Many online personal trainers are afraid to pick a specific sub-niche within fitness because they think doing so would alienate potential clients, hindering their business growth. This isn’t true.

Casting a wide net on the fitness industry theoretically provides access to more clients, but it also brings another issue to the surface:

Struggling to differentiate yourself and appear unique.

Being a ‘coach for everyone’ can be an effective angle, but it also makes it difficult to stand out because you must promote yourself with the same marketing copy used countless times before. Things like, “I help people build muscle and feel better about themselves.”

It’s not a bad goal to have as a coach, but it doesn’t feel that enticing. Now, contrast it to something a niche coach might say:

“I help mothers navigate through post-C-section recovery with intelligent exercise programming.”

Now, this is something you don’t see every day. This niche coach might not have access to as many potential clients, but they can differentiate themselves more effectively. Plus, picking a niche allows people to craft a better marketing copy and talk about unique benefits.

Take the coach who helps mothers recover from C-sections as an example again. Potential benefits from working with that online fitness coach could include:

Mental and emotional support during the difficult period
Empowerment and motivation
Quicker recovery and a return to normal life
Becoming more independent and being able to handle everyday tasks
Targeted core rehabilitation work
Safe weight management

The bottom line is to be the right coach for a small group of online personal training clients. Even ten clients paying you $200 monthly is an extra $2,000. Many coaches underestimate how big of a difference that can make.

Here are some questions to consider when deciding on your ideal client:

Who is my ideal client?
What problems are my ideal client facing?
Can I help them solve the issues?
What tactics can I use to help?
How can I promote accountability?
What type of service would I need to offer?

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2. Consider What Makes You Different

Building an online personal training business might feel like an endeavor destined to fail. After all, there are so many coaches, so why would someone work with you?

The truth is that getting people to hire you is challenging because clients can pick from hundreds if not thousands of other trainers––online and in their local area.

So, one of the first things you must do is differentiate yourself. You must consider what makes you unique and how your experience and knowledge can be of value to people. In other words, why should someone hire you over another coach?

When considering your unique value proposition, don’t be afraid to brainstorm and write down even small and seemingly insignificant ideas. Each niche has multiple sub-niches, and people often struggle with different problems.

One person might struggle with midnight snacking, another might not be able to eat enough calories, and a third might not have as much free time to work out.

Your job is to learn about people’s problems––for example, browse online fitness forums, subreddits, and other online communities. Read comments on YouTube videos and articles to see what questions people have.

We often feel like we know everything, but sometimes even basic research can provide insight and help us better understand prospective clients’ needs.

For example, let’s say you were skinny before you started working out. This isn’t anything new, but your journey is unique. Consider what you’ve learned along the way, what issues you’ve struggled with, and what successes you’ve had.

Each can be a unique talking point in your promotional materials or when trying to land a new client.

3. Try It Out with Existing Clients

Rather than jumping head-first into online training, dip your toes with a few of your in-person clients if they are interested and up for a challenge.

The goal isn’t necessarily to make a profit during this stage but to test things out, see how online fitness coaching differs from in-person training, and learn about the challenges that could arise. In other words, treat it like an experiment.

That way, when it’s time to launch your online fitness business, you will be more prepared to tackle all the challenges that arise, make the coaching process far smoother, boost client satisfaction, and appear more professional.

When new clients sign up for your online training programs, they should feel in good hands. Every aspect of the process, including onboarding, sending helpful materials, taking payments, and communicating (chat, email, video calls, etc.), should be smooth and efficient. This includes things like:

Onboarding – welcoming the client and getting started
Sending helpful materials (e.g., PDF files and spreadsheets)
Taking payments
Communicating (chat, email, video calls, etc.)

That way, people can get the guidance they need without wasting time or waiting a long time for you to reply.

As a would-be online fitness trainer, one superb option is to sign up for a platform like Hevy Coach and deliver training programs through it. Your clients would get their training plan on the Hevy app, and you would be able to track their performance and adherence through the platform’s dashboard.

If moving some of your clients online feels too overwhelming, or you need time to figure out all the coaching details, opt for hybrid personal training instead. The goal would be to deliver the training and nutrition guidance online but meet occasionally for an in-person session.

Going through this is beneficial because you can’t foresee all the issues that might arise. By experimenting with online training, you learn much more about the process and the tools you might need for a smooth coaching experience.

4. Decide What Model to Use

There isn’t a single best model for running a personal training business online. It all comes down to what makes the most sense for your practice. For some coaches, that might be a subscription-based model; for others – selling virtual sessions.

Let’s look at six of the most popular models and when they might be useful:

Monthly Subscription

The monthly subscription is perhaps the most popular option and works quite well for scaling your online personal training services. You can work with dozens of clients simultaneously and still have free time to coach people in person or work on other projects.

Coaches generally charge $100 to $250 per month.

Subscription-based coaching is ideal when working with more experienced clients capable of making decisions: swapping exercises during a workout, eating healthier foods when outside, and knowing how hard to push themselves.

Selling Workout Plans

Selling 4, 8, and 12+ week workout plans is another option that could work well. It doesn’t require much work and could lead to recurring revenue from clients who purchase a plan more than once.

The downside is that a workout plan alone wouldn’t be enough, as clients also need to take care of their nutrition to see positive results.

Because of that, it might be best only to offer plans to experienced clients who can calculate their calorie needs and track their macronutrients with an app like MacroFactor or MyFitnessPal.

Virtual Sessions

Virtual sessions are ideal for one-on-one and group coaching. You can set up a video call with one or more clients and walk them through entire training sessions.

This option is beneficial if you want to coach beginners who are still mastering various exercises and are unsure how hard to train.

Selling Courses

Online courses have been a fantastic revenue source for online businesses and continue to be effective. While not exactly online coaching, courses can help clients achieve a specific outcome (e.g., lose 10 pounds or add 20 pounds to your bench press).

An advantage of courses is that you create them once and can then sell them countless times to enjoy passive income.

With tier pricing, you could offer a special version of your course for more money and provide additional services like email support, video calls, technique correction through video, and other things.

Hybrid Personal Training

We mentioned this option above (and we also have an article on the topic). The idea is to do most of the coaching online and meet with clients in person for the occasional session.

Seeing your clients occasionally in person is an excellent way to review their form, see how hard they are training, and provide helpful feedback.

Membership Website

A membership can be a good way to earn good money through volume. Rather than charging clients $100 to $250 per month, selling expensive plans, or charging them per virtual session (similar to in-person coaching), they pay a small monthly fee to gain access to exclusive content.

This option is extremely scalable but mostly suitable for people with an established audience. You wouldn’t want to end up in a situation where you only have a handful of paying subscribers and must create a ton of content.

5. Create Workout Templates

Creating workout plans from scratch can work with a handful of clients, but it quickly becomes overwhelming when your roster grows to 15, 20, or even 30+ clients. At that point, writing programs becomes your full-time job, and you barely have time for anything else.

The solution? Use workout templates.

At first glance, workout templates might seem like a shortcut, as if you’re trying to save yourself time at the expense of your clients. Fortunately, that’s not true. Think about it this way:

If you take a group of similar people – say, office workers in their thirties with no major injuries – their training programs will be identical. Factors like training experience, short-term goals, schedule, and workout preferences will play a role, but you will address those when you take a template and adapt it to the individual.

The benefit of templates isn’t that you don’t have to think about your clients’ programs or build routines––you still have to do those things. Rather, the advantage is that you shorten the process and become more efficient without sacrificing quality.

Instead of building a program from scratch, you can take a template, adapt it to the individual, and go from there.

This is one reason you must decide who your ideal client is from the start. Doing so allows you to create relevant and valuable templates.

Think about it like this:

If your ideal client is a 20-something-year-old man looking to build as much muscle as possible, your templates should reflect that. Creating templates for strength programming wouldn’t make sense, as that wouldn’t be relevant to your ideal client.

I recommend starting with three or four templates for your ideal client. Include progression for up to 12 weeks and use them with your first few clients. From there, improve your templates as you learn more and gain experience.

A coaching platform is an all-in-one tool (or close to one) that merges the different aspects of coaching clients.

Instead of using email, social media, spreadsheets, and other things to assign workout programs, communicate with clients, and track their adherence, you use a single platform designed for that purpose.

The clear advantage is that client management becomes far easier and less overwhelming, which becomes increasingly beneficial as your roster grows.

Instead of bouncing from one online service to the next like a tennis ball, you can log in to a platform and oversee your entire roster from one dashboard.

To that end, we recommend you check out Hevy Coach––our software for personal trainers and fitness professionals. With it, you can create training plans (pick from the large exercise library, create custom exercises, add sets and reps, etc.), assign them to one or more clients, track their performance and adherence in the dashboard, and make quick changes when necessary.

The platform lets you chat with your clients, so you don’t have to use email, social media, or other online tools. Again, the goal is to consolidate the coaching experience.

Clients would gain access to their assigned training plans in the Hevy app, decide when to do each workout, and log their exercises, sets, reps, and RPE values (optional) in a couple of minutes while at the gym.

Click here to start your free 30-day Hevy Coach trial.

Try Hevy Coach

Intuitive personal trainer software, with a world class experience for your clients.

30 day free trial, no credit card required

7. Set Up an Exercise Library

Setting up an exercise library will be a more tedious and time-consuming task when transitioning to online coaching. However, no matter how challenging it feels, you should do it to save yourself time later and serve your clients better.

Since you won’t meet your clients in person to demonstrate exercises, you should prepare videos (of yourself or someone else). For an authentic approach, film the videos and provide unique insight about the setup, bracing, range of motion, pauses, and other details.

However, if you don’t have the time or resources, you can simply collect links to instructional videos of the most popular movements––ideally, those you typically assign to clients.

YouTube is a treasure trove of instructional videos, and you can collect the links in a spreadsheet or Word file.

One option for organizing exercises is based on movement patterns. For instance:

Horizontal push
Vertical push
Horizontal pull
Vertical pull
Squat
Hip hinge
Rotation

You can also organize your movements by the primary muscle group they target if that feels more familiar:

Chest
Shoulders
Triceps
Upper back
Lower back
Biceps
Forearms
Abs & obliques
Quadriceps & adductors
Glutes
Hamstrings
Calves

Once you have the collection of exercises in a spreadsheet or Word file, send it to each new client for easy reference.

Ideally, the videos you collect will be short (no longer than 60 seconds), without voiceover, shot from at least one good angle, and include a demonstration of a few reps.

That way, your clients can quickly look up any exercise mid-workout without wasting time or stopping their music to listen to instructions.

8. Create an Application Form

An application form is a simple online document (you can use Google Forms) where people submit some relevant but not sensitive information about themselves. It can include things like:

Lifestyle (type of work, activity level, stress, nutrition, etc.)
Goals (what do they want to achieve in the short and long term)
Why they want to work with you
What they hope to achieve working with you
How they’ve heard about your services
Workout history and preferences
Current strength (e.g., reps and weight on some compound lifts they do)
What their biggest obstacles have been so far
What training equipment they have access to
Whether they’ve struggled with an eating disorder in the past

Having an application form is beneficial for a few reasons:

a) Weed out those who are not serious enough.

By having prospects answer up to 15 open-ended questions about themselves, you can more easily tell who is ready to make a change and who isn’t.

People just curious about your services likely won’t answer the questions and submit the form, thus saving you time. The kind of interested ones might answer the questions and submit the form, but you’ll be able to gauge their level of commitment from their vague, one-line replies.

Those actually serious about working with you will take the time to answer each question with care and provide the most relevant information you need.

b) Manage prospects more effectively.

Having prospects apply through the same form makes it easier to manage your leads, follow up, recall important details about them, and communicate.

c) Appear more professional.

Putting together a good application form portrays professionalism, making prospects more likely to trust you for their coaching needs.

It suggests that you value structure, care about who they are and what they need, and decide who to work with. If you think someone isn’t a good fit to be your client, you’re not afraid to tell them so, which adds an element of scarcity.

d) Give prospects a glimpse of what it might be to work with you.

In addition to gathering information about prospects, an application form can be an excellent opportunity to reiterate specific rules you have as a coach and get people to confirm they are okay with them.

For example, Andy from RippedBody.com has a no-phone emailing rule. He explicitly states that he doesn’t want his clients to read emails from him on their phones for the sake of good communication. One of the questions in his coaching application is, “Do you agree to abide by my no-phone emailing rule?”

e) Spot patterns and tailor your services.

Sometimes, you might have an idea for a product or service, only to find that the market is indifferent. In such cases, gathering feedback from prospects can help you better understand the landscape and tailor your services (and promotional materials) to fit their needs.

By gathering information from prospects, you begin to spot patterns: common issues people face, expectations from working with a coach, daily struggles, etc.

f) Save time and limit back-and-forth communication.

A good application form allows you to capture the most important information about a prospect, decide if you would be a good fit, and follow up with a professional and thorough email.

Not having an application would make the initial interactions far longer, with more back-and-forth communication. Aside from taking a lot of time, that often frustrates clients and coaches.

9. Decide How to Take Payments

To finish the list, we have something simpler: choose a platform for capturing payments. Two of the most popular options are Stripe and PayPal. Both work well and are easily integrated into a business.

You can send invoices, get paid, send your accountant all the necessary reports, and more easily pay taxes.

I particularly like Stripe because its fees aren’t that high (2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction and an additional 1% for international transactions), and it makes it effortless to issue refunds (should you decide to offer those). Plus, the funds get transferred to your bank account automatically.

On the topic of refunds, it’s up to you. Some coaches offer them; others don’t. If you do decide to offer refunds, set up requirements for clients to be eligible because you might otherwise end up giving a lot of money back.

For example, you could have your clients log each workout on an app like Hevy (you could track their progress through the Hevy Coach dashboard), each meal with MyFitnessPal or MacroFactor, and weigh-ins and circumference measures in a shared Google spreadsheet.

In other words, clients should be eligible for a refund if they put in the work and don’t get any results. Be clear from the start and explain that transformations don’t happen in mere weeks to set the right expectations and reduce the number of refund requests.

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Intuitive personal trainer software, with a world class experience for your clients.

30 day free trial, no credit card required

Conclusion

There you have it: 9 essential steps to becoming an online personal trainer. The process is not without its challenges, but it becomes significantly easier and more understandable when you break it down into simple steps.

Take your time and prioritize the client experience––your transition to digital coaching will be far smoother.

On that note, check out Hevy Coach before you go. Our all-in-one platform makes it far easier to send clients training plans, track their progress, make adjustments when necessary, and communicate.

Philip Stefanov

I'm Philip, a certified personal trainer and strength training coach with a passion for writing! I write about optimizing the performance of strength training and hypertrophy to thousands of readers around the world, focusing primarily on sharing research based and scientific learnings. I'm the founder and Head Coach of Thinking Lifter, where we coach athletes to become the best version of themselves. When I'm not writing, you can find me training for weightlifting competitions! Get in touch with me at philip@hevyapp.com or reach out to me on Twitter @hevyapp

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