Are you a personal trainer with a passion for fitness and would like to share that passion with many others? Are you interested in sharing your fitness expertise and helping people achieve a desirable body? If so, then you may be wondering how to make this happen. If you’ve never ventured in the realm of opening a business before then taking this approach can feel intimidating.

In this article, you are going to learn about what it takes to successfully open your own boot camp, attract customers, and make money (while making a positive impact in people’s lives). The following sections should help you get started. Consider it Pre Planning 101.

Determining Your Target Audience

The first step to opening up a boot camp is choosing your client base. After all, you can’t market to EVERYONE. That would be too expensive and it wouldn’t allow for a very high profit margin. There are a few reasons why you should narrow down who you would like to bring in to your boot camp:

• Save money on advertising. Since you don’t have to advertise to everyone, you’ll save a lot of money. Advertising on a broad scale forces you to compete against larger companies which ultimately will result in less traffic for you.
• Less competition. If you narrow down your audience to say, pregnant women between the ages of 25 and 30, or moms over 40, you’ll dramatically decrease the amount of competition for those people.

Now, this doesn’t mean you have to target one specific audience. It’s best to search the demographics of your area and determine what the people in the area want and need and build your boot camp upon those wants and needs. By determining who your target audience is for your boot camp, you’ll successfully save money as well as receive less competition. All in all, this equals more profits.

Choosing a Location

Once you determine who you want to help, you need to determine where you would like to base your fitness boot camp. Here are some things to consider when searching for a location:

• Cost: First off, can you afford it? You need to determine the rent of where you would like your boot camp and determine whether or not it fits into your budget. If it doesn’t, then heavily consider choosing another location (no matter how nice this one looks).
• Convenience: How easy will it be for customers to find your boot camp? If you are dealing with the elderly or pregnant women then you should make your location as convenient as possible for them.
• Retail versus light industrial: Your boot camp does not require a lot of square footage to be successful nor does it have to be in a high dollar retail location. Again, it’s important to know your budget and demographics and determine what type of location best suits these two factors. There are lots of successful boot camp owners who run out of less than 1,000 square feet.

Safety, convenience, and high traffic are also important. But aside from this, you want your location to have a little prestige. If you can allocate a location that has a lot of traffic and high-end stores and restaurants, then you will be more likely to attract paying customers. Finally, make sure that you are within the proper zoning regulations for your specific location (this is obviously important). Nothing will ruin your boot camp venture faster than that.

Planning Ahead

Part of being a good business person is being able to adapt as well as plan ahead. You should have a business plan ready before you ever begin the process of setting up your own boot camp. This ensures that you will run into far less “surprises”. And if you do run into an obstacle, you’ll easily be able to handle them since you already planned ahead. Planning ahead allows you to:

• Pre planning is a key component is setting up your boot camp. You gotta have your S*** together so you don’t face costly mistakes. Working with a coach who has already opened boot camps is a great way to ensure you have the best laid plan.
• Have an exit plan. If something goes wrong, you’ll have an answer to it. One of the main reasons why businesses fail is because they don’t have a plan should something go wrong. Sometimes you might get a surprise you couldn’t plan for. Again, an experienced coach can help in this area.
• Minimize legal problems. Planning ahead allows you to avoid legalities with the state or district that you are in. For example, you’ll need to properly pay taxes, fill out forms correctly, and go through the right procedures for starting your boot camp. Failure to plan any of these steps could result in some major problems.

As a general rule of thumb, plan ahead and you should run in far less problems.

Conclusion

Starting your own boot camp is fun and exciting. There are many steps in the process of opening a boot camp and these are just some examples of a few. If you have the drive, determination, and passion to help others and be successful then you can do this. Remember, having a plan is huge for success. Knowing the industry and demographics is a must. Learn from other successful boot camp owners who can help you along the way will help you avoid some costly mistakes and is also helpful when those surprises arrive. Simply follow the steps presented above and the process for starting your own boot camp will be run a lot smoother and you’ll be successful a getting people fit. There’s nothing wrong with being a fitness expert and making some money at it!

Georgette Pann: owner of NutriFitness Personal Training Studio and Bootcamps. She is author and creator of the best selling “Sure VictoryFitness Bootcamp Kit” and Sure Results:The Ultimate Book of Bootcamp Workouts