H
ow should you find this assistant? Like I mentioned, finding quality employ- ees is a difficult process. The way it’s worked for me in the past is this: in mostgym situations I enter, I start to make friends with many of the gym members. I especially make friends with the younger athletes in the gym; they’re always looking for free training advice and are never shy about coming up and asking. They also view Personal Training as the coolest job in the world, and as they see my client load swell and how professionally I serve them, their questions quickly turn from how to work-out to how they can become trainers themselves. You can give one these apprentices some part-time work with you on a trial basis. Like I mentioned, it’s not even important for this person to have past training experience, just that they have a passion for fitness and a willingness to learn.
Finding your employees through this type of networking is probably the best way to find quality people. At other times, in other training practice set-ups I’ve tried, I’ve placed ads in the help wanted sections of major newspapers. This has always ended disastrously for me and I don’t recommend it. The majority of people that view these ads are not just un-employed, they’re unemployable. They aren’t capable at all of handling the responsibilities that come with any job, let alone what you’ll be giving them. Rather than getting into any horror stories, and I’ve got some great ones, I’ll just tell you that the only people you should work with are the ones that you’ve gotten to know personally or that you get to know through a personal reference. And I’m sorry to say that even those won’t work on occasion!
Work Arrangement
The work agreement you have with this type of employee however is kind of a sticky situation. (That doesn’t comply with this country’s labor laws, but remem- ber this is the unofficial guide to succeeding at training; if you wanted to hear the same old rhetoric, you could have gotten a book at the bookstore.) This has worked for me because of the tone of my work arrangements; I’ve always had an amazing camaraderie with my assistants/employees. There’s been a synergy that together we're trying to change lives and help people reach their full potential. And through it all, we’re trying to become better and stronger people ourselves.
However, I can completely understand if you want to make this a more “legitimate” work arrangement. I in fact encourage you to do so, since it will help you learn how to set-up these work agreements as you move forward in your busi- ness career. I’m going to outline some simple information in this area, but you
definitely need to speak to either a lawyer or accountant for a full understanding of how these arrangements work, what’s the best for you, and how to set one up.
The simplest form of work agreement is when you’re employee is viewed as an independent contractor. In this case, you have no real legal obligations to them. All you need to do is at the end of the year, give them a simple form letting them know how much they’ve been paid over the year. It’ll be up to them to file their taxes on their own. This situation works well because your assistants earn- ings can also be a deductible work expense for you.
However, there are a couple of problems with this type of agreement when it comes to a training assistant. The law states that with these independents, you can hire them to do a job for you but you’re not allowed to supervise them or tell them how to do it; that’s completely up to them. This law works to your favor in any of your agreements with private facilities since it keeps them out of your busi- ness, but with your assistants it doesn’t because you’ll be telling them what to do and how to do it. Although this agreement is very simple for you and your assis- tant, it doesn’t follow the letter of the law and for that reason, in all honesty, it can’t apply to this situation.
What’s left obviously is treating your assistant as a part time employee. In this case, beyond the salary you pay them, you’ll have certain other employer ex- penses as part of your responsibility to them, and they will also see their take- home income decrease as well do to taxes. If you have an accountant, this type of arrangement is fairly easy to set-up, and you can even quickly print paychecks and keep records with programs from the Quicken series (although I’ve never liked doing this type of paperwork). It’s just that this arrangement costs you more and your assistant make less, both at the same time! These are both drawbacks for you, but that’s the reality of doing business in our fine American economy. For those of you reading this from other countries, you’ll have to look into what laws pertain to you: hopefully it’s something more favorable.
Y
ou should now have a clear vision in your mind of how this system can serve you. If you’re client load is already over-flowing, you can slowly begin transi- tioning your practice to incorporate the help of an assistant. If you don’t have the need yet, it’s good to keep this system in mind and begin to adopt it as soon as theneed arises. There’s absolutely no better way to multiply your exact brand and quality of training than this. And I’m sure many of you reading this will be able to implement the system to higher degree than even I have. Whatever the case, having an assistant will give you more leverage, help you do more in less time, and give you more authority - it really does make you a Super-Trainer!
Furthermore, if and when you have a facility and are no longer doing the training yourself, the Super-Trainer System will still be highly valuable to you. It’s a way for you to run group sessions without having to rely on too many ex- perienced trainers. Finding qualified and experienced trainers is always the most difficult part of running a personal training business, and with the Super-Trainer Sytem, having just two or three of these trainers working for you, will allow them to manage an army of assistants, and allow you to serve easily over a hundred cli- ents with your business.