For many of our certified students, being a personal trainer is not a full-time role – it’s their side hustle.
A side hustle runs alongside your full time employment, but relates more closely to your passions and brings greater job satisfaction as well as additional income. A side hustle can also act as a springboard into a full-time business, helping you learn the skills and experience with the relative security of full-time employment.
If you are in an unsatisfactory 9-5 job that doesn’t serve your passions, then a side hustle can help you to maintain your current role whilst allowing you to do what you really want to be doing. In the case of a personal trainer, that would be helping people. A side hustle can help bridge the gap between what you want to do and what you need to do. From experience you can then drop down to part time hours and slowly transition to working in the fitness industry full time. My best advice would be to have different streams of income for example bootcamps, semi private and one to one sessions.
If you have a passion for helping others achieve health and fitness goals, then a Personal Training course might be for you. Upon qualifying you can take on clients, work with online clients and build that side hustle into a fully functioning business.
Here are some benefits to completing a Personal Training course with us and starting your side hustle.
Have a positive impact on people’s lives
In your current job you may not feel like you have much of a positive impact on anyone’s life. Perhaps you aren’t creating the change in the world that you hoped for.
By completing your personal trainer course and taking on clients around your normal working hours you will be giving yourself the opportunity to positively impact individuals.
Play to your strengths
Are you a great people person and motivator? Are you a good listener? Can you break down complex ideas into easily digestible pieces of information for clients to understand. A side hustle as a PT will allow you to share your strengths with others.
Go the Distance
Often, recently qualified personal trainers can quickly become burnt out. It’s a competitive market place and there are many personal trainers out there with multiple streams of income for example working as a tutor and as a freelance trainer.
While the industry is growing (as are the opportunities to work in it) being a PT on the side might mean that you don’t suffer the stress of burn out.
From experience people tend to burn out and chase the money in their first year of qualifying. Remember it’s a marathon and not a sprint
You select the hours you can/want to work, and you have the reassurance of a payday from your day job. You have to make sure that you don’t burn the candle at both ends however by overdoing the PT work whilst maintaining your normal job.
Make Money
A good side hustle should ultimately lead to additional income. Even if it isn’t your main motivation you should still get a little something for your time and efforts. Knowing what you could be earning is really important, so speak to other PTs and friends who have worked with PTs.
How to make a good income as a PT
Having a Schedule that Suits your Individual Needs
You don’t have to overcommit yourself when you start filling the side hustle schedule. You can easily commit to a couple of clients or classes a week coaching for a few hours. As you work out how much time you have available and how busy a schedule you want, you can start scaling your business appropriately.
If a few hours a week is all you can commit to, then that’s all you need to do. It’s your side hustle and your schedule!
Is a side hustle for you?
A side hustle isn’t meant to be a burden or a drain on you. It should compliment your current commitments and enhance your situation, financially and emotionally. Whether a personal training side career is complimentary to your current role or takes you into an entirely different field, you should enjoy the work and never find it a chore.
For a side hustle to work for you, you need to schedule your commitments and make sure you aren’t overdoing it. Personal training is all about giving; giving your time, patience, skills and stability to clients. It can take a lot of energy to be a successful PT, you have to make sure you are looking after yourself. You still need to find time to train yourself and have a social life etc.
If you can find the right balance however, a side hustle as a PT can be extremely rewarding and can put some additional cash in your pocket. This helped me no end whilst studying at university.To effectively add a side hustle to your schedule, go easy at first.
Written by Kevin Mantle (Managing Director of Norfolk Health & Fitness)