The PT Roadmap

A weekly newsletter for personal trainers to guide you to become a better coach and build a better business.

Hey!

Thanks for opening up today's newsletter. I appreciate you being here.

I spent Monday evening with my wife in Raleigh for her birthday. We ate sushi, drank beer and played games in a bar (pictured below.) I love my kid, but time without him is essential 🤣

In today’s issue:

✅ One business tip

✅ One exercise recommendation

✅ One social post worth your time

❌ One coaching cue

❌ One coaching tip

Let's get into it!

Better Business

How to future-proof your PT business

COVID.

Recessions.

More competition than ever before.

There are more than a few things that get in the way of personal trainers long term plans.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to future-proof a PT business. What type of things should a PT do today to make sure their business is still standing in 5,10 or 15 years time?

Here are a few things worth doing:

1) Build an audience away from social media

I was harshly reminded of this last year when I woke up and found out I was banned from Facebook and Instagram. I could not get my pages back.

1,000 followers on Ig and a business page on Facebook with 900 likes down the drain just like that.

You do not own your audience on social media and it can be taken away at any point.

Here are two places worth building an audience away from social media:

• Email list or newsletter

• Podcast

I’ve found both to be incredibly valuable.

2) Develop rare & valuable skills

Skills such as:

• coaching

• leadership

• public speaking

• communication

• motivational interviewing

• an understanding of biomechanics

If you develop skills these, you’ll be better placed for any opportunitity that might come your way.

And you’ll be better placed to handle adversity.

I also think that the more advanced and helpful AI becomes, the more need there will be for human-only skills. AI might be able to programme better than you, but it can’t communicate or stand on stage and draw in an audience like you.

3) Cultivate a reputation

Your reputation takes years to build.

But it can set you up for years of success if you cultivate it properly.

By being known as someone who:

• keeps their word

• does great work

• has bundles of social proof

• is trustworthy

You’ll be able to step into new things and know your reputation will be enough to ensure it works.

4) Skill centric education

The world is only getting more unhealthy.

Stress levels are through the roof and people are developing long-term conditions like Diabetes at a faster pace.

So, part of your education plan must be to place yourself at the forefront of this by doing development that up-skills you.

Two examples of this are Precision Nutrition’s stress management qualification and Parallel Coaching’s long term conditions qualification. They are both aligned with where we can confidently say the industry is going.

Women’s health (pre/postnatal, menstrual cycle and menopause) and older adult training are two more I can only see becoming more valuable.

5) Consider offering an online service or product

I don’t have a clue if we’ll face another Covid, but if we do, it would be smart to have an online component to your service options.

How I’d recommend most PTs do this is to move their clients through their business. More support at the start (1-1 in-person) with less as they go on (hybrid or fully online.) Maybe they start with 2x PT, then 1x before finally moving into an hybrid option where they see you once a month in your gym. This way, you don’t need to launch an online service, but you do get experience.

6) Niche down

Relatively obvious tip here - become known for solving a specific problem or serving a specific group of people.

Let’s say you become the go-to trainer in your area for training women between 30-40 who are sick of diet culture and calorie focussed, uber-sweaty workouts.

This makes you more valuable and more able to charge a higher rate.

But not only that, you’re also better able to have a pulse on this population and present new solutions or services.

7) Build a community

Community is an excellent retention aid.

The more active your community, the more your clients will come to view your service/ product/ business as essential to their life.

I worked in a gym called Good Health and Fitness in Dundee, Scotland for 7 years. The community was unbelievably good, and it was the thing 80% of it’s members mentioned when asked about why they stuck around. It’s so good, that even though I’ve lived away for 4 years now, I’m still in touch with many of the members because I was such an active part of it so long.

Community is worth investing in.

Do the occasional group workout outdoors.

Get your clients together for events or meet ups (if you’ve never done something like a Tough Mudder or Obstacle Course Race, I’d highly recommend it.)

Bring them together in a Facebook or WhatsApp group.

It’s tough when you’re solely 1-1 as your clients don’t train together, but I used to do local park runs, walks or group workouts and it always worked well.

One Exercise Variation

Recommended Exercise: Paralette Push Ups

Paralettes are easily one of the best purchases I’ve made for my garage gym.

I use them for push ups, L-sits, pike push ups, rear foot elevated split squats (with a pad for foot comport) and tuck planches.

You can get em’ on Amazon for like £60.

With this push up variation, you get more range of motion and a bigger stretch, but I also prefer how they feel on my shoulders because of the neutral grip. Easy to progress (feet elevated) and regress (on knees) too.

One Social Media Post Worth Your Time

Excellent post from Menno Henselmans on why strength training is safe for kids.

Lots and lots of myths about children and strength training. This post does a nice job of showing the research behind why most of them aren’t true.

Thanks so much for reading.

Until next Friday, Stuart.

Here is how I help in-person PTs like you build businesses they love:

1-1 Mentoring

I work closely with in-person PTs to help them fix & grow their business so it’s filled with clients they love, profitable and rewarding.

I'm not your mentor if you want to go online or open a gym.

But I work incredibly well with in-person PTs who want a better work-life balance, more profit, and a more well-structured business.

If you’re interested in chatting about how I might be able to help, ping me a reply, and we can see if my service is a good fit.