How to Go Independent as a Trainer (and Actually Get Clients)

Are you a personal trainer thinking about going independent—but worried about how to actually get clients?

In this episode of the Show Up Fitness Podcast, we break down exactly how to leave the gym, go independent, and build a profitable personal training business without relying on a big box facility.

Whether you’re working at a gym like Life Time, Equinox, or 24 Hour Fitness, or you’re already on your own but struggling to grow, this episode covers the real strategies successful independent trainers use to own their clients, increase income, and create freedom.

You’ll learn:

• How to transition from gym employee to independent trainer
• How to get clients without working at a gym
• The biggest mistakes trainers make when going independent
• Simple marketing strategies that actually work
• How to build a sustainable fitness business (online or in-person)

This isn’t theory—this is the real-world blueprint for trainers, coaches, and service professionals who want to stop trading time for sessions and start building a business.

If you’re ready to quit the gym, own your clients, and take control of your income, this episode is for you.

Become a SUCCESSFUL personal trainer vol 2 will help ANY personal trainer turn their passion for fitness into a career. SUF-CPTs make 2-5x more than the average personal trainer with a NASM, ACE, ISSA, NSCA, ACSM personal training certification, That's why the SUF-CPT is the fastest growing and best personal training certification for trainers with our elite partnership with life time fitness and equinox.

Want to become a SUCCESSFUL personal trainer? SUF-CPT is the FASTEST growing personal training certification in the world!

Want to ask us a question?  Email info@showupfitness.com with the subject line PODCAST QUESTION to get your question answered live on the show!

Website: https://www.showupfitness.com/
Become a Successful Personal Trainer Book Vol. 2 (Amazon): https://a.co/d/1aoRnqA
NASM / ACE / ISSA study guide: https://www.showupfitness.com

Transcript

Welcome And Quick Housekeeping

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Show Up Fitness Podcast, where great personal trainers are made. We are changing the fitness industry one qualified trainer at a time with our in-person and online personal training certification. If you want to become an elite personal trainer, head on over to showupfitness.com. Also make sure to check out my book, How to Become a Successful Personal Trainer. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review. Have a great day and keep showing up. Howdy all, welcome back to the Show Up Fitness Podcast. Today we're going to help you get clients as an independent contractor. Maybe you're thinking about leaving a big box gym. Well, how do you get clients? It's super easy getting clients at a gym. We're at Houston in our last seminar. It's a brand new gym within a couple of years. They have 3,500 members. And if you're an average gym, which most gyms are, 10% client penetration. What that means, don't get all weird and sexual. It means that there's 3,500 members, 350 are going to be working with a trainer. I think that's super low. I would like to see 20 to 30%. That comes back to the quality of the trainers, being present, looking the part, being proactive. That's how you build a book of business at a gym. You just need to be present all the freaking time. Do you look like a trainer? Are you smiling? Can you get people results? That's what great trainers can do. Most trainers struggle because they're cleaning up shit, they're not involved, they're hiding behind the trainer desk and they don't have a growth mindset. They probably have a textbook certification as well. Not those with the SUF CPT because they're qualified movement experts. You can build a book of business and then you can absolutely be clearing six figures as a personal trainer in a big box gym. But what happens when you want to leave? A lot of trainers will just take their clients and they don't know how it works. They see the gym taking 50% plus of their hourly rate. I'm charging 180. That's not fair. I have to give the gym 90 bucks. Most gyms at that level are costing millions of dollars, not to include marketing and insurance in the gym equipment. You got to take your victim mentality to the garbage and throw that shit away. People are signing up with you because of the brand on your back. So when you leave and take those clients, let's say you take 10 clients, three will quit. They will go back to the gym, even though they commit to you. These are statistics you're not going to get in a textbook. But if you take 10 clients from that gym and you start training independently, I guarantee you within a month, three will go back. So now you're at seven. Most trainers charge less when they leave. If you're charging 180, you talk to your clients and say, Oh, I'm going to go to this independent spot down the road and I'm only going to charge you 100. I'm making more, you're charging less. It's going to be a great scenario. Well, guess what happens when three of them leave? And then the next couple months, something happens. Health happens, wealth happens, meaning clients leave, they go change houses, whatever it is. They leave you. Now you're down to five. How do you get new clients? Most trainers ask for referrals. Hey, at the end of a workout, maybe uh, you know, someone who wants to train with me. They're not direct. So they don't get referrals. And now all of a sudden you're down to two to three clients. One gets hurt, and now you're like, crap, I'm making significantly less than I was at that big box gym. But I burned a bridge. I took the clients, I told the manager to go fuck a goat. And so I can't go back to that brand anymore. So you try to do the same thing in Equinox, and guess what? It doesn't happen. It doesn't work. I've seen this time and time again, being in the industry for 20 plus years. We take this victim mentality, we want to make more. So then we steal the clients and it doesn't pan out. So you are not that average trainer. You've been doing this for a while. You have that growth mindset. You have your SUF CPT, you're getting the level twos with the soft tissue, nutrition coaching, you're driving streams of revenue. But how do you get clients without a gym brand on your back? You need to be proactive and turn into the mayor of where you're training. So what I mean by that is put a pin where you're going to be training independently and then do a three-mile radius. And I'm going to talk today specifically about gym wear. You need to go to a Lululemon or Viore and buy something. Get yourself some nice swag, get a shirt, get some pants, might cost a couple hundred bucks. You need to look professional and those clothes showcase professional, not sweats and bullshit like that. You need to look the part. Having high quality clothes separates you from the average trainer. Not talking about going to Target or Walmart, nothing against those spots. Great business models. But as a trainer, you need to have nice clothes. So when you go into the store, find some things. And then when you go and check out most of these spots, Lulu specific, they have a discount code for trainers. Sweat collective is, I think, what they call it. So they're going to ask you, Do you have any discounts? No, I don't. Can I sign up for it? Sign up for it. I'm a trainer in the area. And then you smile and you say, Who is your trainer? And more times than not, because no offense to Lulu workers, but that is not a career path unless you're in upper management or working on the C-suite team behind the stages. They are not making that much money. So then you say, How would you like to come work it with me at this gym a mile away? I'll take you through a comp workout. Normally my sessions are$150 per hour. I'm going to give it to you for free. Here's my Instagram. Shoot me a DM. Make them follow you. If you give someone your business card and leave, the chances that they're just going to throw that in the garbage are extremely high. So they follow you. Then you reach out professionally in a timely manner. Hey, it was great meeting you today. I really love that Lulu shirt. My arms look big. No, I wouldn't say that. But I would say, when would you like to come in for that complimentary assessment? Then when they schedule that time, you send them a reminder text the day of and you take them through an amazing experience. And then you talk shop. Normally my rates are 150, as I just told you. How many days would you like to work with me? Hypothetically, let's just have fun here. I mean, that was great, but I mean, I can't afford 150 bucks. That's way out of my budget. I'm struggling paying rent right now. I can't pay for my car. I'm having this debt, blah, blah, blah. Whatever it is, let them talk. Great. I will commit to training you three times per week for the next month in exchange for a get some free swag. They could give you a discount. I know that they get like 60% off every month and they get free shit as well. So work out an arrangement where you get some free clothes. Why not? I can't tell you how many times I've been to a gym and I see the same person five days in a week, and each time a completely different outfit that costs three to four hundred dollars. There's a lot of people in that area and that store specifically that can afford training. So you need to coach up that member. That worker at Lululemon needs to be given a script. What most people would do is say, oh, if you know if someone wants to train with me, uh, well, maybe you just tell them to work with me. Uh that'd be kind of cool. No, that's not how it works. I'm 150 an hour. That means I'm giving you$450 worth of free personal training per week. Times that by four,$900,$1,800 per month. I'm gifting you. You need to be working for me. So that means every time you come in, you're gonna give me your phone. I'm gonna get on your Instagram and I'm gonna do a live little workout session so people can see it. I'm gonna put in the story. I'm the best trainer in the area. You're following Susie, and she thinks I'm the best. What do you say, Susie? How was that workout? And she goes, Oh my God, that was so great. My glutes are on fire. I love Chris. You are tapping into her following, but then you're telling her how to talk to people that come into the store. So when people buy over$400, let's just use this as an example. You're gonna say, I think you should work with a trainer. I have a trainer, his name is Chris. Here's his Instagram. Follow him, shoot him a message and say, Susie sent you over. He's gonna give you one complimentary session. This is seriously the best trainer in the area. What are some of your goals? Oh, I'm trying to lose weight. I'm trying to get rid of the stubborn fat. Oh, I have pain. He will take care of you because he has this amazing facility. He's great with pain management. He has all these cool assessment processes that he will do. If you need soft tissue, he'll get you out of pain, but he's gonna get you results. And then you coach her up to do this regularly. In a month, I guarantee you you will get at least 10 people to reach out to you. And if they don't, you find someone else, rinse and repeat, go to Viore, go to another spot. And if you did this regularly over the course of a year, you will be given assessment opportunities. Now it's up to you to close that. That's the quality of the assessment process. And that's what we teach with the SUF STM, general pop, athletes. I just did a great one with soccer, as well as pain management. That is option A. Option B is going to be training people at the store. Most of these places will give their employees a stipend, 250 bucks plus sometimes that they can use for gym memberships. So you ask Susie, when would there be a time when the store is closed that we can do like an hour booty-specific workout? If you get 10 girls in there, I'll take you through the best small group training you've ever experienced in your life. And then you deliver. You bring that energy, you bring your little boom box, you put on some good tunes, you make it fun and engaging, and then you have a conversation afterwards. Hey ladies, what did you think of the workout today? Is this something that you'd like to see regularly? Well, let's talk. Because I would love to train you, but my goal is to be training 30 sessions a week at my hourly rate of$150 per session. And right now I'm only at 15. So I would love to come in here weekly, monthly, buy monthly, twice a week, whatever it is. What can we do? If you had 10 girls, if you had 10 girls give you that monthly stipend, that's$2,500 that you just made. That's$25 that goes to your rent, to your mortgage, to your car, to your whatever it is that we're buying today.$2,500 that you didn't have last month. And then you get them bought in on your vision. Normally my rates are$150. How would you like a commission? You know, if I don't mean to be nosy here, Susie, but how much do you make per month working at Lululemon? Oh,$2,400. That's pretty cool. How would you feel if I gave you$2,400 a month? What? How would you that would be awesome? How would you do that? Each person who you refer to me, once they sign up, I'm going to give you 10% of that commission. So let's do some math real quick. If they sign up for three sessions per week, that's$450,$1,800 for that month. I'm going to give you$360, 20% of that sale. If you send me five, six clients throughout the month, that's extra cash in your pocket. These are the plans that I have. And I'm just going to do a quick little role play so you have a really clear understanding of how I deliver my assessment process. For a client who has pain, I do some soft tissue stuff. Whether it's the knee, low back, shoulder, I can take care of anyone because I work with a great team of physical therapists and I can do a lot within my scope. And I'm going to ask them what success looks like working with me six months from now? Then I'm going to pitch one month of training or six months of training. If they sign up for six months of training, 1,800 times six, I had to get my calculator out for that one. It's$10,800 times that by 0.2. That's a$2,000 commission. If one person were to sign up per month with me for a six-month package, I'm gifting you$2,000. This could be a really fruitful relationship because if you start doing that, I will continue to train you for free. And you're going to get that dream body that you just told me you wanted because you want to get back at your ex-boyfriend or whatever it is. I'm going to get you there, but also I'm going to be paying you per month. How does that sound? That is what we call a win-win situation. That's a growth mindset. What do trainers do? They'll walk into Lulu and say, Um, do you think that I could put up a flyer and maybe my business card's over here? Because I want all your members to be working with me because it's me, me, me, me, me. It's all about me. You have to give. Read shelf, silver stone, silverstein, whatever it is, the giving tree. People just take today. When you lead with giving, you will turn a profit and you're going to be significantly happier because you don't have to stress about finding new clients. Great trainers have a book of business between 15 to 20 clients. They're training anywhere from one to four times per week. And you can absolutely turn this into a career, but you have to think differently than the victim mentality. They're not teaching you the business tricks in a textbook. Textbooks don't even give you optimal programming. That's what we teach you. If you found today's podcast helpful, throw this into your story. There's a trainer out there that we can definitely help and we can give them some gold nuggets so they can continue to turn their passion for fitness into a career. 90% of trainers don't make it past the first year, not at Show Up. We level you up not only in your thinking physically, but you will be the elite of the elite. The 0.1%ers, because you're a qualified personal trainer. Remember, big glutes are better than small ones and keep showing up.