How do I increase my personal trainer earnings with continuing personal development (CPD)?

Continuing Professional Development or ‘CPD’ is the buzzword of many professions today. It relates to an overarching commitment from an individual, who is already a qualified member of their industry, to regularly explore new learning, industry development and enhance their skills with the aim of building their career along the way.

Here at the Academy of Fitness Professionals we believe that CPD for Personal Trainers shouldn’t simply tick the boxes required to maintain a level of professional recognition. Instead we think it should be tangibly linked to a solid career plan that will develop your skills and therefore your personal trainer earnings capabilities.

Why does CPD Matter for Fitness Professionals?

In direct comparison with many other professional occupations today it is important Personal Trainers keep abreast of trends and developments that occur in this ever evolving world we live in. CPD is important because it ensures you continue to be competent in your profession and do not get left behind with out of date knowledge. But it does so much more… Great knowledge gives you greater potential to apply your skills to the clients you work with and this in turn develops client fitness and motivation and ultimately leads to an increase in your personal trainer earnings.

Great CPD Benefits

The importance of Continuing Professional Development should therefore not be underestimated – it is a career-long obligation for practicing Personal Trainers. Try to approach your CPD as an ongoing process that continues throughout your professional career rather than something stop start.

Here’s some of the benefits well planned, considered CPD has to offer;

• It safeguards the public, namely your clients as you’re keeping up to speed with fitness industry training methods and other developments. This ensures your personal trainer certification is current, your skills are always up to date and showcases to clients you’re at the top of your game.
• It shows commitment to your employer that you’re committed to your fitness career for the long-haul increasing the potential to open up job promotion opportunities and giving you a competitive edge.
• It enables you to grow useful skills that can be directly applied to your personal training business – widening your scope for success. This can take many forms such as increasing your hourly rate, charging for new fitness services, such as specialist testing, and diversifying into new areas.

Income Generating CPD for Personal Trainers

Before choosing your CPD it’s useful to take a step back, grab a cuppa and spend half an hour or so thinking about three key questions. If you’re keen to get started, grab your tablet or note book and jot down these three questions.

Next make some notes on ideas that spring to mind. Ideally the way to approach this is to think about your current client base. What aspects of your personal training service are going really well? What possible gaps are there? How can I increase my personal trainer earnings? And, what would be the benefits and monetary value to you of tackling some of these gaps?

Here’s a quick example.

Where am I now?
Personal training 25 hours each week. Have regular stable clients. A few are short term but these are replaced with others from good leads at the gym and my immediate local area. I can’t take on younger clients yet so turn some business away due to this as well as those who want evening slots.

Where do I want to get to?
Keen to increase my personal training hours to 30 per week. This would give me an additional £200 per week and roughly £9-10,000 in additional income per annum.

How can I get there?
Explore a specialist children’s fitness qualification to expand my current service to the 5-15 age group. Research possible venues in my local area and speak with my gym about running children’s sessions on a Saturday morning. Look at re-planning my hours to introduce an evening service.

Continuing Professional Development – Our Top 10

1. CPD ensures your capabilities keep pace with the current standards of fitness industry training and peer groups, supporting growth in your skills and client fitness and motivation.
2. CPD ensures that you maintain and enhance the knowledge and skills you need to deliver a professional service to your clients that helps them get the best results.
3. CPD ensures that you and your knowledge stay relevant and up to date. This helps you keep up to speed with new developments working in a sector where the pace of change is accelerating.
4. CPD helps you become more effective in the workplace opening up promotion opportunities.
5. CPD enables you to advance your career by leading, educating, managing, influencing, coaching and mentoring clients with more diverse needs and of greater complexity.
6. CPD helps you to stay interested and interesting. Experience is a great teacher, but it does mean that we tend to do what we have always done before. Focused CPD opens you up to new possibilities, new knowledge and new skill areas. As we have seen when this is closely aligned and tailored to the needs of your client base it previously untapped personal trainer earnings potential.
7. CPD can deliver a deeper understanding of what it means to be a professional, along with a greater appreciation of the implications and impacts of your work.
8. CPD helps advance your body of knowledge and expertise within your profession.
9. CPD can lead to increased client confidence in your expertise and therefore more referrals growing your business and local reputation.
10. CPD contributes to an improved quality of life for your client as their fitness and motivation grows alongside your own personal growth and development as a trainer.

The Academy of Fitness Professionals provide the gold standard in accredited personal training courses and nutrition courses with state of the art training fully endorsed by REPs, Skills Active and the NCFE. Their specialist knowledge features in the UK health and fitness media including the Mirror, BBC2 and Women’s Running. This is the ultimate learning destination for those serious about their fitness industry education and long term career as a Personal Trainer.