Pilates Studio Owner - How To Hire New Pilates Instructors

Hello Pilates Studio Owners! 

If you are looking for tips on how to hire new pilates instructors, great news, we can help you! 

In 2005, we started our first Pilates studio. It was called Shuswap Core Pilates.  The space was 2000 sq ft. We had four pilates reformers, 4 chairs, and 8 pilates Mats. A front desk and four seat waiting area.  It was so much fun, finding the location, purchasing the equipment, creating the brand, learning about marketing! Wow, what a rush! Everything was exciting and it all came together so fast! We were lucky, we had an amazing community and incredible support right away. A huge thank you to all our past and present community of supportive clients and instructors! 

A year or two into the journey the inevitable thing happened, that happens to all small business owners. The burnout starts. The initial rush wears off a bit, and the excitement of the branding / marketing working starts to wear thin. All of a sudden, you find yourself teaching 30+ hours per week and making a decent wage, but after teaching pilates group classes and pilates privates all of the business logistics afterwards are soooo tiring and feel like extra work. At this stage you might be seeking help from a "business Coach" or consultant. This person will probably recommend you read the classic small business resource "The Emyth Revisited" (Yes, you should read this book if you are currently at the stage mentioned above). The biggest take away from this book is that you need to hire help, and you need to hire it quickly! 

 Well here is the great news! We have walked this path for many years and know a few tips that can help you skip some of the challenges / mistakes we faced on our journey. 

Hire Passionate People, You Enjoy Being Around!

We are leading with this tip for a reason, hiring passionate people you enjoy being around is so important! The biggest HR (Human Resources) lesson we had to learn was, the people you hire will have a massive impact on your business and your life. If you can interview and identify people who you will enjoy being around in the staff room, in the studio, at staff functions and through the challenges that you will face in the years that follow this is a serious skill! How do you figure this out in an interview? Ask lots of questions and trust how you feel when you are talking to the interviewee! In HR lingo, finding people you want to be around and spend time with is called "cultural fit" This is so important and is worth sitting down to think about before you start the recruitment process. This bring me to the next tip! 

Advertise On Indeed

Indeed is by far the best way we have found in Canada to advertise for a Pilates Instructor position. This does depend on the size of your business and the size of your community. You may find advertising on your social media channel works better in a smaller community. Indeed is free, and has advertising options, so it can be tested and adapted for many use cases. 

The trick here is advertising for the position that gets the best applications in your community. Pilates instructors can be rare to find in smaller communities. Try advertising for "Personal Trainers" "Kinesiologists" "Fitness Instructors" even "Yoga Instructors" and explain in your job ad that a Pilates Certificate will be required for the position. This is where our Neu Pilates Online Teacher Training can help big time! If you have a candidate that you think will be a great fit for your community and culture, you can negotiate training costs, and performance based paybacks. As the Pilates business owner you can decide what works best for your business size and scope in terms of how much you help out with the cost of training. Does it make sense to cover 50% of the training cost, as an orientation expense, if this future pilates instructor could bring in $50 - 100 000 of added revenue per year to your company? Check out the next tip to find out more. 

Make Sure You Have The Client Demand

 The biggest question we ask before hiring anyone to our team is "do we have the client demand?" There is nothing worst that hiring someone on and they are not busy after 2-3 months of trying to build a caseload. This is bad for morale, and creates tension on your team. Having a great understanding of your client demand growth, or if you are currently the sole Pilates Instructor, having the skill of passing off some of your caseload to a new hire is a valuable skill! A great hire who is passionate and motivate will often go out and try to build their own caseload in the community through networking, but this should be a shared responsibility when you are the pilates studio owner!

Beware Of The Big Ego

Here we can share a lesson learned - beware of the pilates instructor candidate with a big ego. after years of experience with hiring the candidate that shows up and seems full of self assurance and bravado is usually not the right person to hire. They may sound and look convincing, especially during a time when you need help and feel like you can't keep doing it on your own. but these hires tend to back fire. Try to identify the candidate with confidence, humility, passion and kindness. Asking the questioning the back of you mind, "does this person respect me as a leader?" during the interview can be a helpful guide. Hiring the right people makes a world of difference when running and growing a pilates business. If you can avoid hiring the candidate with the big ego, who ends up leaving after a year to start as your competition or who is just a pain to manage due to a lack of respect for you as an owner, this will save you a headache in the future! 

We hope these tips are helpful on your journey to grow your Pilates business. If you have already taken our Neu Pilates courses and have more questions about Starting your own Pilates Studio, Growing your Pilates business or hiring your next Pilates instructor, please reach out! We are always happy to chat and support in anyway we can!