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Career advice

deadliftenthusiast

Level 1 Valued Member
I am currently at a crossroads with my career and I need some advice. I am 24 years old with a math degree from a large university. My current job does not fulfill me financially nor is it something that interests me. The thing I am by far the most passionate about is lifting weights. Specifically, strong first type training with barbells. I do not have any lifting certifications and very little experience training clients.. I have looked into the strong first cert, but I am currently unable to afford it. I have applied for personal training jobs at local gyms but all I have found is jobs where you run a group class or something like that. I am looking for a first step into the industry. Any advice would be appreciated.
 
deadliftenthusiast said:
I am currently at a crossroads with my career and I need some advice. I am 24 years old with a math degree from a large university. My current job does not fulfill me financially nor is it something that interests me. The thing I am by far the most passionate about is lifting weights. Specifically, strong first type training with barbells. I do not have any lifting certifications and very little experience training clients.. I have looked into the strong first cert, but I am currently unable to afford it. I have applied for personal training jobs at local gyms but all I have found is jobs where you run a group class or something like that. I am looking for a first step into the industry. Any advice would be appreciated.
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If you're gonna get training how to teach group classes, take it.. the least you will learn are some soft skills which will help you later on and also help you build rapport with future potential PT clients
 
deadliftenthusiast said:
I do not have any lifting certifications and very little experience training clients.
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No Certification

The majority of reputable gym require a Personal Training Certification from one of...

The Big 5 Personal Training Organizations

The following is in no particular order.

1) The NSCA, National Strength and Conditioning Association

2) NASM, National Academy of Sports Medicine

3) ACE, American Council on Exercise

4) ACSM, American College of Sport Medicine

5) ISSA, International Sports Science Association

Strong First Certification

Some gym may allow you to work for them with that certification, many will not.

Experience

As you know, employers in most business prefer someone with experience. So, that is a bit of a stumbling block.

deadliftenthusiast said:
I am looking for a first step into the industry.
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Don't Quit Your Day Job

Personal Training, as with any new business, takes time to build.

Most Personal Trainer don't make it because they don't have enough money to develop their clientele to make enough money to live on.

In the fitness industry, the annual personal trainer turnover rate is 80 percent. If you look at the average time personal trainers stay in the industry, it was like around 12 months. Resource: How To Reduce Personal Trainer Turnover.

Thus, most individual need to start part time as Personal Training; keeping their Day Job.
 
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I’d echo what was said above, don’t quit your day job yet.

Not sure what you are doing but with a math degree but have you looked at being an actuary at an insurance/reinsurance company? That would pay well and give you a pretty steady 9-5 schedule where you could pursue working in the fitness industry while you figure things out.
 
DannyHoj said:
I’d echo what was said above, don’t quit your day job yet.

Not sure what you are doing but with a math degree but have you looked at being an actuary at an insurance/reinsurance company? That would pay well and give you a pretty steady 9-5 schedule where you could pursue working in the fitness industry while you figure things out.
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You could also consider software development as a way to pay bills in the meantime.

The important thing to consider about work as a personal trainer is that the real work is the work of an entrepreneur. That includes marketing, sales, strategy, accounting, etc etc. Passion for StrongFirst barbells might motivate you to teach a friend, but it takes passion for building a business to sustain a business.
 
One question I ask all aspiring trainers is this: do you value a consistent work day? eg are you a 9-5 type of person?

If so, DO NOT go into the fitness field.


Otherwise, I would recommend looking into taking the courses needed to challenge one of the certifications mentioned above. You'll need the minimum barrier to entry to prove your capability if you want the job.
 
deadliftenthusiast said:
I am currently at a crossroads with my career and I need some advice. I am 24 years old with a math degree from a large university. My current job does not fulfill me financially nor is it something that interests me. The thing I am by far the most passionate about is lifting weights. Specifically, strong first type training with barbells. I do not have any lifting certifications and very little experience training clients.. I have looked into the strong first cert, but I am currently unable to afford it. I have applied for personal training jobs at local gyms but all I have found is jobs where you run a group class or something like that. I am looking for a first step into the industry. Any advice would be appreciated.
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Any business needs a few core things.
1. A lead generation mechanism
2. A way to convert leads into clients
3. A product to deliver to those clients
4. The product to be good enough that those clients stick around and tell other people about it.
5. Clients that buy again. (for PT, this is often as simple as reupping for another month.)

If you work with a gym the gym takes care of number 1 and takes that off your plate. Like others have said, most gyms will require certifications for insurance purposes and to prove you at least are aware of the basics.
The more "trendy" route right now is to utilize a social media following to get clients. Put interesting content on the platform you like to work with and gain a following, doesn't need to be huge. Then direct those clients into a lead conversion mechanism. If you have ever signed up for Geoff's newsletter, that is basically what that step is.
A product can be nearly anything from a spreadsheet to one on one zoom coaching to a full fledged course like Pavel Macek has.
Getting clients to stick around is more about their buy in to the process and quality of the product. Get motivated people who want what you sell and sell what you say you are selling.

With those basics in mind, the first step is deciding what route you want to take. The path of least resistance is probably through a gym unless you already enjoy posting on social media. If you go the gym route, start poking around for what the basic requirements are for an entry level trainer position, identify the ladder, and work your way up. You probably will have to run group classes since that is a big money maker for gyms.

Either route you take will take a few years. The percentage of people that just kill it on social media and build a sustainable business in the first year is in the single digits if not zero. The number of people who start at a gym and get paid enough to pay rent and food. To put it into perspective, Dan John didn't quit his day job until a few years ago.

That said, doing a side hustle that you enjoy is a great way to spend "free" time and can be very rewarding. And depending on the route you take does have the potential for a large upside over time.

Anyway, long winded answer from my experiences helping my wife build her businesses up. Hope its helpful.
 
To sum up many of the posts above, Personal Trainer is a SALES job. I looked into it and everyone said its a hussle. I failed at being a musician because I didn't want to sell myself hard enough. That is capitalism. Its not great, but its the best there is.
 
I was invited to train a group fitness class last year at a local BJJ school. This is what I found out. I wanted to charge $15 per person. The gym would advertise for me but they wanted to keep 60% of my income. If they landed me one on one clients they also wanted 60%. To get to this gym I had to drive 40 minutes both ways. They also required I get some insurance and told me to consider certifying in one of the big name personal trainer certifications. Insurance I believe was about 500-700 every 6 months.

My main job I work in is Human Resource Management. I have a steady work schedule, income, and a very big ceiling for advancement. I don't mind training people occasionally but not at the expense of giving up nights and weekends to make $100 or less. It just didn't add up for me personally. I'm not trying to say it isn't possible to make a decent living training people, I just thought I would give you a little insight on what to expect in terms of group fitness. I wish you the best of luck!
 
As a young person, please have a listen to what Scott Galloway has to say... time stamped. You are desperately needed in many industries -- find out what they are, and pursue mastery in what you have unique talents in that capitalizes on your impressive education and potential.

As an older person (I'm 56), I thought about leaving my IT career a few years ago to work in the fitness industry, because I had great interest in it, had earned a lot of certifications, and did some side-gig work as a personal trainer. It was quite tempting. I'm so glad I didn't. Instead of struggling through the covid times with a near-impossible task, instead I got sent home to work my IT job, and life got easier. Not fair, I know. But it worked out. Now I'm able to look at retiring early, and can pursue fitness endeavors at my leisure. I'm not much good at sales, so I want to teach people in a way where I don't have to worry about bringing in enough to support myself or others.
 
Eric Wilson said:
The important thing to consider about work as a personal trainer is that the real work is the work of an entrepreneur. That includes marketing, sales, strategy, accounting, etc etc. Passion for StrongFirst barbells might motivate you to teach a friend, but it takes passion for building a business to sustain a business.
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This is one of a few reasons why I changed my degree and career path. I HATE selling myself. I hate having to think of more ways to get more people interested in what I want to teach. I did love teaching. I do however, describe myself as "allergic to self promotion."

I changed my degree from exercise science and physical therapy to physics, with a minor in math. The more I learned about fitness and training, the more I learned that a degree is not necessary to teach people how to train. I also did some personal soul searching and found that a field where I could develop things to benefit a larger group of people spoke to me more than teaching people how to strength train. There is nothing inherently wrong/right about either path; it's just what felt right for me.

Ask yourself why you don't feel fulfilled. Ask yourself if you really love math, or if you got your degree because you thought it would give you a good job. Some of my classmates are really good at math but (this is just my perspective) don't seem as excited about the material. They just happen to be good at it. I am not great at it, but I find it incredibly fascinating. I have not worked in industry, but I would wager it's far easier to make decent money with a math degree than with some training certs. The latter will have you being an entrepreneur, as others have said. I, personally, prefer a schedule that I can rely on, and looking for clients to pay the bills stressed me out.

Heed the advice of others here. Dip your toes in the training world as a side gig before ditching your current career. It has its pros and cons. You might try it for a bit and find that it's not for you, or you might fall deeply in love with it and decide to go all in. Scheduling and finding clients can be chaos sometimes, so be prepared for that. Teaching and seeing students get better, however, is incredibly rewarding.

Regarding group lessons: these are mostly what I taught, when I worked at a gym. I found that the greatest challenge was programming things so that my class would work for a range of body types, strength, and skill. Group lessons probably pay less than personal ones, but they are a good place to develop teaching skills, as you will have to adjust things for certain students on the fly. I think this helped me with my personal clients. Group lessons also require a bit of extroversion. I am an introvert and it took a bit, but I grew to become successful at it. At some times I was teaching groups of up to 30-35 people.

TLDR:
Try training as a side gig and see if you really like it. Really spend some time examining why you like and dislike your options. Maybe your math degree would fulfill you more if you were doing something different than whatever you are now. Or, maybe changing to training more will suit your tastes better.

That was a bit scatter-brained of me, but I hope something in there helps.
 
If you don’t want to work group fitness classes to get your foot in the door, maybe you don’t want this career change as much as you think.

I received a degree in hotel management and couldn’t get any job with it, having to settle to be a housekeeper for two years. Being a college graduate housekeeper made me eat a lot of humble pie, but it’s the industry I wanted to be in and that’s what I had to do to be in it.

Most jobs are meritocracies and you have to start on the s*** end until you have the experience to qualify for better. You don’t even have certs, take whatever work you can get.
 
Hrungnir said:
If you don’t want to work group fitness classes to get your foot in the door, maybe you don’t want this career change as much as you think.

I received a degree in hotel management and couldn’t get any job with it, having to settle to be a housekeeper for two years. Being a college graduate housekeeper made me eat a lot of humble pie, but it’s the industry I wanted to be in and that’s what I had to do to be in it.

Most jobs are meritocracies and you have to start on the s*** end until you have the experience to qualify for better. You don’t even have certs, take whatever work you can get.
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Agreed. Hardly anyone starts with their dream job, and in the training world, most people have to start out training whoever they can get. Over time, as a trainer, you can develop both your training style/specialties as well as a solid client base. I never worked at a big chain gym, but I wouldn't be opposed to it if I chose to get back into the field. It might not pay great, but I bet I would get to work with a wide range of clients. Plus, most people at a big box gym would probably be easy to train, provided you could keep them motivated to stay consistent. I would bet most just want "to get stronger, build muscle, and lose fat." All those things are not complicated to program.

Actually, something I just wrote sparked a thought:
@deadliftenthusiast something to consider is that unless/until you can work in a specialty gym, many clients are likely to have generic goals like "build muscle, lose weight." In my relatively short stint of teaching, I found that a large chunk of training other people is keeping them motivated and consistent. In a specialty gym, many students will be excited to learn and be there, but in more generic gyms, a good chunk will be there just to get healthier. They may even dislike working out. Before I changed my major, I had to take two psychology classes as prerequisites for physical therapy school. Training isn't just programming and technique. A large part is psychology. Just something to consider, if you have not yet.
 
Mo04 said:
This is great career advice from Derek Sivers

"For both of them, I prescribe the lifestyle of the happiest people I know:

- Have a well-paying job.

- Seriously pursue your art for love, not money."

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This....is fantastic. Sent this to my wife right away to read. We've both grappled with this. We both do work in creative fields, but in the corporate sector. We both have other creative pursuits outside of work that we love.

Thanks for sharing!
 
I suggest do the PT thing as a side job. Similar background: studied Applied Math in Economics, have some love with lifting and teaching. I work as a Data Analyst based on my degree and have some fitness clients here and there. Main job keeps me a stable income and stable lifestyle. Definitely the side job helps - I able to earn something here and there and it's especially helpful during the hard time (Covid/2.5 years without increasing salary). But I wouldn't change my job to doing PT full time. This year I have a huge increase in my salary and I don't think I can spend 7-8 hours per day, 5 days per week as a PT to earn that.

Your situation is similar like Patrick Maguire (full_primal_power on instagram). I had a few chat with him. He has a degree in Math, also struggle with normal job and considering doing sth else, but not figure out yet.
 
I hate marketing and sales person tactics, so I largely “failed” at making personal training a sustainable business.

As much as I might not like it - you can be the best coach in the world and suck at marketing and not make a dime. You can be the worst coach in the world and be a marketing guru and make tons.

I’m only being slightly hyperbolic.

I have trained clients in a gym, online, and in my garage. I had a good retention rate, which I largely attribute to being personable, caring, and capable of getting them the results they wanted to see.

In the end I didn’t want to hustle and work crazy hours or super long days so I transitioned out of trying to make it my main job.

Things that got me hired at a gym - CPR/first aid certified, basic personal trainer cert, and “advanced” Certs. The first two were entry level requirements. The manager saw the “advanced Certs” as signs that I enjoyed this, was dedicated, and was knowledgeable.
 
John K said:
I hate marketing and sales person tactics, so I largely “failed” at making personal training a sustainable business.

As much as I might not like it - you can be the best coach in the world and suck at marketing and not make a dime.

I’m only being slightly hyperbolic.
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Being Good At Something

If someone is really good or great at something, they are going to make good living.

Overtime, individuals will learn about you and seek you out.

John K said:
You can be the worst coach in the world and be a marketing guru and make tons.
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Being Bad At Something

These individuals make money in the short run, not the long run.

Eventually, word get around on not only good coaches/individual but bad coaches/individual, as well.

John K said:
I have trained clients in a gym, online, and in my garage. I had a good retention rate, which I largely attribute to being personable, caring, and capable of getting them the results they wanted to see.
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Great Marketing

What you do is "The Most Effective Method of Marketing".

S.P.I.N. Selling

This is one of the best book ever written on Selling. It based on research.

Physician Analogy

Essentially, S.P.I.N. is similar to what a physician does. S.P.I.N. does it through questions.

1) Find out what is making them sick.

In Personal Training, find out what they want to accomplish (problem they want to resolve; losing weight, gaining weight, getting stronger, etc.

Once you determine what they need, like a physician...

2) Prescribe The Right Medication

Provide the individual with a solution that addresses how you can solve their problem by Prescribing A Training Program and working with you on it.

3) If it isn't an area you can help them with, refer them (as physician would) to someone who can.

Based on who you are and your post, all of this is what you do, what is a part of who you are.
 
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