The Trackster

The Trackster is online software that helps Personal Trainers communicate with and motivate their clients.

Managing the finances of your personal training business isn’t always easy. It is crucial to your success, though. However, you can ease the burden of the number-crunching in various ways.

Streamlined systems and efficient processes can lighten the load of financial management to make the work more enjoyable. With proper tracking, smart budgeting and the right assistance, you can set up a finance management system that makes a burden a breeze.

But first, you need to identify the many components of your PT business finances.

Budgeting

A proper budget is designed to help you plan for the future. Running a business can be costly, even though you think that your only expense is your time. Also, you can spot areas that do cost you money and work towards shaving those expenses back for better profit. A budget also helps you determine peak periods and slow seasons so that you can be prepared for less clients and less income.

When a business is starting out, budgeting can be extremely difficult. No research and estimation can guarantee how much revenue your business will actually generate in the first few months or how many expenses you might require to set your business up.

That’s why many businesses have a cash reserve in the early stages – it helps ensure that costs can be adequately covered.

When first starting out, try to guesstimate as best you can and think of all sources of revenue or expenses, even yearly ones. Once your personal training business is established, however, you can tweak your budget simply by looking at your trends in revenue and expenses and using these to determine projected earnings for the future.

Funding

Almost all businesses require funding for startup costs, even your personal training business. As your business progresses, additional funding may be required so the business can grow.

The very first step in getting funds for your business is to determine how much it will cost. Put together a detailed list of all the equipment, supplies and services needed and include the costs of each of these. Now that you know how much you need, you can go out and start looking for funding.

There are many options for obtaining small business funding:

Personal savings and investments

Bank loans

Full scale business partnership

Silent partners

Credit cards

Joint ventures

Investment firms

Accounting and Bookkeeping

Processing invoices and collecting payments are critical to your business. After all, that’s how you get your hands on cash. The most important aspect of invoicing and payment collection is to have a comprehensive system in place so that you can easily track payments due and send invoices to clients.

It’s a vital step to track your invoices properly.  If you aren’t aware of who owes you money and when, then you’ll soon find yourself in a position of low cash flow.  At the end of the day you are in business to be paid.  Of course if you use The Trackster, you can invoice all of your clients and keep track of you finances.

Accounting software is extremely popular among small business owners. Most bookkeeping software packages offer a free trial. This means you can use the software for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to see if it works for you.  There are many online accounting packages that could suit your business including Saasu, Less Accounting and Xero.   We are planning to integrate The Trackster into each of these accounting packages to make it even easier for your PT business.

A third option is to outsource your bookkeeping. There are many firms, both online and off, that will help you manage invoicing and collections. These services can save you time and money, especially if bookkeeping is eating up a lot of your time that could be otherwise spent with clients or if number crunching is outside of your skill set.

Professional Assistance for Small Business Owners

Many small business owners turn to finance professionals to help them through difficulties with budgeting, invoicing and collections, accounting, and taxes. From obtaining funding to getting advice on handling financials, plenty of professional service providers can help.

Using these services can be a wise investment and help you get off on the right foot in terms of managing money. Entrepreneurs often scoff at such services and insist on learning to do everything themselves. This can be a good thing – after all, it’s your business. Why shouldn’t you learn all the details about its finances?

However, working with business consultants, tax preparers, and financial advisors can save you time and money and quicken your learning curve. Specialized services can help you set up your personal training business faster and earn clients rapidly or aid you in building a firm foundation for bigger plans in the future, like opening a gym.

Summary

Whether you’re just starting with your personal training business or trying to improve on what you have already established, developing a smart system for finance management is one of the first and most important things you can do to help ensure success. Know the components of your finances, get your system up and running, and then maintain it regularly.

Marketing is probably the most talked-about aspect of business, even for personal trainers. That’s because marketing is what gets you customers, and getting customers is how businesses make money.
When you are set  up your marketing plan, ask yourself some questions about your business, your clientele, and your competition. Answering these questions helps you develop a comprehensive plan for drawing in customers, competing with other businesses, and generating revenue.

Who Are Your Customers?

Many personal trainers believe they offer their services to the world at large, but that’s rarely the case. Even in fitness, you sell your services to a limited segment of the population.

Establishing your target market demographic helps you market your business more effectively, honing in on exactly the people who want and need your services. Knowing your targeted audience is crucial for advertising.

Ask yourself who needs or wants your services – specifically. Are you planning to attract professional athletes, people who want to lose weight, or hardcore fitness fanatics? Do you want to help new mothers lose the extra weight their pregnancy left them with? Are you into taking an inactive individual and helping the person establish a training program for more flexibility and better health?

The more specific you can be about the profile of your ideal client, the better you can market yourself. Know the life habits of your targeted audience. Are they busy people? Do they have children? When do they have the most free time – weekends or evenings? Are they motivated people or hesitant?

Each type of person has particular needs. Each person is a potential customer, and you will need different tools and techniques to appeal and convince the person to patronize your business.

What Are Your Competitors Doing?

Before you launch your business, you need to keep an eye on your competitors. For example, if a gym in your region has just purchased state-of-the-art equipment and launched a huge price special, there’s a good chance you may struggle to market to perspective customers.

However, if you’re paying attention to the competition, you’ll be able to develop a plan in a timely manner that allows you to compete and draw customers to you.

Know what the competition offers, and more importantly, know what is missing from their game plan. Find out whether they offer personalized service, and if not, use the one-on-one personal training angle strongly in your marketing message.

Try to determine the challenges that your competitors seem to be facing, too.  If you live in a small town with two gyms already and a third that just closed due to lack of business, then you might want to market to another town nearby and offer to travel. Or, you could find a niche market and open a gym that caters to a particular demographic (for example, senior citizens or yoga practitioners).

Branding and Identity: Who Are You?

Marketing specialists love to talk about branding and identity. That’s because branding and identity are the heart and soul of your business. Together, they form the image that you project to your prospective clients. Your brand and identity should be attractive, compelling and designed with both you and the customer in mind.

A business identity conveys a personality. It may also come with an attitude and a slogan or tagline that represents the benefits you offer. Your business brand should always include a logo, which is your stamp. It should appear on all your business cards, fliers, stationary and advertising materials. If you have a website, the website should reflect your image, too.

To start building your business identity, ask yourself what personality you want to convey to your potential customers. Are you a relaxed and friendly trainer, one who will gently coach people toward getting in shape? Are you hardcore and driven, more like a drill sergeant building athletes into optimal performance machines?

Build a brand that communicates the two most important aspects of your business: who you are and what you have to offer. Also, your brand should work to convince potential customers that they need the services you’re offering – and that they should get those services from you.

Advertising

Establishing your identity is a huge step but there’s more. You have to get the word out to the public that you’re in business and ready to serve. You don’t need to tell the whole world; remember your target customer base?

In advertising, your goal is to let your specific targeted audience know that you exist.

You can do this through various methods. Millions of web pages offer advertising space, and the phone book sells listings and large ads. Newspapers, magazines, television commercials and direct mailings (sales letters, brochures, coupons) are all effective advertising methods, too. You can cold call or hand out business cards and fliers.

As a personal trainer, though, there’s a good chance that you only need to advertise to people in your immediate geographic area. Look for advertising opportunities that let you target the people you want to in the very geographic area you live in.

Putting together a marketing plan for your personal trainer business may seem complex, but it really isn’t a big deal. All you have to know is exactly who your ideal customer is, how to reach that person with marketing strategies that resonate with his or her needs and advertise in ways that resonate with your perfect client.