u/Kdarr12

Edit: after reading more posts on this subreddit I realize my situation isn’t special in anyway. That being said, please see if you can help me.

I’m close to giving up on training and switching careers. Which is heartbreaking for me because I love it and I have experienced stretches of success. just can’t figure out sustainable client acquisition. And on top of that scheduling and cancellations are just a headache. I’m a still such a pushover 3+ years in because I keep myself on the treadmill of not wanting to lose anyone because I feel desperate.

For context, I live and work in a part of the country where $150/session is the average rate. In my second full year of private training I built out a decent book of clients and was charging an average rate of ~$150 for an hour session. My retention was fairly good on top of that. It didn’t just happen. I have a masters degree in exercise science and my CSCS and spent several years honing my coaching skills in the collegiate S&C route before switching to personal training. On top of that I’m very personable and absolutely love training and connecting. Two of my clients were retired pro athletes and they loved training with me. I was really hopeful this gym would be home for a long time.

Unfortunately, the foot traffic and membership at this gym died out which made new lead acquisition next to impossible. The rent was no longer sustainable and I couldn’t stay busy when my wealthy clients vacationed for weeks at a time. I’m rambling now but I left that gym in March and have been in free fall. All but 1 of my remaining 5 clients there wanted to follow me to a less “prestigious” gym which was a bit of a shock considering they’d all been with me an average of 6 months (I’ve retained multiple clients for a year+ so I don’t think retention is necessarily the problem). This gym has even better equipment and the rent is way more affordable.

To bring it home, due to other life circumstances I haven’t been able to be “all-in” time wise with this new gym. They’re very supportive and want to give me a lot of leads and I want to give training one more try there before I call it quits for good.

Does anyone have any encouragement? I should feel accomplished in some ways with my track record of some success. But I have a little one now and the way this year has played out I don’t have much longer I can wait to try and take the time to build out of a book of clients starting over again.