Shownotes
Studios hire Pilates instructors to fill classes with happy clients.
If your instructors' classes are not full, by definition are not good at their job - yet.
As a studio owner, it's your job to help them become good!
Mentioned in this episode:
Get 1:1 coaching with me to grow your studio
Get 1:1 coaching with me to grow your studio
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
AdBarker - https://adbarker.com/privacy
Transcripts
As a Pilates studio business, your product really is your instructors.
::You're a service business and you provide that service through other people by and large.
::And so the quality of the people that you have, when I say quality of the people,
::I don't mean their value as human beings.
::I mean their ability as professional Pilates instructors really is pivotal to your business.
::In fact, it is in many ways what you sell to people, to your clients.
::So one of the things that Heath and I coach studio owners on the most is building an excellent team.
::And one of the, probably the biggest problem or blocker that we see is essentially
::not having clarity on who's good and who's not in your studio.
::So, or really, shall I say, deep down actually knowing who's good and who's
::not, but not admitting that to yourself.
::Uh, and that comes in the shape of, you know, I mean, I can't tell you how many
::times, you know, we've had this conversation with studio owner where we're talking
::about, you know, how, you know, we talk, we talk about many things in the studio.
::We talk about pricing, the intro offer, the scheduling, and then we talk about the team, obviously.
::And we go through each team member and we say, okay, how's, you know,
::and how's Sally? Oh, Sally's a great instructor. Okay. How are her class numbers?
::Oh, her class numbers aren't that good. You know?
::Um, okay. But she's a great instructor. She's a great instructor.
::And um you know have you done her class yeah i
::didn't really like it uh but she's you know she's a really great instructor you
::know it's a bit too slow for me or it's you know she teaches
::a completely different style to the way i teach um but she's
::a great instructor and so i i want to dissect you know what it means to be a
::great instructor here because i think there's a lot of stuff that goes into
::that and uh if you've got someone who's a quote great instructor whose class
::numbers aren't great i'd say by definition you know unless you've got them teaching
::the graveyard yard shift exclusively,
::by definition, they're not a great instructor because my definition of a great
::instructor is someone who can fill classes, basically.
::And in order to be able to do that, you have to deliver good classes,
::but there are multiple components.
::So with that extremely long setup, welcome Heath.
::Yeah. um yeah so so what
::do you you know
::what do you uh you know talk me through sort of like the
::the the average you know conversation that
::you have with someone that you coach a studio owner that you coach when you
::kind of audit their instructors you know at the you know relatively at the beginning
::of the coaching relationship well i think one the first thing just from your your preamble,
::your framing to catch is one of the things that, um.
::I think probably challenges what you said without actually uh contradicting it is is that,
::definitely often when we do the audit and we work through the team and we look
::at the numbers there is very often the situation that you just described about
::sally where the studio owner or the manager believes that this is this is great
::sally's a great instructor and then,
::the fundamental metrics leading with class numbers and class retention don't
::stack up But there's also an almost as frequent presentation of class numbers
::and retention do stack up.
::But when we start to explore what the studio owner wants from their business,
::we discovered that the great instructor who has full classes is teaching in a way that is,
::if not misaligned,
::sometimes, you know, 180 degrees opposite direction to what the studio owner
::wants or what the brand is. So, right.
::And that manifests itself as, yeah, Sally's got great class numbers,
::but Sally's students don't go to other instructors' classes.
::Or if they do, they, you know, when the instructors give them cues,
::they're like, oh, well, Sally tells me to do it the opposite way to that, you know.
::Yeah. And I think that gives us one of the kind of metas about this whole situation, which is.
::The, in that instance, a good way to think about that is that Sally's running
::her own business within your business.
::And the, the concept, and you gave me this years and years ago,
::and I have to admit, it took me a little bit of thinking to kind of really make
::sense of it, but I've found it to be probably the,
::one of the most challenging and most powerful ideas for people to get their
::head around is that at a certain point,
::a business in our world reaches is a certain size and it's it's when there's
::let's say more than three instructors and the and the owner or founder is teaching
::less than say 20 of all of the bodies per week there's kind of like a.
::Like a tipping point where it becomes centrally important to the success of
::the business that the owner and subsequently the instructors understand that
::the instructor's client is the business, not the people in the room. Yeah.
::Yeah. And, you know, that's, I would hazard a guess that, well,
::based on the studio owners I've talked to over the last four or five years,
::more than 50% stop when you say that and say, what?
::Like, what? Yeah. And this is exactly what I did. This gets to such a crucial
::sort of deep-seated fear, which I think is a realistic fear.
::And I've seen this multiple times with various studio owners,
::is when they've got an instructor like that who maybe is a really popular,
::but just teaches in a way that is not aligned with the studio owner's way of
::teaching or the official studio way of teaching,
::that when that person goes,
::all their clients go with them because they don't want to do your classes.
::I don't want to do anyone else's classes because I love Sally's classes and
::she teaches complete, like she teaches classical and you're doing,
::you know, strength-based reformer or, you know, whatever. And so it's like, or vice versa.
::And so, you know, they don't like, they, they don't like your studio as such.
::They like Sally's classes, which is, which are really not what your product.
::Right. So, you know, the, the, the massive danger here is like the,
::the only thing worse than Sally being unpopular is Sally being really popular.
::You know, if she's, if she's not teaching the way that you teach, right.
::So that is a real problem. And of course, then if Sally goes on holiday even,
::you know, like how do you, you know, someone else goes in to cover her classes
::and all the clients are like, yeah, no, we're not going to come to this,
::you know, I don't like classical and I don't normally do strength both to a
::formal with Sally or vice versa.
::And so, you know, you've just got a massive hole in the schedule there.
::So either way, it's not a good thing, whether Sally's popular or not.
::So I guess, I guess it's really about alignment, but I think alignment has,
::you know, alignment by itself is not enough. if you need alignment and skill.
::Yeah. So, all right. So, so this is, uh, you've got this instructor who's,
::who's been teaching there for a while.
::She's a wonderful, wonderful person, you know, hard of gold,
::never say a word against her.
::Uh, but either her classes aren't that, her class numbers aren't very strong
::or they're noticeably less strong than the average or her class numbers are really good.
::Possibly she's your most popular instructor, but she teaches just a completely different style.
::Like you're hired. She was your first kind of hire. you didn't know
::your ass from your elbow when you were hiring her you just hired her
::because she's got active wearing a pulse and she's so nice and you
::know so she started teaching and you know you sort of
::like when you when your kids in primary school you know
::and you're like oh you're a kid i'm a kid let's be friends you know that that's
::all you need to have in common you know but when you're when you get to be 50
::you're a little bit more discerning about who you want to be friends with you've
::got other criteria and that's sort of the same when you make your first hire
::like oh you're a pilates instructor oh you're on a pilates studio great you
::know let's work together whereas after you've been running a business for a
::few years, you're like, yeah,
::I've got a few other questions I want to ask you first before we start working together.
::And so maybe you hired this person early on and she'd been working for you for
::a while, but they're not aligned.
::They're not aligned as in they don't teach the way you teach.
::They don't teach the same style as you teach.
::Maybe they don't cue in a way that's consistent with how you cue or progress
::in a way that's consistent with how you progress.
::They might call the exercises different names. They might teach a lot stronger
::or a lot softer class than you.
::They might, you know, emphasize, you know, breath a lot more or a lot less,
::alignment a lot more or a lot less, et cetera.
::So basically, clients don't mix between this person's class and the other instructors'
::classes because they just get like, oh, Sally always tells me to do it this way.
::How come you're telling me to do it that way sort of thing? or maybe they are
::aligned but they're just not that
::good you know as measured by their class numbers because ultimately if.
::What he said is true, which is that the client of the instructor is the studio.
::Well, who's paying the instructor? The studio is paying the instructor.
::So therefore, the studio is the instructor's client.
::And the studio hires the instructor to do what?
::Fill the classes. And so if the instructor is not teaching full classes,
::well, objectively, they're not doing their job.
::And so if they're not doing their job and they're trying, that means they're not very good.
::So if their classes aren't full, unless they're teaching the graveyard shift
::on the Thursday, objectively, they're not very good at their job.
::So, yeah. So, all right. So how does the conversation go? Because this is where
::we get into this tricky conversation.
::Kind of situation where, you know, where studio owners might look at the numbers
::with us and go, yeah, Sally's numbers aren't great.
::Or they might look at the numbers and go, Sally's numbers are great,
::but she teaches, you know, strict classical and weird strength-based reformer, right?
::You know, and so how does that conversation go and what are the,
::what are the blockers or blind spots or,
::you know, I mean, basically we don't want to tell Sally that she's not a fit
::and she's got to go because she's a lovely person. So how does the conversation go? Yeah.
::Well, uh, the, the, so again, so the two, those two Sally's present different
::situations, you know, different, different, different things that have to be made sense of.
::And the thing that I've found that sits above that is what is,
::well, the way, the way we work through it is what's,
::what's the what's your business's mission you know like what
::what do you promise and you know to what raf was what we've just
::said what is your business promising so what's the promise that you're making
::to your client so if your promise is classical uh reformer with the focus on
::breath patterns that's what your instructor needs to deliver in a way that is
::skillful and charismatic enough that their classes are full.
::And so if someone is teaching strength-based reformer in that studio,
::then that's the misalignment, even if they're popular.
::And equally, if you're teaching a strength-based reformer model that promises
::to make people stronger and more flexible, and this is where I kind of resonate
::because that's who we work with mostly, then that's what should be delivered.
::And if you're delivering popular classes that are not that, well,
::then that's the misalignment.
::And then if you're teaching in an aligned way, but your classes are not popular,
::fundamentally, then you've got a skills gap.
::It's like if you're aligned in, you know, orientation, but falling short in
::terms of metrics, then it's a skills problem.
::And I think, you know, to double click on the skills thing just for a second,
::a lot of times, you know, a studio and I, you know, I work with them and they'll
::say like, I've audited their class and they're a great teacher,
::you know, just a bit too slow or they're a great teacher, but they just don't
::have a great personality. You know, they're kind of quiet and whatever.
::It's like, you know, that's, I think those are all skill things, right? Yeah. Yeah.
::A great teacher, part of that, you know, part of that skill is like,
::okay, knowing your anatomy, part of it is knowing effective cueing,
::part of it is programming, part of it is progressions, part of it is your eye and looking at points.
::Part of it is smiling and standing up straight and being at the front of the
::room where people can see you. Yeah.
::So the thing, and I want to just catch this before we move on and I forget,
::basically, is that the mission statement conversation is really, really high level and.
::Sometimes studio owners kind of, their eyes kind of glaze over.
::Usually they've worked in a government.
::When I first did it, my eyes glazed over. Because I'd done mission and values.
::So how's the mission statement? We provide quality goods and services to our stakeholders.
::Right. And you do an offsite for a half day to get clarity on that.
::Then you go back to work and forget about it and get on with the shit about the work. Yeah.
::So the way that we approach this is that the mission statement is really important.
::And in fact, every single word, or at least every word except the conjoining
::words, has a direct relationship to what happens in the studio.
::So then. Yeah. We get people really fucking strong by doing hard things, something like that.
::Yeah. And, you know, in a class where everyone feels supported,
::safe and whatever, but there's lots of different ones.
::Or we, we teach, we teach, you know, original contrology, you know,
::to progress our clients to doing really cool shit.
::Right. And so that, so then it becomes an activity where often the studio owner
::that we work with thinks, oh yeah, I know my mission statement.
::And then when I say, well, what does that word mean? What does that word mean?
::What does that word mean?
::How do you know that word's happening in your studio? It's like, oh, uh, okay.
::And then, so to kind of finish answering that question about the conversation
::we have, that trickles down to extremely specific stuff.
::Like Raf said, yeah, I audited the class. It was great. It was just a bit slow. Okay.
::Somewhere between the mission statement and what you audit and take
::as a standards checklist in your studio something has
::to reflect the tempo of the class has to be objective um yeah
::objective measurably objectively oh hold
::on see it standards checklist i'm sure yeah yeah
::i've got my standard checklist yeah it's i'll just write here it's uh you know
::i've got on my clipboard ready to go what is
::this standards checklist so a standards checklist would be
::something like okay so just say you have a mission statement that we help
::people you know build strength flexibility and skill on the
::reformer you know by doing challenging progressions that are fun you
::know that's a bit wordy but let's just say something like you know fun and
::community or something like that right and so it's like all right well you
::know when your checklist should basically check off each of those things okay
::to you know are you building strength are you building flexibility are you building
::skill was it fun was it progressive was the community like all of those things
::it's like you've got to have you know check check check check check and it's
::got to be like and then we've got to double click on each of those things so
::building strength what does that mean how do you know that occurred Okay.
::Well, you've got to take each major muscle group to a point of near fatigue
::at least once during the session. What does that mean?
::Then we double click on that. Okay. Fun. What does that mean?
::Okay. You know, how do we know that that happened? Right.
::So there have to be observable behaviors that you can see in the room,
::not just like kind of like the vibe, but it's like, okay, you know,
::was the instructor visible?
::Did the instructor project their voice? Were they smiling? Did they make eye
::contact? Did they verbally, you know, connect with each client,
::you know, at one point during the session? Did they use people's names?
::These are the things that would be on that checklist and if you do all of those
::things then you hit the mission.
::And, and, and part of the, one of the things that's interesting about this is,
::and I'm sure a lot of people listening are thinking, yeah, yeah.
::Oh, that's, you know, Raph stating the obvious. I say, okay.
::But what's interesting about that conversation is that if I list through the
::sorts of illustrations that Raph did for, as examples, the owner will often
::say, yeah, that's what I want, but I've never, I haven't measured it.
::I haven't seen it. I didn't, you know, it's like, and when, when you do, you realize, oh, okay.
::No that instructor didn't use everyone's name twice great
::so until they do we've got a job to do uh that
::instructor wasn't standing at the front door greeting everyone and at
::the front door saying goodbye to everyone okay if they're not doing that yet
::we've got a job to do so and and what's interesting is that the founder or so
::if you've got if you've survived long enough to have the problem that raf is
::talking about you have started doing the majority of these things because it's
::your ass on the line. You're probably doing it. Yeah. Exactly.
::And you don't realize you're doing it because that's just what you've learned
::to do to get clients coming back.
::So then what we do is kind of hold a mirror up to you and say,
::whatever it is you're doing right down to the, and one of the things we do is,
::especially if people are having
::trouble identifying it, is you film yourself for five or six classes,
::watch yourself back and just note everything that you do in every single class.
::And that starts to build out your brand and your standards checklist for you.
::Yeah. And, you know, we've kind of, because we've done this a lot,
::we've developed a little matrix kind of template and we,
::and that is pretty universal and you can, you know, studio owners can kind of
::just, you know, tweak it to their individual, you know, preference and style.
::But it's like, you know, being friendly is going to be part of,
::part of the skill matrix, regardless of what style you teach or whatever.
::So there, you know, being on time, being, you know, dressed cleanly,
::et cetera. So we evaluate on five dimensions, programming, queuing.
::Refinements or corrections, effective use of equipment, and personality.
::And we give a score of one to four for each of those things,
::one being terrible, not a fit, and four being amazing.
::In an example, let's get the rest of the team doing the same as what this person's doing.
::And for example, on the programming side, like a score of one would,
::and again, we sort of distill these down to observable behaviors, not vibe.
::And so a score of one, like not acceptable, would be
::you know programs random stuff off the internet no clear
::structure to the class intensity level is mismatched to
::the stated class level um you know stuff like
::you know missing major body parts like you know we didn't do arms sort of thing
::um so you know frequently started a sequence that was either too hard or way
::too easy for most people you know or several people in the room so you know
::that those would be like you know as an example of a one score on programming Whereas on a four score,
::which is like the highest possible score would be like users layered clusters.
::So basically, you know, starts at an easy level and progresses everybody to
::their own unique level of challenge.
::All clients were accommodated regardless of fitness, skill and injury status.
::Class had a clear structure, challenged all body parts through full range,
::challenging all clients at least once per movement per class.
::You know, so those types of things would go on the programming dimension.
::Well, let me just catch that.
::When I work through this with individual studios, as opposed to working in the
::broader sort of one to many,
::what we do is take that and then go through a process where the unique studio
::checklist is even more granular than that.
::So what Raf's just talked through is kind of the universal principles.
::You could apply that to pretty much any studio. But then by the time we finish
::the process, when we're working directly with studios, each studio has one and
::it goes right down to the specific exercises that represent the cool down.
::Or again, we're not mandating this, this emerges from the studio.
::Right. Taught our specific standard warmup that we do in 12 reps of cat stretch or whatever.
::Yeah. Whatever you do. And this is one of the things that's interesting.
::We're talking at the beginning, I was saying we do a mission statement and at
::the end, you've got this checklist that's even more granular than what raf was describing which is.
::Short of pulling one up and reading it because they what the
::final product requires the
::studio owner to to identify are you
::happy with the trainer doing anything at this point
::or do you want to be in and everyone sits a slightly different point
::on the continuum but at some point you have
::a checklist that actually represents what should be happening in
::the 50 minutes that are in your classroom and it and
::it but by the time you've done it all even if you're
::giving your instructors areas of great creativity the
::the print the the the
::the requirements are objective enough and they they overlap enough that actually
::you've got quite a specific set of behaviors that make your studio and what's
::really interesting about this took me a long time to understand this is you
::know at a certain point you go don't we all just teach pilates and it's like
::well yeah at a certain point we already teach Pilates,
::but actually when you think about it, every studio is going to have.
::Things that are universal, if they're doing a good job, but actually when you
::zoom, really, really zoom in and are prepared to be granular and apply X number
::of years of attention to detail, you realize,
::oh crap, actually this studio is really different to that studio,
::even though to the untrained eye, they're probably exactly the same.
::And that's, that's how studios develop their differentiation.
::You know, the clients won't notice the difference, but someone looking at the
::checklist who knows what they're looking at will recognize that studio is doing
::some really So I'm going to push back on that. I think the clients really do notice the difference.
::And I think this is the biggest kind of,
::I guess, fear or pushback we sometimes get from studio owners,
::working with them is like, oh, my clients like variety and I don't like to kind
::of tell my instructors, you know, exactly what to do.
::I like to give them, let them be creative and just, you know,
::teach what they want to teach.
::And to that, I say, well, I mean, dear listener, have you ever been to a Pilates class?
::Have you been to more than one Pilates class with different instructors?
::Do you believe that there are different levels of skill?
::Have you ever been to a class that was better or worse? than a different class,
::you know, or do you think like truly every instructor, once they're certified
::is just an identical, you know, clone that produces the exact same quality,
::but it's slightly different flavor.
::You know, of course, of course there are better and worse Pilates instructors.
::I mean, you've had better and worse, you know, chiropractors,
::you know, dentists, lawn care people, mechanics, doctors, you know,
::like there are better and worse, you know, plumbers and, you know,
::of course there are better and worse Pilates instructors.
::And, you know, this is not just a matter of individual taste and preference,
::although that does come into it.
::You know when a plumber comes to fix your sink you know if the tap still leaks
::afterwards like that plumber didn't do a great job right and if
::you go to a pilates class to get stronger more flexible and have fun like if
::those three things don't all occur like objectively that person didn't do a
::great job and so you know if you you know if you if you don't uh if you just
::hire people who are certified and nice people and you don't train them coach
::them and give them you know standards and hold them to those standards,
::you just get random shit, you
::know, people teaching, like you just get the average Pilates instructor.
::Now, some of those people by pure chance might be great and some of them by
::pure chance might be pretty awful.
::And they're going to cluster around a midpoint somewhere. And so the more that
::you do that, the more that you just hire people who are certified and don't
::tell them what to do or how to do it or audit their classes or have a specific
::way that you do things, the more your studio just becomes average and commoditized.
::I mean, these instructors are probably teaching at the studio up the road when
::they're not teaching with you and they're probably teaching the exact same thing
::they teach in your studio at that other studio.
::And so that is the very definition of a commoditized product because the clients
::can go have literally the same class with the same instructor at the other studio.
::And if they're a pound or a dollar or a shekel cheaper than your studio,
::it's like, well, why would they come to your studio?
::So if you have an organizing principle where that instructor comes to your studio
::and teaches your specific style in your specific way, with your specific format,
::your specific level of difficulty, et cetera,
::then they can't, the clients
::can't just go and get that same experience up the
::road at the other studio yeah so let me just catch
::so when i ran on before i guess what i meant was
::that at a to the client to a person who's not super
::nerdy about pilates looking at the checklist they'll
::all include programming they'll all include client connection they'll all include
::studio craft and you know those sorts of overall dimensions yeah but as exactly
::as you say it should be so granular that what happens is the clients get a predictable
::and repeatable experience that differentiates you from other people.
::And, and, and our job and the studio owner's job is to share that with.
::Uh, the instructing team so that they understand and can, and develop the skills
::that align with those granular promises.
::Yeah. And, and, and, you know, when we say differentiate yourself,
::we don't mean by doing like crazy shit that you saw on Instagram,
::you know, or putting in like, you know,
::pediples or chairs or towers or, you know, like, hey, you know,
::doing, hanging the reformers upside down off the ceiling or,
::you know, doing hot reformer.
::That's not what we mean. Those are all firmly in the category of,
::in my opinion, gimmicks. Gimmicks.
::Oh, the pedicle's a gimmick. Oh my God. That's a conversation for another time. Let's bookmark that.
::But what we talk about, what we mean when we say differentiate yourself is differentiate
::yourself in the mind of the client in a way that the client cares about.
::And so what the client cares about is the experience and the results that they
::get. Is it fun? Do they feel welcomed? Do they have friends?
::Do they get stronger, more flexible? Does their back hurt less?
::So is the parking easy? Does the booking system work? All of these things.
::Those are the things. And so if you think about all the businesses that you
::patronize, dear listener, you know, restaurants, you know, which ones do you go to?
::Do you go to the ones with the, you know, the crazy brand of oven?
::No, you don't give a shit.
::You know, you go to the one that brings the food quickly, that you can always
::get a reservation last minute. They're friendly.
::The music's not too loud. You know, you go to the one that does the job of giving
::you a pleasant experience with a nice meal, you know, best, right?
::You don't give a shit about what brand of oven they use. And just the same,
::your clients don't give a shit what brand of reformers you use.
::Um and so you
::know differentiation in the mind of the client is all about them
::having experience and getting results it's not about
::the what equipment you use or what cues you
::use or what you know they don't give a shit about any of that but they do give
::a really give a shit about their experience and their results and the other
::thing is you know the other and the kind of the foundational principle underneath
::this is that quality doesn't happen by itself quality is not the default setting
::I mean, if you've tried to build a business,
::a team, you know, you, you will know that.
::And this is really just comes down to a fundamental law of physics,
::which is that entropy always increases.
::And what that means is by default, shit goes wrong, right?
::You know, the default state, if left to its own devices, you know,
::if you never audit any of your instructor's classes, they're not going to magically
::all be awesome, right? Like the default is they're going to be average.
::And if you do nothing, they will regress towards being average, you know, over time.
::And so you have to constantly fight averageness and drag kicking and screaming to be quality.
::And just to catch this, like in terms of where you started the conversation
::and what we see, is let's be really clear that...
::When we, when we go back to Sally, who's a lovely person, right?
::Saying someone is average as an instructor has nothing to do with what,
::how nice or good a person they are.
::It's based on the metrics of this studio and what we regard as success,
::which includes revenue, retention, et cetera, but also what you're teaching,
::then, then that's what we mean by average.
::And if, and then, and what, what's critically important there is that that doesn't
::make, It's not on Sally, right?
::It's on the organizer.
::It's on the owner and the manager to share what excellence means and to build
::excellence. But why isn't it on Sally?
::Shouldn't Sally want to be the best possible instructor that she can be and
::just figure that out herself?
::Well, maybe she does. But even if she's scouring the internet for excellence
::tools, they'll only have a certain amount of overlap with what excellence within the studio means.
::And one of our current studio mentees had this, um, the insight for her,
::which I keep bringing her back to was when I, when she clicked to this,
::she went, Oh, it's like when my husband comes home and he's been running or
::riding and his shoes are dirty and he wants to walk in.
::And I said, no, you can't come in. I love you, but you're not wearing your shoes inside.
::Right. And that was the, it was like, yeah, great. You can have instructors
::and they can be, you can love them, but they're not coming in unless they're
::wearing the right shoes.
::Right. But if you come into my studio, you're teaching Pilates in the way that we teach Pilates here.
::You can do whatever they want out there. You can teach it any way you like.
::But when you cross the threshold, we have standards and this is what they look like.
::Yeah. And I would also say that, you know, in a perfect world,
::every instructor would, you know.
::Take their shoes off before they come in and, you know, self-educate voraciously
::and, you know, become better and better and better over time.
::And some, you know, they all do to a greater or lesser extent,
::you know, some of them very close to zero, some of them a lot,
::but the ones that are truly in the unicorn category that become amazing, well, guess what?
::Dear listener, if you're a studio owner, they're you, right?
::They open their own freaking studios, right?
::So that person's not working for you teaching your Tuesday night class,
::or if they are, they're not going to be there very long.
::So that person who's just like going to be a hundred percent self-propelled
::and he's going to like fight back the forces of entropy and is going to become
::excellent all on their own.
::It's like, congratulations, they're not going to be with you very long or they're
::never going to work for you in the first place because they already opened their own studio.
::So the people that you get in your studio are the ones who don't have that extra level of.
::Self-directed, you know, excellence, you know, but I think almost by definition now,
::not to cast aspersions on people who work in studios i
::think it's a fine thing and there are some amazing fucking instructors
::who work in studios but i think you know
::by and large my observation is the
::best instructors you know don't stay
::working at you know the local studio for a decade
::and never kind of open their own thing or you know do their own
::you know like they they typically gravitate towards
::starting their own business whether that's one-on-ones from home or opening their
::own studio or whatever it might be yeah i
::think i think one thing that i i broadly
::agree with that but one that i was something that i've seen in our
::industry a lot enough to be notable and worth pointing out is you can have that
::instructor who is oriented towards excellence and self-efficacious about it
::but they've also got other commitments maybe it's family maybe they run another
::business with their partner and they,
::they decided that they want to be the best they can,
::but they, for one reason or another, don't actually want to run their own business.
::And if you get ahold of one of them, hold on with both hands and do not let go.
::Yeah, but I think essentially the more self-efficacious somebody is,
::you know, there's some kind of threshold, but the more self-efficacious,
::the more agency somebody has and the more skillful they become,
::eventually they're going to go, well, hold on, I'm getting paid like 40 bucks
::an hour to teach in this class.
::I could be paid like 160 bucks an hour if I was doing it in my own business
::and, you know, I could do it the way I want it done.
::And so eventually, Dear Studio Owner, that person becomes you, right?
::Because that's what happened with you. and so i think there is a filtering mechanism
::there but you know there are those rare unicorns that like are that person but
::maybe they're in a day job they're a corporate superhero or whatever and they
::just only want to teach four classes a week but they're never going to be the
::stalwarts of your of your schedule you know they're not going to be 20 classes a week for a decade,
::yeah yep yep so all right so sally's been teaching for a couple of years at
::the studio her classes are either not very popular or even worse they're very
::popular um you know and um We've discovered that there's either a lack of alignment
::or a lack of skill or both,
::you know, as evidenced by the numbers, as evidenced by the class audit with
::the checklist that we didn't check off multiple items on the checklist.
::How do we go from like, okay, I've never given you a single word of feedback
::in the three years you've been working here to like, I'm going to start auditing
::your classes and we're going to start working to this checklist.
::You know, how do you go from that, from A to B?
::Uh well that's the i mean it's the at a
::high level the process we go through is by the time we're having that conversation
::you're at a certain point in the stages of a studio um you're doing so many
::things right to have this problem so the first thing is sort of be mindfully celebrate that and then.
::With the studio owner, I'll work with what is it that you want to give to people?
::What's your mission and how does that trickle down? And all of that happens
::long before we talk to the team.
::So then when we do talk to the team, we're sharing, this is the mission,
::this is what we've been doing, and this is the problem we've got,
::i.e. the problem is the business is now at a point where it needs consistency across the classes.
::And we're doing lots of things right, but here are the things we're going to
::do differently slash better.
::And this is what it's going to look like. It's going to be a training process and there'll be.
::Kpis metrics standards quality control call
::it whatever you want it'll be something that means it's not a
::personal thing it's a skill thing yeah we
::take our shoes off before we come in the in the house right and we
::put them by the door in an orderly fashion and we bang the mud off
::when it dries or what you know whatever the the set of behaviors
::are and then just to
::jump in here like most studio owners have kids
::you know if you're in your 40s 50s whatever you
::got kids right you know that kids don't by
::default just grow up you know well behaved and
::organized but you have to like drag them kicking
::and screaming so you know you have to reinforce you know a million billion
::times those behaviors put your shoes away you know tidy your room you
::know put your plate on the sink etc it's like it's no
::different with instructors because instructors you know kids are humans
::instructors are humans and it's like those behaviors are a
::little more pronounced in kids and teenagers but they
::exist in adults as well like we don't you know we're me heath you know dear
::listener yourself everybody we're all lazy you know if we can get away with
::you know having someone else clearing the table and doing the dishes you know
::most of the time we will so you know like you know do you ever you know squabble
::with your partner about how you like the dishwasher.
::Yeah and if we grab that metaphor you you don't you don't expect your child
::to know what a clean kitchen is without teaching them. You don't expect them.
::Well, hopefully, you don't point at their messy room and say,
::clean your room, unless you know they have the skills required to clean the room.
::And if they don't, you go in and you go, okay, where does teddy bear live?
::I don't know. Okay, let's give a teddy bear a home.
::So you've got to build the skills. And so that's the process.
::And so this is what skill is going to look like. We don't expect you to know it all by heart.
::And in our case, we come in and run workshops. We put you in the programs and
::we support you as you develop the skills.
::And then it's a process of, is the person leaning into the feedback or are they
::leaning away from the feedback?
::And just very briefly, because we're just about out of time,
::because I've got to go and talk to some studio owners. Um.
::You know what's what's the what's the
::risk mitigation strategy because a big fear instructor studio owners
::have and it's a realistic fear sometimes is that if you go for
::this kind of big cultural change where it's like okay for years you haven't really
::had any process or feedback or it's just
::been like a free-for-all and now all of a sudden we're going to like okay no
::we're going to this is how we tidy our room this is where teddy lives you know
::like maybe that won't suit sally maybe she just wants to teach the way she just
::wants to teach and she's not interested in learning to do it your way you know
::um so you know what do we what's the basic risk mitigation strategy around that.
::Um
::um
::You go ahead. Yeah. It's a trick question. I mean, I know the answer to that.
::That's kind of more my department.
::But because we coach in tandem, dear listener.
::Heath does most of the Pilates coaching, and I do more of the business and hard
::conversations and getting to know your numbers.
::Well, let me answer because you asked and then you pick up the gap.
::So I mean, I had this conversation today with the studio that one way I explain
::it is if you think of it as a continuum, right?
::At one end, it's this is what we're doing. It has to be done like this by next
::week. And if you don't do it, you're out.
::There's massive risk to that. You could end up with no team.
::At the other end of the continuum, it is, we'd really like you to do this,
::but we're not going to require you to do it.
::And we don't expect you to meet any standards, but hey, here's the programs.
::If you want to join in, be really great if you decided to change the way you're
::doing stuff, but we won't check what you're doing. We'll just trust you.
::Nothing will change. So what we've got to find is the point in the middle of
::that, that the studio feels comfortable with, and that will actually facilitate change.
::And what Raf might be about to say, I don't want to predict this.
::I'll just likely be wrong.
::But what we've found is that if the studio aligns with what Breathe teaches,
::and this would be true for anyone that was coaching and mentoring you,
::if there's that alignment,
::then the more you do things the way we can teach you to based on our evidence
::and experience, the more success you're likely to have.
::Not because the only reason for that is that we've had more experience.
::It's like, you know, we've tested it. We've
::made the mistakes already that's right we've just made a lot of mistakes yeah
::um so yeah i agree with that it's in
::terms of like how you phrase the messaging and the time you give people and the
::the the context you give them and that
::you know the the the opportunity that you give them to think about and be part
::of the process and sort of understand the reasons why and all of that that is
::very important uh but essentially a really powerful lesson that i learned you
::know uh is never have a conversation where there's a risk of somebody leaving
::until you have a plan B in case they leave.
::And so ultimately if Sally doesn't want to teach the way that we're going to start teaching you know.
::You got to be okay, dear listener, with Sally not being on the team six months,
::a year down the track, you know, and that's, that's because you,
::if your goal is to have an aligned team with full classes,
::then there's not a place on the team for somebody who that's not their goal.
::You know, like if you've got someone on the team who's, that's not their goal,
::then you don't have that team.
::Yeah. And that brings us all the way back to what we said at the beginning,
::what Raf just said was, you know, beautifully concise. If you want to have a
::team that's aligned with full classes, these are the steps you're going to take.
::Because you're not going to have
::a team that's aligned with empty classes because you've got no business.
::And you're not going to have a team that's got full classes,
::but it's misaligned because you're still not going to have a business because
::you'll end up in a commodity race and the studio down the road will race you to bankruptcy. Right.
::All right. Well, there's lots more conversations to have around this process,
::but we've got to go because we've both got to go do some coaching.
::Good talk. See you, Raph.
