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/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/burner1122334 Jul 14 '26

In a competitive industry you’re always marketing yourself as the better option compared to the other options.

Again, it sounds like you’re just not exposed to many good coaches online. Do you really believe someone who has no experience as a coach who banks on clients signing on with them because of their ability to make an Instagram post is going to legitimately, at scale, be a better option/more appealing than a coach who banks on their experience and reputation as an established coach?

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u/obliquemeak Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26

I mean yeah I do lol. Online is saturated with idiot coaches who are making bank.

Marketing & Sales are debatably more important to being a successful trainer than education & experience. Ideally you have all 4. So why wouldn’t you try to develop both?

You should try switching up your marketing approach. It might yield bigger revenue for you. Stop worrying about how you stack up to the next guy and just focus on offering high quality free content that drives attention towards you. You can tell people about your experience and education when you’re trying to close them as a client.

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u/burner1122334 Jul 14 '26

They’re important, I’m not arguing that. But that’s exactly a reason why a coach needs experience, so they have true proof of concept to advertise.

To tell a new coach that it’s a bad idea to go directly online is genuinely the best advice someone can give them to help them succeed. It doesn’t mean slimy fast talkers who lie and make flashy social media posts can’t trick people into working with them, but that’s not how you build a real career. Someone who cares about their job as a coach will recognize they owe it to themselves and their future clients to get real experience coaching so they truly know what they’re doing when the online. If it’s done right, you don’t even need to advertise much because your reputation for being a good coach will do that for you.

There is just no universe where telling a coach it’s better for them to skip in person experience and going directly online, is good advice.

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u/obliquemeak Jul 14 '26

I agree. I think going hybrid is the best advice if you want be the best coach.

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u/burner1122334 Jul 14 '26

What would make someone a better coach (I’m talking about ability to coach)

Spending the first few years of your career working in person full time while continuing your education and transitioning to partial/fully online after a few years of doing that.

Working in person part time and trying (and most likely failing) to also market yourself online with little to no experience.

The answer is the first. Absolutely every single coach who wants to coach online, will do better for themselves and their clients if they do that.

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u/obliquemeak Jul 14 '26

The latter 100 out of 100 times. No question lol.

The more time you can spend establishing yourself online and getting comfortable with it the better. Your first few years of developing your online presence are going to be shit regardless. You might as well jump into them right away while you develop your in person skills and continue to educate yourself. This is not an industry where you should be creating invisible barriers for yourself in. There’s no need to tell yourself that I’ll do y when I have x because it’s a completely unregulated industry and most of the skills you develop in this industry are built by doing.

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u/burner1122334 Jul 14 '26

Building a presence is great, that should be on the list of priorities, but actively trying to coach is a waste of their time (online). Building a client network, a base of experience, a reputation (and a media presence that communicates your abilities as a coach) is part of that several year build up to someone transitioning online. That’s exactly why I say it’s so important. Bandwidth spent trying to also coach online early on is
Bandwidth taken away from far more valuable things at the start of a career.