From €9 an Hour Making Sandwiches to Two Gyms Full of Elite Coaches
By Sean McGarrity · 29 April 2026
One of our very first graduates. Now he runs two gyms, and every coach on his team came through Elite.
Scott Furlong's dad came to visit him at work one day.
He found his son on the gym floor with a mop in his hand.
After all the money he'd spent on Scott's education, he was horrified.
That moment lit a fire under Scott. Today he runs two gyms, and his coaching team are all Elite graduates.
Here's how he got from one to the other.
Is College Always the Right Path?
Scott's dad was a traditionalist. School, college, get a job, get a pension, be happy.
But Scott wasn't happy.
He was making sandwiches for €9 an hour, and he knew a 9 to 5 wasn't for him.
So he did a gym instructor course, which meant step aerobics. For a man with two left feet, this wasn't good.
It did show him one thing though. He liked the coaching side. And he figured there had to be more to the fitness industry than this, so he did a bit of research and found Elite.
He was one of our very first graduates, back in 2011.
A Glorified Cleaner With a PT Cert
Here's the honest bit. Qualifying didn't fix everything overnight.
Scott started out in a commercial gym as a glorified cleaner with a PT cert. Sitting behind a desk, not coaching anyone.
That's where his dad found him with the mop.
He knew he had to start thinking ahead and making things happen. The goal was his own facility.
The Hard Years
He started by renting space from another Elite graduate, Johnny Bruton at Smart Training.
He tried Groupon deals and ended up coaching people for €7 an hour. That lesson stuck. In his words: "You soon realise what you're worth."
Then he spent two years renting a gym in a school. Great at first, but the hours were restricted and it was never going to work long term.
He was working long hours for okay money. He knew he couldn't do it forever, but he didn't know how to change it.
All kinds of things went wrong along the way. That's normal. What made the difference was what he did next.
He Asked for Help
In 2015 Scott came to a Facebook Live event we ran.
"I knew nothing about Facebook. I thought the more likes you get the better. Likes don't pay the bills."
That event opened his eyes. He joined one of our first mentoring and coaching programmes, and he worked with us for five or six years.
We taught him sales and marketing. How to structure his gym, his business and his offers. The stuff nobody tells you when they hand you a cert.
Not long after, he said this to me: "I am now in my own facility and have gone from earning 9 euro an hour making sandwiches to earning 9k a month."
That was around 2015. It's a lot higher now.
What Elite Actually Gave Him
Ask Scott what the course gave him back in 2011 and he'll tell you two things.
It changed the lens he viewed fitness through. And it gave him a system for getting clients results that's predictable, profitable and repeatable.
That system is what he built his gyms on. We've been refining it ever since, and it's the same foundation we teach today.
Two Gyms Full of Elite Coaches
Today Scott runs FHP, which stands for Fitness, Health and Performance. He's got two gyms, and his whole coaching team came through Elite.
His gym manager came from Elite too, and helped him launch the second gym.
Why only Elite? Because we're the only ones sending him people with the knowledge, tools, skills and abilities to walk into his gym and start coaching from day one. He doesn't have to spend six months getting them up to speed. They're ready to go.
He's done the interviews. He's been hugely disappointed by candidates showing up waving certs around, with no ability to go with them.
Sound familiar? It's exactly what Darragh Butler found at DBK Fitness, and why his whole team are Elite students too.
Scott's Advice If You're Thinking About It
Everyone has fear. Control it and use it to push you forward. And remember you can always go back. If you don't try, you've failed anyway, so why fear failure?
Act fast. Scott says he should have acted faster. Take action, and don't be afraid to make mistakes.
Value yourself. Know what you want to do, stick with it, and believe in what you do. Trust the process.
Get support. Find someone who'll hold you accountable. And don't be afraid to ask for help.
Pay people who are doing what you want to do. This was the big one. Invest in yourself and learn from people who've actually done it.
That's why he invested in Elite at the very beginning, and kept investing in us. It's paid him back many times over. He's watched plenty of others try to do it on the cheap, and they never made it stick.
Could This Be You?
Scott's story didn't happen overnight. It took years, a few bad Groupon deals and one very awkward visit from his dad.
But he's proof of what happens when you learn from people who've actually done it, and you keep going.
If you want to see what a career like Scott's pays at each stage, I've broken it down in How Much Does a Personal Trainer Earn in Ireland.
And if you want to find out whether you're Elite material, let's have a chat. If you're not ready, I'll tell you straight.
Sean "Trainer Maker" McGarrity