well, this is a great topic and perhaps one we can take up offline, but I'll share some initial thoughts in case others are thinking about the same thing.
first off, this is a very tough business to make money in. personal training has become almost a minimum wage job, mostly because most gyms hire people who don't know what they are doing but know how to count, and are willing to do so for pennies. then when you have people who do know what they are doing (like Cameron), you can't earn more than $30k or so.
so then people think about opening their own gym, but the skills to be a good trainer are often quite different than the skills to succeed in business. look up things by allwyn cosgrove if you want an example of someone who is a master at both.
knowing how hard that is, a lot of people look to the internet for revenue opportunities. there again, very hard. I have a very successful non-fitness business, so I'd like to think I have some strong business skills, but I have to be honest – making money from worldfitnessnetwork.com is tough. I've got 12,000 subscribers now – so I know how to get members, but getting people to buy things is difficult. I'm always playing around with concepts and ideas and models to see what works best. and it changes over time. what worked best 2 yrs ago doesn't work so well anymore.
ebooks is a pretty easy way to get started – but even if you have the best strength training ebook ever written in the history of the world, you need a market. you need buyers, you need promotion. and in the past 2 yrs, it seems like everybody has ebooks for sale. most are junk, but many are really good. so you've got a lot of competition.
most internet marketing experts today are saying that the best way to make money is with subscriptions, rather than one-off sales. but again, you need an audience.
my advice to anyone who wants to make money online in the fitness world right now are the following (in no particular order):
- start writing a blog regularly, learn how to get traffic, and start building some subscribers; you need to offer good content for free before people will pay you
- write a really, really good ebook and ask other people to promote it for you; they will want anywhere from 25% to 75% of the revenue, depending on the quality of their subscriber list; also check out clickbank.com which lets you attract "resellers" of your ebook; but your ebook has got to be really, really good to get any traction there
- consider online coaching/training; some trainers have found that they can train more people and can do so very effectively online; I think it only works with very motivated trainees though; but clients might be more willing to pay $100 a month for a weekly 30 minute call, plus some programs from you via email, plus Q&A via email; compared to $70/hr for one-on-one training at your facility
- forget the allure of online, quick money and just be the best trainer you can possibly be and become so valuable to your boss that they keep giving you raises (and you need to ask for raises); in my other business, employees who keep adding value beyond what they were hired to do end up getting paid more and more. it works that way in just about every (good) business.
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