5 Tips for Starting Your Virtual Business

“A little action often spurs a lot of momentum.”― Noah Scalin

While many fitness professionals rushed quickly into teaching & training virtually in 2020, this concept was not new. The industry had been expecting this trend for years, but had been dragging its feet. 2020 just forced the pace to pick up.

I have moved often in my adult life, causing me to rebuild my business of personal training clients, small group bootcamps, and group fitness classes each time. However, for the majority of the moves, I brought some clients along for the ride. When I left Tennessee for California in 2009, some of my clients trusted me to train them virtually with excel spreadsheets & links to video tutorials of me demonstrating the moves. When I left California for Utah a year later, I kept a virtual bootcamp going with youtube links and emails. While in Utah, I partnered with fitness professionals across the country to lead online small group challenges (hey Wisconsin ladies, hey!) like STEPS & ThankFLOW, in addition to my live sessions with the ever-powerful Tess & my county ladies. Memories…

All of this is to say your online fitness business is possible and it doesn’t have to be complex or high-tech. You don’t have to spend a ton of money or time – but you do need to spend a lot of effort in planning. Here are 5 Tips for Starting Your Virtual Business.

1. Decide What You Are Offering

Are you going to be teaching virtually live classes on a service like Zoom or Facebook Live, requiring people to be online at the same time as you? Would you rather offer an On Demand library for people to use when they are able to fit it in? Are you training in real-time or by pre-recorded video tutorials? Before you jump into teaching or training, decide WHAT you are offering. Just because it was something you were doing before (live yoga at 6pm), doesn’t mean it’s what you should be offering online. You are not trapped by “it’s what I have always done…”

2. Set Up Your Tech

You know what you are going to offer! Great! Now, you need to figure out your tech pieces such as:

• Streaming Platform
• Delivery Service
• Client & Trainer Apps
• Payment Gateway
• Royalty-Free Music Service

While it seems like a lot to figure out, it’s not. Just take it step-by-step and tackle one thing at a time. You can choose to be scrappy and built it all yourself or you can choose a service that does it all for you. Can’t decide? Message me for my suggestions!

3. Find Your Space

Your teaching or training space will be important for a great virtual teaching experience for you as well as your clients. Brainstorm on some great locations for your filming space and then use this checklist to determine if the space is a good fit:

• Can you move in the following patterns without hitting walls or furniture?
  • Take 2 moving squats to the right.
  • Return to the center and repeat to the left. 
  • Return to the center and take 2 walking lunges forward. 
  • Return to the center and take 2 reverse walking lunges.

4. Collect Your Equipment

No, you don’t need a movie camera to make this work but you do need some pieces of equipment. What you need is going to be based on your offerings and the services you are going to provide. This list will at least get you started.

• Camera Device (phone, laptop, tablet)
• Mic (AVNow.com)
• External Speaker

5. Ask For Help

This is not the time to be an island. This is the time to ask others for help. Find someone(S) who can help you do the following:

• Test your new business offering from the sign up to delivery and experience 
• Practice teaching or training before going public
• Another fitness professional to evaluate your on camera teaching

Need more advice on what lights to pick (if any), where to set up your camera, and how to best use your current teaching schedule? We all do! Message me for my suggestions!