As a business owner you can only grow your business to a certain level by yourself. The long hours and endless tasks will burn you out if you don’t find a way to build a fitness business team to help you out.
Most fitness business owners make their hires out of desperation, especially at first. You let the stress pile up, push burnout right to the brink and then finally decide you’ll make a hire. You quickly find someone you think can ‘do it all’ and bring them on. Instead of planning their onboarding you throw everything you don’t want to do at them and hope they figure it out.
It may not seem that unplanned while you are going through it but very few first time managers and new business owners make a great first hire. They end up having to replace that person within a few months and end up right back where they started.
If you want to make a great hire check out our “How to Hire The First Employee For Your Fitness Business” article and implement the process laid out there. Once you have that person in place it’s time to build them up and reinvest the time you spent on the tasks they will take on into developing them.
A great team member, one who is going to help drive your business growth, will want 3 things:
- What should I be doing and how well
- How will I be rewarded
- How can I improve my performance?
What Should I Do & How Well?
Clarity provides energy. When your team knows exactly what they should be doing and what you expect of them they can do their job well. Usually, when you have someone underperforming in their role the first place to look is at their manager…that would be you!
The best place to lay out your expectations is in their job description. Instead of relying on a long list of tasks and responsibilities for the position we recommend that you clearly state 1-3 Core Responsibilities.
These Core Responsibilities are the priorities for the position and will provide clarity for the team member who needs to perform them. These are usually listed out in 2-5 word statements such as “New Core Offer Client Growth” or “Deliver Training Sessions”.
But, that’s not enough. You need to let them know how you measure their performance in these areas and so right under the Core Responsibilities on the job description you will list the metrics you will use to assess their performance in each. These should be something you are already measuring as a KPI or something that you can easily measure.
These won’t be meaningful if you list them but don’t follow through with managing to them!
Once you have defined the Core Responsibilities and Metrics for the position you’ll need to review them and clearly explain them to the team member. Once they have a solid understanding of what to do and how they will be assessed its time to set goals for them.
Each of your metrics should have a quarterly, monthly or weekly goal that you are reviewing with this team member in your Weekly Individual Meeting. These goals are the performance expectations for your team member.
This clarity and weekly management of the metrics will allow you to get ahead of any issues and help your team member improve their performance.
How Will I Be Rewarded?
If a team member exceeds your performance expectations and knocks it out of the park with their goals they want to know how they will be rewarded. This isn’t always in the form of monetary compensation, but letting them know exactly what they can expect is important.
You can reward your team members with bonuses, incentives in pay, extra time off, gifts, or even simple recognition to the rest of the team. How you reward your team members is up to you and your budget, but you need to recognize and reward great performance.
Don’t confuse this with giving them extra for meeting expectations! You are paying them to do a job, so you expect them to hit your goals. However, if you have a superstar that comes along they will anticipate exceeding your goals and want to be rewarded for it.
Save your rewards for exceptional performance! Reward and recognize more of what you want to see from your team.
How Can I Improve My Performance
Superstars are constantly looking to improve their performance, learn and grow. You need to nurture that need and help them with continued education and performance development.
Working with your team members to identify the areas they need to work on to see improvements in their performance is critical. Much of your time as a manager is spent thinking about how to help your team and this is one of the best ways to do it.
Investing in professional development through certifications, courses, workshops or coaching can pay off big time for you as a business owner.
Business owners fear investing in their team members and having them leave. In most cases when you invest in your team they will become very loyal to you and your business. There are instances where a team member outgrows your business and needs to take the next step in their career which you aren’t able to provide at the time. That’s okay, and you should encourage them to do so.
If you get the reputation of developing superstars and helping the accelerate their career you will have no trouble finding great people to help grow your business.
But, if you don’t develop your team for fear that they may leave you will be stuck with subpar team members.
I’d take my chances with superstars!
Put together plans to help each of your team members develop as a professional in this industry and become superstars in their position. You won’t regret it.
Hiring is the first step…
Hiring great people is just the first step as a manager to building a team of superstars. There’s a good chance you won’t be hiring team members that are already great at the job you hiring them for and they will require some development and training.
You need to reinvest your time, energy and money into developing them so that they can help you grow your business.
Want Help Developing & Building A Team?
Schedule a free Strategy Session with an expert on the Fitness Revolution Team to help you find a solution to your growth challenges. On this call, you’ll be able to uncover the obstacles holding you back from reaching your goals and put a plan in place to overcome them. It’s time to end the guesswork and frustration so that you finally create the income and business you want.
