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Music.
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Welcome to Pilates Elephants. I happen to be here with Heath Lander. Heath.
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Hey, Raph. How are you doing? I'm doing early in the morning. How are you doing?
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I'm doing, getting late in the evening. Yeah.
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Almost all- What are we going to talk about? Yeah, well, almost all Pilates
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studio owners get this wrong. We got it wrong in our studio for years and years.
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And almost everybody I see professionally and also just looking on social media.
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Looking at hiring ads, et cetera, almost everybody still gets this wrong.
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And this is around, if you're getting this wrong as a studio owner,
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you know you're getting it wrong if you have the following symptoms.
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Uh one you stress about your team like you can't find good people you can't keep good people,
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maybe you just can't find enough instructors for
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your team uh and you're
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teaching all of the classes or you know a lot of classes maybe you
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have a team like you know a good size team but
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they're not aligned and you like you honestly wouldn't
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go and you know give your most fastidious client
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you know to any of your instructors and say yeah you have an awesome
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class with with you know with that person uh if you if your clients are churning
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out you know if they're if your cancellation rate is 10 percent is above 10
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per month so for instance if you
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have 50 members if five or more of those members cancel on a given month.
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That's a symptom that you've got this problem. Are there any other symptoms, Heath?
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Yeah, I think that's pretty good. That's a good place to start.
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Yeah. And the problem is you have not – you don't have the skill of hiring,
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training, and leading a team of amazing instructors yet.
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But good news, we're going to fix all that right now.
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In 40 minutes. Yeah. Well, even if it takes 45, I don't mind going over time.
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All right so i think we should probably catch something that if insofar as i've
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got any insight at all to offer to this you're probably a person who's either started a studio,
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or you bought a studio that's a one-man band and your you built your business
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up out of your passion to give positive pilates experiences to people i don't
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have much to say to people who've bought franchises that already have their
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own internal systems that have been built out. Oh, no.
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This applies equally to franchise owners. I know abundant people who run franchises,
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and that's this exact problem. Right, right. Okay, cool.
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To whatever extent I've got any experience or insider expertise,
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mine has all been working with individual solo business owners. Yeah.
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No, this applies equally to franchise owners, and dear franchise owners,
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just stick around, because this is for you too. Yeah, cool.
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So, yeah, Heath, you know, like I think we used to do, when we had a studio,
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well, for the first six, seven years that I had a studio and I don't know, I can't speak for you.
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In your studio, I'm guessing you had this problem for a while.
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First couple of years you ran it. True or false? say
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the problem again like not knowing not knowing how to
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hire train lead and fire when
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necessary a team of the better part
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of the first decade yeah um and so dear listener you know here he's he's here's
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the mindset that that accompanies this problem uh you you're teaching all the
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classes you're working ridiculous hours you're like holy shit i need somebody
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i need some instructors here, like I'm drowning, I'm overwhelmed.
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And you put an ad on social media and the ad says, we're hiring, click here to apply.
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Like that's literally what it says. Or if you...
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If you add a bit more, it might say, we're looking for somebody passionate who loves to teach Pilates.
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It's like, yeah, that describes literally every Pilates instructor.
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So in other words, you put zero filters on your ad.
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You just literally say, okay, if you're a Pilates instructor, I will hire you.
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Or, and this is, I see this a lot with franchise owners as well.
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You put an ad up on some job website, wherever in the world you are,
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there's some kind of job, whether it's like seek.com or idea or whatever it is.
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And you say basically a complete formula, like every other Pilates studio says,
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like looking for comprehensively 450 hour certified instructor,
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you know, must be certified on this apparatus, this apparatus,
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this apparatus, and this apparatus.
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You know, we, you know, we, we like teaching Pilates and we provide safe and
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effective workouts for our clients. If that's you, apply.
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In other words, you're filtering for all the wrong things, the exact same things
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everyone else is filtering for.
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If you find somebody who meets those criteria, they're going to be the exact
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same person teaching at 99 other studios in your area because you're filtering
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for the exact same things that everyone else is filtering for.
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You're either not filtering at all when you hire or you're filtering for the wrong things.
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That's mistake number one. Mistake number two is the mindset around hiring people.
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And Heath, we were talking off-air before we started this, and this was your insight.
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So, you know, because of the gratitude mindset, too much gratitude, essentially.
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Yeah, so how did you explain this before?
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Oh yeah so and this was i certainly lived
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this and i've talked through this with dozens of studio
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owners and like you say so you're you're running
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a studio you've done so many things right
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that you've got too many clients and
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classes to handle for yourself you've got this fantastic problem
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which is that you need someone to help you run your business but by
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the time you recognize that you're pretty much burned out right you're exhausted
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and so then you advertise and as raf says you just
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throw the net as wide as you can because whether you
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realize it or not you're desperate and anyone that applies
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essentially you're grateful that they applied and so
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you're you thank god you're going to help me with my problem and this
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could be that they're a fresh grad and you think awesome they're freshly trained
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they'll know what they're doing or it's someone who's been teaching for 15 20
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25 years and you think fantastic you really know what you're doing and you drop
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them in front of your clients and hey presto your clients go i don't care who
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that person is, they're not doing what you do.
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You just broke your brand. You just put someone in front of your clients who's not doing what you do.
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And when I say this, I mean, I was too busy going, thank goodness I found someone
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who works a few shifts so I can sleep in one day a week.
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Little do I know that they're in there teaching in a way that my clients, hold on a minute.
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I just had two years of Heath every Saturday morning. Now I've got someone doing
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something completely different.
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It's not necessarily bad. It's just different. And people don't like change.
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The other way that manifests is when you might, I mean, and you might have bought
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a studio where there's already, you know, five instructors there.
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Or you might have, you know, gradually hired on people to add extra classes
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and you hired one person to do the mornings, another person to do the evenings
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and whatever, and you gave them new classes.
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So they didn't, you know, the clients in those classes didn't go,
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oh, that's not the owner teaching. I reject that style.
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You've just got Sally teaching the mornings in a contemporary style and Mary
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teaching the evenings in a classical style.
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And then, you know, Fred teaching the lunchtimes, you know, strength-based reformer.
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And, you know, you've essentially got no brand cohesion.
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And so the people who go to the morning classes, if they went to the evening classes,
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they'd be shocked and you know disappointed it's like
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what this isn't even pilates this is crazy like what the heck's going on
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here and so you've essentially build a uh
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just like a a constellation of random
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instructors teaching random different takes on pilates with zero through line
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of like our brand here yeah yeah and what you end up with is such a wide variety
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of styles within the studio.
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The only way you can describe that is to be so broadly generic that you don't
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differentiate from other companies.
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And so then ultimately, you're just in a race to the bottom price because you
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can't say that we do something that they don't do.
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Right. And essentially, I mean, the two massive problems with doing that,
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and it's like, you know, you and I both made this mistake for years.
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And so we speak of what we, that which we know, is the two big,
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massive problems with that issue is number one, you're essentially commodifying what you do.
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You're saying like, there is no brand here.
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All Pilates is the same and equal and lovely and wonderful. And we don't stand for anything.
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We just like whatever is all good. And so anything with the word Pilates in it is totally fine here.
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And so what you're literally doing there is you're saying like,
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well, all Pilates is equally valid.
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It's like, okay, great. And what about the studio that opens up down the block,
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they're equally valid too.
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And the other five studios that open up down the block, they're also equally
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valid. And you can't differentiate and you can't say one thing's better than the other.
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So like you're literally doing the opposite of standing out in the market and
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differentiating yourself.
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You're saying, no, no, we're literally just the same as everybody else because
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we don't have a style here.
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That's problem number one.
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And problem number two is just actually the quality, right?
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So there's branding. There's like, okay, we do classical or we do contemporary
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or we do strength-based reformer or we do high-intensity dynamic reformer.
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Whatever you do, you need to stand for something. And if you think about any
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business that you patronize on a regular level as a client –.
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Okay. Whether that's a restaurant, whether that's a clothing brand,
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whether it's an airline, whether it's, you know, a dance studio,
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like whatever it is, business that you go to, like, do you prefer it when you
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have a consistent experience when you go there?
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Or do you prefer it if you just have a totally random experience every time
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you walk in the door? I mean, fucking do.
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Like, of course, you know, you want to know that you're going to have a consistent
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experience when you, when you go there.
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Like if you go to rent a car and one day they're like, oh yeah we rent you know you
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know mid-sized cars next next week you go back and like oh no we only do pickup
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trucks you know it's like but i
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don't want to pick you know like that's not what i'm here for or if
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you go to a restaurant and it's like you know you go there for your favorite
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spaghetti dish and then you go back again next week and they're like oh no we
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don't serve spaghetti it's a sushi restaurant this week you know because the
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chef who works on wednesdays doesn't know how to uh doesn't know how to cook
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spaghetti they only know how to cook sushi you know it's like That is not how you win clients back,
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right? You have to stand for something.
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So that's the first massive problem is when you just take all comers and don't
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have any through line on what you teach is you don't have a brand.
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And the second thing is you don't have quality. Because even if you are like,
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okay, everybody's classical or everybody's contemporary or everybody's strength-based
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reformer or everybody's dynamic or whatever it is, it's like, well,
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I mean, dear listener, do you believe that literally every classical Pilates
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instructor is equally skilled or are there some better than others?
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And of course, some are better than others.
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In any area of human endeavor, some people are better than others. And-
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Do you want to just randomly throw anyone into that class in front of your clients
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or do you want to have the best ones in your class?
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Yeah, I mean, when you go and buy bananas at the fruit shop,
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do you just literally close your eyes and grab any banana or do you choose the
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ones that are the right amount of ripe?
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Do you discriminate when you buy things? Yes, of course you do. We all do.
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You don't just want literally anything that fits that category of you know,
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whatever it is you're buying.
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So neither do your clients. They don't want just some random instructor.
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They want a really good instructor.
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And so the two massive problems with not selecting very, very stringently and
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just being grateful that anyone's going to teach for you are like,
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you don't have a brand and you don't have quality.
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And by default, that's what happens. Like entropy in the universe always increases.
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Like if you, it's the chance of you just randomly hiring five Pilates instructors
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and them all being amazing dynamic reformer instructors is like one in 20 billion.
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So the chance of them not all being great dynamic reformer instructors is like 19,999,999,999 to one.
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Right so so by default it's
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going to be bad right you have to make it good if
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you want it to be like it's not going to just spontaneously arrange itself
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into order and perfection you have to create that all right so the first problem
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is you just don't have a filter when you hire and the reason and and the reason
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for that is you're like you're very grateful just to get anybody on the schedule
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the third and the flip of that so there's just a catch.
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Sorry, I broke your flow. I can hold that thought. Well,
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so what I see with that, and it's certainly what happened for me,
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is that if you are that person that's built up your business,
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what I've seen time and again is that you fail, through no fault of your own, to recognize,
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identify, and let alone value what it is that you're doing that,
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at a really granular level, differentiates you from other Pilates studios.
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And, you know, as Raf was saying, you might align yourself as contemporary or classical or dynamic.
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You might even be aligned with a Bassi or a Stodd or a Polestar.
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But firstly, your clients don't, nine out of 10 clients don't give a flying
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rat's bottom about that because they don't know what it means.
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It's also other people are saying the same thing.
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The way those brands describe what they do is the exact generic description
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that Raf was talking about earlier. We teach safe and effective Pilates.
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Right where you lengthen and strengthen your muscles with the breath patterns
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connected blah blah blah and then what.
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What the process that i go through when i'm helping people with this problem is.
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The details absolutely matter. And ironically, it's the details that the clients
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recognize, not the branding.
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You know, the website colors, yeah, they might remember, but they don't remember
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the generic terms that you've got on your homepage that you might've got from
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a training provider or from chat GPT.
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What they remember is that you as their instructor have a particular way of
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doing countdowns or you as an instructor always do the same warmup or you as
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an instructor do your long stretch on one spring with a low foot bar every time
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at the beginning. and then you progress from there.
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Whatever those little tiny details are that you've worked out,
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give your clients a good experience, those tiny details compound to become your brand.
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And you have to find ways to describe that. And that's a challenging process.
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But when you can do that, you can tell people what you do. And then you've got
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metrics that you can give to your staff.
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And I'm jumping ahead a bit now to where Raf was going, I think.
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This is what gives you a quality control system are
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you doing x five times every session and
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if you're not you need to yeah and if you're doing you know so yeah
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well i think it's it's fractal which means
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basically it's a recursive pattern that basically like if you look at uh at
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any level of magnification you zoom out you zoom in it's still the same shape
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and so what i mean by that is like dear listener i mean i'm assuming when you
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teach pilates you believe attention to detail is important right when you teach Pilates,
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you're just like, oh yeah, just do whatever. Your form doesn't matter.
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As long as you're on the reform and moving, it's all good.
00:16:56.891 --> 00:17:01.811
Now, not a criticism of that position, but I think it is important to pay attention
00:17:01.811 --> 00:17:05.191
to people's position and alignment and stuff in Pilates.
00:17:05.311 --> 00:17:09.291
I mean, if you don't give a shit about that, it's like, I don't know why you're teaching Pilates.
00:17:10.511 --> 00:17:14.251
So, all right, well, if you think details are important in how you do Pilates
00:17:14.251 --> 00:17:20.751
and how you teach Pilates, why do you then not think it's important to pay attention
00:17:20.751 --> 00:17:23.311
to the details of how your teachers teach Pilates?
00:17:24.329 --> 00:17:27.029
And have them aligned in how they do it.
00:17:27.329 --> 00:17:31.229
If you think it's important to have your feet hip distance apart in footwork,
00:17:31.709 --> 00:17:34.749
well, why are you okay with five different instructors doing five different
00:17:34.749 --> 00:17:36.629
foot positions in footwork just randomly?
00:17:38.069 --> 00:17:41.109
It should be the same. The attention to detail that you have when you're teaching
00:17:41.109 --> 00:17:45.369
your clients should be the exact same level of attention to detail that you
00:17:45.369 --> 00:17:47.189
insist on in how your instructors teach.
00:17:47.929 --> 00:17:51.989
It should be the same, fractal. yeah um so
00:17:51.989 --> 00:17:55.449
the the the two things so far uh
00:17:55.449 --> 00:17:58.049
you don't have the two kind of problems uh you don't have
00:17:58.049 --> 00:18:00.629
a filter when you hire so it's like hey if you're alive and you've got police
00:18:00.629 --> 00:18:04.609
certification you know come teach for me and the second thing is you're you're
00:18:04.609 --> 00:18:07.829
you're too grateful for literally anybody i thank you for coming and saving
00:18:07.829 --> 00:18:12.749
me and taking over my wednesdays uh therefore i'm not going to presume to tell
00:18:12.749 --> 00:18:16.569
you anything about how to teach or anything which leads us to the third point,
00:18:16.869 --> 00:18:19.069
which is lack of leadership.
00:18:19.289 --> 00:18:26.929
And I define leadership here in three sections, essentially,
00:18:27.449 --> 00:18:29.949
which is number one, you have to define the vision.
00:18:30.089 --> 00:18:33.989
You have to say, here's what good looks like here. Here's what we stand for.
00:18:34.189 --> 00:18:38.289
Here's how we do things. A leader has to have a vision to lead people towards.
00:18:38.849 --> 00:18:43.809
The job of the leader is to align the people who are following and unite them
00:18:43.809 --> 00:18:45.889
all towards a shared common goal or vision.
00:18:46.549 --> 00:18:49.389
And so if there is no shared common goal or vision, apart from we teach safe
00:18:49.389 --> 00:18:52.649
and effective Pilates, it's like, well, I mean, that's just on the back of your
00:18:52.649 --> 00:18:54.969
cereal packet. That's not a vision.
00:18:56.609 --> 00:19:01.449
And so you have to define your style. The second one is quality control.
00:19:01.569 --> 00:19:06.889
You have to hold people accountable and help them realize that vision.
00:19:07.489 --> 00:19:11.869
I mean, you have to be the conductor of the orchestra that helps people play
00:19:11.869 --> 00:19:17.129
better than they would play and in more alignment with the other orchestra instruments
00:19:17.129 --> 00:19:20.009
than they would play if there was just no one conducting the whole thing.
00:19:20.489 --> 00:19:23.869
And the third thing is you need to be able to have hard conversations in order to do that.
00:19:24.169 --> 00:19:27.909
And you need to pull on your big girl pants or your big boy pants and say to
00:19:27.909 --> 00:19:30.909
that 15-year instructor, maybe you've only been teaching three years yourself.
00:19:32.349 --> 00:19:35.909
You need to say to that instructor, hey, look, I need you to do it this way.
00:19:36.389 --> 00:19:39.509
And here's why I need you to do it this way. and this is the way we're going to do it here.
00:19:42.829 --> 00:19:47.609
Where do you, do you have any addition, you know, did I miss anything there
00:19:47.609 --> 00:19:50.009
in that definition of leadership and style definition? Yeah.
00:19:55.324 --> 00:19:58.624
No, I think you covered it all.
00:20:01.104 --> 00:20:06.424
An observation, I wish I could go back and tell myself this when I first hired
00:20:06.424 --> 00:20:12.024
people, and I found it to be valuable to tell people and work through in order
00:20:12.024 --> 00:20:13.284
to achieve what you described.
00:20:13.404 --> 00:20:17.924
So what you described covered it all, but just to zoom in a little bit on how
00:20:17.924 --> 00:20:25.444
you do that, if you're the instructor who knows you need to hire someone or
00:20:25.444 --> 00:20:26.824
you've already hired some people.
00:20:31.144 --> 00:20:38.304
Sit down. So one thing is you've probably got one class that is what you built your business on.
00:20:38.424 --> 00:20:41.324
You probably didn't build your business on nine different class types.
00:20:41.744 --> 00:20:44.644
So if you've taught a lot of classes, you've probably got one,
00:20:44.744 --> 00:20:46.984
maybe two class types that really drive your business.
00:20:47.364 --> 00:20:52.164
So sit down and think about those two class types And I would suggest you film
00:20:52.164 --> 00:20:56.604
yourself for multiple iterations and watch the recordings back and look at the
00:20:56.604 --> 00:20:57.804
things that you do consistently.
00:20:57.964 --> 00:21:00.644
So if you record yourself five sessions, those five sessions,
00:21:00.824 --> 00:21:04.044
what are the things that you do in every single session? And you write them down.
00:21:04.444 --> 00:21:07.964
Now, all of a sudden, you've got a list of non-negotiables. So anyone that teaches
00:21:07.964 --> 00:21:09.824
that class has to do those things.
00:21:10.284 --> 00:21:14.544
And then you've got a list of things that are optionals, which maybe they're
00:21:14.544 --> 00:21:18.304
things that you do from time to time, or they're things that you don't mind if people do.
00:21:18.304 --> 00:21:21.164
And then and you there's a third column which
00:21:21.164 --> 00:21:24.184
you could arguably put as your non-negotiables as well but it's easier
00:21:24.184 --> 00:21:27.304
i've found to think of it as you've got your non-negotiables that are included
00:21:27.304 --> 00:21:31.864
and then your unacceptables and these are the things that do not happen in your
00:21:31.864 --> 00:21:35.644
studio now i'm not coming from any position of judgment about what's right wrong
00:21:35.644 --> 00:21:39.444
or not in pilates so if you want breath patterns and they need to be in your
00:21:39.444 --> 00:21:41.364
session then they're in your non-negotiables.
00:21:43.344 --> 00:21:47.064
If you don't care about breath patterns but you don't mind them then you put them in your optionals,
00:21:47.524 --> 00:21:51.244
and if you don't want breath patterns they're in your unacceptables and
00:21:51.244 --> 00:21:54.044
if you do that based on the classes that you've taught that built your
00:21:54.044 --> 00:21:57.464
client base that built out your 70 or 80 percent client retention
00:21:57.464 --> 00:22:00.864
problem of needing new instructors you've
00:22:00.864 --> 00:22:03.804
now got a checklist of things that your class has to include
00:22:03.804 --> 00:22:09.704
and that's the granular beginning of what you then lead from so i i had a lot
00:22:09.704 --> 00:22:13.044
of trouble leading so raf was talking about leadership and being able to you
00:22:13.044 --> 00:22:16.324
know elucidate the vision for people had a real lot of trouble with that i iterated
00:22:16.324 --> 00:22:20.164
i tried I gave it everything I had and what didn't come naturally and it wasn't
00:22:20.164 --> 00:22:23.684
until I just did that process I just described that I realized okay.
00:22:24.984 --> 00:22:28.284
I've tried to sell this big vision of where the business could be and we never
00:22:28.284 --> 00:22:32.304
got there and I never felt really authentic But I can watch someone work with
00:22:32.304 --> 00:22:36.204
my clients and if they don't if they do these three things, I'm then they don't
00:22:36.204 --> 00:22:39.464
have a job and if they don't do these five things and,
00:22:40.119 --> 00:22:45.079
again they don't have a job equally if they do do those five things and they avoid the other three,
00:22:45.639 --> 00:22:50.419
they're probably teaching a class that's very close to what i want and the and and the the
00:22:50.859 --> 00:22:53.699
where the rubber hits the road on that is that was when i found the clients
00:22:53.699 --> 00:22:56.399
came to me and said hey that new instructor is great i mean
00:22:56.399 --> 00:22:59.579
they're not you but it's great and i was like okay cool i've
00:22:59.579 --> 00:23:03.199
found a way to make you close enough to what i need you to be that my
00:23:03.199 --> 00:23:06.619
brand is insulated against your either novice
00:23:06.619 --> 00:23:10.039
or different training methodology and then
00:23:10.039 --> 00:23:12.959
i can lead from that i can sit down and say i watched the recording if
00:23:12.959 --> 00:23:16.519
you teach it did those things that's awesome but also did this thing it's not
00:23:16.519 --> 00:23:21.859
okay that so that that's my two cents worth on it in terms of leadership if
00:23:21.859 --> 00:23:25.379
you're thinking i don't know i don't feel like a leader well then go go from
00:23:25.379 --> 00:23:29.279
the ground up rather than the top down yeah yeah i think that's such an important
00:23:29.279 --> 00:23:32.359
insight and so as we shift gear into like how to fix this, right?
00:23:33.499 --> 00:23:37.519
The first thing, like you said, is to actually define, you know,
00:23:37.619 --> 00:23:40.599
how we do things around here and how we don't do things around here.
00:23:40.839 --> 00:23:45.019
And I think there's a, you know, a mistake a lot of studio owners make is they
00:23:45.019 --> 00:23:48.619
think more variety on the schedule, on the timetable will actually give,
00:23:48.739 --> 00:23:50.679
you know, give them more clients and more attendances.
00:23:50.879 --> 00:23:53.339
Like that is just couldn't be further from the truth. Dear listener.
00:23:53.499 --> 00:23:56.279
I mean, think about, again, any business you patronize, you know,
00:23:56.379 --> 00:23:59.699
whether it's a restaurant, clothing brand, whatever, that's like you go that,
00:23:59.699 --> 00:24:02.059
You don't go to that restaurant because I've got 200 dishes on the menu.
00:24:02.199 --> 00:24:05.539
You go there for your favorite freaking dish that you have every time you go there, right?
00:24:06.419 --> 00:24:10.579
Or like the Vietnamese restaurant that I took my daughter to for the first 10 years of her life.
00:24:10.659 --> 00:24:14.139
They've got 200 things on the menu, but you only go because of the one thing
00:24:14.139 --> 00:24:15.439
that you really love. Exactly.
00:24:16.259 --> 00:24:22.299
Exactly. And so if it's a clothing brand, dear listener, I reckon if you buy
00:24:22.299 --> 00:24:27.019
Lululemon, you probably just don't randomly buy anything from Lululemon.
00:24:27.019 --> 00:24:31.419
You like their leggings or you like their, you know, running shorts or whatever it is.
00:24:31.519 --> 00:24:35.219
Like you, and then when you, if you like their leggings and you also wear running
00:24:35.219 --> 00:24:37.379
shorts, you might buy your running shorts for a different brand.
00:24:38.544 --> 00:24:42.424
You know, because that particular other brand has the type of running shorts
00:24:42.424 --> 00:24:44.944
that you buy and you just always buy that same brand, right?
00:24:45.064 --> 00:24:47.404
So people come back for a consistent experience.
00:24:47.584 --> 00:24:50.464
They don't, people, you don't go somewhere for variety.
00:24:50.724 --> 00:24:54.024
People don't go somewhere for, I mean, think about, and you think about like
00:24:54.024 --> 00:24:57.264
big gyms, they've got like, you know, every machine in the world,
00:24:57.404 --> 00:24:58.484
every class in the world.
00:24:58.544 --> 00:25:01.224
They've got reformer Pilates, they've got saunas, they've got a swimming pool,
00:25:01.344 --> 00:25:07.724
squash courts, you know, acres of gym equipment, whatever. it's like 99.9% of
00:25:07.724 --> 00:25:10.204
people when they go to the gym, they just use the same three machines or go
00:25:10.204 --> 00:25:11.864
to the one same class I always go to.
00:25:13.924 --> 00:25:18.504
People want consistency. They find what they like and they just want like,
00:25:18.604 --> 00:25:19.604
okay, let's just keep doing that.
00:25:20.264 --> 00:25:24.804
99% of the time, that is the truth. And so it's an illusion to think that,
00:25:24.864 --> 00:25:28.224
oh, well, if I've got 75 different class types, that's going to give me more clients.
00:25:28.304 --> 00:25:33.384
No, get known for being really fucking good at one thing and you will have unlimited
00:25:33.384 --> 00:25:37.024
clients because you will be world-class at that.
00:25:37.324 --> 00:25:43.824
Get really good at athletic reform or get really good at classical mat work, whatever it is.
00:25:44.904 --> 00:25:49.244
And so then within that, even if you're like dynamic reformer,
00:25:49.424 --> 00:25:53.944
it's like don't have like five different levels and five different dynamic stretch,
00:25:54.124 --> 00:25:56.004
dynamic sweat, dynamic this, dynamic that.
00:25:56.264 --> 00:25:59.284
It's like, no, just do one type of class, right?
00:25:59.424 --> 00:26:04.524
And if you really, really must like have a beginner's class and then an open level class, right?
00:26:04.644 --> 00:26:09.184
But I mean, if you're just starting out and you only have like 15,
00:26:09.324 --> 00:26:15.524
20-ish classes on your schedule, like all of them should be just open level class, right?
00:26:17.764 --> 00:26:23.004
And so then, like Heath says, you find out, okay, of the 97 different types
00:26:23.004 --> 00:26:26.784
of classes on the schedule, you know, which one is the most popular?
00:26:26.784 --> 00:26:29.724
And it'll be blindingly obvious to you as soon as you look at your numbers on
00:26:29.724 --> 00:26:32.744
attendance of last month or three months, you'll be like, oh,
00:26:33.264 --> 00:26:38.584
you know, my open level classes are 80% full and then my stretch classes are 12% full. You know?
00:26:40.504 --> 00:26:43.784
So let me just throw something in there just to illustrate that.
00:26:44.084 --> 00:26:48.304
So names will be, you know, names will be not revealed to protect the innocent.
00:26:48.504 --> 00:26:55.424
But talking to a studio owner recently who's got this brilliant problem, bursting at the seams,
00:26:56.544 --> 00:26:59.404
growing how do we grow more got to solve the same exactly the
00:26:59.404 --> 00:27:02.004
same problem we're talking about and as we worked through the we did an
00:27:02.004 --> 00:27:04.704
audit class types and one of the class types that
00:27:04.704 --> 00:27:08.064
they were running they were running three of them per week and
00:27:08.064 --> 00:27:11.044
they were running them because the instructors that ran them liked running them
00:27:11.044 --> 00:27:14.764
and right and
00:27:14.764 --> 00:27:20.004
i said okay so if those instructors left your studio would you continue running
00:27:20.004 --> 00:27:23.924
the class and the answer was no i wouldn't it's okay then my question is why
00:27:23.924 --> 00:27:27.124
on god's earth are you running the class now because you're essentially letting
00:27:27.124 --> 00:27:32.284
your instructors who have a preference dictate how you identify your brand and
00:27:32.284 --> 00:27:34.544
if they leave you don't even know what they were doing.
00:27:36.564 --> 00:27:40.644
Well, it's not a brand then. It's like what we said. It's just a mishmash of,
00:27:40.804 --> 00:27:44.844
you know, depending on who's teaching on the day, you get steak or sushi or
00:27:44.844 --> 00:27:46.804
maybe it's, we don't even serve food here today.
00:27:46.964 --> 00:27:51.444
It's, you know, meditation retreat. Well, even worse than that is if the clients
00:27:51.444 --> 00:27:55.084
come and build an allegiance to those instructors who are doing this bespoke
00:27:55.084 --> 00:27:57.804
class that's outside of the actual brand,
00:27:58.104 --> 00:28:02.524
essentially what you're doing is giving those people free studio space to build their own brand.
00:28:02.644 --> 00:28:06.144
Right. Well, basically, you're running a steak restaurant, but Tuesday nights
00:28:06.144 --> 00:28:08.044
with Sally is sushi night, you know.
00:28:08.344 --> 00:28:11.564
Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's right. Yeah.
00:28:12.204 --> 00:28:15.524
And no one else on the menu is a sushi chef. No one else in the kitchen knows how to do it.
00:28:15.764 --> 00:28:20.184
Yeah. So if Sally's sick, well, we've got to cancel, and then you've got grumpy
00:28:20.184 --> 00:28:23.304
clients anyway, because they're still your clients in terms of who they're paying.
00:28:23.504 --> 00:28:27.064
And if you fire Sally or she goes, you lose those clients because they're here
00:28:27.064 --> 00:28:29.544
for the sushi, not for the steak. Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
00:28:30.904 --> 00:28:39.304
All right. So, now, dear listener, if this is you, and it almost certainly is you, okay?
00:28:39.504 --> 00:28:46.724
Now, I just want to give a little shout-out to the franchise owners and acknowledge here.
00:28:46.984 --> 00:28:50.164
If you're a franchise owner, well, you probably do have some of these elements
00:28:50.164 --> 00:28:53.284
that are kind of built into the franchise, right? So, you've got one way of doing things.
00:28:53.344 --> 00:28:55.684
You've got certain class types that you teach and other class types that you're
00:28:55.684 --> 00:28:59.264
not allowed to, you know, you can't just randomly teach any shit you want if
00:28:59.264 --> 00:29:00.444
you're part of a large franchise.
00:29:00.444 --> 00:29:05.544
So there probably is some kind of formula about how to teach a class in the franchise but you're.
00:29:07.184 --> 00:29:12.744
Probably completely lacking the right filters when you hire people so you're
00:29:12.744 --> 00:29:16.584
literally probably one of those people who puts the ad on seek.com and says
00:29:16.584 --> 00:29:20.144
like wanting 450 hour comprehensively trained instructor must be passionate
00:29:20.144 --> 00:29:24.544
about pilates must teach a safe and effective class It's like completely generic.
00:29:24.824 --> 00:29:30.424
Okay. And then you're probably, if you're like 98% of studio owners,
00:29:30.684 --> 00:29:36.004
probably, almost certainly not quality controlling those classes.
00:29:36.124 --> 00:29:38.504
And when I say quality control, I mean like auditing the classes,
00:29:38.784 --> 00:29:40.884
getting feedback from the clients,
00:29:41.564 --> 00:29:45.344
getting instructors to video their own classes, looking at the class and give
00:29:45.344 --> 00:29:50.204
it like on a regular basis, like a weekly cadence or biweekly or at the very
00:29:50.204 --> 00:29:52.144
least monthly per instructor. Yeah.
00:29:52.604 --> 00:29:56.324
That you look at a class and you give constructive feedback,
00:29:56.504 --> 00:30:00.684
which is just 100% upfront, like unfiltered, not mean.
00:30:01.944 --> 00:30:07.204
But when I say not mean, I mean not vicious, intended for the betterment of
00:30:07.204 --> 00:30:09.744
that person, but not sugar-coated.
00:30:09.884 --> 00:30:12.044
Just like, hey, you did this, don't do that.
00:30:12.384 --> 00:30:15.424
Or you didn't do this, I need you to start doing it now.
00:30:16.304 --> 00:30:19.784
Or you did this this way, don't do it this way, do it this way.
00:30:19.784 --> 00:30:23.984
Right and if you're hearing what raf saying and it resonates whether you're
00:30:23.984 --> 00:30:25.124
franchise or independent.
00:30:26.662 --> 00:30:32.382
Then take a moment and we're just circling back to one of the points Raf made a few minutes ago.
00:30:32.762 --> 00:30:36.822
Think, okay, if you're resonating with the idea of, okay, I want better quality
00:30:36.822 --> 00:30:43.462
control, I want better brand identity, then that means doing exactly what Raf said, Raf said,
00:30:43.782 --> 00:30:48.542
auditing the teaching of your staff, which means in one way or another,
00:30:48.642 --> 00:30:51.042
depending on how you organize it, you're observing their teaching.
00:30:51.622 --> 00:30:54.782
If you're running nine different class types then you
00:30:54.782 --> 00:30:57.762
have to watch people teaching all nine different class
00:30:57.762 --> 00:31:01.022
types and have crystal clear clarity on
00:31:01.022 --> 00:31:04.142
what each of those nine different class types should look like and
00:31:04.142 --> 00:31:07.222
they should differentiate from each other otherwise they become generic within
00:31:07.222 --> 00:31:09.882
the studio now good luck with that right if you
00:31:09.882 --> 00:31:13.302
if you're a person that's burned out from teaching too many classes you are
00:31:13.302 --> 00:31:16.162
not going to have time to all the teaching of nine different
00:31:16.162 --> 00:31:19.662
class types so three is the absolute maximum
00:31:19.662 --> 00:31:22.762
of class types as far as i'm concerned because that's
00:31:22.762 --> 00:31:25.942
the upper limit of what you can reasonably audit even
00:31:25.942 --> 00:31:29.142
if you um distribute the auditing process out
00:31:29.142 --> 00:31:32.182
to your staff where they self self-reflect regularly i
00:31:32.182 --> 00:31:35.002
think three's too many i think two's the absolute yeah exactly i totally
00:31:35.002 --> 00:31:37.862
agree like i get i mean i agree but i've kind
00:31:37.862 --> 00:31:40.842
of kind of got to err if okay sometimes i really want to stretch session and
00:31:40.842 --> 00:31:44.322
a beginner and my general class like oh okay yeah but
00:31:44.322 --> 00:31:47.042
but but like if stretching is important to
00:31:47.042 --> 00:31:50.682
you just do some stretching in every class like yeah like
00:31:50.682 --> 00:31:54.222
you're preaching to the converter i was just trying to you know if you're talking
00:31:54.222 --> 00:31:57.302
to a club pilates franchise owner they've got to have nine different class types
00:31:57.302 --> 00:32:00.662
they actually have to do that or whatever it is seven you know i don't know
00:32:00.662 --> 00:32:05.862
but if you're running your own business like one is enough two is too many and
00:32:05.862 --> 00:32:10.022
then because you If you're going to achieve what Raf was describing,
00:32:10.042 --> 00:32:15.482
you have to do that for every instructor that's delivering every single class type.
00:32:16.876 --> 00:32:22.136
And the other thing about that to remember, too, is that if you're teaching
00:32:22.136 --> 00:32:26.996
10 classes out of 50 per week, you're teaching 20% of the classes in your studio.
00:32:27.116 --> 00:32:31.056
That means 80% of your delivery is being done by other people.
00:32:31.916 --> 00:32:35.876
And so I've kind of skipped on to the problem of the person who's wanting to
00:32:35.876 --> 00:32:38.136
grow their business, but it's the same conversation.
00:32:38.136 --> 00:32:43.576
If you're teaching 20, 40 per week and you're about to open another studio and
00:32:43.576 --> 00:32:49.156
you've got 40 classes there, you're going to go from 50% of delivery to 25%
00:32:49.156 --> 00:32:51.496
of delivery. And so that compounds the problem.
00:32:51.836 --> 00:32:55.316
And you're not going to have one instructor take over the whole studio.
00:32:55.496 --> 00:32:59.096
So let alone you think you're going to expand your studios to multiples,
00:32:59.456 --> 00:33:05.236
your systems have to be all the more clear, more granular, and more robust because
00:33:05.236 --> 00:33:08.096
you're going to be teaching less percentage-wise of all the classes delivered.
00:33:08.316 --> 00:33:12.396
And that's the same as if you just hire three to five instructors when you've
00:33:12.396 --> 00:33:13.956
been teaching on your own or with one other.
00:33:14.156 --> 00:33:18.036
You're going to go from 50% of delivery to 20% if you're lucky.
00:33:18.236 --> 00:33:21.456
And so if you don't know exactly what should be happening in the classes and
00:33:21.456 --> 00:33:25.676
have a way to assess that, it's very quickly going to devolve into what we described
00:33:25.676 --> 00:33:29.416
at the beginning, where it's just a melange of people's personal styles.
00:33:29.636 --> 00:33:32.636
Right. And that is the default because entropy always increases.
00:33:32.776 --> 00:33:35.236
That's literally one are the foundational laws of physics.
00:33:35.476 --> 00:33:42.016
And what that means is basically by default things turn to chaos disorder and they fuck up basically.
00:33:42.376 --> 00:33:48.276
Like if you want order and quality, that's not the default. You have to create that actively.
00:33:48.556 --> 00:33:52.136
That's not, you know, if you throw the Lego bricks up into the sky,
00:33:52.456 --> 00:33:56.296
the likelihood that they spontaneously fall down and assemble themselves into the...
00:33:57.198 --> 00:34:00.078
Something like is is very
00:34:00.078 --> 00:34:03.678
very very low it's essentially non-existent the likelihood that they fall in
00:34:03.678 --> 00:34:08.698
a chaotic jumble on the floor is like a billion to one right and so if you just
00:34:08.698 --> 00:34:11.658
invite random people into your studio have seven different class types and just
00:34:11.658 --> 00:34:14.438
go to the classrooms over there go for it you're essentially just throwing the
00:34:14.438 --> 00:34:17.938
lego bricks up into the sky and hoping they fall down you know in the in a perfect
00:34:17.938 --> 00:34:19.878
you know assembled you know,
00:34:21.278 --> 00:34:26.618
you know like lego house or whatever and it's like yeah that's not gonna fall
00:34:26.618 --> 00:34:28.058
into the death The Death Star. The Death Star, okay.
00:34:29.038 --> 00:34:31.738
That was the ultimate Lego thing when I was a kid. You just remember one of
00:34:31.738 --> 00:34:34.058
the Death Star. Or the Eiffel Tower. The Eiffel Tower's pretty good.
00:34:34.878 --> 00:34:38.238
My daughter's boyfriend's got a Lego Eiffel Tower. It's a centerpiece of his
00:34:38.238 --> 00:34:39.838
extensive Lego collection.
00:34:41.838 --> 00:34:46.178
All right, so you have to create the order. It's not going to create itself, right?
00:34:46.238 --> 00:34:49.798
If you're not actively doing this, I can tell you with 100% certainty,
00:34:50.218 --> 00:34:51.498
you've got chaos, right?
00:34:51.518 --> 00:34:54.078
Because if you're not creating the order, there is no order because it's not
00:34:54.078 --> 00:34:55.638
going to spontaneously happen.
00:34:56.498 --> 00:35:02.538
Now, even if you've got five amazing instructors, they're certainly teaching, which is impossible,
00:35:03.798 --> 00:35:07.958
because by default, if you haven't filtered for people, it's like you're not
00:35:07.958 --> 00:35:10.058
going to get amazing instructors because in fact,
00:35:10.198 --> 00:35:13.438
you certainly aren't going to get amazing instructors because amazing instructors
00:35:13.438 --> 00:35:18.258
are attracted to, guess what, a really freaking clear vision with someone with
00:35:18.258 --> 00:35:19.538
very, very high standards.
00:35:19.918 --> 00:35:23.698
And if you've just said like, okay, if you're a 450 hour certified instructor,
00:35:24.158 --> 00:35:27.218
like the same as every other ad or if you just said like if you're
00:35:27.218 --> 00:35:29.898
an instructor then it's
00:35:29.898 --> 00:35:32.718
like well you're not communicating any high standards and you're not going to attract those
00:35:32.718 --> 00:35:36.258
people who want to be the best so what
00:35:36.258 --> 00:35:39.658
you have to do is number one define your style like he said okay and the way
00:35:39.658 --> 00:35:43.778
you do that is you you film yourself like when you teach dear listener if you're
00:35:43.778 --> 00:35:49.058
the most popular instructor in your in your studio which 99 chance you are if
00:35:49.058 --> 00:35:55.658
you're the owner uh by definition you are a better instructor if you're most popular, right? And...
00:35:58.242 --> 00:36:04.402
And you almost certainly have some kind of script that you use.
00:36:04.462 --> 00:36:07.662
Now, it might not be a written script, a literal script, but it is a script in your brain.
00:36:07.782 --> 00:36:11.302
Like when you cue long stretch, you almost certainly cue it basically the same
00:36:11.302 --> 00:36:12.162
way every time you teach it.
00:36:12.562 --> 00:36:16.142
When you teach footwork, you almost certainly teach it the same way every time you teach it.
00:36:16.722 --> 00:36:21.862
And so when you teach, and not only the way that you teach each exercise,
00:36:21.962 --> 00:36:24.122
but probably the way that you string exercises together.
00:36:24.682 --> 00:36:27.482
Right so you probably when you you probably
00:36:27.482 --> 00:36:30.602
have favorite little sequences of moves like you probably go from footwork to
00:36:30.602 --> 00:36:34.022
something else lying on the carriage you probably don't go footwork to
00:36:34.022 --> 00:36:39.102
lunges to reverse knee stretches to you know snake and then back to legs in
00:36:39.102 --> 00:36:43.862
straps right with maybe long box in between there somewhere like you know one
00:36:43.862 --> 00:36:47.762
exercise in each position right i'm hoping you don't right because it doesn't
00:36:47.762 --> 00:36:52.602
flow very well right so you probably have like default sequences that you often teach.
00:36:52.742 --> 00:36:56.362
You found like these moves go well together, right? And each move you teach,
00:36:56.482 --> 00:37:00.402
you probably have basically a script that you press a button inside your brain
00:37:00.402 --> 00:37:02.042
and the words come out to teach that move.
00:37:02.162 --> 00:37:06.942
So you do have a script, right? Maybe it's not written on paper, but you do have a script.
00:37:07.102 --> 00:37:12.742
So what you need to do is write it on paper, right? And film it and turn it into an actual script.
00:37:13.822 --> 00:37:19.182
And like Heath said, look at the classes as an aggregate, like look at four
00:37:19.182 --> 00:37:22.242
or five classes and go, okay, every single class, Like sometimes I taught footwork,
00:37:22.322 --> 00:37:27.202
sometimes I didn't, but we always did legwork of some description, right?
00:37:28.382 --> 00:37:31.942
You know, so that becomes a non-negotiable, right? So you don't have to teach
00:37:31.942 --> 00:37:33.942
footwork, but you have to do something that works the legs.
00:37:34.582 --> 00:37:38.662
And so whatever your non-negotiables are, like Heath said. And then the second
00:37:38.662 --> 00:37:41.482
thing is you have to do QC, which just means quality control,
00:37:41.662 --> 00:37:46.602
which just means like doing the class or watching the class and giving honest feedback.
00:37:46.802 --> 00:37:50.082
And the feedback should be very, very straight up. It should be delivered with
00:37:50.082 --> 00:37:57.502
neutral emotion. So no, you're not saying you're a good instructor or you're a bad instructor.
00:37:57.682 --> 00:38:02.242
You're saying this thing that you did was good or this thing that you did was
00:38:02.242 --> 00:38:05.002
bad. So don't do that thing. Do this thing instead.
00:38:05.642 --> 00:38:10.622
Yeah. And Raph, let's just catch that. Just so that we see the link between
00:38:10.622 --> 00:38:15.362
the first point and that point is when you've established those non-negotiables
00:38:15.362 --> 00:38:20.382
and the optionals and the unacceptables, that becomes quite literally a checklist.
00:38:20.962 --> 00:38:24.362
Yes. That you then look at. So when Raf says you give feedback and it's clear,
00:38:24.362 --> 00:38:28.162
it's not sugar-coated and it's direct, it's objective and it's non-personal,
00:38:28.402 --> 00:38:30.082
you're not making that shit up on the spot.
00:38:30.402 --> 00:38:34.082
You're watching a video or you're reflecting on notes that you took as you attended
00:38:34.082 --> 00:38:36.902
and simply saying, these are the non-negotiables.
00:38:37.062 --> 00:38:39.062
You did five out of the seven, fuck yeah.
00:38:39.242 --> 00:38:42.202
And here's two you didn't do. We need to address that. Do you need support?
00:38:42.642 --> 00:38:46.502
And here's the unacceptables. You didn't do any except for this one.
00:38:46.582 --> 00:38:47.562
So please stop doing that.
00:38:48.925 --> 00:38:52.625
So it's not, you don't have to, it's not, it's not, you might find it's a difficult
00:38:52.625 --> 00:38:55.565
conversation, but it's not a difficult open-ended conversation.
00:38:55.745 --> 00:39:00.305
It's a structured conversation based on key metrics. Right. It's a checklist.
00:39:00.445 --> 00:39:01.325
It literally is a checklist.
00:39:01.565 --> 00:39:03.845
You know, did you do these five things? Did you not do these five things,
00:39:04.005 --> 00:39:04.725
these other five things?
00:39:06.025 --> 00:39:09.865
Easy, you know, like it's very, very simple. but then you have to,
00:39:10.125 --> 00:39:19.485
in order to do this, you need to do the last thing which is pull on your big
00:39:19.485 --> 00:39:25.585
girl panties and have hard conversations with people and those hard conversations
00:39:25.585 --> 00:39:26.885
are going to be like, hey Sally,
00:39:27.065 --> 00:39:29.545
you've been teaching here for three years and I've never done your class,
00:39:30.325 --> 00:39:33.585
and you've been teaching like God knows what in that session,
00:39:34.685 --> 00:39:36.665
because I've never done it so I don't know.
00:39:37.985 --> 00:39:42.385
And that's been my bad because I haven't given you any kind of leadership or
00:39:42.385 --> 00:39:45.885
feedback or North Star about how we teach here.
00:39:46.345 --> 00:39:50.665
That's changing now. And we're going to define our style and this is what the style is going to be.
00:39:51.905 --> 00:39:55.385
And if you want to learn to teach that way and if you want to become a better
00:39:55.385 --> 00:40:00.045
instructor as defined by one, teaching that style and two, having full classes,
00:40:00.305 --> 00:40:05.145
then fuck yeah, let's work together and get you there, train you up.
00:40:05.145 --> 00:40:08.505
And if that doesn't align with how you want to work or how you want to progress
00:40:08.505 --> 00:40:11.365
your own skills then that's totally fine as well but this isn't going to be
00:40:11.365 --> 00:40:13.025
a good fit you need to move on.
00:40:15.275 --> 00:40:23.135
I'm working, well, we're working with a studio at the moment who's in a country
00:40:23.135 --> 00:40:24.955
known as New Zealand, honorarily Australian.
00:40:25.675 --> 00:40:32.835
And this studio's owner has been going for, I think it's better part of 10 years,
00:40:33.315 --> 00:40:37.495
running 60 plus classes a week. And the studio owner teaches about five.
00:40:38.295 --> 00:40:41.575
And so we went through this process that we're talking about.
00:40:41.575 --> 00:40:44.595
And what was interesting about
00:40:44.595 --> 00:40:47.535
that process was when we talked about what's your brand
00:40:47.535 --> 00:40:50.575
she was she was really unclear on that and when we talked about
00:40:50.575 --> 00:40:53.355
the process that raf described her eyes lit up she
00:40:53.355 --> 00:40:56.455
was like this is exactly what i need i've got all these great instructors that
00:40:56.455 --> 00:40:59.575
i love i love what they do but
00:40:59.575 --> 00:41:02.675
there's no through line there's no consistency and when
00:41:02.675 --> 00:41:05.395
we worked it out when we went through this process i was like oh right so
00:41:05.395 --> 00:41:08.795
you're teaching five classes a week out of 60 plus an
00:41:08.795 --> 00:41:12.015
extra studio that's just opened that's already scaling to about 30 so
00:41:12.015 --> 00:41:14.715
you're teaching like five percent of all
00:41:14.715 --> 00:41:17.755
the classes taught and you've got team members who teach 25
00:41:17.755 --> 00:41:23.655
and so the process for her was she actually filmed her lead instructors rather
00:41:23.655 --> 00:41:27.335
than herself and she built the through line out of what they were doing well
00:41:27.335 --> 00:41:32.255
and then sat down with them and said we're going to clarify our brand and i'm
00:41:32.255 --> 00:41:35.475
building it out of what you do Do you want to join me on this?
00:41:36.155 --> 00:41:40.915
And not surprisingly, they all said, hell yeah, because they were being brought into the process.
00:41:41.395 --> 00:41:44.915
And so we've gone through this development process and we're running the workshops.
00:41:45.175 --> 00:41:49.815
I do it with the studio owner and then with the team as organized, as needed.
00:41:51.158 --> 00:41:54.178
So I guess I'm just, I just wanted to catch this because what we've talked about
00:41:54.178 --> 00:41:58.938
so far is very owner centric and you're driving it and you do absolutely have
00:41:58.938 --> 00:42:02.698
to drive it, but it doesn't mean you have to be, it's not adversarial to your team.
00:42:02.938 --> 00:42:06.218
If as Raf was just saying, the team is aligned with your vision.
00:42:06.578 --> 00:42:09.998
So, and when you've got clarity and you can put the flag in the ground and say,
00:42:10.098 --> 00:42:11.118
this is what I want to achieve.
00:42:11.778 --> 00:42:14.858
If you're with me and we're clear on what success looks like,
00:42:14.958 --> 00:42:19.558
and that means outcomes and processes, if we're all aligned on that,
00:42:19.718 --> 00:42:22.738
now all we have to do is just build objective systems sorry objective
00:42:22.738 --> 00:42:26.458
processes like self-reflective and uh feedback-based
00:42:26.458 --> 00:42:29.358
processes that check that we're all moving in the direction we need
00:42:29.358 --> 00:42:32.458
to so yeah it's this i just
00:42:32.458 --> 00:42:35.838
want to the process that raf and i are kind of referring to it doesn't have
00:42:35.838 --> 00:42:41.098
to be um all top down so if you've got a team or even just a couple of instructors
00:42:41.098 --> 00:42:45.338
that you feel really passionate about you can bring them into that process but
00:42:45.338 --> 00:42:49.978
but what's not negotiable is that you come up with what we've been talking about.
00:42:50.158 --> 00:42:53.858
Crystal clear clarity about what happens in your classes, the experience your
00:42:53.858 --> 00:42:56.338
clients have, and what doesn't happen in your studio.
00:42:56.798 --> 00:42:59.878
Right. And in fact, within our own business, that's how we do it.
00:43:00.078 --> 00:43:04.738
So I'm the CEO of this company, but actually Heath's the one running the quality
00:43:04.738 --> 00:43:06.238
control on the trainers.
00:43:06.798 --> 00:43:11.398
And we're defining good training as training the way Heath trains.
00:43:11.958 --> 00:43:16.478
So even though I'm the owner, and I'm a thousand percent aligned with Heath's
00:43:16.478 --> 00:43:17.638
way of teaching, obviously.
00:43:18.758 --> 00:43:21.898
Heath's actually a better Pilates teacher at this point than I am.
00:43:22.838 --> 00:43:27.738
And Heath teaches more classes than I do. And Heath's the one running the team
00:43:27.738 --> 00:43:30.418
and defining the standards of quality.
00:43:30.538 --> 00:43:34.898
And so if you're a studio owner and you've got a person on your team that you
00:43:34.898 --> 00:43:37.798
have that level of trust, that I've won their skill.
00:43:37.938 --> 00:43:41.398
When I say trust, I mean trust in their skills, right? Not just trust in their integrity.
00:43:41.538 --> 00:43:45.298
I mean, if you don't trust their integrity, they shouldn't be on your team at
00:43:45.298 --> 00:43:48.558
all. but I mean trusting their skills that you would,
00:43:49.610 --> 00:43:53.590
actually back them to be at the minimum as good as you, probably better than
00:43:53.590 --> 00:43:58.350
you at what you do best, you know, in terms of teaching. Right.
00:43:59.690 --> 00:44:05.310
And there's, there's a, I think the, the test here is there was a great,
00:44:05.390 --> 00:44:07.870
I follow the UFC, the ultimate fighting championship.
00:44:08.030 --> 00:44:11.230
It's kind of like my sport as a spectator that I like to enjoy.
00:44:11.390 --> 00:44:12.570
I'm not really into football or whatever.
00:44:13.270 --> 00:44:19.190
And there was, there was this, this reporter asked the president of the UFC one time,
00:44:19.610 --> 00:44:26.830
If you had to pick one person to fight on your behalf to save your life,
00:44:26.950 --> 00:44:30.690
if your life was on the line and there was just this one person there to defend you,
00:44:31.130 --> 00:44:33.070
who would you pick? And he was like, oh, John Jones.
00:44:34.130 --> 00:44:39.730
Zero hesitation. That man, John Jones is, I think, still the light – no,
00:44:39.830 --> 00:44:43.290
he actually just retired as a light heavyweight champion, basically undefeated
00:44:43.290 --> 00:44:44.830
after 30 title defenses.
00:44:46.210 --> 00:44:48.830
He's basically annihilated everybody he's ever fought.
00:44:50.350 --> 00:44:54.330
And so if you have that level of trust, like if you would send,
00:44:54.550 --> 00:44:57.970
you know, if I said to you like, okay, I'm going to send your most,
00:44:58.230 --> 00:45:01.130
you know, this person is going to come and write you like the most scathing
00:45:01.130 --> 00:45:02.950
Google review or the most, you know,
00:45:04.150 --> 00:45:06.910
complimentary Google review is going to make or break your business.
00:45:07.830 --> 00:45:11.430
And you can't teach, I can only send that person to like one instructor in your
00:45:11.430 --> 00:45:14.890
business and you can't brief that instructor ahead of time, right?
00:45:15.170 --> 00:45:18.090
Like, do you have someone on your team that you'd be like, oh yeah,
00:45:18.150 --> 00:45:22.210
go to Sally's class, like total confidence like yeah if you have that person,
00:45:23.090 --> 00:45:26.710
that's that's the level of confidence I have in Heath and that's the level of
00:45:26.710 --> 00:45:32.650
confidence you need to have in somebody for them to be the person that you model your business off,
00:45:34.153 --> 00:45:37.553
the John Jones level. Yeah, agreed. Yeah.
00:45:38.673 --> 00:45:42.493
And if you've got that person and if you're in that, if you're running a studio
00:45:42.493 --> 00:45:50.253
and you've got that person, that you need to, you know, like that they are the, that's a rare thing.
00:45:50.293 --> 00:45:53.453
So you need to hold onto that and value that.
00:46:00.193 --> 00:46:05.433
All right. And so what is the mindset shift? because we've given all of the
00:46:05.433 --> 00:46:06.373
practical advice, okay?
00:46:06.633 --> 00:46:09.973
So you've got to, well, when you, all right, so actually we haven't given some
00:46:09.973 --> 00:46:13.053
of the practical advice because we've got to now go back and talk about,
00:46:13.333 --> 00:46:17.573
okay, so when you are hiring, okay, what filters do you put in place?
00:46:17.933 --> 00:46:22.713
And when you, so in your ad, for example, and when you interview people,
00:46:22.893 --> 00:46:25.173
like what mindset do you have instead of gratitude?
00:46:25.893 --> 00:46:28.753
You know, how do we modify that and get the right people in?
00:46:29.013 --> 00:46:34.093
And then what is the mindset shift or how do you make that mindset shift?
00:46:34.213 --> 00:46:40.073
Because I know, like putting myself in my shoes a decade ago when I was making all these mistakes.
00:46:41.033 --> 00:46:43.573
I would have listened to this episode and gone like, that all sounds great,
00:46:43.673 --> 00:46:49.253
but I'm fucking terrified and I feel massive imposter syndrome to go and have
00:46:49.253 --> 00:46:51.733
those conversations with this instructor that's been teaching for like five
00:46:51.733 --> 00:46:52.773
times longer than I have.
00:46:53.553 --> 00:46:57.873
And her classes are full, but she teaches just a completely different style to what we teach here.
00:46:58.133 --> 00:47:02.513
Or even if there's that one instructor on your team and it's like their classes aren't full, right?
00:47:02.533 --> 00:47:06.933
It's just a very hard, it's a hard sort of psychological hump to get yourself over.
00:47:07.333 --> 00:47:11.793
So what are the, like when, let's start at the start with the filtering when you're writing a job ad.
00:47:11.873 --> 00:47:16.633
So instead of saying, we're hiring, click here to apply, or we're hiring looking
00:47:16.633 --> 00:47:20.793
for 40, 450 hour comprehensively instructor must like to teach safe and effective Pilates.
00:47:21.513 --> 00:47:25.513
Like what do you say in your job ad to attract the right people and consequently
00:47:25.513 --> 00:47:28.693
repel the people who are not going to be a good fit?
00:47:31.705 --> 00:47:35.685
Uh, well, all right. So I haven't, this is kind of funny for me.
00:47:35.825 --> 00:47:40.425
I haven't actually done this because I've been blessed with having worked at
00:47:40.425 --> 00:47:43.745
Breathe Education for the last 12 plus years.
00:47:44.065 --> 00:47:49.625
So when, when I've wanted new staff, I've always been lucky enough to be able
00:47:49.625 --> 00:47:52.545
to draw them from graduates within the program.
00:47:52.545 --> 00:47:56.405
But when I've worked with instructors on this, sorry, when I've worked with
00:47:56.405 --> 00:48:02.045
studio owners on this, essentially the job ad is your list of non-negotiables.
00:48:03.165 --> 00:48:06.745
So you just take the list of things that you've identified as what has to happen
00:48:06.745 --> 00:48:10.645
in your class and you build them, maybe you use ChatGPT to help,
00:48:10.865 --> 00:48:12.825
into a description of the job.
00:48:13.505 --> 00:48:19.165
And then when people apply, your time is incredibly valuable.
00:48:20.105 --> 00:48:24.085
So you don't meet with everyone that applies. You don't meet with everyone that
00:48:24.085 --> 00:48:26.085
tells you how much they love the studio.
00:48:26.345 --> 00:48:29.865
When someone applies, you say back to them, thanks so much for your application.
00:48:30.465 --> 00:48:33.045
How many classes have you done at the studio? And if the answer is none,
00:48:33.285 --> 00:48:34.465
you put a line through that name.
00:48:35.485 --> 00:48:41.825
If the answer is five, you say, okay, great. I'll send you a video of me teaching.
00:48:42.245 --> 00:48:46.325
And then you, when you're ready to teach me the way I'm teaching in the video,
00:48:46.565 --> 00:48:48.085
you let me know when you're ready to come in.
00:48:49.205 --> 00:48:52.285
So you at the door you build a wall that says
00:48:52.285 --> 00:48:55.145
this is how we do things and it might not be as it might
00:48:55.145 --> 00:48:58.365
not simply be that you send them a video you might send them a brand description
00:48:58.365 --> 00:49:01.145
blah blah blah but what i
00:49:01.145 --> 00:49:03.965
ended up in a queuing script right right so
00:49:03.965 --> 00:49:06.745
it's not just a video but like okay here's the video here's the
00:49:06.745 --> 00:49:10.725
the queuing script of what i said in the video and here's the exercise list
00:49:10.725 --> 00:49:14.565
with when you're ready to come in with the spring show exactly everything when
00:49:14.565 --> 00:49:19.405
you're ready to come in and teach me to that script give me a call and we'll
00:49:19.405 --> 00:49:23.945
make a time and i'll give you 15 minutes and then if they come in and they teach
00:49:23.945 --> 00:49:26.405
anything other than what you ask them to teach.
00:49:27.985 --> 00:49:31.725
That's a red flag a line goes through that name because you are clear with them
00:49:31.725 --> 00:49:36.605
that what you are asking them to do in their interview is to demonstrate to
00:49:36.605 --> 00:49:40.725
you their ability to teach the way you need them to teach in your studio and
00:49:40.725 --> 00:49:45.185
that's a huge paradigm shift for everyone i've ever worked through with it.
00:49:46.073 --> 00:49:50.313
Yeah. I think, so there are two things I would pull out of that,
00:49:50.473 --> 00:49:53.033
which I agree 100% with everything you said.
00:49:53.173 --> 00:49:54.893
But I think the first thing you said is like, you don't know,
00:49:55.053 --> 00:49:57.833
you know, because you've basically hired people, graduates.
00:49:57.993 --> 00:50:01.373
I think, well, that is the secret. So the first secret is like where you go
00:50:01.373 --> 00:50:03.233
to find people, okay, when you're hiring.
00:50:03.453 --> 00:50:06.413
And so instead of just like putting an ad on seek.com or whatever,
00:50:06.993 --> 00:50:08.993
right, that is like, there were three ways you can basically hire.
00:50:09.113 --> 00:50:12.053
One is you can promote from within, essentially like, you know,
00:50:12.113 --> 00:50:15.613
your best clients or whatever, you can actually just get them trained up.
00:50:15.613 --> 00:50:17.673
Second one is you can do a job ad.
00:50:18.133 --> 00:50:22.553
Okay. And the third one is you can poach. You can actually approach somebody
00:50:22.553 --> 00:50:24.953
who's working somewhere else and say, hey, come work for me. Okay.
00:50:26.213 --> 00:50:29.933
And all three can work and you can do all three. Like they're not mutually exclusive.
00:50:30.833 --> 00:50:38.873
They all have their pros and cons. But I think generally the more you leverage
00:50:38.873 --> 00:50:43.213
your network, the better chance you have of getting somebody aligned.
00:50:43.213 --> 00:50:46.913
So the network would be like your clients, okay, your instructors.
00:50:47.753 --> 00:50:52.513
The more you like have a personal connection with that instructor so that you're
00:50:52.513 --> 00:50:55.693
selecting them rather than just like casting it out and going,
00:50:55.773 --> 00:50:57.733
hey, anybody who's interested, come along and let me know.
00:50:57.913 --> 00:51:01.773
So if you like go around, so I had a conversation with someone yesterday on
00:51:01.773 --> 00:51:02.633
one of the coaching calls.
00:51:03.813 --> 00:51:07.373
She's looking for instructors and finding it hard to find someone.
00:51:07.753 --> 00:51:10.573
And so what I coached her on was poaching.
00:51:11.153 --> 00:51:13.873
Um so i said like go around you know
00:51:13.873 --> 00:51:16.793
look on look on the reviews for the other studios around
00:51:16.793 --> 00:51:19.773
you look at the look at the waitlist look at which classes are waitlisted look
00:51:19.773 --> 00:51:23.013
at the instructors who are mentioned in the reviews go do those
00:51:23.013 --> 00:51:27.413
people's classes if you go do their class and you're like holy shit yeah this
00:51:27.413 --> 00:51:30.273
person's really the real deal right and i would love to have this person teaching
00:51:30.273 --> 00:51:33.173
at my studio based on the reviews the waitlist and my personal experience of
00:51:33.173 --> 00:51:38.693
them teaching right then like approach that person after class and say hey i
00:51:38.693 --> 00:51:42.713
own xyz studio i've stalked you on social media I know you teach at A,
00:51:42.753 --> 00:51:46.513
B and C studios I know you're waitlisted I just did your class you're really
00:51:46.513 --> 00:51:48.753
freaking good and I would love to have you come work with me,
00:51:49.584 --> 00:51:53.204
What would it take for you to quit those other studios and come work for me?
00:51:57.444 --> 00:52:01.164
And, you know, obviously you would say as part of that, it's like we teach XYZ
00:52:01.164 --> 00:52:03.824
style, you know, we teach classical, we teach dynamic reform,
00:52:03.944 --> 00:52:05.264
we teach whatever, right?
00:52:05.644 --> 00:52:11.224
And I'm looking for somebody who is hungry to be even better than what you already are.
00:52:11.464 --> 00:52:15.664
And we do weekly, you know, coaching or bi-weekly coaching or whatever it is.
00:52:15.764 --> 00:52:19.484
And I will audit your classes on the regular and I will help you become even better.
00:52:19.584 --> 00:52:22.284
Like and by the way i pay top of market like whatever
00:52:22.284 --> 00:52:24.944
you're getting paid there i'll pay you more are you in
00:52:24.944 --> 00:52:28.044
right now that's a very very
00:52:28.044 --> 00:52:30.824
compelling offer and what a lot of what a
00:52:30.824 --> 00:52:33.824
lot of uh studio owners do is if they do leverage
00:52:33.824 --> 00:52:36.564
a network at all they just kind of text people and go like
00:52:36.564 --> 00:52:39.484
oh could you spare me a few classes a week and
00:52:39.484 --> 00:52:42.624
then instructors get back and go like oh yeah no i'm really busy at the moment it's
00:52:42.624 --> 00:52:45.264
like yeah but like what if you quit all of the other shit jobs that you
00:52:45.264 --> 00:52:48.284
have and came and worked here you know
00:52:48.284 --> 00:52:50.984
so so yeah so it's basically where you
00:52:50.984 --> 00:52:53.904
go number one you i would i would go to you to poaching
00:52:53.904 --> 00:52:56.764
if you're desperate and you need someone yesterday because you'll get someone
00:52:56.764 --> 00:53:00.964
who's really good if you actively filter and go and actually do their class
00:53:00.964 --> 00:53:03.124
and look at the reviews and the waitlist and you go yeah fuck this person's
00:53:03.124 --> 00:53:07.224
really good i'd like to have them teaching in my studio then you will get someone
00:53:07.224 --> 00:53:09.084
who's really good because you know they're really good because you did their
00:53:09.084 --> 00:53:12.084
class the second thing which is much slower,
00:53:12.284 --> 00:53:16.944
but also very, very high chance of getting someone awesome is promote one of your clients.
00:53:17.044 --> 00:53:19.344
Like if somebody had been in the front row of your group reformer class three
00:53:19.344 --> 00:53:23.064
times a week for the last six months, it's like they're already a true believer in what you do.
00:53:23.304 --> 00:53:25.764
And all they need is some teaching skills. So you just got to like...
00:53:26.628 --> 00:53:30.088
Tap them on the shoulder, ask them if they're interested, and then train them up.
00:53:31.028 --> 00:53:34.288
And so, you know, that takes a long time, like it might take six months for
00:53:34.288 --> 00:53:37.488
that person to certify, okay, and you have to mentor them up and it's more work,
00:53:37.548 --> 00:53:40.688
but you will get a, you know, fanatical true believer instructor who teaches
00:53:40.688 --> 00:53:43.508
exactly how you want them to teach if you do that process, right?
00:53:43.868 --> 00:53:46.368
And then the third way is to advertise. And if you advertise,
00:53:46.508 --> 00:53:49.488
again, you should use your network, you know, like, so don't,
00:53:49.628 --> 00:53:53.148
like, yes, advertise on, you know, random job websites, but look,
00:53:53.648 --> 00:53:54.608
advertise in Pilates forums.
00:53:55.068 --> 00:53:58.308
Put your job ad, like, give it to all your clients and say, do you know anyone
00:53:58.308 --> 00:54:01.228
who might be interested? Give it to your instructors, ask them if they know
00:54:01.228 --> 00:54:01.928
anyone who might be interested.
00:54:03.808 --> 00:54:08.288
If any way you can leverage your network, you will get better connections than
00:54:08.288 --> 00:54:11.028
by just randomly throwing it out there.
00:54:12.388 --> 00:54:15.028
All right. And then like Keith said, you've got to say, okay,
00:54:15.108 --> 00:54:16.528
here's what we do, here's what we don't do.
00:54:16.628 --> 00:54:18.988
And then you've got to talk about the benefits to that person,
00:54:19.188 --> 00:54:22.288
which is the final thing, which is like, okay, you will get top of industry pay.
00:54:22.448 --> 00:54:24.968
And dear listener, I advocate that you should paid type of industry,
00:54:24.988 --> 00:54:28.168
not because I think it's fair or ethical or moral or makes you a good person,
00:54:28.328 --> 00:54:29.848
just because that means you'll get the best instructors.
00:54:30.868 --> 00:54:34.828
If you want great instructors, you can't pay worse than the studio up the road.
00:54:36.728 --> 00:54:40.408
You have to offer very competitive salary. So basically, you have to figure
00:54:40.408 --> 00:54:43.448
out what the other studios around you pay, and you've got to pay just a little bit more than that.
00:54:44.588 --> 00:54:49.508
And then also the mentoring and the stringent quality standards and being clear on what you stand for.
00:54:49.628 --> 00:54:53.768
We are a classical studio. We don't do dumbbells on the reformer or we are a
00:54:53.768 --> 00:54:56.868
strength-based reformer studios, we do dumbbells on the reformer.
00:54:56.928 --> 00:55:00.588
Just stand up for what you stand for and be clear that if you love that,
00:55:00.788 --> 00:55:02.248
come here because we love it.
00:55:02.408 --> 00:55:04.868
If you don't love it, totally fine. Not a fit.
00:55:06.668 --> 00:55:12.128
How do you – I think that kind of covers the gratitude part as well. Yeah.
00:55:14.133 --> 00:55:18.273
I just want to say, when you're drowning and you're teaching all the classes
00:55:18.273 --> 00:55:21.313
and you're overwhelming, like, holy shit, I just need, I'm burning out here,
00:55:21.393 --> 00:55:21.953
I've got to get someone's.
00:55:22.773 --> 00:55:26.753
I've made this mistake so many times that finally I've learned my lesson,
00:55:26.893 --> 00:55:29.613
I think, is do not make a desperation higher.
00:55:30.133 --> 00:55:35.133
I promise you, dear listener, I promise you, you will regret it.
00:55:35.793 --> 00:55:39.073
I promise you will regret it. Do not make a desperation higher.
00:55:39.353 --> 00:55:43.213
You have to hold your standards even when you're drowning.
00:55:44.053 --> 00:55:48.433
Yeah. And you'd be, again, I didn't do this. I didn't know this,
00:55:48.473 --> 00:55:51.213
but I've worked with people and we have done this and we've seen that it's better.
00:55:51.473 --> 00:55:54.553
You're better off to say to your clients that no one loves you.
00:55:54.973 --> 00:55:57.953
I'm burned out. I'm taking a 10 day break and going to Bali.
00:55:59.193 --> 00:56:02.573
I'll be back in 10 days. I'll spend all your memberships. You're better off
00:56:02.573 --> 00:56:05.773
doing that than taking someone that you haven't filtered for and trusting them
00:56:05.773 --> 00:56:07.613
with your clients that you've spent two years building up.
00:56:08.153 --> 00:56:11.613
And the clients will come back to you if you tell them the honest truth about
00:56:11.613 --> 00:56:16.893
where you're at if you put someone in front of them that essentially devalues
00:56:16.893 --> 00:56:21.493
their relationship with you you it takes a long time to get that back.
00:56:22.833 --> 00:56:26.413
And spinning off of that you know to what raf was what you're talking about raf,
00:56:27.053 --> 00:56:29.933
and so if you're if any if you're out there and you're hearing this and you're
00:56:29.933 --> 00:56:37.593
thinking hell me that's me um it's sort of extrapolating from that idea of tell
00:56:37.593 --> 00:56:40.853
your clients you're going to go away for 10 days rather than putting anyone in front of them,
00:56:41.313 --> 00:56:45.233
is if any of the processes that we're talking about resonate and you think,
00:56:45.493 --> 00:56:48.953
hell yeah, I want to do that, I want to work through that.
00:56:50.377 --> 00:56:55.537
If you're working 15, 20, 25 classes a week, those processes aren't something
00:56:55.537 --> 00:56:57.477
you do just quickly in the morning over a cup of coffee.
00:56:57.597 --> 00:57:00.357
You do a little bit regularly over the course of the next three,
00:57:00.477 --> 00:57:03.337
four, five, six, seven, eight weeks, and you build those things out.
00:57:03.437 --> 00:57:05.817
And we're talking about recording for yourself, watching yourself back,
00:57:05.957 --> 00:57:06.957
doing that multiple times.
00:57:07.597 --> 00:57:12.517
So whether you do it on your own or you do it with someone like Raph and I as a mentor.
00:57:13.197 --> 00:57:16.277
If you want to achieve that, don't think it's going to happen overnight.
00:57:16.317 --> 00:57:19.497
But also it will happen very quickly when
00:57:19.497 --> 00:57:22.477
you understand what it is you're setting out to achieve
00:57:22.477 --> 00:57:25.837
so it's sort of like you know it's not going to happen overnight but
00:57:25.837 --> 00:57:28.757
the changes will be um that will compound very
00:57:28.757 --> 00:57:31.837
quickly to identifying your brand to attracting people
00:57:31.837 --> 00:57:34.757
you want to work with to creating quality standards within your studio
00:57:34.757 --> 00:57:37.457
to creating a situation where you can actually leave someone in front
00:57:37.457 --> 00:57:40.377
of your your favorite clients for whom
00:57:40.377 --> 00:57:43.477
you are the instructor and you can take that break it will
00:57:43.477 --> 00:57:46.397
compound really quickly if you just work from ground up
00:57:46.397 --> 00:57:49.497
brand yeah what do you do that identifies your classes
00:57:49.497 --> 00:57:52.257
write it down share it with the people that you're
00:57:52.257 --> 00:57:55.337
working with if they want to come with you great if they don't say goodbye you
00:57:55.337 --> 00:57:58.197
know all of those things it's it's a process
00:57:58.197 --> 00:58:00.837
that you know it's relatively quick but it's
00:58:00.837 --> 00:58:04.057
not overnight that's the way to say it yeah yeah i
00:58:04.057 --> 00:58:06.897
agree you know you need to take your time in the beginning
00:58:06.897 --> 00:58:09.977
to actually reflect and get really clear on what you want
00:58:09.977 --> 00:58:13.337
and what you stand for and where you're going and what you won't tolerate once you
00:58:13.337 --> 00:58:16.257
get that it it it's quite quick to actually
00:58:16.257 --> 00:58:19.217
make the change yeah uh i just realized
00:58:19.217 --> 00:58:22.097
just it's the it's the foundations of the building
00:58:22.097 --> 00:58:25.097
if you if you ever if they've ever built flats across from
00:58:25.097 --> 00:58:28.157
your studio you know that for like a year there seems
00:58:28.157 --> 00:58:31.057
to be nothing going on because they're just digging a fucking great hole and
00:58:31.057 --> 00:58:35.717
putting concrete in it and then in the last six months suddenly there's 40 stories
00:58:35.717 --> 00:58:39.197
you know that's that i think that would be the metaphor you take the time on
00:58:39.197 --> 00:58:41.017
the foundations that the stuff that's
00:58:41.017 --> 00:58:45.237
more visible happens quickly and effectively right and you're you're.
00:58:45.984 --> 00:58:53.804
Mention of taking 10 days off in Bali, actually, I realized that we forgot one
00:58:53.804 --> 00:58:56.244
symptom at the beginning of this,
00:58:56.364 --> 00:59:02.084
which is you couldn't go away because there's no one to take over your classes.
00:59:02.784 --> 00:59:08.004
Maybe there are humans, but your clients wouldn't accept them.
00:59:08.764 --> 00:59:12.044
It's like, oh, I teach a special way and I'm actually literally better than
00:59:12.044 --> 00:59:12.924
everybody else in the studio.
00:59:13.104 --> 00:59:17.244
And so therefore, there's no one in the studio I trust with my clients for a
00:59:17.244 --> 00:59:20.404
couple of weeks, right? So that would be another symptom.
00:59:21.464 --> 00:59:24.984
And just to round it out, I'm assuming you've got a call on it to go to RAF,
00:59:25.064 --> 00:59:26.944
but... No, my friends are good.
00:59:27.444 --> 00:59:33.564
Oh, cool. So I've seen this in my studio and it took me far too many years to
00:59:33.564 --> 00:59:37.104
get there and I've seen it much more quickly with studio owners that I've worked with.
00:59:37.944 --> 00:59:40.824
Put these processes in place and you implement them.
00:59:42.024 --> 00:59:46.084
There is a there is a moment in time coming and
00:59:46.084 --> 00:59:49.884
this is talking to the the point raf just made retrospectively is
00:59:49.884 --> 00:59:52.604
when it when it when you a client comes to you
00:59:52.604 --> 00:59:58.064
and you're covering for an instructor who works for you and a client comes up
00:59:58.064 --> 01:00:01.124
to you and says hey that class was really good you weren't as good as tegan
01:00:01.124 --> 01:00:06.284
but that was all right and you realize okay i've trained one to be better at
01:00:06.284 --> 01:00:10.184
this thing than I am for that client so that I'm the ring-in.
01:00:10.704 --> 01:00:15.104
That's when you know you've done something really right. Now you've built a brand and a system.
01:00:15.744 --> 01:00:21.024
And I'm 100% certain that if I went and taught a teaching workshop in our certification,
01:00:21.884 --> 01:00:23.204
that would be the feedback I'll get.
01:00:23.324 --> 01:00:27.324
Like, oh yeah, that was pretty good. Not as good as Nicole, but not bad. Not bad for the new guy.
01:00:32.344 --> 01:00:35.284
All right. So two things I want to talk about. One is,
01:00:36.946 --> 01:00:41.706
How do you make that mindset shift from like, I'm, I'm butterworm,
01:00:41.946 --> 01:00:45.146
you know, I wouldn't presume to tell my instructors how to suck eggs.
01:00:45.266 --> 01:00:50.046
You do you boo, um, free for all, everybody does whatever they want to like,
01:00:50.206 --> 01:00:53.386
actually, no, I'm going to lead this team and I'm going to define what good looks like here.
01:00:53.486 --> 01:00:56.226
And if you're in, you're in great. If not, that's also great, but you're not in.
01:00:56.946 --> 01:00:59.186
So how do you make that mindset shift? And the second thing is like,
01:00:59.226 --> 01:01:00.526
well, what if this is all great?
01:01:00.626 --> 01:01:03.146
We say, don't make a desperation higher, set your standards,
01:01:03.266 --> 01:01:05.066
blah, blah, blah. What if you've already dug the hole, right?
01:01:05.066 --> 01:01:07.306
And you've got five people working for you.
01:01:07.426 --> 01:01:11.246
And when you honestly reflect, like none of them are a good fit, you know?
01:01:11.446 --> 01:01:16.046
So, so first thing is like, how do you make the mindset shift from,
01:01:16.326 --> 01:01:23.086
from not being, not leading, not take, not being the leader to being the leader?
01:01:27.026 --> 01:01:34.326
Yeah. All right. My two cents on that in this context is it spins off what Raph
01:01:34.326 --> 01:01:39.246
was saying. what we said at the beginning there are so many ways to do Pilates.
01:01:41.846 --> 01:01:45.766
If you want someone to work for you or if someone's already working for you.
01:01:47.622 --> 01:01:54.442
And it's your business, then it's your business to make sure that you all know
01:01:54.442 --> 01:01:55.982
what happens in your business.
01:01:56.582 --> 01:02:02.702
And I think Raph said this earlier, that doesn't mean that what other studios do is wrong or shit.
01:02:03.142 --> 01:02:06.242
It's just that you are super clear on what happens in your business.
01:02:06.842 --> 01:02:10.182
So if someone comes to you with 15 years of experience,
01:02:10.442 --> 01:02:13.462
I had this experience and I was the
01:02:13.462 --> 01:02:16.722
grateful one that i'm but a worm as raf said i was
01:02:16.722 --> 01:02:19.402
desperate a person came to my studio i was
01:02:19.402 --> 01:02:22.482
burned out i was teaching like 50 plus hours a week i was
01:02:22.482 --> 01:02:25.662
just completely wiped out and this person said i can teach 20 classes a week
01:02:25.662 --> 01:02:30.182
i've been teaching for 20 years and i bowed down in gratitude and six weeks
01:02:30.182 --> 01:02:34.742
later i had to let them go because they were teaching stuff that was not aligned
01:02:34.742 --> 01:02:37.982
with what i was doing and that was the first real wake-up call i had to there
01:02:37.982 --> 01:02:40.142
is something that i do that's not the same as other people.
01:02:40.482 --> 01:02:44.202
And I had to get clear on, it doesn't mean that I think I'm better.
01:02:44.382 --> 01:02:47.722
It just means that I've made a promise to my clients that they will get an experience.
01:02:48.142 --> 01:02:51.662
I have to validate that promise or I will not have a business.
01:02:51.982 --> 01:02:57.062
And so that was for me, the first step to being able to have that mindset shift
01:02:57.062 --> 01:03:00.482
of there's Pilates, there's Pilates, there's Pilates, there's Pilates.
01:03:00.602 --> 01:03:03.602
But what happens in these four walls has clear parameters.
01:03:03.902 --> 01:03:07.682
And you could have been teaching for 20 years or five years or five months but
01:03:07.682 --> 01:03:11.942
i'm i am the keeper of those standards until someone else is better at it than
01:03:11.942 --> 01:03:16.822
me that was that was it and the person the other part of that the person with
01:03:16.822 --> 01:03:20.362
the highest standards should be the one leading the team.
01:03:21.522 --> 01:03:25.082
Right once you're clear on what the standards look like because you don't want
01:03:25.082 --> 01:03:28.702
someone coming in with high standards about things that aren't part of your
01:03:28.702 --> 01:03:30.702
standards because other people will
01:03:30.702 --> 01:03:33.482
have standards, but it's got to be the standards that define your brand,
01:03:33.682 --> 01:03:38.582
which brings us back to spend the time identifying what it is that makes your brand special.
01:03:40.402 --> 01:03:45.322
And the other one, just on that paradigm, on that mind shift, for me, a big one was –.
01:03:48.586 --> 01:03:52.766
I felt grateful that people were coming to help me out with my problem.
01:03:53.086 --> 01:03:57.906
And even saw that that was costing me clients, like Raph said,
01:03:58.006 --> 01:04:00.606
I couldn't bring myself to have that difficult conversation.
01:04:00.906 --> 01:04:05.106
And then I read a book by Adam Grant, and I can't remember the name of the book.
01:04:05.246 --> 01:04:07.446
I'm Googling like crazy. I think it was called Give and Take.
01:04:07.766 --> 01:04:11.506
And he puts this idea forward that there are givers and there are take,
01:04:11.946 --> 01:04:16.966
but his research showed that you can be selfish or you can be otherish.
01:04:16.966 --> 01:04:20.006
And when i was having to steal myself
01:04:20.006 --> 01:04:24.366
for difficult conversations one of the things that i i learned from that book
01:04:24.366 --> 01:04:29.326
was that people who are selfless which is if you're the person who thinks heaven
01:04:29.326 --> 01:04:32.326
forbid that i tell you do you're not doing what i want because you you're so
01:04:32.326 --> 01:04:36.826
kind of you're being selfless rather than selfish what they did in the the studies
01:04:36.826 --> 01:04:38.246
that they when they looked at that,
01:04:38.746 --> 01:04:44.166
was if if they took a selfless person and put them in a negotiation situation if they negotiated for.
01:04:44.826 --> 01:04:48.486
They were uh that they
01:04:48.486 --> 01:04:52.506
were um ineffective ineffective thanks
01:04:52.506 --> 01:04:55.686
but if they were told that the negotiation position
01:04:55.686 --> 01:05:01.326
was uh you know what was dependent on that negotiation was their child's welfare
01:05:01.326 --> 01:05:06.166
or the well-being of their mother all of a sudden they negotiated a lot harder
01:05:06.166 --> 01:05:09.646
and so if we're talking about how to facilitate that mindset shift and you're
01:05:09.646 --> 01:05:12.766
a person that has trouble sort of telling people what to do,
01:05:13.266 --> 01:05:16.026
well then, if you're running a business, why are you running a business?
01:05:16.266 --> 01:05:18.926
You don't run a business as a charity. You're running a business so that you
01:05:18.926 --> 01:05:22.786
create a, you exchange your goods or services to create profit so that you can
01:05:22.786 --> 01:05:26.806
improve the lives of the people, of your life, of your employees, of your family.
01:05:27.266 --> 01:05:29.646
And so that was something that helped me. It was like, okay,
01:05:29.786 --> 01:05:33.606
I would like my daughter to have X, Y experiences in her life. Okay, great.
01:05:34.446 --> 01:05:37.866
This conversation will help my business move forward to a point where it's more
01:05:37.866 --> 01:05:41.406
profitable and I work less in that profit-making process.
01:05:41.666 --> 01:05:44.066
I get to spend more time with my daughter. And all of a sudden,
01:05:44.106 --> 01:05:47.306
it was a lot easier to say, okay, we need to talk about how you're running your
01:05:47.306 --> 01:05:52.266
classes because you've got 30% capacity and we're not making money until you're at 65% capacity.
01:05:52.386 --> 01:05:56.646
So we've got to take some steps to get to 65%. And in the back of my mind,
01:05:56.726 --> 01:05:58.766
I was thinking, so that test gets to go to school.
01:05:59.992 --> 01:06:03.152
Yeah. I think that is a really powerful reframe.
01:06:03.352 --> 01:06:08.352
And I think the way I think of it is that as the leader of the business,
01:06:08.792 --> 01:06:12.112
the business is your responsibility.
01:06:12.272 --> 01:06:16.552
It's your job to care for the business and do things in the best interest of the business.
01:06:16.832 --> 01:06:19.652
And when I say the best interest of the business, I mean all of those people
01:06:19.652 --> 01:06:23.652
that you mentioned, the staff of the business, the customers of the business,
01:06:23.712 --> 01:06:26.572
and also the owners, the owner of the business.
01:06:26.572 --> 01:06:32.312
And so because if you don't have a successful profitable business or you close
01:06:32.312 --> 01:06:35.852
the doors and none of your clients can get all those benefits of pilates all
01:06:35.852 --> 01:06:39.892
of instructors lose their job you lose your house your kids you know can't go
01:06:39.892 --> 01:06:42.412
on their holidays whatever it is so like,
01:06:44.772 --> 01:06:48.432
prerequisite number one of anything good happening in the business is that the
01:06:48.432 --> 01:06:49.592
business continues to exist.
01:06:50.692 --> 01:06:57.352
And the way to ensure that the business continues to exist is that the business is profitable.
01:06:57.512 --> 01:07:01.512
And the way to ensure that the business is profitable, one of the most important
01:07:01.512 --> 01:07:06.352
pillars, is that you are differentiated from your competitors.
01:07:06.552 --> 01:07:10.632
You're not a me too brand that is exactly the same as every other Pilates studio
01:07:10.632 --> 01:07:13.852
in a 10 mile radius and not in a race to the bottom with your prices.
01:07:16.372 --> 01:07:22.672
And in order to do that, you have to build a clear vision of what you stand
01:07:22.672 --> 01:07:24.052
for and what you don't stand for.
01:07:24.072 --> 01:07:27.172
And you need everybody in lockstep on that vision.
01:07:28.072 --> 01:07:31.672
And a business is a team. It's a team sport.
01:07:31.792 --> 01:07:35.532
You have a group of people working together towards a shared direction,
01:07:35.572 --> 01:07:36.892
a shared goal, a shared vision.
01:07:37.672 --> 01:07:41.672
And it's your job as the leader to be the conductor of that orchestra,
01:07:42.152 --> 01:07:43.552
you know, to make that happen.
01:07:44.132 --> 01:07:48.372
And you need to do it to protect the business because the business is the vehicle
01:07:48.372 --> 01:07:53.932
for your clients, your staff and yourself and your family to achieve all of
01:07:53.932 --> 01:07:57.632
those wonderful things that you get from Pilates.
01:07:57.772 --> 01:08:01.212
And I just think of, you know, when I need to have a hard conversation,
01:08:01.212 --> 01:08:03.552
I think like, well, you know, I'm doing this for my clients.
01:08:03.672 --> 01:08:07.792
If I have to like let a person go or give them some feedback that might be difficult
01:08:07.792 --> 01:08:09.052
for them to hear or whatever, I think like, well,
01:08:09.552 --> 01:08:12.512
I'm doing this so that my clients can have the experience that I want them to
01:08:12.512 --> 01:08:14.992
have, or I'm doing this so that the other people on the team,
01:08:14.992 --> 01:08:19.812
you know, continue to have jobs and can pay their mortgage and put food on the
01:08:19.812 --> 01:08:23.332
table for their families because I have to look after, I have to protect the business,
01:08:23.532 --> 01:08:26.192
right, for all of those, for the common good of all of those other people.
01:08:26.812 --> 01:08:29.272
So I think that's a really, really, really powerful frame.
01:08:30.332 --> 01:08:37.912
How do you then, what do you do if you've, and ultimately, I mean, I think,
01:08:40.386 --> 01:08:41.826
You have to do it scared.
01:08:44.506 --> 01:08:53.006
And the idea that you need to somehow be ready to do it before you do it is a mistake.
01:08:53.286 --> 01:08:57.326
You won't be ready until you do it. It's like, okay, that's the when then fallacy,
01:08:57.526 --> 01:09:03.126
which basically says, okay, after I'm strong, I will go to the gym.
01:09:03.466 --> 01:09:05.306
After I'm cured, I will go to the hospital.
01:09:05.726 --> 01:09:08.706
Once I'm rich, I will start to save money.
01:09:08.706 --> 01:09:11.886
Uh you know once my you know once once
01:09:11.886 --> 01:09:15.506
i lose weight i will start to eat healthy you know it's like no that's back
01:09:15.506 --> 01:09:21.366
to front okay and so saying like when i'm when i'm ready and psychologically
01:09:21.366 --> 01:09:26.726
ready to be a leader then i will lead is back to front because had how you how
01:09:26.726 --> 01:09:31.726
you get good at this when i say good at this i mean like it doesn't freak you the fuck out.
01:09:32.386 --> 01:09:35.886
Okay how you get good at it is by doing it you know
01:09:35.886 --> 01:09:38.846
how do you get good at doing teaser do teasers right the
01:09:38.846 --> 01:09:41.726
first time you do a teaser you suck probably the 50th time you still suck
01:09:41.726 --> 01:09:44.646
but at some point you can do it and then
01:09:44.646 --> 01:09:47.386
it doesn't suck and you get to a point where you're like oh this is pretty good
01:09:47.386 --> 01:09:50.146
i'm good at it doesn't feel bad feels good looks good is good
01:09:50.146 --> 01:09:52.906
and that's the same with having difficult conversations the first
01:09:52.906 --> 01:09:56.546
time you'll suck it'll be terrifying you probably mess it up by the
01:09:56.546 --> 01:09:59.326
time you get to the 50th 100th time it's it's no big deal
01:09:59.326 --> 01:10:02.346
it doesn't it doesn't bother you you've done
01:10:02.346 --> 01:10:05.646
the reps you've built that muscle and so the
01:10:05.646 --> 01:10:11.186
the the mindset shift is not like i'm i feel confident i'm ready to do this
01:10:11.186 --> 01:10:14.786
you know the mindset shift is no i'm just going to fucking do it scared because
01:10:14.786 --> 01:10:17.966
i've got to protect the business and my family and my clients and the other
01:10:17.966 --> 01:10:20.806
staff and it's just like this is what a leader does and i've got to do it because
01:10:20.806 --> 01:10:25.586
i'm the fucking leader and how i feel about it is completely fucking irrelevant.
01:10:32.209 --> 01:10:36.029
So what do you do if you've already dug the hole, right?
01:10:36.269 --> 01:10:38.369
You've got this UDA, you've been running it for a few years,
01:10:38.629 --> 01:10:42.409
whether you inherited a team or you've hired the wrong people or a bit of both,
01:10:42.549 --> 01:10:45.669
and you've just got a bunch of people working for you.
01:10:45.809 --> 01:10:49.309
And there's at least that one person that you're like, I know in my heart,
01:10:49.369 --> 01:10:51.649
that person's got to go. And I've known that for a long time,
01:10:51.769 --> 01:10:52.589
if I'm honest with myself.
01:10:53.229 --> 01:10:55.869
And there might be a few other people that you're thinking like,
01:10:55.969 --> 01:10:58.769
okay, yeah, they're good. They're not great.
01:10:59.169 --> 01:11:01.309
You know, I wouldn't, they're not John Jones level. They're not like,
01:11:01.369 --> 01:11:04.549
okay, if my kid's life was on the line and I had to send my clients into one
01:11:04.549 --> 01:11:07.369
instructor's class, I couldn't brief that person beforehand.
01:11:07.509 --> 01:11:10.489
It's like, no, I wouldn't feel great about sending them to these people's classes.
01:11:10.629 --> 01:11:12.969
But potentially we could train them up.
01:11:13.449 --> 01:11:15.849
Maybe you've got one or two instructors that you're like, yeah,
01:11:15.929 --> 01:11:17.549
that person's awesome. Or maybe you don't.
01:11:19.229 --> 01:11:24.469
But basically you've got a mess. So what do you do if you've already got a mess?
01:11:26.789 --> 01:11:30.289
Yeah well we're working with that situation
01:11:30.289 --> 01:11:33.249
at the moment and if you've got a mess
01:11:33.249 --> 01:11:37.809
but you've also got the problem of the mess then something's working for you
01:11:37.809 --> 01:11:41.629
because if you don't have the problem you don't have a business so if you've
01:11:41.629 --> 01:11:44.689
got the problem of the mess then you're running a business that's generating
01:11:44.689 --> 01:11:50.009
enough revenue and or profit that you recognize the problem and you've got the
01:11:50.009 --> 01:11:52.849
opportunity to clear up the mess because if you haven't got that,
01:11:53.429 --> 01:11:56.869
then you haven't got a business so that's the good news and then
01:11:56.869 --> 01:11:59.549
if you've got if you do have a mess and you're
01:11:59.549 --> 01:12:03.509
thinking i want to move forward and as
01:12:03.509 --> 01:12:06.769
if you're in a if you're in a market or a location where other
01:12:06.769 --> 01:12:10.069
studios are popping up and maybe you've been one of one or two for
01:12:10.069 --> 01:12:13.889
the last two or three or four five years and this is really common and people
01:12:13.889 --> 01:12:16.989
feel afraid of like oh god here comes competition i'm
01:12:16.989 --> 01:12:20.669
going to be dead in the water well no
01:12:20.669 --> 01:12:25.409
the first thing is that's good news right more studios means more people know
01:12:25.409 --> 01:12:28.969
that there's pilates out there and if there's three studios that's the that's
01:12:28.969 --> 01:12:33.649
your opportunity to differentiate yourself from the other two and so if you've
01:12:33.649 --> 01:12:37.909
got that problem which is the mess well then your opportunity.
01:12:38.829 --> 01:12:41.729
Is to clarify the mess and that for me
01:12:41.729 --> 01:12:44.689
that just leads us back to the process that raf and i have been talking about
01:12:44.689 --> 01:12:49.489
and it and you don't need to you know you don't have to go all biblical on the
01:12:49.489 --> 01:12:53.329
thing and fire everyone straight away and shut the studio for six months while
01:12:53.329 --> 01:12:58.929
you redefine your brand because then you won't have a business you need to recognize
01:12:58.929 --> 01:13:00.149
what you've got to work on,
01:13:00.649 --> 01:13:03.709
if you don't have any time you have to carve out
01:13:03.709 --> 01:13:06.369
some time or if you've got some time you can
01:13:06.369 --> 01:13:09.469
reprioritize your time you need to make a plan and that
01:13:09.469 --> 01:13:14.629
plan needs to be strategic and time appropriate and you work through what we've
01:13:14.629 --> 01:13:18.649
been talking about you've got to take a moment decide what you want to do and
01:13:18.649 --> 01:13:22.269
if you're not sure make sure that you actually want to teach pilates or run
01:13:22.269 --> 01:13:27.329
a pilates business and if you're very sure about that then look at what you're
01:13:27.329 --> 01:13:29.029
doing well because you are the brand.
01:13:29.827 --> 01:13:32.787
Unless like i said sometimes occasionally someone else
01:13:32.787 --> 01:13:35.627
represents your brand but that is very much the exception that proves
01:13:35.627 --> 01:13:38.607
the rule 99.9 times out of 100
01:13:38.607 --> 01:13:41.507
you if you've got this problem
01:13:41.507 --> 01:13:44.967
are the brand and you need to be just crystal clear
01:13:44.967 --> 01:13:48.027
granular fathom deep on you know
01:13:48.027 --> 01:13:50.887
like dna deep on what it is that makes your class
01:13:50.887 --> 01:13:53.867
different to another pilates class no generic bullshit you've
01:13:53.867 --> 01:13:56.947
got to know what happens at the beginning what the rep ranges are what
01:13:56.947 --> 01:13:59.887
you do your spring tensions on in these particular movements how many reps you
01:13:59.887 --> 01:14:03.107
like to do what does challenge look like in your studio you
01:14:03.107 --> 01:14:06.047
know and i mean this is what we do
01:14:06.047 --> 01:14:08.847
so i can rattle these things off but you've got to go through that
01:14:08.847 --> 01:14:12.587
process and identify it and that's where your solutions
01:14:12.587 --> 01:14:18.307
emerge from so and without belaboring the point if you've got that problem well
01:14:18.307 --> 01:14:21.747
done because you've got a really great problem you've got a great opportunity
01:14:21.747 --> 01:14:29.507
and the opportunity is to clarify and as you clarify and share that with your team in an objective,
01:14:30.167 --> 01:14:32.847
non-judgmental, transparent, open way.
01:14:32.947 --> 01:14:35.507
And you put the flag in the ground and say, this is our opportunity.
01:14:36.227 --> 01:14:38.287
We're going to clarify our brand. We're going to move forward.
01:14:38.367 --> 01:14:41.167
We're going to look for growth. Who's with me? This is what it's going to look like.
01:14:41.467 --> 01:14:43.947
You'll notice that some people step up and some people say, yeah,
01:14:43.967 --> 01:14:47.127
not for me. And then there will be some people that you've got to have a conversation with.
01:14:47.667 --> 01:14:51.347
And all of those things happen incrementally, not overnight.
01:14:51.807 --> 01:14:56.387
And yeah. I'm going to push back a little bit on the rollout because I feel
01:14:56.387 --> 01:15:02.587
like the clarity part is your zone of genius and the rollout part is more my
01:15:02.587 --> 01:15:05.327
zone of genius or maybe I've just got more experience doing it.
01:15:07.207 --> 01:15:12.507
But I would say, you know, if you've got a team that is, you know,
01:15:12.967 --> 01:15:14.987
got a spectrum of people and there's that one person, you know,
01:15:15.047 --> 01:15:16.987
on almost every team there's that one instructor that you're like,
01:15:17.027 --> 01:15:19.687
okay, yeah, I know that person's not a good fit, you know, like I should have
01:15:19.687 --> 01:15:23.347
fired him two years ago, but yeah, I didn't have the courage to do it basically.
01:15:24.487 --> 01:15:27.067
Um and then there might be you know a few people that are
01:15:27.067 --> 01:15:30.127
like so so and there might be them if you if you're lucky there's
01:15:30.127 --> 01:15:33.427
going to be one maybe two people that you're like fuck yeah those people are just so awesome
01:15:33.427 --> 01:15:36.327
and i just love how they do it um and
01:15:36.327 --> 01:15:39.007
i really trust i really trust those what that one person or
01:15:39.007 --> 01:15:44.507
those two people uh so is and heath i know you agree with me on this like yeah
01:15:44.507 --> 01:15:47.667
you can train anyone to do anything right it's just a matter of how much effort
01:15:47.667 --> 01:15:51.527
and time it's going to take right so if somebody who's already an eight out
01:15:51.527 --> 01:15:54.927
of ten it's way easier to get them to a 10 out of 10 than to get someone who's
01:15:54.927 --> 01:15:57.747
a 3 out of 10 and train them up, right?
01:15:57.847 --> 01:16:00.907
So it's like the first thing you want to do is go to that one person,
01:16:00.967 --> 01:16:03.447
those two people who are just superstars on your time table and say like,
01:16:03.487 --> 01:16:07.347
what would it take to get you to be full-time here, right?
01:16:07.467 --> 01:16:11.507
Yeah. You know, like what would it take for you to fully be boots and all,
01:16:11.767 --> 01:16:15.827
you know, 100% invested in making this the best studio ever and making this,
01:16:15.987 --> 01:16:18.487
you know, like really being a big part of this.
01:16:19.087 --> 01:16:22.507
And like, if how many classes would, if I could give, if you could have as many
01:16:22.507 --> 01:16:25.247
classes you want and any, whichever particular times you wanted,
01:16:25.367 --> 01:16:26.187
like which ones would you do?
01:16:27.513 --> 01:16:29.593
I'm going to fire the people who do those classes and they're yours,
01:16:29.773 --> 01:16:36.273
right? So like the easiest way to have better classes is just give more classes
01:16:36.273 --> 01:16:38.193
to the best teachers, right?
01:16:38.353 --> 01:16:43.653
And so like this is not a, there's not a situation where it's like everybody gets equal and fair.
01:16:43.773 --> 01:16:46.673
It's like, no, the best teachers get more classes because that's better for
01:16:46.673 --> 01:16:49.553
your clients and better for the business and it's better for your family,
01:16:50.133 --> 01:16:52.893
but to have the best teachers teaching more classes.
01:16:53.833 --> 01:16:57.593
And so the first thing you do is you go to those one or two trusted people if
01:16:57.593 --> 01:16:59.253
you've got them and just have that conversation.
01:16:59.753 --> 01:17:08.353
And then you go to the second ranked people and maybe in that first conversation, you,
01:17:09.473 --> 01:17:13.093
get to the point where you're like, huh, that one person I really know I should
01:17:13.093 --> 01:17:16.893
have fired years ago, I can now fire them because my best instructor actually
01:17:16.893 --> 01:17:18.153
wants to take over Tuesday nights.
01:17:19.493 --> 01:17:22.753
Awesome. So then you go to that person and you don't give them a chance to,
01:17:23.133 --> 01:17:25.173
you know, do you want to get on board, blah, blah, blah, because like,
01:17:25.313 --> 01:17:27.853
you know, in your gut, they're not a good fit, right?
01:17:28.273 --> 01:17:30.893
You teach dynamic reformer and they're classical or whatever,
01:17:31.193 --> 01:17:34.053
right? It's just like, it's just, this is not a fit, right?
01:17:34.893 --> 01:17:39.353
And any efforts we made to make it fit would just be trying to fit a square
01:17:39.353 --> 01:17:43.053
peg into a round hole here, right? This person just doesn't want the same thing that we want.
01:17:43.873 --> 01:17:46.813
Okay. So you just say to that person, hey, not a fit, all the best,
01:17:46.973 --> 01:17:50.753
love you, good luck, see you later, right? Sally's going to take over your classes
01:17:50.753 --> 01:17:52.473
starting next week or whenever it is.
01:17:55.413 --> 01:17:57.553
But if you haven't had that, then you basically go to your second.
01:17:57.713 --> 01:18:00.293
But if Sally doesn't want to take over that Tuesday night class,
01:18:00.453 --> 01:18:03.133
then you need to go to your second ranked instructors, the ones that you're
01:18:03.133 --> 01:18:05.493
like, they're okay, they're not bad, they're not great, they're not amazing.
01:18:06.073 --> 01:18:09.913
And you have essentially an up or out conversation with those people.
01:18:10.313 --> 01:18:14.353
And up or out means like, here's the new standard. okay if
01:18:14.353 --> 01:18:17.053
you want to reach that standard i want i'm going to
01:18:17.053 --> 01:18:19.853
like do everything in my power
01:18:19.853 --> 01:18:22.613
to help you achieve that stand i'm going to coach you i'm going
01:18:22.613 --> 01:18:26.973
to guide you i'm going to you know mentor you etc if you're not interested in
01:18:26.973 --> 01:18:31.633
reaching that standard totally find no hard feelings doors that way you're in
01:18:31.633 --> 01:18:41.253
or you're out and then once you know most likely they'll be in because my experience um dear listener,
01:18:41.853 --> 01:18:46.913
was uh for the years that I was like I'm but a worm I couldn't you know I wouldn't
01:18:46.913 --> 01:18:50.193
presume to coach these instructors who are more experienced than me you know
01:18:50.193 --> 01:18:54.013
you do you boo um everyone's awesome everything's great um,
01:18:55.870 --> 01:19:03.290
everything's valid, is actually once I started, once I changed my mindset and
01:19:03.290 --> 01:19:07.490
started giving feedback to instructors, universally, the response I got was
01:19:07.490 --> 01:19:10.190
like, oh, thank fucking God you're finally giving me some feedback.
01:19:11.710 --> 01:19:13.470
I've been waiting for you to do that for years.
01:19:15.530 --> 01:19:18.390
You know, I really want feedback. I need feedback. I want to get better.
01:19:18.470 --> 01:19:21.050
And it's like, why didn't you ever give me feedback before? This is awesome.
01:19:21.510 --> 01:19:24.830
So i was like oh so actually me thinking
01:19:24.830 --> 01:19:27.890
like i'm but a worm i was actually doing my instructors
01:19:27.890 --> 01:19:30.550
a disservice by not actually being a
01:19:30.550 --> 01:19:33.950
leader for them they wanted they wanted to be
01:19:33.950 --> 01:19:37.190
led they wanted feedback they wanted to get better of course
01:19:37.190 --> 01:19:39.970
we all do i mean i have i have a coach everyone has everyone needs a
01:19:39.970 --> 01:19:42.770
coach right like unless you think you're already 100
01:19:42.770 --> 01:19:45.770
perfect and like the sun you know sun shines
01:19:45.770 --> 01:19:48.470
out of you and the heavenly choirs sing when you you know when
01:19:48.470 --> 01:19:51.410
you walk into the studio it's like if you could improve like sure
01:19:51.410 --> 01:19:55.650
you need someone to look at you and go yeah you could do this or that better right and
01:19:55.650 --> 01:19:58.430
so everybody needs that so really you
01:19:58.430 --> 01:20:01.250
want to build that into your the thing that
01:20:01.250 --> 01:20:04.310
describes your staff right like that should
01:20:04.310 --> 01:20:07.850
be baked in that that that that openness to
01:20:07.850 --> 01:20:10.630
feedback well if you don't want to get better it's like don't work
01:20:10.630 --> 01:20:13.470
in this fucking studio dude like this is not a place where we
01:20:13.470 --> 01:20:16.610
have people that think they already you know everything and you know
01:20:16.610 --> 01:20:19.370
like you can't work
01:20:19.370 --> 01:20:22.250
here if that's your mindset but but dear
01:20:22.250 --> 01:20:25.850
listener i bet you that's not the mindset of like 90 of your instructors like
01:20:25.850 --> 01:20:29.510
they want to get better they want to be good instructors they want to have full
01:20:29.510 --> 01:20:35.190
classes they want to feel confident you know they want to they want to be super
01:20:35.190 --> 01:20:38.830
popular and and good you know no one gets into this game because they want to
01:20:38.830 --> 01:20:39.750
be a mediocre instructor.
01:20:43.424 --> 01:20:47.924
So having that mindset shift of just like, yeah, actually I'm here to serve
01:20:47.924 --> 01:20:50.664
this person by helping them improve, right?
01:20:50.764 --> 01:20:55.144
And if they don't want to improve or they're not aligned with the way we want
01:20:55.144 --> 01:20:58.824
to teach here, well, I'm actually doing them a service by helping them move
01:20:58.824 --> 01:21:00.384
on to somewhere that they are more aligned with.
01:21:00.544 --> 01:21:03.624
They can go find a studio where they don't get coached and where it is just
01:21:03.624 --> 01:21:06.184
teach whatever the fuck you want or where it is more classical or more dynamic
01:21:06.184 --> 01:21:08.104
or more whatever. And that's going to be a better fit for them.
01:21:13.244 --> 01:21:16.384
Is there anything else that you'd add to that,
01:21:21.244 --> 01:21:24.424
uh what we haven't talked about and i feel like we've probably kind of been
01:21:24.424 --> 01:21:27.304
on the topic long enough we could come back at this another time is that what
01:21:27.304 --> 01:21:33.424
we've talked about is well we've talked about filtering at the front and how
01:21:33.424 --> 01:21:36.044
that also helps you make decisions about,
01:21:37.124 --> 01:21:42.624
who's going to be on the team and not on the team um but
01:21:42.624 --> 01:21:46.344
there's there's another dimension to the process that we're talking
01:21:46.344 --> 01:21:50.904
around with this podcast which is the process
01:21:50.904 --> 01:21:53.964
that helps you be clear on what people will do when they're in in
01:21:53.964 --> 01:21:56.984
the studio and you've got your quality control which
01:21:56.984 --> 01:22:00.764
we talked about there's also
01:22:00.764 --> 01:22:04.024
an internal training process so people don't
01:22:04.024 --> 01:22:08.324
have to show up to your studio and teach already as
01:22:08.324 --> 01:22:11.044
good as they need to be you know this goes to what raf was saying
01:22:11.044 --> 01:22:14.044
about giving people feedback if if you give people
01:22:14.044 --> 01:22:16.724
the opportunity give someone the opportunity to look at your
01:22:16.724 --> 01:22:19.644
lesson plan or your cluster plan and come and teach you and you
01:22:19.644 --> 01:22:22.184
know they don't that they shouldn't you shouldn't expect them to be perfect
01:22:22.184 --> 01:22:25.544
but if you see that they've lent into the project they've taken on the brief
01:22:25.544 --> 01:22:30.464
great now bring them into the studio have the conversation with them about what
01:22:30.464 --> 01:22:35.464
it is you do and then you need to have built out and it's easier than it might
01:22:35.464 --> 01:22:38.004
sound built out an internal training system.
01:22:39.487 --> 01:22:43.147
Plans out for them what they teach when they
01:22:43.147 --> 01:22:46.667
teach it what happens in the classes and how
01:22:46.667 --> 01:22:49.767
they'll get feedback and it you know we talked about
01:22:49.767 --> 01:22:52.467
all of all of the bits around that but i think the one thing we
01:22:52.467 --> 01:22:55.127
haven't talked about is as that business owner what do you
01:22:55.127 --> 01:22:58.007
do when you hire someone and then you know the the
01:22:58.007 --> 01:23:00.807
seeds of greatness are there but you can't
01:23:00.807 --> 01:23:03.767
expect them to be already fully aligned and excellent
01:23:03.767 --> 01:23:06.427
in your brand so then you need once they're through the door you need
01:23:06.427 --> 01:23:09.647
a process that helps them to develop and that goes to remuneration
01:23:09.647 --> 01:23:12.467
you know you don't pay your person who's been with you for one
01:23:12.467 --> 01:23:15.367
month the same as you pay someone who's been with you for 12 months or 24
01:23:15.367 --> 01:23:18.167
months and you don't just pay people more because they've
01:23:18.167 --> 01:23:21.207
been with you longer you pay them more because they generate more money for
01:23:21.207 --> 01:23:25.687
the business or they meet their kpis etc etc so building all of that out it's
01:23:25.687 --> 01:23:30.487
it helps people to learn how you do what your business does and it also gives
01:23:30.487 --> 01:23:35.307
you the standards to which they need to live to and the retention you know the
01:23:35.307 --> 01:23:37.807
the revenue generation activity or outcomes,
01:23:38.087 --> 01:23:43.387
and those things are symbiotic to one another that allows you to track people through the business.
01:23:43.587 --> 01:23:47.107
And that helps with staff retention, which is, you know, you have client churn.
01:23:47.207 --> 01:23:50.327
You also, if you're running a business, you know, you also have staff churn.
01:23:50.787 --> 01:23:54.967
And so that's another dimension we haven't talked about, but I think that's
01:23:54.967 --> 01:23:56.627
probably just talk about that for another hour.
01:23:56.927 --> 01:24:00.287
Well, there's bad churn, you know, when someone good leaves and there's good
01:24:00.287 --> 01:24:01.387
churn when someone bad leaves.
01:24:01.707 --> 01:24:03.847
You know, when I say bad, I mean, not a fit, you know, a bad fit.
01:24:04.907 --> 01:24:10.287
And so you want bad churn or whatever, good churn I mean you want the people
01:24:10.287 --> 01:24:11.827
who aren't a fit off the team, right?
01:24:11.907 --> 01:24:16.067
Yeah, yeah, yeah And stuff, yeah And.
01:24:19.250 --> 01:24:22.530
Yeah, so I mean, I 100% agree with everything you said about the clarity,
01:24:22.550 --> 01:24:24.270
and that is just super important.
01:24:24.370 --> 01:24:28.570
I would add to filter for people who take feedback well in the interview,
01:24:28.730 --> 01:24:31.950
and I've mentioned this in a previous episode, is when somebody comes and teaches
01:24:31.950 --> 01:24:36.430
you a class, they come and teach you that class that you've written for them.
01:24:36.830 --> 01:24:39.550
Now, whether you poach this person and they're a fucking awesome instructor
01:24:39.550 --> 01:24:43.510
already, they're not going to be perfect, right? And they're certainly not going
01:24:43.510 --> 01:24:44.810
to be perfect at doing it your way.
01:24:45.910 --> 01:24:48.790
Give them feedback, right? Say, huh, okay, that was really good.
01:24:48.970 --> 01:24:50.450
Thing number one, thing number two were really good.
01:24:50.750 --> 01:24:54.790
Thing number three, not quite right. Can you do it more this way, okay?
01:24:54.970 --> 01:24:58.170
And go again and have them teach it to you and
01:24:58.170 --> 01:25:02.150
show you that they can implement that feedback because that
01:25:02.150 --> 01:25:04.910
filters for someone who takes feedback well when
01:25:04.910 --> 01:25:08.830
they don't get defensive and two they actually implement it because one of the
01:25:08.830 --> 01:25:12.990
most frustrating things that you can have as a as a as a leader is somebody
01:25:12.990 --> 01:25:15.590
who you give them feedback you're like and they're like oh yeah thanks that's
01:25:15.590 --> 01:25:18.470
really really good feedback and then you you'd watch the next class and they're
01:25:18.470 --> 01:25:22.930
still doing the same fucking mistake it's like well did we already talk about this,
01:25:23.430 --> 01:25:28.390
you know didn't we say like you know when you cue footwork i need you to say this like well,
01:25:29.370 --> 01:25:34.130
why didn't you say it you know we did we agree on that yes we did okay so why
01:25:34.130 --> 01:25:40.030
isn't it happening so So you need to filter for not just how open are they to
01:25:40.030 --> 01:25:43.070
the feedback, but do they actually implement the feedback?
01:25:43.230 --> 01:25:48.610
So I always, when I audition somebody, I give them feedback and then I'd say,
01:25:48.690 --> 01:25:50.570
okay, let's go again. Show me how you can implement that feedback.
01:25:51.430 --> 01:25:56.890
Even if they were a 9.9 out of 10, just find something that they could do different
01:25:56.890 --> 01:25:59.390
and give them the feedback and see how they respond.
01:26:09.978 --> 01:26:15.458
What's your, you know, I want to, let's talk about remuneration for a second.
01:26:15.638 --> 01:26:18.598
Okay. Because I think that is part of this package. Okay.
01:26:19.258 --> 01:26:22.578
Like you said, um, and you know, like I said earlier, I think,
01:26:22.678 --> 01:26:24.358
you know, essentially you need to pay top of market.
01:26:24.718 --> 01:26:29.738
So basically the mindset is you, that, that, that, that I've seen our most successful
01:26:29.738 --> 01:26:35.658
studio owners is I pay you more than the other place pays and I have higher
01:26:35.658 --> 01:26:37.378
expectations than the other place has.
01:26:38.338 --> 01:26:41.158
Right so if you're somebody who wants to be held to
01:26:41.158 --> 01:26:43.818
a really high standard and you want to
01:26:43.818 --> 01:26:48.698
be paid accordingly this is going to suit you right and if either or both of
01:26:48.698 --> 01:26:53.458
those things are not true for you this is not going to suit you and so i think
01:26:53.458 --> 01:26:57.898
when you have high demands of people that is going to like that is going to
01:26:57.898 --> 01:27:02.698
in and of itself be attractive to the right person right so i would not,
01:27:02.778 --> 01:27:09.258
you know, like you're not going to attract A plus people by having mediocre standards.
01:27:09.678 --> 01:27:13.258
They don't want to work somewhere where it's mediocre, right?
01:27:13.698 --> 01:27:17.878
They want to work somewhere where it's like, no, you have to be fucking elite to work here.
01:27:18.638 --> 01:27:21.058
And we're going to hold you to that. And if you're not elite,
01:27:21.298 --> 01:27:22.438
you're not going to work here.
01:27:23.358 --> 01:27:29.538
And they also want to be remunerated, aka paid, commensurate with that.
01:27:29.538 --> 01:27:32.978
Now, whether you do that on a per class or, you know,
01:27:33.898 --> 01:27:37.018
base plus bonus if I hit a certain number or whatever, but you've got to have
01:27:37.018 --> 01:27:40.358
a KPI, Key Performance Indicators, like, okay, I need you to have,
01:27:40.438 --> 01:27:46.978
you know, 75% class, full class as minimum, okay, to work here or to have that
01:27:46.978 --> 01:27:48.778
class on the schedule. It's got to be 75%.
01:27:50.258 --> 01:27:53.678
And if it's not, then we'll work together to get it to 75%. And if we can't
01:27:53.678 --> 01:27:55.158
get it to 75%, we're going to cut it.
01:27:56.398 --> 01:28:00.638
And if your overall attendance is not where it needs to be, we're going to work
01:28:00.638 --> 01:28:03.618
together to get it there and if we can't get it there, we're going to cut you.
01:28:04.518 --> 01:28:09.178
And so, yes, I mean, would you agree with that position on pay?
01:28:13.300 --> 01:28:18.420
Yeah i would uh yep and and i guess the only caveat on that i thought a caveat
01:28:18.420 --> 01:28:27.660
but as i said earlier what i learned yeah what i learned from remuneration was that it was very easy,
01:28:28.780 --> 01:28:33.160
to go too high too soon so you know you're saying pay top of market,
01:28:35.160 --> 01:28:35.640
but.
01:28:39.520 --> 01:28:44.860
You've got to find a balance between you know paying top of market without really
01:28:44.860 --> 01:28:51.800
high standards is buying you just get expensive mediocre teachers right,
01:28:53.340 --> 01:28:57.340
and the paradox of that is that you know if you're poaching then you're seeing
01:28:57.340 --> 01:29:01.220
the skills already but i what i found was often that i was taking someone who
01:29:01.220 --> 01:29:07.320
was super green that showed real potential, but I knew that there was going to be a lag time before.
01:29:07.740 --> 01:29:13.240
They lent into this, but it was just a natural lag time as they came up to speed.
01:29:13.500 --> 01:29:16.780
And as I said, you just build that into your remuneration process.
01:29:17.200 --> 01:29:20.040
Be transparent about where you're going to get to, and these are the steps that
01:29:20.040 --> 01:29:20.880
are going to get you there.
01:29:21.340 --> 01:29:28.860
Right. And so, yeah, I 100% agree. The top-of-market pay is for people who give
01:29:28.860 --> 01:29:31.220
top-of-market results, right?
01:29:31.220 --> 01:29:34.840
And if you're not there yet, then you're not yet at top of market pay.
01:29:36.340 --> 01:29:40.660
And our job is to get you there. And if I think you're enough aligned ideologically
01:29:40.660 --> 01:29:45.560
and you're teachable, then we will get you there.
01:29:45.580 --> 01:29:47.920
And when we get you there, then you will get paid top of market.
01:29:49.280 --> 01:29:55.800
Until then, no, you get reasonable pay and you get a lot of coaching and mentoring.
01:29:57.753 --> 01:30:00.793
And and and be really clear you know studio owner
01:30:00.793 --> 01:30:04.893
that's listening this goes back to some of the other points we've made every minute
01:30:04.893 --> 01:30:07.733
of your time that you give to a staff
01:30:07.733 --> 01:30:10.573
member has a value because that's one minute that
01:30:10.573 --> 01:30:14.593
you're not giving to your partner or your child or to running a class yourself every
01:30:14.593 --> 01:30:17.453
piece of resourcing every piece of travel you give
01:30:17.453 --> 01:30:20.613
has a value so when you're not
01:30:20.613 --> 01:30:25.093
paying someone as much as you as you might or not paying someone as so here's
01:30:25.093 --> 01:30:28.453
an example and this is a comparison that i had to work through with people and
01:30:28.453 --> 01:30:32.033
sometimes i kept the person sometimes sometimes i didn't i'm going to offer
01:30:32.033 --> 01:30:37.993
you x per hour plus this tiered training system and my time,
01:30:38.453 --> 01:30:41.753
i will help you become exceptional in
01:30:41.753 --> 01:30:44.573
the system of pilates that i teach in my studio and here's how
01:30:44.573 --> 01:30:47.453
i'll do that while we do that i'm going
01:30:47.453 --> 01:30:50.233
to pay you less because i'm offsetting that
01:30:50.233 --> 01:30:53.013
with my time and the value of the resources that i've
01:30:53.013 --> 01:30:55.913
built that i give you access to the studio
01:30:55.913 --> 01:30:58.753
down the road that just hires people at a generic rate
01:30:58.753 --> 01:31:02.273
and if you feel your class is awesome and if you don't we might let you go you
01:31:02.273 --> 01:31:06.373
can go there now at a higher rate of pay but you're not going to get the development
01:31:06.373 --> 01:31:09.893
that you get with me and you get to make the decision about whether you want
01:31:09.893 --> 01:31:14.053
to go there for the you're gambling that you'll be good enough there to get
01:31:14.053 --> 01:31:18.473
the results to get the money go for it or you decide you want to learn what
01:31:18.473 --> 01:31:20.413
i do and be exceptional in this system.
01:31:21.313 --> 01:31:25.193
And that's going to cost you a bit up front but i'm giving you the value is
01:31:25.193 --> 01:31:30.013
what you learn And ultimately, you'll make more here because when you are exceptional,
01:31:30.273 --> 01:31:31.373
then you'll get paid top of market.
01:31:31.773 --> 01:31:35.813
Right. And when you're running 15 classes here on a schedule that you've chosen
01:31:35.813 --> 01:31:38.493
and you're getting remunerated at our top level,
01:31:38.633 --> 01:31:44.853
you'll be paid a good percentage more than that down the road because they can't
01:31:44.853 --> 01:31:49.313
give you a higher rate because their rate has to allow for the people who don't
01:31:49.313 --> 01:31:50.433
hit their standards. Right.
01:31:52.229 --> 01:31:56.169
So yeah and so if you're the studio owner and you go through the process we're
01:31:56.169 --> 01:32:00.329
talking about which is identify your brand make it granular make it measurable
01:32:00.329 --> 01:32:04.949
be able to give about it hire for people that want to learn how to do it hire
01:32:04.949 --> 01:32:07.929
for people that will take feedback then people,
01:32:08.889 --> 01:32:14.669
should slash will take the low the lower slightly lower pay rate whilst you
01:32:14.669 --> 01:32:18.129
train them but you need to be transparent about what they're going to be getting
01:32:18.129 --> 01:32:19.529
when they get to where you've got to get to.
01:32:19.829 --> 01:32:23.429
And where you've got to get to has to be compelling, which is another way of
01:32:23.429 --> 01:32:25.409
saying top of market. Right.
01:32:27.469 --> 01:32:35.269
Something that I want to talk about is the, I think the emotion that goes along
01:32:35.269 --> 01:32:39.609
with all of these kind of decisions and conversations around people,
01:32:40.209 --> 01:32:43.829
around even firing that instructor who's not a good fit or having the up or
01:32:43.829 --> 01:32:47.029
out conversation with people who are kind of maybe are fit,
01:32:47.449 --> 01:32:53.029
you know, or having the pay conversation with people is,
01:32:53.429 --> 01:32:57.809
or even if it's like, you know, firing that client that you really don't like
01:32:57.809 --> 01:33:01.689
working with or that, you know, has showed up late for the 99th time and doesn't
01:33:01.689 --> 01:33:03.369
want to pay for their session or whatever,
01:33:03.969 --> 01:33:13.389
is just letting go of the emotion that's associated with that and treating it as not personal.
01:33:14.449 --> 01:33:18.309
And when i say that what i mean is like that
01:33:18.309 --> 01:33:21.029
instructor is not a good fit they might be a lovely person you know
01:33:21.029 --> 01:33:24.269
they might be kind and charitable and you know
01:33:24.269 --> 01:33:26.989
loyal and all of these great you know personality traits in a
01:33:26.989 --> 01:33:29.809
friend right but this is not a friendship
01:33:29.809 --> 01:33:33.289
this is a business right and
01:33:33.289 --> 01:33:37.269
you like all of those things kind and charitable and laws like a puppy can do
01:33:37.269 --> 01:33:40.149
that as well right but you wouldn't hire a puppy to teach your pilates classes
01:33:40.149 --> 01:33:44.009
because that's not enough you know you need someone who's really fucking good
01:33:44.009 --> 01:33:50.549
at teaching pilates to you know so so this this decision that these decisions
01:33:50.549 --> 01:33:52.469
that you make about hiring people firing people,
01:33:53.209 --> 01:33:57.309
reducing people's classes to give the best instructor their choice of the classes
01:33:57.309 --> 01:34:02.529
etc it's like you have to act in the best interests of the business and it's
01:34:02.529 --> 01:34:08.189
not about the the how much you like somebody or how loyal they are i mean just
01:34:08.189 --> 01:34:11.269
if you have a loyal person who's been with you for years but is a shit teacher
01:34:11.269 --> 01:34:12.529
and their classes aren't well attended,
01:34:13.009 --> 01:34:16.849
it's like that person is not a good team member, right?
01:34:16.969 --> 01:34:20.609
They've got some of the attributes of a good team member, but they're missing
01:34:20.609 --> 01:34:27.629
some glaringly important, crucial aspects of the team member and of a good team member.
01:34:27.729 --> 01:34:32.369
And so you need to make decisions based on objective facts.
01:34:32.509 --> 01:34:37.029
Like, is this person aligned with our teaching style? Are their classes well attended?
01:34:38.049 --> 01:34:43.509
Just the objective realities, not about how you feel about,
01:34:44.493 --> 01:34:47.173
Whether this person's a nice person or you don't want to hurt their feelings
01:34:47.173 --> 01:34:50.673
or, you know, they'll have to look for another job. And like all of those things
01:34:50.673 --> 01:34:52.113
are true and valid things.
01:34:52.233 --> 01:34:55.093
Like it's okay to feel sad about letting somebody go.
01:34:55.233 --> 01:34:57.913
And it is difficult when you get let go.
01:34:58.133 --> 01:35:03.813
And like, I think it's not to, I'm not saying don't have empathy for people,
01:35:03.853 --> 01:35:10.253
but having empathy doesn't mean that you should change your decision and do
01:35:10.253 --> 01:35:13.653
something that's not in the best interest of the business because then you're
01:35:13.653 --> 01:35:16.573
going against the best interest of all of your other instructors and all of
01:35:16.573 --> 01:35:18.053
your clients and your family and yourself,
01:35:18.533 --> 01:35:23.993
because the number one responsibility of the leader is to keep the business
01:35:23.993 --> 01:35:28.693
going because if there is no business, then everybody loses.
01:35:29.133 --> 01:35:33.673
Clients, staff, everybody loses. So your number one responsibility is you have
01:35:33.673 --> 01:35:40.093
to protect the good of the business and to do that, you can't always make everybody
01:35:40.093 --> 01:35:41.333
happy with every decision.
01:35:41.753 --> 01:35:44.073
That's just not reality in the world.
01:35:44.933 --> 01:35:51.533
So if you're unable to do anything that might cause distress to anyone,
01:35:51.793 --> 01:35:55.833
then you will become paralyzed and you will not be able to actually make any
01:35:55.833 --> 01:36:01.413
decisions at all ever because if you do anything or say anything in the world,
01:36:01.733 --> 01:36:04.273
there's a real chance that someone's going to get upset by it.
01:36:05.180 --> 01:36:08.700
If you put your prices up, if you change your packages, if you change your schedule,
01:36:08.880 --> 01:36:12.720
if you change the way you teach, if you add classes, change classes,
01:36:12.920 --> 01:36:16.320
promote people, demote people, change the way you pay instructors,
01:36:16.820 --> 01:36:22.000
anything you do or say, there's a really good chance somebody's going to get put out by it.
01:36:22.000 --> 01:36:26.500
And if you're unable to tolerate rubbing people up the wrong way,
01:36:26.640 --> 01:36:29.400
you're not going to be able to do anything in the world. Do nothing,
01:36:29.500 --> 01:36:30.260
be nothing, say nothing.
01:36:30.960 --> 01:36:36.820
So you have to be cool with letting
01:36:36.820 --> 01:36:42.100
go of or separating out how you feel personally for that staff member.
01:36:42.240 --> 01:36:45.920
It's a pity that they'll have to find another job and it's a pity that they'll
01:36:45.920 --> 01:36:49.660
have this sense of maybe not being a good fit on the team and they'll go through
01:36:49.660 --> 01:36:51.840
some kind of emotions and all of that.
01:36:52.000 --> 01:36:55.460
And separate that out from, okay, well, actually, am
01:36:55.460 --> 01:36:58.900
I doing this person a service by allowing
01:36:58.900 --> 01:37:04.960
them to continue on being mediocre at their job and in a situation where they're
01:37:04.960 --> 01:37:09.340
not a good fit and actually just not even telling them about that and just letting
01:37:09.340 --> 01:37:14.180
them go on and be that person who's like they left their zipper open after they
01:37:14.180 --> 01:37:18.040
went to the bathroom and you don't say anything to them because you don't want to offend them.
01:37:18.040 --> 01:37:21.860
It's like, well, actually it's probably better to let them know discreetly because
01:37:21.860 --> 01:37:24.160
you're not doing them a service by hiding the truth from them,
01:37:24.160 --> 01:37:28.260
you know, and it might be painful for them to hear the truth.
01:37:29.340 --> 01:37:33.540
Okay. But it's in their best interest as well. Like if, even if they're a great
01:37:33.540 --> 01:37:36.980
person, if they're not a good fit or if the studio doesn't need them,
01:37:37.180 --> 01:37:39.240
or if they're not, their classes aren't well attended,
01:37:39.520 --> 01:37:44.800
like you're not doing them a service by letting them continue on as basically a charity case.
01:37:46.222 --> 01:37:50.062
You know, like they wouldn't want that for their own sense of dignity.
01:37:50.062 --> 01:37:52.082
If they knew that you were just employing them because you don't want to hurt
01:37:52.082 --> 01:37:54.222
their feelings, it's like they would be mortified.
01:37:55.642 --> 01:38:00.222
Mortified. So you're not doing them any kind of service. All you're doing is
01:38:00.222 --> 01:38:03.062
just being afraid of confrontation, essentially.
01:38:03.622 --> 01:38:07.202
And you need to separate out your personal feelings about that human,
01:38:07.382 --> 01:38:09.862
which are real and valid and you're allowed to have feelings,
01:38:10.042 --> 01:38:15.722
from your sacred duty as the leader of the business to do what the business
01:38:15.722 --> 01:38:18.582
needs you to do what are your thoughts heath.
01:38:21.422 --> 01:38:27.262
Yeah i think that was well put uh and i think that you've had more experience
01:38:27.262 --> 01:38:31.602
with that process than me and i'm you know i appreciate the insights that you
01:38:31.602 --> 01:38:35.002
said and i i 100 agree with them um,
01:38:37.022 --> 01:38:42.622
yeah so what i you know i think you're speaking truth and you've you've been
01:38:42.622 --> 01:38:47.482
my business leader for, well, I've worked for you as an employee and then I've
01:38:47.482 --> 01:38:49.902
worked alongside you in tandem,
01:38:50.422 --> 01:38:54.262
for more than a decade and I've seen you work through that multiple times.
01:38:54.482 --> 01:38:58.442
2009, that's like more than a decade and a half, dude. It's getting on for two decades.
01:38:59.222 --> 01:39:02.702
Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, and I think you put that well.
01:39:04.642 --> 01:39:08.182
And for me, that ties in with what I was talking about with that Adam Grant
01:39:08.182 --> 01:39:11.322
book about other issues, where I've had to make those difficult decisions.
01:39:12.822 --> 01:39:16.742
It's helped me you talked about your sacred duty to the business,
01:39:18.742 --> 01:39:23.522
and you know if we take Breathe Education that's a business that's held what
01:39:23.522 --> 01:39:27.962
40 people sometimes 20 people it's expanded and contracted over time with the
01:39:27.962 --> 01:39:31.722
fluctuations of the market etc and.
01:39:35.062 --> 01:39:40.242
I've seen you do it time and time again difficult decisions have had to be made,
01:39:42.542 --> 01:39:45.702
and the the trite
01:39:45.702 --> 01:39:48.622
version of that is that it's just you know it's just
01:39:48.622 --> 01:39:51.462
business but what is the business and as you
01:39:51.462 --> 01:39:56.222
said before if you're running a business and you've got 10 people working for
01:39:56.222 --> 01:40:01.382
you then that's that's 10 lives that are intrinsically supported by maybe not
01:40:01.382 --> 01:40:05.842
solely but certainly significantly by the business that you're running and so
01:40:05.842 --> 01:40:09.642
if you're running if you're if your responsibility is to run that business you
01:40:09.642 --> 01:40:10.602
have to run that business,
01:40:11.462 --> 01:40:15.082
you have to take responsibility for running in a way that keeps the business running,
01:40:15.682 --> 01:40:20.522
and sometimes that means that things have to change and as the leader of the
01:40:20.522 --> 01:40:26.342
business ultimately you have to make those decisions and something i've observed
01:40:26.342 --> 01:40:28.882
in myself because i didn't plan to be a business owner,
01:40:30.252 --> 01:40:35.252
And so many of the studio we've worked with didn't plan to be business owners.
01:40:35.412 --> 01:40:38.732
They just loved Pilates and then sort of like found themselves running a business.
01:40:39.692 --> 01:40:43.412
So, you know, that it's like, it's like that thing. I've so many times in parenting,
01:40:43.412 --> 01:40:47.172
I've looked at the situation where I'm trying to solve the problem of the parenting
01:40:47.172 --> 01:40:49.592
problem in front of me and just thinking, why don't they teach you this in school?
01:40:49.872 --> 01:40:54.092
Like they're just, this would be good stuff in school because most people end up doing it. Right.
01:40:54.252 --> 01:40:57.152
And it's the same as, you know, if you're going to run a business,
01:40:57.272 --> 01:41:00.692
they don't teach you in school that you've got to differentiate between what's
01:41:00.692 --> 01:41:03.692
right for the business because there's multiple lives dependent.
01:41:03.692 --> 01:41:06.432
On it and the feelings you have about the people that you're
01:41:06.432 --> 01:41:09.772
working with and that's a tough thing to work through i don't
01:41:09.772 --> 01:41:12.492
i don't think you can teach that in school i think it's
01:41:12.492 --> 01:41:15.872
like you know pregnancy it's like you know.
01:41:15.872 --> 01:41:18.752
The the the meme that says we did this
01:41:18.752 --> 01:41:21.532
not because it was easy not because we thought
01:41:21.532 --> 01:41:25.612
not because it was easy but because we thought it would be easy you
01:41:25.612 --> 01:41:28.732
know and it's like anybody who's been pregnant
01:41:28.732 --> 01:41:31.612
uh you know this was certainly my wife
01:41:31.612 --> 01:41:34.912
and my experience of her being pregnant is like
01:41:34.912 --> 01:41:37.572
when you're in you're pregnant you're so focused you've got this
01:41:37.572 --> 01:41:40.592
birth plan we're gonna have candles and this is the music we're gonna play and
01:41:40.592 --> 01:41:44.012
you know this is the mantras we're gonna sing and you
01:41:44.012 --> 01:41:47.092
know this is how we're gonna do it and blah blah blah and then
01:41:47.092 --> 01:41:50.212
and that's you know that's
01:41:50.212 --> 01:41:53.372
almost the one thing that's guaranteed not to happen number one
01:41:53.372 --> 01:41:56.372
and then actually what happens is like the
01:41:56.372 --> 01:41:59.112
labor is like painful but it's like all of a sudden it's
01:41:59.112 --> 01:42:02.512
over and you got this fucking baby and you're like what the fuck do i do now and
01:42:02.512 --> 01:42:05.572
why is it crying and like what why can't
01:42:05.572 --> 01:42:08.332
i sleep and like what the fuck and and then
01:42:08.332 --> 01:42:12.472
that that phase lasts about like 15 years you
01:42:12.472 --> 01:42:15.232
know because you just continuously get like run over by.
01:42:15.232 --> 01:42:18.012
The baby train you know and then the toddler train and then the
01:42:18.012 --> 01:42:21.612
you know the teenager train and and and
01:42:21.612 --> 01:42:24.412
i mean of course there's amazing wonderful incredible things about being
01:42:24.412 --> 01:42:27.592
a parent and you know i love being a parent but but it's it's
01:42:27.592 --> 01:42:32.912
very like when you're pregnant you
01:42:32.912 --> 01:42:35.812
have all of these ideas like oh you know i'm going to be such a perfect parent
01:42:35.812 --> 01:42:39.072
my kid's never going to be on a device and they're going to eat organic food
01:42:39.072 --> 01:42:42.672
and no sugar and you know i'm going to be such a gentle parent or such a you
01:42:42.672 --> 01:42:46.832
know whatever like whatever your vision of parenting is we'll never eat mcdonald's
01:42:46.832 --> 01:42:49.772
they'll never you know and it's like that is all fucking bullshit.
01:42:49.952 --> 01:42:51.812
You know, like six months in, you're like, here, take the iPad,
01:42:51.952 --> 01:42:55.252
kid. Like, just shut up for 10 minutes, please. Get my cheeseburger and shut up.
01:42:56.112 --> 01:43:00.172
And it's like, but you're not ready to hear that when you're pregnant.
01:43:00.532 --> 01:43:03.192
You're not ready to hear it, right?
01:43:03.572 --> 01:43:07.172
We weren't ready to hear it. I've never met anybody who's been ready to hear it.
01:43:07.592 --> 01:43:11.812
And maybe there is that one, you know, superhuman person out there who's like
01:43:11.812 --> 01:43:14.352
ready to hear it, but like most mere mortals aren't.
01:43:14.552 --> 01:43:18.092
And so you can only learn that shit when you're doing it.
01:43:18.811 --> 01:43:21.731
Right yeah like you only learn it when you're doing it and it's the same with business
01:43:21.731 --> 01:43:24.671
you know i talk to a lot of people i must have a
01:43:24.671 --> 01:43:28.251
thousand plus conversations with people who want to start play studio and almost
01:43:28.251 --> 01:43:30.931
without exception they're very very idealistic and this
01:43:30.931 --> 01:43:34.191
is exactly how i was and they're like oh i want to offer this service that's
01:43:34.191 --> 01:43:38.191
like really affordable for everybody i want to pay my instructors amazing high
01:43:38.191 --> 01:43:43.531
salaries it's like okay well how does that work right yeah and i want to like
01:43:43.531 --> 01:43:46.191
have this nurturing environment where everybody's happy and it's all peaceful
01:43:46.191 --> 01:43:49.131
all the time it's like yeah that's not how the world works, dude.
01:43:49.571 --> 01:43:53.031
And when you get in and you open the studio, then you realize,
01:43:53.131 --> 01:43:57.991
huh, in order to make person A happy, I have to do something that's going to piss off person B.
01:43:58.351 --> 01:44:02.751
So I can't have both of those people be happy. So I have to make a choice between trade-offs here.
01:44:03.351 --> 01:44:07.411
And if I want to make my classes super affordable, then I actually have to make
01:44:07.411 --> 01:44:10.031
a loss in my business, which means I have to go and get another job elsewhere
01:44:10.031 --> 01:44:13.291
and put money into the business, or I have to not pay my instructors much.
01:44:13.451 --> 01:44:17.491
And so it's like, oh, well, I can pay my instructors a lot, or I can have cheap
01:44:17.491 --> 01:44:20.651
prices, but I can't do both. So I have to have some kind of trade-off here.
01:44:21.071 --> 01:44:24.911
So like you find once you get into the reality of the situation,
01:44:25.131 --> 01:44:28.811
you're faced with all of these real world trade-offs and you realize,
01:44:28.911 --> 01:44:31.031
ah, it's not fucking, you know, utopia.
01:44:31.371 --> 01:44:35.551
You know, there's no like perfect business where everybody's happy all the time
01:44:35.551 --> 01:44:36.791
and everything always goes right.
01:44:37.531 --> 01:44:41.351
Okay. And you're faced with these trade-offs between like, you know,
01:44:41.591 --> 01:44:44.471
situation A, which is good in some ways but bad in other ways and situation
01:44:44.471 --> 01:44:48.731
b which is good and bad in different ways that's you know it's like pick your
01:44:48.731 --> 01:44:51.731
problem right you can't you can't get rid of problems you can just upgrade to
01:44:51.731 --> 01:44:57.991
better problems and so i think that you know that mindset of sort of being idealistic is,
01:44:58.471 --> 01:45:03.031
i don't think it is something you can learn until you're in the middle of it
01:45:03.031 --> 01:45:05.871
and you're like oh fuck this is a lot harder than i thought it would be because
01:45:05.871 --> 01:45:10.511
i think being an optimist is a prerequisite to opening a business because if
01:45:10.511 --> 01:45:11.391
you don't think it's going to work,
01:45:11.591 --> 01:45:14.651
you won't open it, right? And so being an optimist,
01:45:15.480 --> 01:45:19.360
means that you have an unrealistically positive expectation of what's going to happen.
01:45:19.960 --> 01:45:25.080
But I think you have to have that in order to actually get the guts up to actually open a business.
01:45:25.320 --> 01:45:28.340
So if you weren't idealistic, you would never open a business.
01:45:30.320 --> 01:45:34.480
But then once you open the business, you have to become less idealistic because
01:45:34.480 --> 01:45:39.100
that's the reality is you can't make everybody happy all the time. Yeah.
01:45:41.060 --> 01:45:47.420
Kind of what my life cured me what we so i've i don't know this is a bit tangential
01:45:47.420 --> 01:45:52.340
i'm getting tired but something i used to say to a friend uh when we talk about
01:45:52.340 --> 01:45:57.660
relationship stuff was when i talked about my life i'd say my life cured me of romanticism.
01:46:00.260 --> 01:46:03.040
Like i was really romantic as a young person and then i
01:46:03.040 --> 01:46:05.780
just the shit that happened to me in my early out of life i
01:46:05.780 --> 01:46:08.540
was like yeah no i'm not so romantic anymore you know
01:46:08.540 --> 01:46:11.420
like this and it's the same exactly exactly i'm thinking
01:46:11.420 --> 01:46:14.180
of that because of what you said about having to be an optimist when
01:46:14.180 --> 01:46:17.880
i started started my business it was in my living room shuffled the
01:46:17.880 --> 01:46:21.780
house around blessed my she's just like yeah cool i have my birthday my bedroom
01:46:21.780 --> 01:46:25.580
in another room okay great thanks i can put a cadillac in there so i sort of
01:46:25.580 --> 01:46:29.820
did that and then i outgrew that and i went and got my studio and first room
01:46:29.820 --> 01:46:34.400
i had of a studio was a kitchen and it was four meters by five meters and i
01:46:34.400 --> 01:46:37.060
somehow I managed to fit a Cadillac, a reformer, a chair,
01:46:37.360 --> 01:46:40.700
and a mat in it, had to rip out the kitchen, put in a carpet.
01:46:40.900 --> 01:46:43.500
And I'd done all of that. And then I pulled back the blinds and saw that I'd
01:46:43.500 --> 01:46:46.160
opened across the road from a physiotherapist that ran Pilates.
01:46:46.400 --> 01:46:49.180
I thought, what the fuck am I doing? I didn't even notice that.
01:46:49.280 --> 01:46:51.940
I just took the opportunity so optimistically.
01:46:52.360 --> 01:46:55.840
And for me, that was just what you just said about being optimistic.
01:46:56.040 --> 01:47:00.140
I would never have done any of that if I didn't think, sure, this could work.
01:47:00.760 --> 01:47:05.980
If I'd stopped to think for a second about the forces that were lined up against
01:47:05.980 --> 01:47:07.900
my success, I would never have done it.
01:47:08.693 --> 01:47:12.213
You have to have that if you're going to start, and you've got to hold on to that.
01:47:12.853 --> 01:47:16.533
Right. And I think you've got to maintain it at some level as you continue.
01:47:16.733 --> 01:47:19.353
Like, you would never open your second studio, right? Right.
01:47:19.353 --> 01:47:21.513
If you thought, oh, I've already done one, how hard can the second one be?
01:47:22.193 --> 01:47:23.553
It's like, yeah, pretty fucking hard.
01:47:24.593 --> 01:47:28.273
Two kids, one kid, one kid, two kids. Right. It's like, yeah,
01:47:28.293 --> 01:47:31.333
we did this not because it was easy, but because we thought it would be easy.
01:47:31.733 --> 01:47:35.093
And I think you have to have that mindset, and you have to have an optimistic
01:47:35.093 --> 01:47:38.573
mindset in order to actually start the thing. and you have to start the thing
01:47:38.573 --> 01:47:40.373
in order to succeed in the thing.
01:47:40.493 --> 01:47:44.273
So I think optimism does promote success and you need to be an optimist.
01:47:44.393 --> 01:47:47.473
But then at some point, you need to switch into being more realistic and going,
01:47:47.593 --> 01:47:49.973
okay, we have to actually solve these problems.
01:47:50.173 --> 01:47:52.933
And in the process of solving this problem, I'm going to create another problem.
01:47:53.433 --> 01:47:57.413
So all I'm going to do really is not eliminate problems. I'm going to trade
01:47:57.413 --> 01:47:59.493
one problem for a different problem, right?
01:47:59.573 --> 01:48:03.793
So I'm going to trade the problem of having a hard conversation with this team
01:48:03.793 --> 01:48:08.713
member, for the problem of having a team member who's not aligned and whose classes aren't full.
01:48:10.053 --> 01:48:12.573
So let me just grab that for a moment.
01:48:14.453 --> 01:48:18.113
We're talking to the studio owner that finds themselves with this problem,
01:48:18.413 --> 01:48:21.133
the mess, whatever version of it it is.
01:48:21.393 --> 01:48:24.313
That studio owner, if we're talking to you, dear listener,
01:48:25.770 --> 01:48:30.270
If you didn't go to business school and decide that Pilates was the market you
01:48:30.270 --> 01:48:33.750
wanted to function in, right, which is almost certainly the case,
01:48:33.810 --> 01:48:36.150
because I don't think many people do an MBA and go, hell yeah,
01:48:36.290 --> 01:48:37.230
Pilates is where I'm going.
01:48:38.410 --> 01:48:43.570
So if you've grown up, you've organically gone ground up through your love of
01:48:43.570 --> 01:48:46.550
Pilates and what it did for you, and you wanted to become an instructor,
01:48:46.690 --> 01:48:48.590
and you became an instructor, and then you wanted to open a business,
01:48:48.690 --> 01:48:49.810
because that seemed the next logical thing.
01:48:49.810 --> 01:48:56.130
That the seed of what you've done, the germ of it, the thing that germinated
01:48:56.130 --> 01:49:00.550
that process is the feeling that you get from changing people's lives through.
01:49:01.070 --> 01:49:04.330
I think that aligns with the optimism that Raf was talking about.
01:49:04.930 --> 01:49:09.230
And if you've got the problem we're talking about, my prediction is that there's
01:49:09.230 --> 01:49:14.310
some part of you that's feeling fatigued, maybe a little bit disillusioned,
01:49:14.410 --> 01:49:16.310
like thinking, how did I end up here?
01:49:16.490 --> 01:49:19.610
I used to love teaching classes. Now I spend my life managing people
01:49:19.610 --> 01:49:22.570
i don't teach as many classes and when i do i'm tired like
01:49:22.570 --> 01:49:25.310
you know some some part of this has got to be your reality if
01:49:25.310 --> 01:49:28.010
you've got this problem and what raf and i have
01:49:28.010 --> 01:49:30.730
been talking about through our lived experience and as
01:49:30.730 --> 01:49:33.470
we as we keep saying god we wish people would have
01:49:33.470 --> 01:49:36.490
told us this 15 years ago so we didn't have to call the mistakes
01:49:36.490 --> 01:49:39.910
is that the the processes that
01:49:39.910 --> 01:49:43.050
we're talking about and these difficult conversations that
01:49:43.050 --> 01:49:46.350
you have they all support your business
01:49:46.350 --> 01:49:49.110
doing the very thing that it was that
01:49:49.110 --> 01:49:52.030
inspired you to start in the first place right so if you
01:49:52.030 --> 01:49:55.390
started in your living room helping people with pilates then
01:49:55.390 --> 01:49:58.390
you moved to a studio on your own and then you started hiring
01:49:58.390 --> 01:50:01.270
instructors you're scaling up your vision whether you
01:50:01.270 --> 01:50:04.450
realize it or not and the problems
01:50:04.450 --> 01:50:07.750
that you've got are just the problem the opportunities you've
01:50:07.750 --> 01:50:10.530
got to keep scaling up your vision and you could stop
01:50:10.530 --> 01:50:14.270
at any point and just say i'm happy with this as long as it works for you in
01:50:14.270 --> 01:50:19.910
remuneration lifestyle whatever if you need to grow then you need to take the
01:50:19.910 --> 01:50:25.270
steps you need to in order to grow and so your business is the expression of
01:50:25.270 --> 01:50:28.190
that vision and all of these difficult things that you've got to do it can be
01:50:28.190 --> 01:50:29.930
really helpful to remember.
01:50:31.271 --> 01:50:34.871
The better you run your business, the more effectively you continue to achieve
01:50:34.871 --> 01:50:37.471
your mission, which was to change people's lives through movement.
01:50:37.911 --> 01:50:44.131
Right. And this is what I talked about this in an episode quite recently about
01:50:44.131 --> 01:50:50.651
the five stages of a Pilates business, which was episode 320.
01:50:52.911 --> 01:50:58.811
And essentially, as you scale your business from just being a solo operator
01:50:58.811 --> 01:51:02.171
to hiring people to open a second site to, you know, whatever,
01:51:02.491 --> 01:51:05.991
like what you're doing is you're building, you're building your impact,
01:51:06.171 --> 01:51:08.671
you know, like you're going from helping, you know, five people a week to 20
01:51:08.671 --> 01:51:11.951
people a week to a hundred people a week to 500 people a week to a thousand people a week.
01:51:12.371 --> 01:51:18.491
And the way you, you amplify that impact is you can't, like you can't personally
01:51:18.491 --> 01:51:19.871
help a thousand people a week.
01:51:19.991 --> 01:51:24.191
So you have to have other people help you help those thousand people or 500
01:51:24.191 --> 01:51:26.791
people or 200 people or whatever number you're, you're helping currently.
01:51:26.791 --> 01:51:34.091
And in order to scale up that ability to have that impact and also create more
01:51:34.091 --> 01:51:38.971
financial impact for yourself and create a livelihood for more instructors,
01:51:39.331 --> 01:51:48.791
all of those things that a business does, you've got to scale up your ability to build this business.
01:51:49.491 --> 01:51:53.331
And building the business, part of it's marketing and sales and running your
01:51:53.331 --> 01:51:54.931
finances and operations, all of that stuff.
01:51:55.171 --> 01:51:59.791
But a massive part of it is the actual product itself.
01:52:01.911 --> 01:52:10.331
And you've got to scale up your ability to deliver that to 200 people or 500 people or 1,000 people.
01:52:10.351 --> 01:52:12.611
And the way you do that is through other people.
01:52:12.891 --> 01:52:18.171
And so you have to, dear listener, just get over your fucking head shit,
01:52:19.271 --> 01:52:23.991
about being a leader and be a leader and the way you be a leader is what we've
01:52:23.991 --> 01:52:28.951
described in this episode and you just do it scared and you make a hash of it
01:52:28.951 --> 01:52:31.611
and then next time you do it a little bit less scared and make a little bit
01:52:31.611 --> 01:52:34.131
less of a hash of it and if you follow our advice,
01:52:34.611 --> 01:52:36.551
you will make a lot less of a hash of it,
01:52:37.271 --> 01:52:41.351
and you can save like a few dozen reps of doing it badly,
01:52:42.351 --> 01:52:46.271
and you can skip to the part where you're sort of adequate and then you can
01:52:46.271 --> 01:52:50.571
polish that up and get more comfortable but it doesn't get easier until you start doing it.
01:52:50.751 --> 01:52:56.191
And you have to beat that boss at each level of the video game in order to get to the next level.
01:52:56.291 --> 01:52:58.731
And the boss at your current level might be having that hard conversation with
01:52:58.731 --> 01:53:02.371
that one instructor, or it might be creating your system, or whatever it might be.
01:53:02.451 --> 01:53:09.331
But the impact that you crave lies on the other side of the conversations you've
01:53:09.331 --> 01:53:10.231
been avoiding, essentially.
01:53:12.571 --> 01:53:14.811
And now I do have a session I've got to go to.
01:53:18.371 --> 01:53:21.351
Good talk. Yeah, thanks, Raph. See you next time.
01:53:22.800 --> 01:53:30.174
Music.