A SWOT Analysis Is Six Short Steps, And The Level 3 Course Has You Write One For Your Own Personal Training Business

The page that answers "will this pay" before you spend anything

Somebody weighing up leaving a job to train people for a living usually carries one worry about the business side: the money. It sits in the back of the head while the exercise side feels like the fun part. Criterion 5.3 of the Level 2/3 personal training course is where that worry gets a piece of paper.

The criterion reads "Devise a SWOT analysis for your personal training business". SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. On the course it is four short lists, written about the business you plan to run, and it is a page of work, not a degree.

The six steps, in the course's own words

One of the things you learn on our CIMSPA-recognised personal training course is a simple order for it:

1. Gather information about the business: its history, target market, services and competition.
2. List the strengths, such as unique skills, reputation and positive feedback from clients.
3. List the weaknesses, such as limited equipment, lack of experience or a small client base.
4. List the opportunities, which are external, such as growing interest in fitness, new technology or favourable market conditions.
5. List the threats, also external, such as increased competition, changes in what consumers want or an economic downturn.
6. Evaluate and prioritise each item in order of importance to the business.

An action plan comes out of the end of it. The next criterion, 5.4, asks how the strengths and opportunities will be used and how the weaknesses and threats will be dealt with.

Where a brand new trainer starts

The weaknesses list is the one people expect to be embarrassing. The course puts "lack of experience" and "a small client base" on it as ordinary examples, so a trainer with no clients yet writes them down as the starting position. That is what the list is for.

Strengths are easier to find than most people think. A background in the military, a previous career in teaching, a loyal local network, a skill with a particular group of people: all of it counts as unique skills and reputation. A learner who writes five honest strengths and five honest weaknesses has done most of the work.

Opportunities and threats look outwards. Two or three of each is enough, and putting them in order of importance is the part that turns a list into a plan.

Why it comes before the first client

Doing the SWOT on paper means the first month is spent on the item at the top of the list, whatever that turns out to be. Somebody who has written "small client base" as their top weakness knows to spend week one on getting people through the door, not on buying equipment.

That is the whole point of the course unit: business planning is a small habit, taught alongside the programme design, not a separate dark art. The learning is visual and interactive, with the worksheet and your own typed or dictated answers, so a SWOT is something you build, not something you memorise.

Where to go next

The full route from a standing start to a qualified trainer is on the become a personal trainer page, with the Level 3 course at Level 3 Personal Trainer. Once you are enrolled, PT Manager opens at sign-up, free, so the plan you write has somewhere to live.

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