[kaiserS]

In the theme of Dave's breakdown of Corporate Fitness, I thought I would break-down being an independent trainer -

I don't like to focus on negatives, so these are just the positives - this could be considered an endorsement for Personal Training in general, but it can really only be achieved by independent trainers -

* The work is very simple: For the overwhelming majority of the Personal Trainers, their main job is guiding and mentoring the general population in the area of fitness. We help people that know little about exercise or have any significant ability, and tell them what to do. Hardly any advanced, highly specialized knowledge is required for the work a trainer does on a daily basis.

* The field is very exciting: After all, it’s fitness - there are millions of people that spend every minute of their free time working-out and learning about fitness. But Trainers are the only ones that get paid to do it. When you think about it, we actually get paid to look good: just like models, athletes, or actors, who are among the most highly glorified people in our society. Who doesn’t want to look and feel great? If you haven’t tried, I’d highly recommend it!

* The people you get to work with are exceptional: The service of training has traditionally been geared toward the highest earning and most successful people in our society. They typically are the people that are too busy and tired from work to exercise on their own. In that case they hire someone to stand there and make them do it. Beyond just a client base, you gain a social circle of some of the highest paid, most respected people in our society. My steady client base consists of a Harvard lawyer, high-ranking business execs, actors, models, and a major hotel magnate.

* You don’t need a long, expensive college degree to get started: Even though a Personal Trainer can make more than a high-end lawyer (which we’ll discuss later), they don’t have to go through the nearly 10 years of schooling and work experience to get started. All it takes is a decision. In fact, the highest qualification most Personal Trainers have, even the ones you see on TV training celebrities and models, is a simple weekend certification. That’s all that’s separating you from geting started in this amazing field.

* The field is very high paying: The average rate for trainers is $60 per hour, but that’s just the average. If you make the decision to be perceived as above average (which isn’t asking too much, is it?), it’s much closer to $100. Most people in our society have to go through more than a decade of graduate schooling, work experience, and ungodly hours to earn that much. It’s true that an independent trainer can’t realistically work 50 hours a week (if they have a life!), but if they form an S-Corp they can keep nearly all of their earnings and earn a take-home income of nearly $100,000, easily putting them in the top 10% of wage earners in our society.

* It has a high rate of consumption: People go to their chiropractors at most once a month, nutritionists at most once every three months, and there doctor and dentist as little as possible! Considering this, these other professionals need a huge number of clients to stay viable. They have to go to extraordinary lengths to gain qualifications to set them apart from their competitors. And managed health-care has robbed most health professions of their high earnings. But Training is completely different. People see their trainers a minimum of twice, usually three times, and as many as four or five times a week. When you consider this, you only need a float of about a dozen steady clients to have a viable, thriving training practice. Since most clients hire trainers indefinitely, at a certain point a trainer no longer has to market and may cease to even accept new clients. And most surprising of all, Personal Training has less competition than any of these other health fields, a situation that’s hard to believe but true!

* High-level trainers get a lot of respect: They have a certain mystique about them and people feel a certain prestige to train with them. It’s not uncommon for these trainers to lead fast-paced adventurous life-styles. Clients prefer trainers like this because it gives them an escape from their own boring , monotonous lives. They like a trainer that lives the fitness lifestyle, has a good personality, and great experiences to share. The rely on their trainer for not only their fitness needs, but also as a trusted adviser and confidant.

* Complete freedom: Personal Trainers set their own hours, have track-suits as their primary uniforms, and bodybuilding and fitness magazines as their text books. Health club memberships, trips to training conferences, and fitness classes are all tax deductible expenses for them.

* The sky’s the limit: While getting to the top-level of Personal Trainers carries with it a six-figure salary, the common bench-mark of success in our society, this is hardly the limit. The health and wellness field is growing faster than almost any other business sector in our society: it’s being hailed as the next trillion dollar industry. Personal Training allows someone to enter this field without any barriers. They can gain experience, learn a specialty, and establish contacts, all the while earning a high income in the process. What results are the skills and abilities to move on in the field. After a few years of being a mentor to high-level people, sharing in their lifestyles and learning from them, earning a six-figure salary yourself, and being respected and esteemed as a fit, focused professional, it’s clear that a trainer is poised to jump right into and succeed in any related business project that this tremendous field makes available to them. This could be in Personal Training or any other neighboring area of the wellness industry. You hear this story so many times among trainers that it’s a cliche. And this can all happen in the span of just a few years. In less time than most people take to earn a bachelors degree (which gives them the right to earn less than 40K a year), top fitness professional can grow to the point where they earn 5 times that much.

In my opinion Personal Training is the world's greatest job - you've just got have some smarts and make it that way -