# What is propanebusiness? The PropaneBusiness programme is our mentorship offer to help you thrive as an online coach. If you haven't already, I'd very much recommend watching the overview of our process to get up to speed with what we teach: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVFi8TP3nBA --- # Who do we help? we help personal trainers and online coaches who want to go full time online. We've helped hundreds of trainers quit their day job and become profitable online coaches. # What are the benefits of becoming an online coach? Time freedom Location freedom Satisfaction Impacting more people # Do you guys still coach fitness clients? Yep, Jonny and Yusef still have their own fitness clients, and you can see evidence of our fitness business (450 articles, 600 youtube videos, 12 years of social media) via https://propanefitness.com/ . We believe it's important to show that we walk the walk with online fitness coaching, and only teach what we have successfully done. # How much does it cost to become an online coach? # Costs Involved in Starting an Online Coaching Business ## Advertising Costs ### Lead Generation One common question is about advertising costs. People often assume that ads are expensive because they think they won't get anything back from them. However, this is not necessarily true. When you run ads for your coaching business, you should design them specifically to link to a landing page where you can capture contact information and guide potential clients through a funnel. If you spend money on ads and get 40-60 leads, there's a good chance that a percentage of those people will buy your program. In fact, if you spend 100 quid and make one sale, you've more than covered your costs. ### Testing The whole process is progressive, meaning that you should start by running your challenge organically first. This will help you validate your offer and make sure that all the moving parts are working. Once you're confident in your offer, you can start investing some of your profits into a test run of your next ad budget for paid challenges. The goal is to get a green light on each stage of your business, from validating your challenge to testing your ads, until you're confident that you can take on as many clients as you want. ### Investment Overall, while ads are definitely an expense, they're also an investment with an immediate attributable return. By reinvesting your profits back into running more ads, you can build up your business and start generating more revenue. ## Other Costs ### Business Coaching As for costs outside of business coaching, you will need to pay for liability insurance, web hosting, an email marketing system, and program delivery software. The total monthly cost of these expenses should be around £100-150, including ads. These investments should generate enough return to cover the costs and contribute to retention and monthly rebuild rate. ### Software and Tools Having a big email list or following may seem impressive, but it's not good for long-term engagement. It's better to be relevant to a smaller number of people and convert them. Many platforms charge based on the number of contacts you have, so unless they're bringing you a return on investment, there's no point. The software you use can be free or super expensive, but you should buy it only for a specific business need. There's always a trade-off between time and money in most decisions, including software choices. You can do everything on the cheap, but as your business grows, it makes sense to invest in good software. Be careful not to add bloated costs to your business by buying software or gear you don't use. Our software bill for everything is about a grand a month, and we're very aware of the time-money trade-off. Finally, we used to email an Excel file back and forth between clients, so don't overlook the basics in your excitement to set up more sophisticated software. ### Prioritization We used to do everything on the cheap. Back then, collaboration was difficult because there wasn't good document software like Google Docs. But when we started using it, it was a huge improvement for us. Before that, we were using Dropbox and it was a bit of a hassle. We had a Dropbox file for every client, which was an upgrade from emailing spreadsheets back and forth. The business was still generating income, and honestly, if it had just been one of us, we could have made a full-time living. You don't need fancy tools to get people to pay you for your services. Your skills, ability to market and sell, and good results are what build a business. When deciding whether to get new software or subscriptions, consider what would happen if you didn't have it. For example, if a process would become manual and take up an hour per week, it might be worth getting the software. For an online fitness business, the fundamentals are getting leads and clients, helping them get results, and keeping them happy. Everything else can come later. # How much can I make as an online coach? We call this your 'freedom number'. You can calculate this here https://propane-business.com/freedom-calculator # How are we different to other mentors? We often speak to personal trainers interested in moving their business online. They ask how we differ from other business mentors. In short, there is no comparison. The fitness industry is full of bad advice. But we want to provide a framework for you to evaluate mentors and to show you how we differ. We cover this in more detail in a video called "How to Spot a Dodgy Fitness Coach." Here are some red flags to look out for in a mentor: 1. They haven't done it themselves. If they have no evidence of having been an online coach, that should raise a few eyebrows. 2. They only teach fluffy, organic strategies that don't have a measurable return. 3. They don't have a method. Posting on social media is not a real business strategy. 4. They don't have testimonials or case studies. 5. They make unrealistic claims about how much money you will make. The method requires a lot of effort and time. People can use this as an excuse to avoid criticism. In the video "How to Spot a Cowboy Coach," we discuss how some coaches do not have a specific process and instead rely on survivorship bias. They claim that each client is unique, but this is not true. Success cannot be replicated without a specific process. For example, posting regularly on social media is not enough to achieve the same level of success as Joe Rogan. Other factors such as contacts, personality, and money are also at play. Simply being given advice by a mentor is not enough to overcome these barriers. The program has several issues. One problem is that it seems to fail often. This ties into another red flag, which is that the program may only work for people who are already influencers in the space. The program relies on organic strategies, and introducing a high ticket call funnel into someone's existing business with an organic reach may only capitalize on the highest converting one or two percent of that audience, resulting in a big injection of cash but no long-term value or ability to replicate that result. The advice given, particularly on social media, may be feel-good advice that has no significant impact on someone's business overall. Finally, there is no clear system or workflow to get someone results. Big businesses run on numbers and data, while posting on social media, DMing people, and calling them randomly is not a method but simply chaos. Our approach focuses on the big picture of your business, including lead generation, closing sales, coaching clients, and delivering your expertise. Once you have an automatable lead generation system in place, you can spend more time coaching clients and doing the work you love. He has a 14-day challenge generating customers from ads. He spends money on ads and monitors the last 7, 14, and 30 days to see if the campaign generated leads at a cost equal to or less than what he expected. He scales his business by targeting audiences and creating new workflows to get clients. This is more predictable than trying to come up with something new to post each day. There are tools, KPIs, and processes for coaching, process management, admin, and client retention, and once they're working, they're working. Targeting a daily process is important for maintaining a marketing system that produces measurable results. It's not about starting from zero every day, but rather having measurable targets, KPIs, inputs and outputs. Finding a mentor who can provide a simple process is great, but it's also important to have a way to troubleshoot when things go wrong. By having a dashboard that tracks conversion rates, ad spend, cost per lead, and other key metrics, you can identify problems, troubleshoot them, and improve the process. Without this feedback loop, you're just shooting in the dark and hoping for the best. Focus on the highest leverage tasks, such as lowering your cost per lead, to improve the overall efficiency of your marketing funnel. To analyze why your marketing isn't working, you need to focus on specific metrics such as CPM and click-through rate, as well as factors like ad creativity and audience targeting. By identifying the problem areas, you can develop solutions such as creating new images to test. Having a framework to guide your analysis is crucial to avoiding panic and wasted time. Mentors can offer valuable lessons and shortcuts in the process, but it's important to vet them and ensure they can deliver on their promises. If you're interested in working with us, send an email to [admin@propanefitness.com](mailto:admin@propanefitness.com) with the word "banana" in the title for an inside look at how we can help you. # Explanation of our model Here's the method we used to build our online coaching business, Propane Fitness, and generate 10-15K per month. I'll cover the steps we took transparently, without hype or secrets. We've documented it into a blueprint for you. If you want the summary of the blueprint, comment below and we'll send you the link. The last couple of years have accelerated the trend of people prioritizing their health and recognizing the value of online coaching. We've been coaching online since 2009 and have seen a significant influx recently. The virtual fitness market is growing strongly and is only going to get bigger, making it the best time to enter. Through this video, I'll show you some of the mistakes we made so you can avoid them and accelerate your journey. Let's start with some proof: here's a photo of us with Stripe. My name is Yusuf and my business partner is Johnny. We started Propane in 2009 while working full-time in finance. We were able to quit our jobs and go full-time with Propane. I qualified as a doctor in between that time and Johnny is a qualified accountant. We've written over 500 articles, produced 400 podcast episodes, and have a large social media following. We've been featured in Men's Health, Men's Fitness, and Elite FTS. We fumbled our way through building Propane Fitness, trying various coaching models, including one-on-one coaching, selling eBooks, and group coaching. The key principle is to monetize your expertise in some way. The big mistake we made was being too nerdy in our content and misjudging our niche. We spoke about topics that only other personal trainers cared about, like leucine metabolism and the in vitro effects of artificial sweeteners on pancreas beta cells. Many of our followers were other personal trainers and coaches. Through coaching them, we were asked to help with coaching systems. That's how we stumbled into the business side of things. We coach fitness clients and help some individuals grow their online presence. We have the capacity to take on more clients, but we're not worried about creating competitors because the market is vast. We can only teach what we've successfully done, which is online coaching for over a decade. It's important to look for proof in the pudding when seeking business advice. We've packaged our fitness expertise and the lessons we've learned into our coaching program. Growing your business online is similar to fitness in that consistency is key. It’s that moment you realised that progress in the gym is just about progressive overload applied over time. In the world of business, flashy Lamborghinis and high ticket sales may bring in big money quickly, but they are not sustainable models. Building a successful business takes time and effort. It took us a decade to develop our systematic process, which I will outline today. You can compress the journey with the right systems, but it still requires full-time focus to hit 100K a year in online coaching. The first step is identifying your freedom number and matching your offline income with your online income. You don't need to quit your job at first; five hours of directed work per week on the right things can get you there. We focused on manual churn too long and didn't have a blueprint, which slowed our progress. When we switched to systems, our revenue increased from 2k to 10K within four or five months. It's possible to replace your personal training income with online coaching income in a year. Assuming you work 35 hours per week, charging between £25 and £35 per hour for PT sessions, you can earn about £3,500 per month for 140 hours of work. To match this income, you can aim to get 35 online clients charging £100 per month. You can also keep your favorite 10 clients to work with in person. This will generate £4,900 per month, and the hourly rate for online clients is higher. With online clients, you have more flexible schedules and can choose who you work with. It is a satisfying experience. 35 clients out of 2 billion is not impossible to achieve. In addition, online coaching gets rid of clients who are not serious about their fitness. You can work from anywhere, even Bali, and reach thousands of people with your content, leading to higher profits and no need for equipment or travel expenses. Setting up a successful online coaching business requires reverse engineering the process, starting with identifying your end goal, target audience, pricing, and how to attract and retain clients without sacrificing your personal time. Overcoming imposter syndrome and avoiding the pressure to niche down too narrowly are common challenges in the crowded online coaching market. Finding a niche that works can be difficult, but is key to success. On Instagram, people often try to make it look like they're doing well, but many big influencers are not doing as well as they seem. To solve the crowded market problem, focus on the problem you're solving, not the demographic. Working online gives you access to any audience, and the easiest person to solve a problem for is your past self. Examples of this in action include Ryan, who went after the niche of beginner powerlifters, and Nate, who became a jump rope coach. Francis successfully scaled the system by duplicating a profitable model from one niche to another. When deciding how much to charge for coaching, high and low prices both have their own problems. The typical advice is to charge more than £5000 for a fat loss program, but we do not recommend this approach or sales calls. We worked with a business coach who recommended this approach, but it did not sit well with us morally. He even bragged about making a single mother remortgage her house to afford his program and encouraged making people cry on the phone. That’s not the way we wanted to run our business. Assuming you're willing to make people cry on the phone as a psychopathic salesperson, you can aim to generate £72,000 in annual revenue at a unit price of £1,000. With a typical conversion rate of 15% from cold sales calls, you would need to make 480 calls, at an average cost of £100 per call with a £48,000 ad spend. This model ignores the basics of supply and demand, as it is difficult to justify charging £5,000 for fat loss coaching when cheaper alternatives, such as apps or in-person coaching, are available. Additionally, this high-ticket model requires a lot of time and high-contact coaching, and has a high attrition rate which leads to feast and famine situations. Instead, we recommend a mid-ticket coaching model, with a unit price of £100 per month and an average retention time of 6 months. With a sales conversion rate of 5%, you would need 2,400 leads at an average cost of £3 per lead, and can increase revenue by delivering better service and extending retention time. We recommend using a two-step pricing structure: a six to twelve week group coaching package for £100 to £300, followed by a recurring monthly program for around £100. This will help you build a systematic coaching program that generates great results and referrals while keeping clients for the long term. To optimize your business, focus on lifetime value instead of just maximizing cash up front. This approach has worked for coaches in other industries, like Tom O'Hagan in MMA and grappling sports and Neil in group coaching. Mid-ticket group coaching is a positive flywheel that accelerates your business growth. As you sign up more clients, the systems in your business deliver the programming, refine your marketing process, and drive up your profitability. However, the post-and-hope method is not a viable lead generation system. Instagram is the second least profitable platform, followed by DMs to book a sales call. To get better results, take the sales call out of the process and use sophisticated sales tracking systems. Consumers no longer buy on the phone like they did in the 1990s. Sales calls are not recommended. For business programs, calls are available but not for sales. Instead, a 14-day sales system is recommended, with the best content front-loaded to work through objections and limiting beliefs. This system includes an automated nurture sequence, down sales, and more. The benefits of this system include automation and the ability to convert more leads into customers. One-to-one coaching is not recommended as it swaps time for money and creates a linear revenue curve. To escape the trap, consider the flywheel effect. CEOs of Starbucks or fast food chains don't make every product, and successful businesses often deliver results through a system. By building a 14-day program, getting leads through free methods, and selling tester spaces at 50% off, you can validate your offer and build the ideal program for your customers. This generates cash up front and prevents a flop during a big launch. Pre-selling a program is the best way to validate the offer, and you can then reinvest that cash into scaling. The sell and build model worked for Charlotte, who got 13 clients before launching by validating her offer beforehand. Bobby and Ryan improved their services and got more clients. They changed from one-to-one coaching to group coaching, which allowed them to step away from marketing through swipe ups and DMS. They also had success with their 14-day sequence and sold tester spaces. Now they want to scale their business beyond their social media audience. They recommend using ads instead of hoping that the same people who like your content on social media will eventually buy. With ads, you can target a larger pool of potential clients. However, if you have a post that isn't converting organically, throwing a lot of ad spend behind it won't help. You need to use ads in a very targeted way. For example, with a thousand pound budget, you could get 333 leads to a landing page converting at fifty percent, which then generates thirteen program sales. If your 14-day funnel converts at four percent, these sales result in recurring clients at seventy-five percent, paying £873 per month in total. The profit from this system is £1,300. If you reinvest the profits into round two, you can generate even more sales. TJ applied this method and generated 14 new clients and £1,200 of monthly recurring revenue. Bodhi generated $4,000 in two weeks. Colin converted 83 percent of his leads into applications and 50 percent of them into sales. Carl generated $5,840 from a $174 ad spend. We can help guide you through this process, but there's no magic wand. It's categorically cheaper to follow a blueprint than to waste time and ad spend. We've spent over half a million pounds in ads and a lot of it could have been optimized better if we knew what we were doing from the outset. We're happy to chat with you to see if we can help, and we won't pressure you to join our program if we don't think it's a good fit. # What Qualifications do you need to start online coaching? You actually don't need any fitness qualifications for online coaching or to work with us, as long as you have liability insurance in place. Our programme doesn't teach nutrition or exercise physiology etc, so the key requirement is that you're passionate about getting a result for your client. Our programme specifically helps with putting that expertise in front of the right people, helping you generate leads reliably, and the supporting systems to coach 30+ clients. Jonny and I (Yusef) actually don't have the PT level 3 qualification ourselves, because we don't work with people in-person. It's a separate skillset so I personally wouldn't wait until you've completed that to get started. I'm guessing you've seen the overview of our process? If you do want to book in a chat with one of the team, here's a link to book a slot: https://onlinefitproworkshop.com/4-survey36372078?el=emailinquiry Here's a quick story on how we got the qualifications wrong when we started out. We went to seminars and conferences to learn about programming, nutrition, and more. But it didn't do much for our business, as we realized later. We never had to use most of the things we learned, and it didn't help us get more clients. So, how do you decide if you need further qualifications as an online coach? ## Legal and Safe Practice There's a distinction between what you need to practice legally and safely, and what helps you give the best service to your clients. Spending money on certifications and extra letters after your name won't necessarily help you get more clients. To legally and safely practice, you need liability insurance. Speak to a broker to find the right insurance for your business. If you offer offline training, you may already have liability insurance. Ask your underwriter or broker if you can add an online aspect to it. If you work in person, you need a level three qualification. If you plan to work with people online, you will need a level three qualification as well. ## Focus on Marketing and Sales To make your business profitable faster, invest in learning marketing, automation software, business systems, and sales. Once you have stable revenue, you can consider getting certified if that interests you. However, don't waste time and money on certifications before your business is making money. Instead, focus on gaining experience by working with clients. They are your best teachers and will give you more knowledge than trying to preempt every possible problem they might have. ## Helping Your Clients Avoid writing meal plans unless you are a dietician. Instead, focus on teaching your clients how to make healthy choices. To improve your business, focus on lead flow, and improve your ability to answer questions. Over time, you will gain experience and spot patterns that will make you a better coach. Keep a second brain to document any information you learn from seminars, clients, or niche research. This will allow you to build a personal encyclopedia and become a better coach. ## Creating a Course To create a course, compile all the information you have on a topic, such as nutrition. This includes everything you've learned from working with clients, eating at a restaurant, and other experiences. The course becomes a valuable resource for your current and future clients. To assemble the course, organize the information you've gathered over time. This is easier than starting from scratch, and you can adjust it based on feedback from clients. By combining your knowledge with market feedback, you can create a program that works for a wider range of clients than you initially thought possible. # How much does propanebusiness cost? The programme is between 3-4k depending on a few options. That includes the 2x/week hotseats with lifetime support, access to the community and modules to build your automated selling system and group coaching model. If that's within budget for you or something you want to discuss further, feel free to book in a chat with the team here. We also offer payment plans if cash flow is a problem. # Do I need testimonials? We’re often asked whether you need testimonials to succeed online. It’s something people often want to know when they’re new to coaching, or are moving from offline to online coaching. When we first started online coaching, testimonials for online personal training weren’t that common. Nowadays, there are a lot more online coaching options out there. **But if it was all about having the most testimonials, there’d be no room for anybody to ever get new clients.** People in our community get new clients every day with no testimonials. Of course, testimonials can definitely help. But there also has to be an implicit assumption that what you do as a coach works. And you have to communicate that in different ways – not just with photos of people who’ve lost weight. ## The problem with testimonials It’s easy to look at some of the bigger online fitness businesses like Herbalife, who have hundreds of testimonials, and worry that you don’t have any. But Herbalife have millions of people using their programme, so if only 1% of them lose weight while consuming their product, they can then take the credit. And the problem is, this doesn’t take into account things like: - Consistent exercise and calorie deficit - The timeline (it’s easy to fake dates, so how do you know that a 12-week plan didn’t really take someone a while year?) - Whether steroids or other drugs were involved - The fact that the photo could just be completely fake So in reality, Herbalife might have played a very small part in someone’s body transformation. As it becomes easier to manipulate information online, people are slowly becoming more wise to there being a bit more to testimonials than meets the eye. Fortunately, there is more information available to people than ever before, so things don’t seem as black and white as they did just a few years ago. _We’re more aware that different solutions work for different people._ ## “Before and After” photos “Before and After” photos also don’t tell you what sort of headspace someone was in when the photo was taken. I can guarantee that when we’ve gone through weight loss programmes ourselves, we were feeling pretty terrible when some of the “After” photos were taken. **We definitely didn’t feel as good as we looked.** ** So if anything, all a testimonial is showing is that you’re able to help someone lose weight. If that’s not an assumption your client is already making, then there’s a far bigger trust issue going on that can’t be solved by two photos on the internet. This brings us to our next point. If you’re switching to online coaching… ## Don’t go for the generic fat loss programme You’ll be going up against industry giants with no chance of getting heard. It’s also not specific enough to get someone’s attention. And seeing some impressive “Before and After” photos on a website won’t be enough to convince most people to sign up to your programme. Because clients have different metabolisms, different diets and different goals, so they want to know that you’ll be able to get results for _them_. And they want to know that your system is a reliable, proven way to reach their goals. Find out more about how to pick your niche as an online coach in this video: ## How to use Testimonials the right way We’re not telling you not to use testimonials. But you should make sure that you use them in a way that helps convert clients. When used well, testimonials should help people make a decision to use your programme. They should show people how other clients like themselves used your programme to solve a specific problem. Some of the best testimonials we’ve received for Propane Business testimonials have been videos. These a better idea of how it actually _feels_ to go through the process and how we supported them along the way. And that’s a much better way to communicate how you can help someone than a [photograph.](http://photograph.it/) # How do I start? If you want to learn more about our process, including a walkthrough of our system for converting clients, you can [grab an overview video here.](https://propanefitness.com/casestudy?el=pbwebsitedoyouneedtestimonialstosucceed) Or, if you’re ready to chat to us about your own online fitness business and how we can help you build it, you can [book in a call with us here.](https://onlinefitproworkshop.com/4-survey36372078?el=pbwebsite%20https://propanefitness.com/casestudy?el=pbwebsitedoyouneedtestimonialstosucceed)