| Friend,
Now that we've discussed the pros and cons of either going with a minimally-staffed dojo or running a dojo with a large staff, let's talk about hiring.
Or, more specifically let's talk about hiring right. Too often I see martial art school owners hiring just any warm body who will show up to teach class or answer the phones...
More often than not, this results in a school owner hiring the wrong person. This almost always ends up costing them more money than the employee is worth to their business.
I made this mistake several times when I was building my staff up in my first dojo. Here are just a few "employee from hell" stories from those days: - "HEY LOOK - FREE MARTIAL ARTS LESSONS!" - I once hired someone to become my enrollment director at the school. She talked a great game, was a family member of one of my longtime clients, and said she had a ton of sales experience. Six weeks after hiring her, I checked the books to find out why I had a full intro schedule but zero enrollments. Come to find out, she was extending the 30-day free intro period for a second month for anyone who gave her the least little resistance in their enrollment conference. Needless to say, I hit the roof. She quit the next day.
- "WUV, TWUE WUV..." - I also hired one of my leadership team members to help my wife out in the office with the paperwork. This girl quickly developed a crush on one of my assistant instructors, and they ended up dating. We soon discovered that instead of taking care of customer service issues and keeping on top of the paperwork, she spent most of her time doodling the instructor's name on legal pads in the office while I was teaching class (I am not kidding). So, I told her that I knew she was unhappy in her current position, and offered to move her to a teaching role. She then failed to show up for her instructor training class because she decided to spend the day with Mr. Wonderful. I caught her lying about it and fired her, and she filed for unemployment. I had to pay hundreds of dollars to the state for her unemployment benefits.
- "DID I TELL YOU TO SLIP AND FALL?" - Another employee went against company policy and got injured on the job. I ended up paying an $800 emergency room bill for her, even though her own actions caused her injury.
Yes, in each of these instances these employees showed incredibly poor judgement. But here's the thing...
As the person who hired them, I take full responsibility for their actions. Nobody twisted my arm to make me hire those people. It was my decision, and I'm the one who hired poorly.
In hindsight, I can see the mistakes I made in each case when I hired these people. Every single time, I failed to do my due diligence, and just hired the first warm body I could find to fill that position.
And every single time I ended up regretting my hasty hiring decision. This is why it's so important to hire the right people and to take your time when you need to fill a key position in your school.
I'm going to talk about the hiring process and how to hire right a lot over the next week or so. Hopefully the tips I share will help you avoid the same mistakes I made early on in my career as a school owner.
So, stay tuned for those emails...
Until next time,
Mike Massie MartialArtsBusinessDaily.com
P.S. - I estimate that the employee who was giving away 60-day trial memberships cost me over $3,000.00 in lost tuition. Not only was it my fault for hiring her, it was also my fault because I assumed that my wife was keeping track of her numbers.
P.S.S. - And guess what? My wife thought I was the one who was tracking that employee's enrollments! What a comedy of errors that was. Ultimately, it's up to you to keep your finger on the pulse of what's going on in your school. Keep that in mind as we continue through this email series...
|
