Becoming a personal trainer is one of the fastest growing careers in the past decade. The ranks of personal trainers have grown 40% since then. While a truly busy trainer only needs 25-30 regular clients training with them 1-2 times per week, it can be hard to accrue that number in a reasonable amount of time. Competition for new clients is fierce and retaining old ones can be challenging at times. Training expenses tend to be higher here than anywhere else in the country and the economy has many people cutting back on or second guessing the value of personal training services. If you aren’t constantly sharpening your skills, you will be left behind.
In New York City, there are approximately 8,000 certified personal trainers. That includes those who are on staff at a gym as well as independents who work full-time and part-time. Given that over half of all New York City residents are overweight, personal trainers should been as in demand as taxi cabs on a rainy day.
Unfortunately, for trainers, this is not the case. The race to be a successful personal trainers is being won not just by those who are passionate about health, wellness, and helping others achieve their goals, but by the ones who understand the need to be good sales people, as well. If you aren’t using various mediums to convey your expertise as a fitness professional, you won’t be one for long.
Everything is more expensive in The Big Apple and that includes personal training business expenses. If a New York personal trainer is lucky, they will have several clients with home gyms or gyms in their apartment buildings. This can cut down on the enormous expense of paying for training space. A personal trainer in Queens can expect to pay anywhere from $20-$35 per hour to train a client at a personal training gym, whereas outside of the city, this expense might top out at $15 per hour. Naturally, session rates for personal training in Queens are higher, but even this margin has shrunk in the past five years as the economy has hobbled along. Additionally, the cost of search engine optimization and more traditional media advertising is exponentially more expensive than other areas. Thus, it takes more sessions to cover the cost of building a training business.
Finally, New York City is home to some of the great innovators of fitness programs and products. Billy Blanks, the originator of Tae-Bo workouts, toiled as part of New York City’s personal training community before hitting it big with his videos. In that vein, a personal trainer in Queens should always be on top of trends in the industry and seize any opportunity to be creative. Only a few very special trainers will make make it to level of Billy Blanks and Jillian Michaels. However, if you identify a need and carve out a niche you will be on the path to being a successful Queens personal trainer.
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