Who is the Profitable Personal Trainer?

My name is Cabel McElderry and I have been in the fitness profession for nearly 19 years, helping thousands of people reach their health and fitness goals.

Most recently I created and implemented a proven system that increased my personal annual training sales from $100,000 to $300,000 in just a few months.  Using the same system I now co-operate a private training facility that sold over $1,000,000 in personal training programs in its first rolling 12 months in a small market.

I now help other fitness professionals duplicate this proven system through the Profitable Personal Trainer blog and coaching program.  This system has helped personal trainers create a full time training schedule in as little as a month.

All of this also earned me the honour of being the first Canadian to speak at the Fitness Business Summit in Anaheim, California. Rounding out this list of achievements our studio was also strong finalist for Small Business of the Year in the Red Deer community after only 2 years of operation, it’s truly been a whirlwind adventure.

I believe it is so important to continue to educate yourself as I hope to help you do through the Profitable Personal Trainer. Each year I invest thousands of dollars annually to be coached by some of the top fitness earners from across North America.  This year alone that investment has been more than double my entire college education.

Though I am proud of these achievements and present them to you to earn your trust you should know it was far different in the beginning…

Cabel and Jillian from 'The Biggest Loser' at FBS.

Like many new fitness professionals I was determined to make it in this growing industry. Also like many new professionals I spent years making the same mistakes (and some other unique ones) that those before me have made trying to earn a good income doing what they loved.

After the typical hanging up flyers and printing business cards and struggling for a few months to find enough clients to fill my schedule I needed to supplement my income. I had no money to invest, but I had time. A salesperson I knew talked me into starting a small display advertising business. I had no idea how to run a business; I relied on my partner for customer contacts and sales, soon after I was on the verge of bankruptcy…

What I did learn was a great deal about small business owners, emotional advertising decisions, and ineffective advertising. We’re conditioned to make decisions based on “what we think” without having a method of evaluating results or the lack there of.

Though I was still trying to make it as a personal trainer I was beginning to doubt myself and the industry’s ability to produce the lifestyle I had in mind. About this time I was recruited by a network marketing financial services company. Great, I was now going to hassle my friends, family and anyone else I knew about Life Insurance. Through the company’s training program I realized two things: 1) I was far more passionate about fitness than I was about insurance (and better at it!)  2) The key to success in any business is to develop tools for a repeatable system and ultimately duplicate yourself to leverage your time…unfortunately I still wasn’t making any money.

Financial distress forced me into high pressure electronic sales with one of Canada’s largest chains. With the natural affinity for coaching that most trainers possess and the desperation of financial woes, you could say I was highly motivated. I developed a system for selling that was truly focused on the service and fulfillment of the clients true needs. This made it easy to outperform many of the other salespeople with smaller sales but many repeat customers…

Finally with my debt sort of under control, I went back to trying to develop my personal training business. I read book after book from successful business authors, I did everything I could to get to know people who were successful in their industries, I began to develop systems and resources, as I could afford it I invested in coaching and coaching materials, I sold training only after I got to know the client, I implemented various forms of relationship marketing and I stumbled and fell a few more times but each time growing beyond where I was before.

It was through these pitfalls that I have learned the critical yet simple steps to follow in order to drastically increase personal training revenues to become the Profitable Personal Trainer.