PT Toolbox is a fitness resource built by personal trainer, Josh Mullin and is designed to be "The Ultimate Fitness Resource".
It's packed with business training, how to guides, marketing templates and other resources that personal trainers might need to run a successful fitness business.
I've been on the inside to find out whether it's a worthy investment!
It's packed with business training, how to guides, marketing templates and other resources that personal trainers might need to run a successful fitness business.
I've been on the inside to find out whether it's a worthy investment!
About PT Toolbox
We've had PT Toolbox on our radar for a long time now. Here's a quick overview of PT Toolbox from their welcome page.
As you can see, they're not shy of features and usually, at this point in a review, I would list the prices. But the PT Toolbox pricing seems to change so often that, honestly, I don't want to have to keep coming back to update this blog. So, let's just say that I've seen their prices range from free all the way up to £49.99/month for different levels of access.
PT Toolbox Features
PT Toolbox is now one of the biggest online resources for personal trainers. It's jam packed with how to guides, business training videos, marketing advice, document templates and exercise videos.
One of the first things you'll see on the dashboard is a business calculator. The business calculator enables you enter how much you spend on your fitness business and personal expenses and subtract that from what you want to earn in profits as a business manager. I really like the concept but when I entered my fitness REAL business figures (I ran a very successful PT business), it tells me my ideal hourly ate is £20.45 per hour!
One of the first things you'll see on the dashboard is a business calculator. The business calculator enables you enter how much you spend on your fitness business and personal expenses and subtract that from what you want to earn in profits as a business manager. I really like the concept but when I entered my fitness REAL business figures (I ran a very successful PT business), it tells me my ideal hourly ate is £20.45 per hour!
A screenshot of the questionnaire I filled in.
The downside of this form is that it really doesn't take in to account your market. Are you in an affluent area? What does your competition charge? How does your location affect your pricing?
Not to mention that personal trainers shouldn't even be charging by the hour if they want to succeed in business. It's bad for the client and extra bad for a fitness business!
Check out mistake number 3 in 10 Mistakes That Are Costing You Clients
This had me and my team question just how knowledgeable these guys really are when it comes to fitness marketing. And also leads us nicely on to the negatives of PT Toolbox.
What's Bad About PT Toolbox
Apart from the absence of practically applicable marketing strategies that really work, there are a few things that I don't like about the PT Toolbox business structure and that's the downloadable resources and the price (we already touched on that). Let's talk about the downloads first.
Every downloadable template has a massive PT Toolbox header across the top (see picture below). I don't know about other PT's but in my personal trainer business everything is branded in my name. I don't want a client to see a big PT Toolbox sign across the top of all my business documents. The docs need to be either non branded or have an option to add your logo and THEN download them like Karen from Fit Pro Client Recipes (although this might require some pretty hefty computer coding).
EDIT: Josh has now informed me that edits can be made to the downloadable templates!
There's word of a shop where you will be able buy non-branded documents, business supplies, clothing and more but whether this is for members, non members or both isn't clear. Either way, as a member I don't think you should have to pay for non-branded documents.
Every downloadable template has a massive PT Toolbox header across the top (see picture below). I don't know about other PT's but in my personal trainer business everything is branded in my name. I don't want a client to see a big PT Toolbox sign across the top of all my business documents. The docs need to be either non branded or have an option to add your logo and THEN download them like Karen from Fit Pro Client Recipes (although this might require some pretty hefty computer coding).
EDIT: Josh has now informed me that edits can be made to the downloadable templates!
There's word of a shop where you will be able buy non-branded documents, business supplies, clothing and more but whether this is for members, non members or both isn't clear. Either way, as a member I don't think you should have to pay for non-branded documents.
OK now pricing. At the moment a PT is charged £9.99 per month (update: it's now £19.99 per month) and that would get him or her
- All of the resources in PT Toolbox
- A 1 Hour FREE Business Consultation
- UNLIMITED Access to all areas
- The ability to cancel anytime!
Not too bad? I think that's completely fair and worth the money actually. So what's the gripe? Let's say you sign up to PT Toolbox and pay your £9.99. You spend a week, maybe a fortnight absorbing all of the awesome information, downloading all of the resources and watching the vids. Life is good. Then you forget about it for a fortnight and come next month you get a second email saying "you've just payed £9.99 to PT Toolbox"
By now, you're pretty sure you've got everything you need. Why keep paying? Yes, the resources keep getting updated and you might pop in every few months but it makes more sense to unsubscribe and then resubscribe when you want back in.
I wouldn't be surprised if PT Toolbox get loads of unsubscribes after the second month. And I think the PT Toolbox team have cottoned on to this. While procrastinating over this review for the last few weeks I received an email that states their prices are going up in the next update!
The monthly no contract will double! Probably in an effort to get you to subscribe to the yearly or 6 monthly options. I'm not sure this is the best idea because £19.99 is a number you have to think about. It's not a no brainer price. Especially if you're a start up PT with no money which is PT Toolbox's target market.
There are hundreds of thousands of personal trainers out there. Why not make the monthly price a complete no brainer like £2-3 per month and get 10,000 PT's signed up instead of charging £19.99 per month and getting the odd sign up and a lot of unsubscribes. Maybe not, I'm just guessing. It would be good to hear from Josh on this (I'll keep my eye on the comments box).
It's always tricky to criticise someones business, especially when you've met and they seem genuinely nice. Ok, on to the good stuff now.
PT Toolbox Strengths
When you first log on to your PT Toolbox account you can easily become overwhelmed by the amount of resources on there. On the right side bar you'll see the following.
All self explanatory but Josh has had the forethought to add an introductory video for those who are less tech savvy or are still unsure as to why they're there (vid above). Let's quickly talk about some of the most used features.
The Guides - The site is heaving with so much information. Just in the guides section I counted 37 how to guides which cover everything from retaining clients and how to perform giant sets. Josh has really appealed to both the new and seasoned PT and there's really no limit as to how many how to guides there could be in the future. He's going to have to come up with a better search system.
The Templates - We've mentioned these already. Even though they're all branded, there is absolutely loads of them. Seriously. I counted 61! Regardless of whether you choose to download and use them within your business, the sheer amount of info is worth the first months payment.
The Videos - At the moment there are only 2 video categories. Exercise and Business and Marketing. Both of which have some useful information. I'm not too sure where Josh is going with the exercise library as there are so many other companies out there who provide the same thing but better. There's nothing in there that you couldn't find on a 69p smartphone app.
The business and marketing vids however, are much more useful and appeal to the main reason a PT might sign up to PT Toolbox. Business help.
The rest of the resources can all be found online with a simple Google search but it's nice to have them in the same place.
- Guides
- Templates
- Videos
- PT Discounts
- Courses
- Job Listings
- Forum
- Blogs
- Send us your blogs
- Earn Commission
- Wishlists
- Support
All self explanatory but Josh has had the forethought to add an introductory video for those who are less tech savvy or are still unsure as to why they're there (vid above). Let's quickly talk about some of the most used features.
The Guides - The site is heaving with so much information. Just in the guides section I counted 37 how to guides which cover everything from retaining clients and how to perform giant sets. Josh has really appealed to both the new and seasoned PT and there's really no limit as to how many how to guides there could be in the future. He's going to have to come up with a better search system.
The Templates - We've mentioned these already. Even though they're all branded, there is absolutely loads of them. Seriously. I counted 61! Regardless of whether you choose to download and use them within your business, the sheer amount of info is worth the first months payment.
The Videos - At the moment there are only 2 video categories. Exercise and Business and Marketing. Both of which have some useful information. I'm not too sure where Josh is going with the exercise library as there are so many other companies out there who provide the same thing but better. There's nothing in there that you couldn't find on a 69p smartphone app.
The business and marketing vids however, are much more useful and appeal to the main reason a PT might sign up to PT Toolbox. Business help.
The rest of the resources can all be found online with a simple Google search but it's nice to have them in the same place.
Who's PT Toolbox For?
I would definitely assume PT Toolbox is for the newer PT but having said that, are some resources in there that a seasoned PT can use.
The Verdict
If you're a PT who's feeling stressed or overwhelmed about your business, I would give PT Toolbox a miss. There't a lot of stuff on there that quite frankly, is useless and will just add to your overwhelm.
If you're a little bit more seasoned, you've figured out your niche, you have a clearly defined unique selling proposition and you can easily distinguish between what you do and don't need, PT Toolbox can help.
Although PT Toolbox started in 2012, the business is still in it's infancy. With little to nothing spent on marketing and seeing Josh jump from one business idea to the next, I'm going to wait until the business has matured a little, found it's audience and settled on a structure before we here at My Personal Trainer Website recommend it to our growing audience of personal trainers.
If you're a little bit more seasoned, you've figured out your niche, you have a clearly defined unique selling proposition and you can easily distinguish between what you do and don't need, PT Toolbox can help.
Although PT Toolbox started in 2012, the business is still in it's infancy. With little to nothing spent on marketing and seeing Josh jump from one business idea to the next, I'm going to wait until the business has matured a little, found it's audience and settled on a structure before we here at My Personal Trainer Website recommend it to our growing audience of personal trainers.
