Are you struggling to find reliable coaches for your fitness business?
You’re not alone!
Since the beginning of the pandemic, there’s been consistent talk about the struggle to find and attract talented trainers.
This week, we set out to give you the upper hand when it comes to acquiring new talent.
In this episode, we chat about:
- The number one reason why you’re not getting new trainers & coaches
- What you can do to instantly improve your odds of attracting talented and hardworking team members.
- The various factors that you should be aware of when searching for talent.
- Why you should be raising your rates every two years (at minimum).
If you need help getting new personnel into your gym, then this episode is perfect for you!
Want help getting your team on the same page? Naamly can help. You can use Naamly to assign team members tasks, monitor communication between your staff and clients, and centralize client information all in one place! Start your FREE trial now.
Watch The Full Episode
Sumit Seth: Well, welcome back Tom,
Thomas Plummer: long time. No, see,
Sumit Seth: Long time no see. Welcome to another episode of just one thing. Where training gyms owners get actionable insights to grow their business. So Tom today’s
question is
there’s a huge shortage of trainers. Now I know a lot of my clients talk about that and in mastermind sessions, that I’m part of.
Uh, they’re reaching out to me and saying, how do we get new trainers in? So the question before. Is this going to be here to stay? Or is this just because of the current environment we find ourselves in? Tell me more and then tell me, how do we bridge the gap? Tell me both things,
I guess,
Thomas Plummer: um, you know, where we probably need to change the name of the show from just one thing, which I can never stick to, to, to a little bit of everything I’m thinking about today.
Probably. So I’ll try and get this down to one thing. And of course with me, there’s always, you’re trying to help people grow their businesses. You got to start with not the what, but maybe the why. So I’m working for a, on a, a workshop I’m doing for poor, uh, Chris , uh, performed at our meeting of the month.
And, um, one of the I’m like life lessons, and these asked me to do that, like Boyle did, and gosh group did. And so one of the things I was talking about is, you know, what’s, what is the biggest mistake? And I, you know, I’ve got a whole list of stuff, but I keep coming back to the single biggest mistake is that people do not accept the reality of their business as it is today.
They, they get stuck. They, they, they claim to the past. They deny their own reality and therefore they’re never prepared for the future, or they just, they don’t know how to embrace the change. So they get, they just really are lost in time. They run a business. That’s out of date.
So when it comes to labor and things like that, we look at this and a socket to one coach and I’m like, what do you pay him? He goes $17 an hour. I said, you’re in a Northern market. I said, you you’re probably gonna have to pay 25 to 30. He goes, I can’t do that. And I said, yes, you can. And you’ve got to raise the rates.
I said, did your, did you did your rent go up this year? And he goes, yes. Oh, okay. Did your utilities go up this year? Yeah. Did what else went up this year? And he goes damn near everything, gas everything’s going up. I said, when’s the last time you raised your rates? Five years ago. So cost of labor is something that goes up right now.
It was driven by the virus, but it’s there.
you haven’t embraced the reality of the time as it is now. The thing is it’s not just labor, but what the kids that we hire, their whole cost of living is going up. Their apartments are.
Out of control here in Asheville, this is a town, right? They have 90,000 people, 250,000 in county rentals have gone up by 40% in two years. So if I’m paying, you know, $17 an hour, the guy can’t even live, you know, I’m paying him enough to hate me. So the number one reason you’re not getting employees is you just haven’t embraced the reality.
This is now we need to pay more. They’re there. But you’ve got to get them out of other gyms. There they are. They’re jumping gems, looking for somebody that’s going to pay them decently. So if you’re paying $17, $20 an hour in your market, and you’re not getting any coaches, you’re never going to get any coaches because cost of living has gone up.
Apartments have gone up, utilities have gone up, your rent’s gone up, everything went up, but. You didn’t charge more, which you have to adjust your rates upwards and cost of labor is just what I’m saying to changes. Now you can bitch and moan and say, I want 2019 back and not change it. Or you can embrace your reality.
Okay. What is my reality? They get paid more. That means you got to go back and pay your old trainers more, you know, give them raises so they don’t leave. You. You’ve got to pay enough to be competitive in the market, or if you’re really high in training, do you have enough to be the best? Job possibility in the market.
So you can steal them. It’s very simple. We don’t pay enough. We never, we don’t raise our rates. We don’t pay them much, but everything in our life goes up. It’s just so yeah, you have to raise your rates every two years. If you own a gym and usually by 10% or more, you have to, because everything in your life will go up by five to 10% a year as to cost of living the way it works.
Okay. So
trainers shortages is kind of a baloney, then it just comes down to. Raising rates and, and that’s how, and if I pay more than I’ll be okay.
Yeah. Somebody, uh, I was working with a guy about six weeks ago and he was the same complaint. And I said, who’s the number one job site in your area? Because it can be, you know, uh, indeed or it can be, uh, some of these other local sites.
It could be, that is a very, it’s, it’s weird how that works from region to region. And he goes, no, indeed, that’s the one I go, okay. I said, put on there, trainers needed paying the highest wage in their. Let me know how to turn down. How do you think that story ended
trainers were paying? Yeah, we’re paying the highest in here. Because what it does is you’re prying people out of jobs where they’re not appreciated. They’re not paying that if I’m up against an old chain and they’re paying their trainers 17 bucks an hour, and I’m the guy down there starting my people at 25 with the potential to make 30.
If you get a couple of the right certifications, then good, but you know what? Now I have to charge my clients a little more. So new clients forward, I raised the rates. I sell them, raise the rates for old clients, but I pass the in, you have to pay. The increased cost of business onto the new clients. And so you it’s, it’s hard to go back and raise everybody’s cause you piss off your members that I page it for five years to now you raised my rate.
No, I’ll never raise your rate, but the new guy coming in tomorrow, he’s going to pay a lot more money than you pay. That makes sense. It’s logical. You can go this way. You can’t go this way. So it’s we just do. I believe there’s a trainer shortage. Do I believe it’s self-inflicted bullet womb. Yes. Do I believe it can be solved fairly easily?
Yes. But you have to look at it as a combination of your total operating scheme. You know, when’s the last time you raised the rates five years ago, that’s not going to happen. So you’ve got to fix that. Okay. Where’s the trainers they’re working for. Somebody else pay them more money to spring them out.
And this, uh, it was funny. I was talking to the guy with the $17 an hour thing. Okay. What’s what are they? What’s the people pay for Sydney, $17 dollars, about $3,000 a month. Uh, somewhere in there are 20, 30,000. There’s about $2,500 a month, roughly speaking. So after taxes, what’s that guy get 2000, you know, maybe 1800, probably somewhere in there, whatever his tax rate at that areas.
And so like, what’s, what’s the what’s, what’s a guy pay for an apartment in your area. He goes, it could be 1200. How’s that work. I’m paying a guy 1900 a month and a thousand to $1,200 goes to live in a mediocre apartment. And that means he’s got to buy a car, pay his utilities, eat. God forbid, you go out for a beer, you know, any of those things, and he’s got $900 left to do that.
His insurances, all his other utilities, everything in there. So most of the coaches, they’re not even realistic. Most owners are not even realistic of what it costs to live in their markets, you know? Cause those have gone up, oh my God. what it costs to live has to drive what you pay your trainers.
But if you haven’t adjusted your pay rates in five years, By two bucks or something, and you’re never going to get coaches cause words out you’re cheap. You don’t even pay enough for me to live. You want me to be a professional coach, but you don’t even pay me enough to live without five roommates. You know, it doesn’t make sense.
We’re all worst enemy in this thing. Not the coaches are there, but the owners are slow to change again. We’ll finish this segment maybe with this is you, you let go of. 2019 embrace your current reality. You know, what is my current reality? I have to grab that, understand it, deal with the current reality and only then can I reach out for the future?
Because I have, if I embrace my reality today, the sets me in motion for my future, because it allows me to evolve and grow my business. If I don’t evolve, I don’t grow. Normally, most gyms should start with. Their head around, raise my rates every two years, a minimum of 10%. And that’s a pretty good base rule for most gym owners to think about.
Okay.
Sumit Seth: Well on that note, thank you.
then. Thank you.
Thomas Plummer: Oh my pleasure.
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