How to Price Your Personal Training For Maximal Profits

Figuring out the right price for the programs you offer in your fitness business can be tough. You know that you run a great program and get great results, but that doesn’t always lead to the profits you want to see in your business.

There are two key factors you must consider when pricing…

Expenses & Perceived Value

If either of these two factors are ignored when pricing your programs there’s a good chance you’ll miss the mark and under price yourself. That could lead to small profits for your business and less money in your bank account.

You don’t want either of those things, so let’s go through each and help you figure out how to maximize your profits.

How much is it costing you?

Each session you run in your business has a cost associated with it. That’s a fact no matter what type of training business you’re running or the type of training that you do. There’s a cost to run that session.

Here’s a quick breakdown of expenses directly associated with the session:

• Trainer’s pay
• Facility use/rent
• Utilities used during the session

There are also other costs that may not be directly tied to each session but must be accounted for in your business such as:

• Administrative and management pay
• Utilities used during downtime
• Office supplies
• Common area maintenance charges

Really, any expense that’s not directly tied to a program is an expense that has to be shared by the business across your sessions. So, if you take your monthly expenses and break them down over the number of sessions you have a week or month you’ll get your average session cost.

For example, if you have $7,500 in expenses each month and hold 120 sessions a month (6 sessions a day over a 5-day week for 4 weeks) each session costs you $62.50 to run ($7,500/120).

The best way to hit your profit goals is to build in expenses from the start.

To give yourself the best chance at hitting your profit goals you need to build that in from the start. So, if you have a goal to earn 20% profit in your business, each session needs to earn at least $75 ($62.50 x 1.2).

A semi-private training business that has 4 client spots in each session would have to charge $18.75/session on average to have 20% margins. And that’s assuming you’re at 100% capacity. The safer bet is to figure on 70-80% capacity and determine your prices from that figure.

The easiest way to calculate this would be to use 75% and you’d have 3 clients in each session. That bumps your rate to $25/session. If you run group training where you have 15 clients per session the situation changes a little.

• Price Per Client (100% Capacity): $5/session
• Price Per Client (75% Capacity): $6.67/session

Now as long as you can fill your sessions to 75% capacity and your expenses don’t increase you’ll be set. However, you and I both know that expenses are likely to go up and you may not hit 75% capacity in every session. That means you’ll need to give yourself a bit more of a buffer.

If nothing else, this will justify you needing to raise your prices if needed. Run your current business scenarios through the filter and see if you’re set up to hit your profit goals.

Optimizing Your Value

Your expenses are just one, and usually the first, factor that you use to figure out your pricing.

The other involves the marketing and positioning in your marketplace. Having a high perceived value can allow you to charge higher prices and thus increase the profits that you will make in your business. Assuming, of course, that you keep your expenses down.

All things equal though, a high perceived value should equal higher prices and more profit.

Using expenses to ensure you are profitable is like a safety net. They are there to ensure you aren’t running a business that doesn’t allow you to make a living. But, especially in a service business, value, expertise and specialization can drive your prices up and give you even bigger margins.

Here are some of the ways you can increase your perceived value:

• Specialize in one area
• Deliver results faster
• Offer a strong guarantee
• Deliver results quicker
• Deliver better results
• Position yourself as the expert
• Get endorsements and testimonials
• Portray a professional image (website, marketing materials, etc)

You likely do most of these things already, but you may not be marketing them. If you are marketing them you need to make sure you’re doing it differently than everyone else. For example, every trainer says they get fast results, better than the other person. How are you proving it and communicating that to your prospects.

Do some research on your competition and review their marketing. Not so you can copy it, but so you know what they are saying and how you can differentiate yourself and stand out.

See what prices they are charging and how they are showing prospects the value of their services. Can you do better? Luckily, it won’t take much to beat your competition and charge more for your training.

Back It Up

If you charge a premium for your training services make sure you back it up. There are lots of fitness pros out there now charging high prices, promising incredible results, selling fantastic services and then under delivering to their clients.

The best way to position yourself in the market is by earning the spot as the best trainer in your area for delivering a specific result. You do that by taking amazing care of the clients you already have and that you’ll get by following the marketing advice on this site.

A bad reputation will kill any great marketing campaign.

How To Set Up Pricing That Promises Profits

Jump into The Academy and check out our In The Trenches module on pricing your programs, get INSTANT access to our pricing calculator, and then discover how to succesfully sell your high priced programs through our sales courses.  Every thing you need to build a profitable, successful business is right inside waithing for you… Click below to get access TODAY