In episode 117 of the PT Profit Leverage and Lifestyle Show, Matt Dart explains the "$10K/month trap" that many personal trainers fall into. He argues that the tactics that get a trainer to $10,000 in monthly revenue—often relying on gym members, organic reach, and doing every task themselves—cannot be scaled to $20K‑$50K. To break out of this danger zone, Dart stresses the need to level up by spending money to buy back time: hiring virtual assistants, editors, and delivery staff; delegating administrative and content tasks; and, most importantly, implementing consistent, high‑ROI paid advertising for high‑ticket offers ($1K‑$5K). He shares his own experience growing a business to $50K/month with a 12‑person team, outlines the first hires and their cost‑benefit, and provides a concrete ROI example (spending $100 on ads to acquire a $1,000‑$1,500 client). Dart also notes that his program, PT Mastery, is shifting focus to work with trainers already earning at least $10K/month, offering done‑for‑you ads, coaching, and team‑building guidance. The episode ends with a call to action for listeners to DM the word “ads” for personalized help.
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What gets you to $10K per month is not going to get you to $20K, $30K, $40K, $50K per month. You're going to need to level up. You need to— yes, you'll be spending more money, it'll cost you more, but if you want to get to $30K to $50K per month, you need to spend money to make money. What got you to $10K per month is not going to get you to $20K or $30K per month or even $50K per month. I need to obviously get you off the tools a little bit, which I spoke a little bit about, but also we need predictable and consistent marketing, which is ads. You need to have consistent ad campaigns running with a high return on investment. As long as you've got like a high, high-ticket product, so anything over $1,000, ideally like, you know, $2,000, $3,000, $4K, $5K that people would spend with you, ads is an absolute no-brainer. Welcome to episode 117 of the PT Profit Leverage and Lifestyle Show. My name is Matt Dart, um, I run a program called PT Mastery, uh, helping personal trainers grow and scale their business to $10K to $20K per month. So let's get into today's episode. Team. So, uh, the $10K a month fitness business trap nobody talks about. So I briefly touched on this a little bit in last week's episode, but I want to briefly touch on this. And everyone obviously wants to get to around $10K per month. Like, our program is designed to get you to between $10K to $20K per month. But generally what happens is what gets you to $10K per month is not going to get you to $20K, $30K, $40K, $50K per month. You're going to need to level up in terms of yourself as a leader, you're going to need to delegate or hire a team, or you're going to need to outsource something. So we're going to talk about what that essentially looks like if you want to scale to $30,000 to $50,000 per month. Now, you guys might have picked up on this, I'm looking to make a little bit of a shift in terms of the people that we work with. We want to work with people on a higher level. No offense to anyone that's just starting out, but we want to work with higher level business owners. So at least $5,000 a month, but ideally you want to be making $10,000 per month to work with us. Because under $10K per month is a bit of a danger zone. Basically, you're still doing everything yourself and you don't quite understand business, to put it nicely. Like, no offense, but you know, you're doing everything yourself. It's super easy, especially if you're in a commercial gym. It's super, super easy to get yourself to $10K per month. You've got obviously the audience right in front of you, the members right in front of you that you can target very, very easily. What's harder is going from $10K to $30K to $50K because you can't rely on gym members, for example. You can't rely on organic marketing because it's very inconsistent. The algorithm changes every single week. There's always new features that you need to learn. And don't get me wrong, same with paid advertising, there's new stuff that you need to learn as well, but it's predictable. So let's go through first the danger zone of getting to $10K per month. You're making enough to feel successful, but you're not enough to feel free. So what this looks like is you're working 40, 50 hours a week. Everything relies on you. You're doing the sessions, so you're doing the delivery, you're doing the programming, you're doing the check-ins. You're doing the sales, you're doing the marketing, you're doing the content creation, you're doing the admin, you're doing payment fails, you're doing absolutely everything in the business, okay? So that is not a sustainable way to have a great life, have a great lifestyle. We talk about lifestyle here on the podcast all the time. The bottleneck is actually the founder. So, because as I said, you're the closer, you're the trainer, you're the marketer, you're the ad management, and you're doing the ads. There's no room for you to take time off. There's no room for you to go on holidays. There's no room for you to do anything that actually lights you up. So you're gonna feel burnt out, stressed out, right? Like money, what money will be good. Money doesn't give you the happiness. This is the trap where you, where you kind of get into when you get to around $10K per month and you need to, you need to think differently when you're at this stage because you need to, you need to think about spending money to save time. Okay? So you tend to spend a bit more money, but you get your time back. So for example, I've talked about this before, like the first hire that you should be doing if you're around $10K per month is hiring a VA to help you with basic stuff. It's like basic boring questions, setting up things on Trainerize, Everfit, whatever. Um, scheduling posts on social media, maybe a video editor to help with content creation, that type of stuff. $3 to $4 an hour to outsource that type of stuff to buy back, you know, 5, 10 hours a week of your time. The next thing that you want to do from there is perhaps the delivery side of things so you can focus on sales and marketing because you're going to need to get yourself off the tools if you want to go to $30 to $50K per month, which is what we're focusing on now. I grew my business to $50K a month. It was I had 12 people part of my team. Okay. You need to, yes, you'll be spending more money. It'll cost you more. But if you want to get to $30K to $50K per month, you need to spend money to make money. Okay. So last week we spoke about, obviously ads in terms of predictability. We're going to talk a little bit about ads in this episode. But the big, the biggest thing that I want to make super clear to you guys is what got you to $10K per month is not going to get you to $20K or $30K per month or even $50K per month. Need to obviously get you off the tools a little bit, which I spoke a little bit about, but also we need predictable and consistent marketing, which, which is ads. So you might be running maybe some boosted posts, you might be doing some occasional campaigns, um, but it's not really a real strategy. You need to have consistent ad campaigns running with a high return on investment. So what we're looking to do with a few fitness business owners and even service business owners as well, so as long as you've got like a high, high ticket product, so anything over $1,000, ideally like, you know, $2,000, $3,000, $4,000, $5,000 that people would spend with you, ads is an absolute no-brainer. Because let me picture it like this. Right now, for example, you might be calling leads every single, every single week. You might be doing endless marketing strategies, cold calling people that don't even want your services. How good would it be if people inquired with you and you call them, book them in for the consult and sign them up straight away because they're inquiring with you? But let's say you're putting in $50 to to get a booked consult, every $100 that you spend is a new client and they spend about $1,000 or $1,500 with you and your business. You're taking $1 and turning into $10 or $15. You're 10x-ing your investment, which is crazy. I don't know why people don't want to do paid ads sooner. That's gonna enable you, that's gonna help you pay for these staff members that you need or pay to get better systems, better softwares to buy back your time. You're buying back your time. Okay, so I hope I'm making this super, super clear. Like, you got different problems when you're above $10K per month. If you guys want to learn more about how we help you with getting to $50K per month, because that's exactly what we're doing. So if you're ideally at $10K per month, we're going to help you get to between $30K to $50K per month with done-for-you ads, or I can teach you how to do ads yourself, coaching on how to get the right team, how to scale with you not doing— not being on the tools all the time, so not trading time for money. And that's when you get the freedom. Everyone came into business to get more money, more freedom, but most people get neither. You're probably making a little bit of money right now, so you're already at $10K per month, but you don't have the freedom. So let's help you get that freedom. So if you guys want help with that, DM me the word ads and I'll, I'll see if I can help you get to that $30K to $50K per month. But we're going a little bit of a different direction with us where, no offense to the people that are kind of brand new to the industry, like we, um, we can still help you. We are more looking to shift our focus to the higher end of the market. Um, it's just different problems and things that excite me a little bit more about setting up terms and conditions, direct debits, you know, that, that basic stuff. Um, is relatively straightforward. So I'm looking to work with people on a higher, higher level now that are serious about growth, serious about making bank, bank money. And I'm on the journey to help you, help you do that. So if that's you, send me a message right now on Instagram or Facebook. Let's have a conversation. Let's see if I can help. But until next time, enjoy, enjoy your day. Peace out. Bye-bye.
