Category — Making Money

GroupFitPower is excited to present guest blogger Biray Alsac.  Biray is the CEO of the FITmaxx institute and blogs at Be Fit With Biray.  Biray will be sharing her wisdom and expertise with us to keep things at GroupFitPower pumping while Krista takes some downtime to be pregnant.  We are certain you are going to get great things from her contributions.  Welcome Biray!

Biray Alsac
http://fittmaxxinstitute.com
http://befitwithbiray.com

I recently reconnected with a fitness colleague who, after the birth of her son, left teaching to focus on being a full-time mom.  She was an excellent instructor and most of the members were sad to see her ‘retire’. Last week she emailed me to see if I’d be interested in subbing a class for her. “I didn’t know you were teaching again” I said, surprised. She explained how she had missed teaching aerobics, but found that picking up classes at a club was no longer financially lucrative (i.e. childcare costs, drive time, gas prices, class flexibility, etc). So she began piloting fitness classes out of her garage, and wanted me to be the week’s guest instructor.

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Who doesn’t love free stuf?  Here, I have amassed a collection of music freebies, from streaming music, to free mp3 downloads, to other cool tools you can use.  Happy surfing!

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I have recieved numerous hits and questions regarding what an instructor actually makes for teaching classes.  Unfortunately, I do not have an answer that applies across the board, but I can shed some light on the question.

First, Group Fitness Instructors rarely earn a salary.  Most often, they are paid an hourly wage or a fixed amount  per class that they teach.  How high that wage is depends on a variety of factors, including but not limited to:

• Experience.  I have worked at clubs that gave you a raise every year that you taught for them or everytime you earned another certification.
• Geography.  Depending on the cost of living or minimum wage in your area, the wage might be higher or lower.  Although, interestingly enough, I get paid more in Charleston, SC than I did at any of the clubs I taught for in NYC.  Go figure.
• Club Exclusivity.  Working for the most exclusive club in your area is certain to yield higher income than the public gym, although this is not a hard and fast rule.  There are some places that want only the best, and they pay to acquire them.
• Class Attendance.  It isn’t common, but yes, you might earn a sort of “commission” based on how many attendees you have.  How much and the cutoff are completely dependent upon the health club.

I think a fair ballpark for the average GFI is somewhere between $15 and $25 per hour-long class.  It is just a guess, of course, but it is based on my experience.  Then, if you figure that you are teaching the maximum recommended number of classes per week (no more than 12 according to AFAA to stay safe), you are pulling in $180 - $300 per week before taxes or $800 – $1300 per month.  However, I don’t know too many instructors who teach more than 6 per week.

Also,  instructors often are given perks, such as free gym membership, sometimes for spouses too, and discounts on merchandise, training, or services.  Even so, many instructors (myself included) don’t teach to make money.  By the time you purchase gear, music, shoes, and continuing education, you haven’t even broken even.  In order to profit from group fitness, you have to find creative ways to charge for your services, which I blogged about last month.  Check out How to Make $100 or More Per Class.

 I hope that helps!

To follow up my post, Make $100 or more per class, I wanted to share with you some success stories about folks who are making more than $100 per hour teaching group fitness.   These are individuals who took some great ideas and ran with them.  You can do the same!  Be inspired by these folks and know that you absolutely can do it too.

Operation Boot Camp

I learned about Operation Boot Camp from a friend of mine who lost 20 pounds through the program.  These instructors took exercise and weight loss out of the gym and out to the parks of Atlanta.  They have a great following and an excellent product which includes nutrition advice, early morning workouts, and motivational assistance (if you don’t show up, you get a call and extra pushups!).  I saw them featured on a CNN health segment.  You can see what they have going on at their website.

 Bella Vita Retreat

 Can you imagine being paid to take groups of men and women to tropical resorts and teach classes to them on the beach?  My friend is doing it with her new business and I can’t tell you green with envy I am that I didn’t think of that!  Her travel packages include hotel arrangements, spa-style meals, personal coaching, indoor and outdoor fitness classes and beauty treatments.  What a treat and what a money maker!

I read an article a couple of weeks ago by a local yoga instructor that basically said most yoga instructors would teach for free if they could – they only charge money for their classes because they have to survive.  I laughed a little bit, even though I understood where she was coming from.  It would be really nice if we could all exist happily doing whatever our hearts enjoyed and didn’t have to worry about things like mortgages, sales tax, or groceries.  However, the reality is, we aren’t a socialist state (yet) so you are going to have to earn some money to pay your bills and buy your stuff.  If you are like me at all, then you want to make the greatest amount of money in the shortest amount of time so that you can spend the other waking hours of your day enjoying the other parts of your life that make you happy too.

First off, let’s ask, is it really possible to make $100 per class that I teach?  Actually, yes, it is.  Just ask Billy Blanks.  He’ll laugh at you because he makes thousands per class.  Do you have to be Billy Blanks to command that kind of money?  No. Do you have to put some effort and thinking into doing it?  Yes, but it can be done, so let’s roll up our sleeves and come up with a game plan.

The first question you need to ask yourself is, “Who will pay me $100 for an hour of my time?”  There may be a gym out there willing to pay you that kind of hourly rate, but you have to be the lifeblood of their organization.  If your classes are busting at the seams and new people are coming in droves to join the club because of you then, yes.  See your boss for a raise because you deserve one.  The highest I’ve seen a club pay one single instructor, though, was $50 for one class, so if you have your sights set on bigger numbers, you’ll need to think bigger.  Note:  There are pros to remaining an emloyee of the gym, e.g. someone else does your accounting, you don’t need your own liability insurance, and it is easier to get a sub if you need to leave town or have an emergency.

Who else will pay me $100 an hour? Try thinking like a personal trainer.  If you are highly skilled and have excellent tutoring skills, you could offer private lessons in whatever you do best.  With privates, you charge whatever you want and keep the entire amount.  However, if you are using the club’s fitness room or their equipment for this endeavor, you may be charged rent or required to abide by their payment rules for personal trainers.  Still, if you market yourself right, you can command high dollars for your valuable time.  If not $100, still more than the $18 you are charging now.

 Let’s extend the idea of one-on-one instruction to the increasingly-popular, small-group “exclusive” classes.  Similar to private lessons, you market yourselves to individuals who pay to take your “class”.   These exclusives focus on a topic that isn’t readily addressed in general fitness classes.  By charging a group of five people $20 each to be in your class, you earn $100 for the hour — genius!  But what would make a person want to pay $20 for a fitness class?  Again, think a little bit like a personal trainer.  They want advice specific to a need or a want they have.  You could provide a 6 week running clinic for new runners in the early spring.  You could offer functional training workouts to prepare members for ski season.  You could hold a “Bikini Boot Camp” in the pre-summer months.  If you are an expert in a field, you could offer highly-advanced classes for the members who like what you offer and want to get better than the general levels can offer.  Or, you could offer a series of classes geared toward individuals with any special need or goal.  Have I got your mind churning yet? 

So now that you have the idea that you are potentially worth more than $20 per class, I want you also to think bigger than that.  Are you worth $200 an hour?  $2,000 an hour?  You are only limited by your beliefs about your self worth.  Steve Pavlina, who I quote a lot in this blog, had a great post a while back about this: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/11/how-to-earn-10000-in-one-hour/

 The possibilities don’t end there, but this post will.  Get out your brainstorming pen and your notebook and go to town.  I know that you have enormous potential and I am excited to hear what ideas you come up with!!!

We are now into our second post in a series about making money in group fitness. In the first post, Better Bottom Line, we discussed some basic economic considerations to be made when deciding where to work and how to maximize your paycheck with basic mathematic principles. In order to increase your overall paycheck, you could (A) Teach more classes (B) Get paid more for each class you teach or (C) A combination of both. We’re going to focus now on (B), specifically how to leverage yourself to confidently ask for a raise.

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