Tyler Read is an industry-leading certified personal trainer and successful entrepreneur. He became an authority on fitness and nutrition by obtaining a bachelor’s in kinesiology, 3 fitness certifications, and 10+ years as a personal trainer. He is also an expert on building careers and businesses within the fitness industry as exemplified from building a 6 figure personal training business than building a six-figure personal training career business, PTPioneer. Tyler wants to continue to grow his reach and influence within the personal training and nutrition coaching industry so he can help guide and educate more people who want to get into this sink or swim type of industry.

Can you tell our readers about your background? 

I went to college at Sonoma State University and majored in kinesiology and pre-physical therapy. Before that, I grew up in Santa Cruz, California. I played a lot of sports in high school and discovered my love of fitness and decided to focus on that in college. After graduating I got my personal training certification through NASM and I started working as a personal trainer.

During my time as a personal trainer, I’d always get friends asking me what the job was like, how much money I was making, how I got started, and what the best personal training certifications are. It was a difficult question to answer myself and even harder to put it simply for others because there are so many legitimate options out there. 

So as I was working as a personal trainer, I began to put together PTPioneer in order to start answering these questions about which certifications to get, how to study for them, and how to pass the exams. That was the beginning of PTPioneer. Right away, I got a lot of feedback that the information I was providing was really helpful in other people’s journeys towards becoming a personal trainer so I’ve continued to follow this passion of mine. 

What inspired you to start your business? 

Besides wanting to help my friends and clients that were asking about how to get started as a personal trainer, I also wanted to start my own business and be able to work for myself. That had always been a goal of mine and I did know that you could make money from having your own website and getting traffic to it from search engines or paid ads. 

I wanted to learn more about internet marketing because I knew several people who had their own online businesses and were able to leave their desk jobs and work for themselves. 

I was inspired to start PTPioneer because I could help people become personal trainers, become my own boss, work from wherever I wanted, and whatever hours I wanted.

Where is your business based?

Technically my business is based in the United States in Portland, Oregon, but we do have people on our team working from all over the world. We have people from South Africa, Colombia, Peru, Australia, the US, and the UK. 

How did you start your business? What were the first steps you took? 

My business started from getting asked the same questions about personal training and over and over being asked if I could help people get started choosing a certification. The next step was creating the website because this was a whole new world for me that I didn’t know anything about. I started to dive into learning about WordPress, hosting, domains, and how to start a blog. Getting that all set up was a task I had to take on after I got home from working full time as a personal trainer,

What has been the most effective way of raising awareness for your business?

Outreach. Reaching out to other people who are doing similar things in the fitness industry and personal trainer certification organizations themselves to see if I can become a writer on their blog or get a mention on social media. I sought out these sorts of collaborations in order to show them and their audience what I was doing and why it was important for the industry.

Typically I get good feedback from personal outreach and I’m able to connect and reach their audience which builds brand recognition and awareness for PTPioneer.

What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?

Figuring out the tech side of things. I already had the knowledge about personal training, but I didn’t know anything about tech or writing good content for the internet. I didn't have the money to hire web developers so I had to learn all on my own. 

The hardest part was building the website. Even when I finally built it, it didn't look good. So then I had to figure out how to design it and when I tried something new, something else would break because of a plugin conflict or something else. That was a major challenge in addition to getting hacked, which has happened multiple times.

That kind of stuff is super hard because you put all your energy into a website and just to have it disappear because you broke something and don’t understand how to fix it. The site is now live and functional, but the ongoing site maintenance is still a challenge for me. However, I overcome all these challenges through personal research and taking it one step at a time. I’m also now able to hire the proper experts to help when I need it which is a major relief.

How do you stay focused? 

I honestly want to help people succeed. I get a lot of people reaching out to me with additional or specific questions. They want personal guidance from someone who knows why they might choose one certification or path over another. That and the fact that I love being my own boss are the two major driving forces for me and keeping me focused. I don't want to give up this lifestyle where I can travel and work for myself. That’s a huge motivating factor for me.

How do you differentiate your business from the competition?

My business has the most organized website in terms of mapping out what aspiring personal trainers and nutrition or fitness coaches need to do next on their career path. I clearly lay out what step 1 is and step 2 etc. A lot of other sites have some of the same information, but it’s not organized, there’s no clear direction about what you need to do for example after you get your CPR and what you do after you choose a certification or how to apply for a job and figuring out what type of gym you want to work in. No matter what stage of your career you're in, we always have a clear direction for what to do, where to go, and how to advance your career.

What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business? 

Outreach has also been my most effective marketing strategy for PTPioneer. Connecting with people, tapping into their audiences, being able to collaborate with them on projects, and getting social media or website mentions from their brands. Each of these things has been extremely effective in building brand awareness and SEO in order to help rank my content higher on YouTube and in search engines. 

What’s your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?

Create what I like to call the research and application balance. When I first started, I was researching all the time but had not yet done anything. I got caught in an information overload. I was researching and researching and there was always so much more information. I didn't know where to start so I was in this analysis paralysis.

I wasn’t doing anything. The more I learned, the more I got stuck. Split your time at least 50/50 between researching and just starting. If your goal is to create your WordPress site, just buy the domain and hosting and install WordPress then do a bit more research and come back to do more. Balance the doing and the learning. 

What’s your favorite app, blog, and book? Why?

Favorite App: Honestly, Google Chrome because it serves as every app in one.

Favorite Blog: I really like smartpassiveincome.com because it helped me learn so much about internet marketing, SEO, how to work for myself, and how to become a full-time blogger.

Favorite Book: Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card because I really like sci-fi. I love that book. I've read it three times.

What’s your favorite business tool or resource? Why? 

Asana because it can organize my whole team. We organize our projects into separate tasks and we can work on everything in one location as opposed to keeping track of everything through email. Asana makes things so much easier. I use it for myself personally and for my team.

Who is your business role model? Why?

One of my best friend's older brothers is my business role model. He's been running an internet business ever since leaving high school. He taught me that I could do it too and quit my 9-5. As much as I love personal training, I love traveling as well. He helped motivate me to get started and he's had a lot of success which gives me even more motivation.

How do you balance work and life? 

Setting a stop time on my work day because if I didn’t, I would probably keep on working all night. There’s always an infinite amount of things to do and I really like doing it, but it’s just as important for my business success to allow myself time to cool down, to work out, to hang out with friends, and just relax and read a book. So I set a schedule and I stick to it. I set a stop time 6 PM and I don’t allow myself to work after that time. 

What’s your favorite way to decompress?

Working out is hands down my favorite way to decompress. It doesn't need to be an intense workout like high intensity interval training (HIIT) or anything like that, but it could be just walking outside, taking a hike, or going to the gym and lifting weights. Exercise—any form of it.

What do you have planned for the next six months?

Well, I am hoping to get back back to Colombia where my apartment is. I'm currently stuck in Peru because of COVID-19. Everybody during this time is kind of stuck, but in my life, I’m looking to get back to Columbia. In my business, I’m looking to create more connections.

A lot of people have been online talking about the change from in person training to online training, I've been doing a lot of work to help fitness professionals transition to an online platform. Helping personal trainers get websites created, teaching them how to work with clients online so they can have work even during this pandemic. I’m working with that and excited about the hybrid future of personal and online personal training.

How can our readers connect with you?

Visit my website at ptpioneer.com and check us out as PTPioneer on Youtube.