Why Owning a Gym is a Terrible Idea (what to do instead)

One of the biggest benefits of running an online fitness business is the profitability. This is massively overlooked. Most people don't consider how little it costs to run a business and the returns that you can make online. So it feels to me like it's pretty much every personal trainer or fitness professional's dream to one day own their own gym. And I don't blame them. I had that same dream years ago before I ventured into online coaching. I had this idea that I'd have this amazing, amazing gym with this cool lighting, amazing members and so on until I looked into the numbers. Let's say that I wanted to go and open my own gym next month. Firstly, there's going to be all of the red tape involved in finding a premises, making sure that it's fit for purpose, making sure that it has the right licenses and ability to be used as a gym, and then there's going to be the negotiations of the ongoing rent agreement for the unit, unless of course, I purchase it. Next up is once I've got a premises, you know, a premises alone without any equipment is kind of useless for a gym, so. So again, unless I'm going to self fund it, I'm going to have to lease a load of fitness equipment that is going to cost me likely thousands of pounds per month before I've got any members on board yet. Then you've got all the boring stuff, the aircon, the electricity, the water bills, the music licenses, all of this sort of stuff. If I don't want to be the one opening the gym at 6 o' clock in the morning and then working all day and shutting it 16 hours later at 10 o' clock at night. I'm probably going to also have to hire staff to help with that, which means that before I've even signed up my first member, I'm having to pay for the unit, the equipment leasing, all of the hidden things like the electricity, ac, music licenses and so on, and then potentially, you know, minimum wage at least to have staff run it for me, which is a considerable risk and investment. Most gyms tend to operate on a 15 to maximum 25% profit margin. Of course there are outliers, but that seems to be the industry average. Whereas with online coaching the profit margins are more like 80 to 90%. So in this video I'm going to run through the critical softwares that you need to be able to run your online fitness business and show you how little it can cost. First up would probably be some form of scheduling software. Now you don't even need One, because you can just manually agree a date and a time with somebody and then jump on a call at that time. But assuming that you want to look professional, you want to send somebody a calendar link and so on. The best software is Calendly and there is actually a free version where you'll be limited to one event type. But that does the job for every online coach until they need multiple event types. So, so Calendly is what you're going to need to begin with and it is free. You've got a call booked. Next up is to be able to take that call. And again you've got two options. You can either just use your own phone or you can do it over Zoom. Seeing as it is online coaching, Zoom is phenomenal, obviously building rapport with people online. And again, Zoom actually has a beginner offering that is free. Doesn't cost you a penny. The only catch is that the meeting can only run, I believe up to 40 minutes, which for most sales calls I would say is long enough. So at this point we've been able to schedule people's appointments for free, we've been able to take the sales calls for free. So the next thing we would need is some form of form software, you know, like a type form, a jot form so we can collect somebody's data when they first joined. So like their onboarding forms, their check in forms. So you can use Google Forms which will be free. You could use Jotform, which would be free. Or if you want to be fancy, you could use type form, type form. You could have up to 100 responses per month for currently about 20 pounds, about 25 USD dollars. Next up, once the client is onboarded, they filled in their onboarding form. It's time for you to deliver their setup. And we typically suggest that you either do an onboarding call or you send them a loom video. Loom is what you can also use for your check ins and it basically records your entire screen and puts your head in the corner of it. You can get a free version which allows you to record for up to five minutes. I think that is actually too short in duration. So I would recommend that you sign up to loom and as of the time of recording this, that is a whopping $15. So probably what, 1112 pounds. And honestly the final piece of software that you really sort of need to deliver online coaching would be some form of training app. So the app that we tend to recommend at the moment is called Everfit. They have a free plan where you can have up to five clients on board and then you can go into a paid plan after that, which I think is like $19. So at this point we've basically been able to get calls booked using Calendly, take calls using Zoom, or you can just use the phone if you want, collect their data using Jotform or Google Forms for free. Or if you want, you could spend like £15 on Typeform. We want Loom, which you do have to pay for, that's going to be about £11. And then ever Fit, you can actually deliver your first five clients for free and then £19. So let's say you went with the paid version of Loom and you're at 10, 15, 20 clients on EverFit, you're looking at a grand total of what, 19 plus 15. My math is not very good. What's that, $35, you're going to like 30 pounds, 28 to 30 pounds. So for you to be able to set up, build and deliver an online fitness business, you're looking at like, yeah, 30 quid, which is insane compared to renting a unit for a gym, paying for insurances, equipment leasing, AC bills, team and whatnot. Hopefully you can now see why building an online fitness business is just an absolute no brainer. The profit margins are insanely high. So with that said, I'm also going to give you like three bonus softwares that you might want to look into if you're feeling like you're a bit flush and you want to splash the cash. The first one you're probably already using and it's Chat GPT. So in 2025, unless you've been living under a rock, ChatGPT is basically the new Google and if you're not using it as the new Google, you're basically fighting with one hand tied behind your back. It will great for you for like ideation for content, coming up with better hooks, even certain like if your client comes to you with a contraindication or an injury or an illness or they've got medication and you want to know what you can and can't recommend. Chat GPT is going to get you like 80, 90 of the way there. You can use the free version which is probably what you're already using, or you can use the paid version at like $20, but it gives you loads more functionality, it's way more up to date and it can even critique your Instagram bio. The next one would be Fireflies. So if you are taking lots of sales calls, you're taking lots of Onboarding calls. And you really want to get like AI transcriptions of everything so you don't have to manually take notes. If you want to have breakdowns of your calls and feedback on them, then you can use Fireflies. I believe it's actually free up until like 800 minutes. Assuming that you are crushing your business and you want to go over that, then you can go into one of their paid plans, which again I think starts at like $20 per month. And this just allows you to look a bit more professional when you're on sales calls and you've got a proper AI note taker in place. And the very last one, and I mean it like I'm trying to scrape the barrel to make you spend money, you really do not need this. And the last one would be Gamma App. And this is phenomenal if you want to build client resources. So think of Gamma App as almost like ChatGPT combined with like a graphic software, meaning you could literally type in, hey, can you make me a client resource on how to do at home workouts three times per week and it will do it for you. It is insane and you guessed it, they do have a free version. But if you want to splash the cash, then you're looking at $8 per user per month. So to summarize, if you wanted to build this thing and you've got less than five clients, you wanted to build this thing on a shoestring and not spend much money at all, really. Your biggest and only cost would be like £11.15 for loom and that would be it. If you want to go all out and you want to have the fancy type form that looks nice, you're looking at what, 20 quid there? 25. You're looking at £11 for the loom. So let's call that what, 31. You'd be looking at a paid version of Everfit, which would be, call it around 15. So let's call it, what are we now, like £45. Then you might have the paid version of chat GPT, Fireflies and Gamma App all in. You're looking at like 60 to 70 pounds per month, what, 90 USD. And that would be you like having the best of the best of the best of all of the softwares and tools that you probably don't even need. So if you need any more convincing that it's time to build an online fitness coaching business because it is hugely profitable, very easy to do, then here it is. Make sure that you're using these softwares and if you want my team and I to help you build out your entire coaching program and business. Then there's a link in the description below where you can watch a quick video and then lock in a call with us.