Thriving Student: Dale Schalkwijk

Dale started personal training in 2012 while studying towards his physiotherapy degree. He dabbled here and there in online training, but says it only went okay. “It was nothing special,” he recalls. “I was worried I couldn’t motivate and keep them accountable without being there in person.”

Dale’s final push into the world of online training came after he spent another three years of post-graduate physiotherapy study. “I had moved to a different state to study and constantly travelled home to see family,” he says. “Since I had clients in both locations, I needed a way to train them both especially when I moved back home after I finished studying.”

Dale saw his need for the flexibility of online training, both for his own personal travels, as well as his ability to take exceptional care of his clients. That’s when he began investigating the Online Trainer Academy.

“I had followed Jonathan Goodman’s work for years, and I think I am one of the only people to have collected all of his work…literally all of his personal training resources,” says Dale. “So I enrolled in the Academy because I trusted Jon had developed another awesome product that I would learn from.”

Dale loved the flexibility and personalization of the course, and how quickly he could apply it to his coaching career.

“I liked the fact it was a course you could do step-by-step rather than having a coach just saying what worked for them,” he says. “I had no idea I would be getting lifetime updates and now free business coaching. WOW!”

The Academy includes built-for-you scripts, templates, strategies and systems for you to apply to your online training, and Dale – like many of the Academy’s students – found this invaluable. “The systems set up was by far my most important takeaway,” says Dale. “I wanted to be efficient in training clients, not spend all day texting back and forth for example.”

After completing the course, Dale quickly set to work redesigning his website and took quick action immediately to attract new leads. Fast forward to 2018, he is now a qualified Doctor of Physiotherapy with a booming online business thanks to his hard work and the training he got from the Academy.

“I have roughly 20 online and hybrid clients with a few pure 1-on-1 clients,” he says. “My main goal was to over-deliver to 1-1 clients and give them huge value extras at no time cost for me. That keeps me busy on the part-time scale for personal training but here comes the biggest advantage…”

Dale uses online training to add more value to his clients, helping him to earn more in the long run:

“With physiotherapy I have managed to value-add online training to my services to help patients recover quicker and then have them keep paying me after treatment finishes while they do their rehab at home,” says Dale. “So at present I have 88 online physiotherapy rehab patients having gone through, or going through, a 3-month to 12-month recovery program. I have been able to leverage my time to see more people and still do the things I love like go to the cinemas for midnight screenings, compete in Surf Lifesaving National and World Championships and see friends for lunch everyday. Thank you PTDC and the Online Trainer Academy team!”