Hi FitPro Family,
Trainer Lisa here, wishing you a happy and successful 2016 in both your life and business!
So! You have your marketing piece, you know who you’re targeting and have gotten in a ton of inquiries regarding your services, but know you’re wondering how you should price yourself for training both individuals and groups and how they differ! Here are a couple of scenarios:
You drop your prices for both individual and group sessions. What has happened to many Fit Pros who do this is:
1. You get a ton of clients (yay)! Then….
2. Your prices are so inexpensive (okay…cheap), that you’re working harder but not smarter (boo)! Uhhhh….
3. You become resentful and try to figure out how to raise your prices! Then….
4. When you do raise your prices to what you would “normally charge” you lose more than half of your clients (dang)! Then…
5. You sit and do nothing until you’re back to square one!
But not you…No, This Year…Nope!
What I’m going to do is offer you some ideas on pricing your individual and group training sessions that will get you energized to go out and add additional value to your sessions, without decreasing your bottom dollar!
Individual Training Sessions:
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Personal Trainer, Group X Instructor, Pilates Instructor, Yoga Instructor, or any combination of the above (I realize I left out other forms of Fitness Professionals, but these are some that come to mind who train both individually and in groups), you usually offer your services in 3 to 5 of the following formats:
1. In-home
2. Studio
3. Outdoors
4. Gym
5. Corporation
6. Online
This can be very exciting but also very time consuming to add one or several options to your session packets! As a Fitness Professional who offers all five (5) options, all my prices vary and I hope that when you see what your options are, as well as some ideas on how to price your services you’ll go forward immediately and if it doesn’t’ work, go back and change/upgrade your prices, but the most important thing to do is to just GET STARTED!
Okay…let’s figure out your cost for the five (5) options. Your cost will not just be based on your degrees, certifications or even years of experience (although I truly think those are very import factors), let’s face it…most if not all of your clients have no idea what your certifications mean lol. Now that doesn’t mean you can’t base your prices on your certifications, experience, degrees, but what you’ll primarily base your prices on your overhead cost, such as:
1. Gym or Studio: If you’re an Independent Contractor – cost that you pay the house (% of sessions, etc.)
2. Gym or Studio: If you’re an Employee of a facility (and can charge what you want), usually they reimburse you, what you need to make.
3. Outdoors: Cost of your equipment (wear/tear etc.), distance, gas, and, more importantly, time when training and downtime between clients.
4. Corporation: Time, distance, are you using their equipment? Bringing your own? Outside? Inside?
5. In-home: Time, distance, equipment, 30-45-55-60 minute sessions as well as how far they are from your home, other clients, etc.
I hope this gives you some idea on your session cost? No? Okay! Here’s some scenarios:
S1: New Client wants you to train them in-home (yay), but they live 45-minutes away (boo)! How to charge? What are you charging your clients that are all in one or two locations (i.e. gym, studio) and come to you? Take that amount, add in 10-20% for car incidentals (gas, wear and tear), time in traffic (if any) and that’s your price. For example, You charge $65 – $70 per hour in studio/gym sessions. Add in the above factors and your sessions are $71.50 – $84 a session. Okay, so it may be uncomfortable to say that number (totally understand), but if you don’t, you’ll never know. People usually know they’re paying more for their Fitness Professional to come to them, than for them to come to you, and if they don’t know…please, let them know! So…you’re too expensive? Offer (them to come to you, then.
I know you don’t want to scare (is this possible?), off a potential client, but have you ever drop-sold your business and found yourself resentful for it? Well, it’s not a good thing either for you nor your client.
True story: I had a new client that wanted In-home training on Saturdays at 7:00 am, and I quoted her $120 an hour, which she accepted! Woohoo…yay me!! Unfortunately, I didn’t calculate that she lived 40 minutes away, and on the way home I hit the Del Mar Fair (gridlock) which took that 60-minute session to the following:
60-minutes session
80-minute round-trip way
40-minute traffic during the 4 weeks of the fair =
3 hours / $120 = $40 hours a session! Ugh!! What happened?!! And I just couldn’t tell her I calculated wrong and needed to charge her $190-$200 a session, so I trained her, gave her 100% of my knowledge and expertise and just made a note for future clients to add to my prices a distance cost (i.e. 10 miles, 20 miles plus)!
Bottom Line: Set your prices and standards high. Offer discount only to those who really want your services and you believe will be great referrals/marketing/business clients! If you have any questions on the above, drop me a line at Trainerlisalt@gmail.com
NEXT!!
Group Sessions!
This is where you can make some happy, happy money, be able to help more people and get your name/brand out in your community (basically a total win)!
What are group sessions? Group sessions happen when you train 2 – 20 people at a time (although I consider 2 people “buddy”), 2 people or more are the group.
You can market your group training sessions in 20, 30, 45 or 60 minutes depending on the class you’re teaching. For instance Tabata, HIIT, Insanity, and others are geared for 30 minutes or less, while if you’re more old school you may make it 45-minutes or more, again depending on the type of fitness class.
Cost?
There are a couple of ways to base your cost in Group Sessions. The following are a few:
1. What is the cost of group sessions In your area(s)? You don’t want to overprice yourself, at the same time you don’t want to underprice/undervalue you, nor your services.
2. What are you comfortable charging? Make this your base cost.
3. Take your one-on-one cost and charge your group ½ or ¾ that price. For instance, if you’re charging $30 per 30-minute session, you would charge $15 – $20 per session, per person.
The awesome beauty of Group Session are the following:
1-on-1 (30-minute) session: $30 for 30 minute session
Group Session with 4 people: $60 – $20 for 30 minutes session
You can even go further and add in several group/one-on-one session and easily double, and even triple your income! Pretty freakin’ Exciting RIGHT?!
Two very important things that I didn’t mention are:
1. Check in your area for the laws regarding group training in parks, recreation areas, etc. Many places will charge you a fee for using their area.
2. Make sure that your liability insurance covers EVERYPLACE you train, including the following:
a. Park
b. Beach
c. Private Studio
d. Studio
e. Corporation
f. In-home Training
Believe me, you don’t want to find out the hard way that your local park requires you to put them on your liability plan, or you’re not allowed to use their facility again.
Stay professional, stay friendly and always cross your t’s and dot your I’s…you owe it to your clients, yourself and your business. Time to take your business to the next level my friends, and if you have any additional questions, drop me an email anytime!
Cheers to Life and a Successful 2016!
Fitfully yours,
Lisa L. Taylor, B.S. Holistic Nutritionist, ACE, AFAA, FITOUR
Taylor Made Fitness
Trainerlisalt@gmail.com
619.987.9691
www.MyTaylorMadeFitness.com
www.Facebook.com/TaylorMadeFitness
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Lisa Lorraine Taylor
Lisa with a B.S. in Holistic Nutrition, and a minor in Nutrition/Optimum Fitness has expanded her business to include being a Beachbody Coach, and a Fitness Consultant in helping others in the Fitness Industry and well as individual Personal Trainers to grow and market their business.
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