In this solo episode of the PT Profit Leverage and Lifestyle Show, Matt Dart argues that most personal trainers are stuck in a "job" mindset because they trade time for money by selling per‑session services. He explains why this limits freedom, income, and scalability, and outlines how to shift to a hybrid or fully online business model. Matt shares concrete pricing examples (e.g., $150/week hybrid packages, $50‑$60 online component), demonstrates how a hybrid approach lets trainers earn while on holiday or sick, and projects earnings for a 10‑20 hour work week (≈ $2,100‑$3,000 weekly). He also discusses the importance of selling results rather than time, the need for systems, hiring, and delegation, and highlights his own transition to online coaching in 2024. Throughout, he emphasizes leveraging AI tools like Manus and Claude Code for rapid ad creation, social‑media audits, and overall productivity, positioning AI as a competitive advantage for PTs seeking to automate marketing and scale without relying on a physical gym. The episode blends personal anecdotes, actionable pricing structures, and strategic advice aimed at giving trainers more flexibility, higher income, and the ability to step away from day‑to‑day client work.
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If you don't have like a hybrid aspect or an online component that you can switch sell to or that you can move them to, then you're forever going to be trading time for money, which means you are in a job. You're actually running a job, not an actual business. You can't get time back if you're always just trading time for money because everyone got into business to have more freedom, more flexibility. Already doing the work. So all you need to do is have a conversation with your clients. What's going on everyone? Matt from PT Mastery. PT Profit Leverage and Lifestyle Show, Episode 112. Today, today we are actually going through, well, the title of this episode is You're Not Running a Business, You're Running a Job. So I've got a couple of notes that I want to go through in terms of difference between running a job versus a proper business and why I think a lot of personal trainers are falling into this trap and how you can actually get out of it. So I've got a couple of questions I've got written down to kind of keep me on track here for a second. But a quick update for me in terms of what's happening in my world. Forever going all in on kind of AI. Right now I've been using Manus and Claude Code, learning how to code things, which is, I feel a little bit alive because it's something that I have no idea how to do and I'm learning, learning like relatively slowly, but you know, you've just got to dive in there and experience it because at the end of the day, it's going to give you a massive advantage for not only your productivity for your clients and also for your sales and marketing as well. Especially if you're wanting to not have to rely on the gym for leads, auditing your social media content, auditing your ads, et cetera, can be done within a few minutes without you having to even know what to look for. It can actually do it for you. And I've actually just used Manus AI to make ads for me start to finish and do it in Ads Manager, which is absolutely crazy for me to think that that's even possible and how fast this is actually improving. But anyway, back to today's episode. So you're not running a business, you're running a job. So if you stopped working tomorrow, would your income stop as well. That is pretty much how you know if you're running a job or a proper business. Now, most PTs that are listening to this, uh, podcast, you're probably doing everything yourself. So right now it's basically a glorified job that you can never leave. As bad as that sounds, right now it's probably like that because you're pretty much doing everything. You're doing all the sales, all the marketing, all the programming, all the client sessions, etc., etc. If you take a day off, you're not going to get paid. Difference being, if you're running a business, if you were to take a week off because you're sick, the business would still run most of it on its own. Like eventually you can get to a stage where you're completely removed from the business. Like I was for my PT business where I was just kind of managing the team where I had like salespeople, content creation people, PTs. It takes a little bit of time to get to that stage. What I want to go through today is how you can make your business or your job per se a little bit more self-reliant or not so much relying on you trading time for money. Okay, so what currently happens with most PTs is that they will basically sell, sell based on how many sessions they do. So if they don't do those sessions, then they don't get paid. So the reason why that's a problem is because let's say, for example, you're sick or you want to go away, you want to go on a holiday. If you don't have like a hybrid aspect or online component that you can switch sell to or that you can move them to, then you're forever going to be trading time for money, which means you are in a job that you can't leave, that you don't have annual leave, you don't have sick leave, it doesn't pay you super, it doesn't pay you tax, etc., etc. Okay, so what you ideally want to do is you want to ideally have a hybrid model that you're not just selling this per session. And I used to do this as well. I used to say, hey, to work with me, it's $65 per session, $70 per session. Whereas what I do now is you work with me in a hybrid capacity, which is a combination of face-to-face and online. You get this, this, this, this, this for $150 a week. Okay, so that they know that if, if you're away, for example, you're on holiday, they are still going to get a similar service. They're just not going to get the face-to-face aspect. Okay, so if you want to take a week off, you 100% can. And yes, your income might drop a little bit, but that's still okay because you're still bringing in income without you having to be there. Prime example, you might charge $50, $60 a week for your online component and then $80 for your face-to-face. So combined, it's like, that's, what's that, that's $140 a week for one session as a hybrid. One session a week as a hybrid, first session online is like $140 a week. When you're away or when they go away, so they can still, you know, you're still keeping them accountable, they would only pay the online component. Okay, so yes, your income is going to drop a little bit during that time, but you're still getting paid. Okay, it's not like you just get no income. I guess that's the point I want to make super, super clear. The second part that I want to go through is, are you fully booked but you still feel broke or burnt out, and do you know why? So if you're still fully booked, you're still trading time for money, and you're feeling burnt out, then your income is capped. If you're always trading time for money, you can't get time back if you're always just trading time for money. Okay, it's worse if you're still feeling broke, which means you're either undercharging, by the sounds of it, if you're fully booked and You feel broke or you don't know how to manage your money. Both are, both are big problems. So this is the same thing. This is why you, you're actually running a job, not an actual business, because everyone got into business to have more freedom, more flexibility. And guess what's happening right now? You've got either, you've got neither. You've, you're in a worse position. You work 24/7 and you get half the amount of money that you used to get from a 9 to 5 job. So without the right systems, you're just running a job and the right structure, really systems and structure. If you wanna be fully removed from the business, you obviously need to hire a team or you need to basically pretty much just be online. Okay, like right now I moved all my clients online in 2024. I don't trade time for money at all anymore. Like you can't do it. Okay, so I've moved away from that model. I'm not saying that's what you should do. What I am saying is if you're face to face, you should be running a hybrid model. So you have the option to go to that online aspect. Okay, because there's nothing worse than not taking holidays because your income is just going to vanish. My next point, number 3, what would your business look like if you could only work 20 hours a week? I literally had this discussion with my wife literally last night. So it's fresh in my mind. I said, hey, you know what, I'm actually thinking of going back to doing some face-to-face PC because I do miss it a little bit. I haven't done any face-to-face for 2 years. I've been purely online. So I've thought about going back doing some face-to-face, and it would only be between like school hours essentially, um, because I get to go to school soon and I don't want to get to where I was previously doing like, uh, you know, 50, 60, 70 sessions a week. I would be super happy doing like 15, 20 sessions a week, and I do half an hour sessions, and I would charge as a hybrid model one session a week with online coaching coaching would be anywhere between $120 to $150 a week. And it would basically, it'd be half an hour of my time in the gym plus maybe, I don't know, 5, 10 minutes, 15 minutes a week for online coaching. And I did the math on that. I was like, that means I would work like, I would essentially work like 8 to 10 hours a week. Well, not even that, like 7.5 hours a week. And I would be making $2,100. So over 6 figures and I'd be working under 10 hours a week. Yes, I'd still have to do stuff from home. Yes, I'd have to do some, some sales calls or some consultations for free, of course. Um, but once I'm at that stage, like, I don't really need to do anything extra to maintain that. I might do a little bit of marketing here and there, but let's just say 10 hours a week, 7 hours of PT, 3 hours of working on the business. Okay, so that's essentially what I've considered doing. We're actually looking to move to— we are, we are moving to the south side of Brisbane to where my property is, and we're probably going to stay there for a little while. But yeah, if I had my time again, and this is what I would do if I do go back into doing some face-to-face PT, is I would work between 10 to 15 hours a week and I would be easily pulling in $2,000 to $3,000 a week. But I could easily, I could easily, if I want to go on holidays and I didn't want to do any makeup sessions, I could just move everyone to online, charge them, I dunno, $60, $80 a week for online coaching. I could still manage everyone within a couple of hours a week while I'm on holidays and I wouldn't have to trade time for money. Or I could obviously just do online coaching. I could still work in a gym, but I would funnel people to online and I would basically just do a few sessions for the people that needed it. Maybe 10 sessions a week. Everyone else just goes to online. Next part, are you selling your time or are you selling a result? So I kind of brought this up before, but if you're selling like a per session model, you are always going to be trading time for money, which means you're always going to be just having a job where you can't leave. Okay, you need to sell a result because if you sell a result or a system, it doesn't matter if you're doing face-to-face or online as long as they get that same result. Okay, this is what people don't understand when they're like, if you're in a gym trying to go online, You could still do the same marketing strategies to get the leads, but you could sell online. You can, if you can get the same results for people online as you are face to face, then say goodbye to the gym. For example, you just need to learn how to market online to get enough leads to be able to go fully online. Okay. So if you guys can understand that.
