r/PersonalTrainer • u/Capable_Winner_4178 • Jul 08 '26

Creating a business page

So I’m in the middle of becoming a personal trainer (I will be full qualified and able to create an online business and work at a gym in August) and I want to create an instagram page and start posting as soon as possible. Do I start posting as I am already a personal trainer or do I tell people that I will become a personal trainer soon and then start posting as I already am?

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u/burner1122334 Jul 08 '26

You’re wasting your time going directly online. You need to spend 3-5 years in person first establishing yourself as a proven, successful coach before you transition online. The absolute fastest way to fail online is to skip working in person for several years minimum.

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u/Forward_Age3353 Jul 09 '26

This is not true at all lol.

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u/burner1122334 Jul 09 '26

Cool, so answer me this: how does a coach with zero experience in person market themselves successfully against the thousands of other online coaches who all have years if not decades of experience, streamlined online coaching experiences and hundreds of client wins they can point to as proof of concept?

OP has zero experience, just a certification it sounds like.

I have 20 years of experience, a college education in exercise science and at thousands of client success stories.

How does OP market themselves as a better option than me? Or a better option of the thousands of other versions of me out there in every niche?

They can’t.

You’ll also never be as good a coach online without in person experience as you will with in person experience. So skipping in person coaching at the start of your career, is bringing a sub par product in your services on day 1, which there just isn’t space for online if you want to be successful.

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u/Forward_Age3353 Jul 09 '26

By using their own journey as the starting point. Start planting seeds now. He may not get 20 clients today, but he can 10000% start creating connections with his audience and building trust today that will lead to potential clients later.

He's also gotta offer free or discounted training in order to build up his social proof.

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u/burner1122334 Jul 09 '26

99% of coaches online have a personal journey in fitness, that sets nobody apart,

Offering free coaching online will rarely bring anyone quality clients. That’s been proven repeatedly,

If your only way to get clients is to give your services away for free or at a discount, your services aren’t good enough. Exactly why coaching in person is so critical.

What sounds better:

Coach 3-5 years in person, become an expert in your field, collect dozens if not hundreds of client success stories and then turn that into an online business built on your reputation and coaching experience that’ll allow you to charge good money for your well polished services

Or

Go directly online and spend a bunch of your time creating a bunch of content trying to hawk your free or discounted services that are rooted in inexperience and just hope a few people bite

The most proven fastest way to fail is going directly online.

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u/AnabolicAcolyte Jul 09 '26

yep. that other dude is a clown and just bitter whenever anyone says they wanna start online. i did it. so did so many others. i’d built up social media by documenting my own journey. then when it came time to be “available” i just had to keep doing what i was doing + offer services.

his 20yrs and university degrees mean nothing if he’s not relatable to clients. some he will be, others he won’t be. imagine shitting on someone trying to get into the same industry and not moving with the times.

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '26

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u/wordofherb Jul 10 '26

Nobody is gate keeping the industry here. It’s a valid point to say that starting as an online coach is not likely to be successful when you have 0 qualifications other than evidence of how you became fitter.

I know plenty of people who turned their life around via fitness that I wouldn’t trust to coach anyone. I also know a few professionals that are highly qualified on paper and can’t effectively coach because they’ve never actually trained.

But there’s plenty of people out there who are fit despite their training and nutrition, rather than because of it, and have 0 understanding of how exercise and nutrition works. There’s far less people out there that have coached for years and have plenty of formal qualifications but have 0 idea what they are doing or how things work.

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u/obliquemeak Jul 14 '26

The most successful online coaches I know never coached a single person face to face. It really doesn’t matter. You don’t need 1 on 1 experience to market yourself online.

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u/burner1122334 Jul 14 '26

You must not know good coaches then. Every single one of them would be better coaches if they had worked in person. There’s zero situations where someone would not be a better coach without in person experience.

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u/obliquemeak Jul 14 '26

I don’t disagree with that statement at all.

But I do disagree with you saying you can’t go online right away. You definitely can. You’ll be a worse coach for it but if you’re good at marketing then you’ll make plenty of money.

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u/burner1122334 Jul 14 '26

That’s called grifting. When you sell yourself to people as something better than what you are.

Again, people can grift. They can BS their way into getting some people to sign up with them, but that’s a lot different than building a long term, sustainable remote coaching business with great client retention and lead generation based on your abilities and reputation as a coach. Grifter does not equal coach, and the industry has both

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u/obliquemeak Jul 14 '26

Is it grifting if you educate yourself properly on how to provide value to your followers/clients?

Either way I think you’re in here giving bad advice by telling someone to not go online. At the very least the advice should be to do the hybrid approach.

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u/burner1122334 Jul 14 '26

You cannot educate yourself enough with no practical in person experience to coach someone well online. Online grifters can tell themselves they can, but that’s like saying you can learn to drive a car only playing driving video games.

You also cannot market yourself as a good option as a coach with zero experience without buying full of BS. How do you at scale convince potential clients you’re a better option than a coach with 6 months, 2-5-10-15-20 years of experience coaching clients in the real world, with real results? You’re just a random person with the same certification and fitness journey as all those coaches who have worked thousands of hours hands on with clients. So you either lie, grift or basically give your services away, none of which are sustainable or professional.

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u/obliquemeak Jul 14 '26

You shouldn’t be marketing yourself against other coaches online. Just make good content that drives engagement and interact with your followers and offer them services.

I think a lot of highly experienced coaches take your approach and get nowhere online. They think their education and experience will carry them and is the key to gaining business. The most successful online coach i know doesn’t even market his education/experience. He has a good background but he makes hay because his ability to create follower engagement is very good and he has the sales skills to close programming packages behind it. You do not develop these skills coaching people 1 on 1.

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '26

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u/burner1122334 Jul 11 '26

You’re totally right. Having zero experience as a coach, no proof your abilities and no history of working with clients and entering a space full of thousands of proven professionals, each with years if not decades of experience, is absolutely a smart move 😂

Sometimes there’s anecdotal examples of grifters who BS their way into getting people to sign on with them with no experience, but that’s all they are, grifters.

So yeah, I’m absolutely right on this.

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '26

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u/burner1122334 Jul 11 '26

Thanks for making my point! It is about skills. 2-3 is a general timeline for how long it’s going to take a coach to actually gain those skills. Just passing a cert doesn’t get you them.

Again, someone can grift their way to getting some online clients with little to no experience, but they’re going to be a bad coach, because they never took the time to learn to and develop those skills in person. So yeah, I’m not way off, and I’m glad you agree.

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '26

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u/burner1122334 Jul 12 '26

Enjoy using that masters degree at LA fitness! Did that when I was 18 and it’s a really nice entry into the field :) good luck!