As a personal trainer, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. You got into the fitness industry to help people feel fitter. To show them how to get stronger. To live healthier lives.
But as soon as you start, it’s obvious that there’s more to running a fitness business than just supporting your clients. Suddenly, you need to be an expert - not just in health and fitness, but be able to answer questions about nutrition, hormones, and psychology. Understandably, this is where we focus our efforts.
So much so that pretty much every study on stress in the workplace shows the running your business is a stressful job!
So much so that pretty much every study on stress in the workplace shows the running your business is a stressful job!
But what about marketing your business? When do you write your own blogs Vs hiring a professional fitness writer to create compelling blogs? When are you meant to find time to learn how to build a website, or to create an incredible lead magnet that your ideal prospect is desperate to get hold of?
If these are problems you’ve found in your fitness business - you’re not alone. And there is a very elegant solution. Although these are important elements of a successful personal training business, they don’t have to be done by you. You could outsource them.
What Is Outsourcing?
You employ someone (an agency, a freelancer, or a specialist) to do the work for you as though it were done by you. Outsourcing is a way to get these vital tasks done quickly and to a professional standard by industry experts.
Outsourcing tasks is a vital part of having a growing business; you can’t be an expert in everything, and your time is probably better spent on tasks which directly bring value to your paying clients.
Outsourcing tasks is a vital part of having a growing business; you can’t be an expert in everything, and your time is probably better spent on tasks which directly bring value to your paying clients.
What Could You Outsource?
You don’t have to outsource anything. But you can outsource pretty much everything. Inside your personal training business, tasks are grouped into four quadrants.
High Outsource Costs: These are the tasks that you can do, that make you money and would cost a lot to outsource. It could be the personal training session itself. If this is inside your skillset, this is where you’ll be focusing your efforts. If this is not inside your skillset, you could outsource this to an expert, such as another personal trainer or specialist coach, with a short deadline.
Takes Time to Learn: This might be something that will make you money in the future, such as building a website. You could consider doing this yourself later if it’s inside your skill set or you enjoy learning about it.
Low Outsource Cost: This could include updating your website, creating content such as blogs or social media posts on a regular basis. It’s still important in as far as it has the capacity to impact and help your clients, but it’s not necessarily going to generate a lot of revenue today. You could consider outsourcing this on a tight deadline.
Easy to do: These are tasks that are both easy to do or easy to learn how to do. You can do them yourself or your can often outsource for a low fee.
High Outsource Costs: These are the tasks that you can do, that make you money and would cost a lot to outsource. It could be the personal training session itself. If this is inside your skillset, this is where you’ll be focusing your efforts. If this is not inside your skillset, you could outsource this to an expert, such as another personal trainer or specialist coach, with a short deadline.
Takes Time to Learn: This might be something that will make you money in the future, such as building a website. You could consider doing this yourself later if it’s inside your skill set or you enjoy learning about it.
Low Outsource Cost: This could include updating your website, creating content such as blogs or social media posts on a regular basis. It’s still important in as far as it has the capacity to impact and help your clients, but it’s not necessarily going to generate a lot of revenue today. You could consider outsourcing this on a tight deadline.
Easy to do: These are tasks that are both easy to do or easy to learn how to do. You can do them yourself or your can often outsource for a low fee.
Tasks are eligible for outsourcing when:
- They take too much of your time, such as writing blogs, content for your website, or social media captions, responding to questions in your Facebook group, or making images and info-graphics to use in your marketing.
- The skill would take too long to learn how to do yourself, such as building websites and SEO of the content, email automation and direct response marketing, copywriting or the changeable details of Facebook ads.
- You just dread doing them - this is a valid reason. Your business is something to enjoy and if there’s a task that you hate, you can just outsource it. Sometimes these are repetitive tasks, such as daily posting on social media, client programming, or making a lead magnet.
When Could You Consider Outsourcing?
Before you burn out.
Outsourcing is a brilliant way to get more of your valuable time back that you can put into critical projects in which only your involvement will do. But if you wait until you’re feeling constantly overworked, exhausted, and feel like no matter how hard you work, there aren’t enough hours in the day, you may have left it too long. Select those tasks which can be outsourced and reclaim your time before you hit burnout.
You constantly feel tight for time.
If you’re missing appointments, thinking about cancelling sessions just to stay on top of your workload or having to make compromises with your own health (sleep, nutrition and training) - you could consider outsourcing. If you’re working hard but it doesn’t ever feel like it’s enough, it’s time to outsource some of those tasks that could be making you feel exhausted and overwhelmed.
You need an expert.
We live in an age where we can learn anything. With enough time and access to the internet, we can learn anything from how to write the perfect Facebook ad to how to create a high converting fully optimised sales funnel.
However, there are people that can do this for you and much quicker. Paying an expert has two main benefits.
You could hire freelancers on UpWork or Fiverr (particularly good for graphic design projects). With these sites be sure to do your due diligence as the quality of work can be variable if they don’t have experience in the fitness industry and sometimes there can be hidden charges for revisions or second drafts.
Alternatively, working with a company like My PT Website that offers services like website building, SEO, content and copywriting and other specialist skills is one way to build a long term and trusted relationship with a team of industry experts.
Outsourcing is a brilliant way to get more of your valuable time back that you can put into critical projects in which only your involvement will do. But if you wait until you’re feeling constantly overworked, exhausted, and feel like no matter how hard you work, there aren’t enough hours in the day, you may have left it too long. Select those tasks which can be outsourced and reclaim your time before you hit burnout.
You constantly feel tight for time.
If you’re missing appointments, thinking about cancelling sessions just to stay on top of your workload or having to make compromises with your own health (sleep, nutrition and training) - you could consider outsourcing. If you’re working hard but it doesn’t ever feel like it’s enough, it’s time to outsource some of those tasks that could be making you feel exhausted and overwhelmed.
You need an expert.
We live in an age where we can learn anything. With enough time and access to the internet, we can learn anything from how to write the perfect Facebook ad to how to create a high converting fully optimised sales funnel.
However, there are people that can do this for you and much quicker. Paying an expert has two main benefits.
- First, they already know what they are doing - meaning that thing you outsourced will be in place and making you money much faster than it would be if you were doing it yourself.
- Secondly, because they’re experts, they’ve already done the testing and know what will work and what won’t. You won’t have to waste any time tinkering with those things - they just work.
You could hire freelancers on UpWork or Fiverr (particularly good for graphic design projects). With these sites be sure to do your due diligence as the quality of work can be variable if they don’t have experience in the fitness industry and sometimes there can be hidden charges for revisions or second drafts.
Alternatively, working with a company like My PT Website that offers services like website building, SEO, content and copywriting and other specialist skills is one way to build a long term and trusted relationship with a team of industry experts.
