign the lease and spend thousands kitting it out with all the best equipment and decide to open it with a big party and invite all their friends. This is when most trainers decide to start marketing their gym.
The problem with this is that they have already paid for the equipment, the rent is eating into their marketing budget and most of their clients have decided to stay at the old gym because they like the culture there. And their friends that came to party? They were there for the free food and drinks 🙂
There is a much easier way to do this in my humble opinion.
Option 1
You do like I did and start small with an outdoor bootcamp (or rent space in a hall or studio) and small overheads. In my case 20 exercise mats, a boom box for music and some outdoor lights. Then what I did was add equipment as my bootcamp got busier. Stuff like kettlebells and battle ropes and cones.
Option 2
You start marketing you about 6 months before you even think about investing in a studio. Start building your email list and your social media presence and growing your personality online. When the time comes you should be in a position to fill your new studio from Day 1, (even before you sign the lease). Again this is a zero risk strategy.
Option 3:
You stay working in the gym and create an online program that you can deliver to clients anywhere. Again the strategy for this starts with growing your email list.
This is the strategy we use here at IFP, and its the strategy we teach our Accelerate clients and JV partners.
If you only do one piece of marketing for your business it should be growing your email list.
It's also a strategy I show you exactly how to implement in my best selling book:
The Clarity Project: 4 steps to simplifying your sales message and attracting more clients online
Check it out here or get in touch if you would like us to help you grow your fitness business faster.
This works 100%
We are currently using this exact strategy to get email leads that convert at 52% + for a weight loss client. Basically for every 100 site visitors we get 52 are leaving us with their name and email address. (The average of most fitness site is less than 1%)
Below is a screenshot of the actual page that is getting the results above. Feel free to use it for inspiration (but don't copy)
