The Show Up Fitness Podcast

How to make 100k as a Personal Trainer STREAMS OF REVENUE 60-30-10

Chris Hitchko, CEO Show Up Fitness Season 3 Episode 352

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 9:16

Send us a text if you want to be on the Podcast & explain why!

One canceled client should not be able to wreck your entire month. We’re laying out a clean, numbers-first blueprint for personal trainers who want a sustainable six-figure personal training business without grinding 50 sessions a week. The framework is a 60/30/10 revenue split that adds up to $100,000 per year: a strong core of in-person training, a second stream that can cover real life bills, and a third stream that grows your income without more floor hours.

We walk through the real math behind stream one, including why you should book more sessions than you “need” because clients cancel, and how gym commission splits can quietly cap your income. Then we get into the biggest missed opportunity we see in the fitness industry: trainers giving nutrition guidance away for free. We explain how to set professional boundaries, introduce nutrition coaching after a consistent first month, and communicate pricing in a way that feels clear instead of pushy. We also talk about building a team with registered dietitians and physical therapists so you can serve clients better and stand out as a qualified coach.

Finally, we break down a simple online coaching plan and social media marketing approach that works even with a small audience. If you’ve ever said “I only have 300 followers,” we challenge that mindset and show how to turn engagement into real conversations with sincere messages that cut through AI automation. Subscribe, share this with a trainer friend, and leave a review so more coaches can keep showing up.

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

Welcome And Quick Calls To Action

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to the Show Up Fitness Podcast. 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. Haday all, welcome back to the Show Up Fitness Podcast. Today we're going to help you drive Streams Revenue 60, 30, 10 revenue split, helping you make that$100,000 per year. Every month within the SUF CPT, we talk about our swift analysis, your strengths, your weaknesses, the action items, things that you can improve, implement, and innovate. Most trainers have one stream of revenue. So when something like COVID hits, you're screwed. Great trainers are proactively filling up number one to about 80%. So then you can innovate other streams of revenue and start making more in that second and third stream. Here's a great recipe for success. If you look at$100,000, I prefer$120, don't we all? But that's what online is going to show you. So if you were to make$60K per year in one stream,$30,000 in another, and then$10,000 in your last stream, that's$100,000 per year, roughly$8,300 per month. So my challenge is can that second stream pay for your mortgage? Can it pay for your cars? Worst case scenario, you lose business in that first stream, you have the second and third one to go off of. So how do you make$60,000 per year? That's gonna be roughly$5,000 in personal training. If you were to be doing 10 to 15 sessions per month at$100, that's roughly gonna be$5,000 per month. I always challenge you to have that stretch goal because if you settle for, I think it's about 12 and a half, which will get you to that$60,000. Then if you do not have your client show up, which we know happens, they cancel. May the fourth be with you. They take today off or tomorrow, cinco tomorrow, they cancel. Your books may say 15, but you're actually getting around 10. So I'm gonna challenge you to aim for closer to 18 to 20 sessions in the books per week. So then you have some cushion right there. That's gonna be at$100 per session that you're making. So if you work at a high-end gym like Equinox or Lifetime and you're charging$150 per session, you're only getting 50% of that roughly. So it'll only be$75. So you need to make these numbers work for your business. If you're working at a gym and it's only charging$65 and you're getting$20 or$30,000, it's gonna be a lot more challenging to make$100,000. Doesn't mean it's not possible, but you may need to start exploring these second streams. Online is super sexy today, but I'm not gonna get much into that until the third stream. I think most trainers should be making between$30,000 to$40,000 extra per year as a nutrition coach. We do not talk about nutrition within your training sessions because it takes so much energy to get into this stuff. We're not just giving simple macro breakdowns. Oh, you want to, it's$100 per session. I'll include programming and I'll include nutrition. No, you wouldn't go to the dentist and say, Oh, yeah, when I'm here, Doc, can you also take a look at my knee? No, different specialties. So set clear expectations as the qualified coach. When I train you three times per week, we are going to be training. I'm an amazing trainer. I have great physical therapists and RDs on my team, but that's an additional service. So if you want to get into nutrition after 30 days of showing up regularly, we can talk about that. The first month is all about metabolic awareness and accountability. And that second month, we move into behavior augmentation. So getting them consistent with reaching their goals or TDE and so forth. And then we're in a regular routine, which is for longevity. How can you integrate a plan for someone that works long term? You're gonna find that 90 days of nutrition coaching is not enough. You need to do it probably for a year plus. But if you set those clear expectations, and if you have 20 plus clients and half of them are paying you 300 bucks per month, that's going to be 3K. You pay your RD, their hourly rate, to work with them once per month. And you have business calls and meetings. You can get more business by doing your food prep and all that fun stuff. Your expertise, I'm bringing you opportunities. Here is$500 per month. They work with your clients. If you're bringing in$3,000, you pay them$500. How good are we at math? That's$2,500 per month. That is$30K per year. A huge missed opportunity for trainers today. We do not charge for nutrition. So here's how you incorporate it. You let your clients know you're going through one of the best certifications where you're learning from an RD. Two months, you're gonna level up your skills, and then you're gonna start charging$500 a month. But the first month, I'm gonna give it to you as a beta test for only$250. I'm only opening up five spots. Do you want to be in that slot? So you're setting the expectations and you're peaking the interest from your clients. The more that you talk about it, it will happen. The thing is, trainers have 20 clients over here, but we provide nutrition for free. So then if you start throwing at them, it's gonna be 500 bucks a month, they'll be like, why? You're already giving me information. It's not that great, but you're already saying this stuff. So if you set those clear expeditions moving forward, I'm working with this team, I'm getting a certification so I can better serve you as my clients. And then when this time comes, it's gonna be 250 for the first trial period, and then I'm gonna go up to my normal price. If you send me a client in the meantime at my new rate of 500, I will keep you at that 250. How does that sound? That is proper communication. So now that we're making five to six thousand in stream one, three to four thousand in stream two, that last stream, 10,000 online coaching. Use your social media, be present, post daily, do the show up challenge rowing. It's gonna pique interest. I only have 300 followers. Your mindset sucks. When we go to our weekend seminars, we were just in Toronto, there's about 35 trainers there. That sounds like a lot when you're talking to them in person. The number one fear for most trainers talking in front of a group. A Rom from the Coaches Summit offered for me to be a presenter in 2027. There's gonna be 500 coaches there. Holy shit, talking to 500 people? Yes, I'm gonna be nervous, but that's part of the fun. So if I were to think that 500 isn't that a lot online, but in person, it's gigantic. Change your mindset. If you have 300 followers, that's 300 opportunities where you can talk to your clients, your potential clients in your story. What are you currently doing? I just did some rowing. What are you working on? And then whoever watches it, whoever votes, whoever comments, reach out to them. Be sincere. Send them a video message. Hey, how's it going? Chris, I noticed that you like that last photo. How are your fitness goals going? Keep showing up, put your personality into it. If you're a weirdo, how are you doing? No, you can just send a voice note. You can send a message, but make it sincere. Hey, bro, good workout. Cool. Do you want to be my client? It's not gonna work. So much AI automation today. You have to be different. That's that innovation side when we talk about within our Swift. So this side right here doesn't take much. A hundred bucks per month for online coaching programming, 10 clients, that's gonna be 12K per year. You can absolutely make a hundred thousand plus per year. It's your mindset. Your foundation needs to be there as a qualified personal trainer. The SUFCPT, nutrition coaching, soft tissue. You build your team of registered dietitians, physical therapists, you are different versus the average textbook trainer. What do they do? I got my NASA, I got my ace, and now what? I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. Stability ball, squat, curl, press, boosting ball, sidekick, there we go. It's not gonna get them results. Overload the movement patterns. You have to master the fundamentals, build your team, continue your education with hands-on learning. We go to Lifetimes every month, two to three with our partnership. We are the preferred certification for the top gyms out there because they know trainers at the rest of UFCPT think differently. They better serve their clients, they get them results more efficiently. And that is you because you're a qualified coach. You can absolutely make$100,000. And if you're close to$100, bump it up to$120,$150. That'll be roughly$7,000 to$9,000 over here in your first stream, three to four in your second, now two to three in your third. And it's fun because you don't have to do as much. Training 50 hours a week, making 30 or 40 bucks is not meant for long term sustainability. You want to be doing 20, 30 sessions, max something that you love. And then have some other side projects where you can deliver an awesome product and get paid for it because you're worth it. Remember, big biceps are better than small ones and keep showing up.