How To Hire Great Personal Trainers That Won’t Steal Your Clients And Leave You In The Doghouse

I am going to come right out and say it: finding good staff drives me crazy.

Ok, its out and I feel better now. I couldn’t write this post without letting you know that and while no-one is ever going to run your business like you do there are some things that you can try right from the start to not go completely mental when finding the right person.

As you progress a little further down the path of running your own personal training business and your client base quickly swells, you may be struck by an epiphany.  From out of no-where, you will be think to yourself, “Holy crap, I actually can’t take any more bookings – I am full.” Now that is a good day in your business, but it is also a day that presents a whole new set of challenges (it’s time to put your boss hat on).

So today I want to give you my insiders tips on how to build your team of trainers so you get to leverage your time and sleep in work on your business. To do that, I am going to show you where to find the best trainers and how to interview them to ensure you get the best for your business. Not the most exciting information you will ever read, but bloody important to know so you don’t get burnt in this important growth phase.

Step 1: How To Find Great Trainers

In my years as a personal training business owner, I tried so many ways to find the perfect trainer. After going down the conventional route of placing newspaper ads (only to be confronted with people who WANTED to be a trainer), I tried the certification schools (they were enthusiastic but inexperienced), I knew a guy who knew a guy and I even tired poaching some top level trainers from other businesses (I know, bloody shameful).

None of these methods delivered me with the type of trainer I was looking for and honestly, if my hiring process was built around poaching trainers I was in a world of hurt.

Then a little angle fell out of the sky – his name was Dennis Hosking and we had previously worked for the same corporate health company in Melbourne. He had noticed that PT business owners (like me) really struggled to find specific staff for their specific needs using  the traditional methods. So Dennis put together a business called Healthy People which is a recruitment service specifically for the fitness industry (trainers looking for jobs and businesses looking for trainers).

His service is so special because not only does he use traditional methods of marketing to get potential trainers to apply for your job (like putting an ad on seek.com) but he also has a massive database of trainers looking for work. So it is a one-stop-shop for finding lots of potentially great trainers to apply for your job. Check out what Healthy People can offer you as a trainer or business owner (I have been using them for over 5 years now):

Now just to make things clear, this is how I have found new trainers the easiest and most effective way. Other people in the industry form relationships with certification course providers to be able to hire graduates, some use Facebook and others just rely on word of mouth. Each to their own but for me it’s Healthy People all the way.

Step 2: How To Interview Them So You Don’t Pick The Wrong One

So you have placed an ad with Dennis on Healthy People and you now have 30 resumes sitting in your Inbox, all eager to work in your amazing business. What now? How do you choose the right person for your business? This step is really important and one that you really want to get right (or else you will hire someone, train them up and they will end up not being right for the position which is a massive pain in the arse).

To minimize the potential risk of going back to the well and wasting all your time, money and potential income, I have three stages that any employee must fulfill before they join my business:

Stage 1: Resume reviews and phone qualification.

Resumes are generally a complete waste of time as they are one persons glowing report of themselves (along with some referee’s which are just people who have been lined-up to say nice things). The only two things a resume is good for is to assess the computer skills of an applicant and to assess there personal training experience – all the rest of the fluff can be ignored. For me, it comes down to the person not the resume.

Jump in and review every resume that you have received, shortlisting the ones that catch your eye based on experience alone. Now the fun begins…..

The final part of stage one is get on the phone with each applicant and ask them one of two really basic questions. For example, “what makes you a good personal trainer?” or “what is the most important quality of a personal trainer?” Now what you are looking for in their answer is there personality, their passion, there ability to make you feel comfortable. Not so much the content of what they say, but more about how they make you feel. I know this probably sounds strange but I am a massive advocate for hiring staff based on personality and passion (and obviously they must know there shit). If they can make you feel comfortable and bring a smile to your face then that is going to also be reflected to your clients.

Out of all your applicants you let 3-4 of the best ones (the trainers with the best personality and passion) know that they have made it into the second round of one-on-one interviews. The downside of this is that you then have to tell the other 26 applicants that they are not the right fit for your business; welcome to the joys of hiring staff :-)

Stage 2: The face to face interviews.

This is my favorite part as this process allows you to watch the cream rise to the top. The funny thing about interviews is that a large percentage of people answering questions tell you the answer that they think you want hear, rather than what they really think (does that make sense?).

So when interviewing personal trainers, I like to “go deep” with the answers that they give and cut through the superficial crap that they often serve up. This process involves either asking them for more information or asking another question based on their answer. Sometimes I will ask three questions about the one initial answer just to find out whether they really know what they are talking about.

Now this may sound harsh but as the business owner, if you don’t respect the interview process and work as hard as you can to find the right person for your team then you are simply not doing your job. This is no place to be everybodies friend or to have a joke (even though I am a fan of in-formal interviews); you must find out as much as you can about these people in a very short period of time.

Once you have asked the tough questions and really found out whether your applicants have professionalism, personality and passion you are in a much better position to make the right choice. After you have interviewed your top three of four, send them home and sleep on it. Come back to work and pick your top two to move to the next stage.

Stage 3: Training the boss practical session.

Because you are not hiring a PA here it would be wrong of you not to get the top two trainers to run you through a session. They may be super-professional, passionate and full of personality but if they cant effectively communicate how to do a body-weight squat then Houston, we have a problem.

In the practical session I would be looking for how relaxed they made me feel, session flow, exercise prescription, injury management, appropriate intensity and time. After your top two have run your through your paces, you should have a clear picture of who is going to be Australia’s next Master Chef your new trainer.

But it doesn’t end there. I think it is always wise to put new employees on a three month trial basis that gives both parties a good look at each other before fully committing. Now I know that this sounds like a laborious, drawn out process but there is a direct correlation with the amount of work you put in to the quality of trainer that you will end up with. If at the end of the process there is still no-one that you think is going to suit your business (and more importantly your clients) then you have no choice but to start all over. Hiring someone in the hope that they will get “good” is a disaster waiting to happen.

But What Do Other Business Owners Think?

As part of this post, I wrote on my Facebook wall for any of my friends to share there trainer-hiring secrets and the best response came from Kaz Muddell from Mind Body Motion Fitness. From her experience, Kaz recommends:

• Hire a trainer that suits your client base. If you are training clients that are in the 40-60 age bracket it is very unlikely that they will want a 21 year old trainer, fresh out of fitness school.

• Make sure that you pay your trainers well otherwise you will not build loyalty and build retention. If you have a number of trainers make sure that you hold regular meetings and make everyone part of the team.

• Be sure you give them a test run. Have them participate in a class to see if they look the part, are fit and healthy, have good posture during their exercise routine and generally look like they know what they are doing.

Thanks Kaz – some great points there, especially about choosing trainers to fit your business.

Now Kaz has got the ball rolling, I would love to know what your number one tip on hiring a great trainers is?

Hopefully my guide today will help you steer clear of those trainers who will take your clients and leave you in the doghouse. Instead you will find yourself surrounded with a team of awesome people who are just as excited to build your business as you are (more on how to do that very soon).

Don’t forget to leave your number one hiring tip,

Cheers

Rick :-)

About the author: Rick Watson is the surfing, swearing personal training business guy who tells it like it is. He blogs, coaches, writes books, runs an online community and holds live workshops for personal trainers but most of all he is a father and husband (with a healthy respect for road trips). If you like what you read, subscribe to blog here and get your weekly dose of goodness delivered straight to your Inbox.

Tagged as: Bookings, Boss, Business Owner, Challenges, Conventional Route, Doghouse, Good Staff, Growth Phase, Hiring Process, Hosking, Insiders, Path, People, Personal Trainers, Personal Training, Presents, Running Training, Sky, Sleep, Step 1