JP suggests: Making great hires in your CrossFit affiliate

Building a great team is one of the most important contributors to your success as a CrossFit affiliate.

When hiring a coach for your affiliate, I recommend looking for three key things:

• Personality. Without personality your coaches can’t turn onthe attention meters of your members. Even worse—the coach turns people off. Your business will soon suffer. Yes, everyone’s personality is different, and that’s what makes them unique and or special. That said, coaches all need their own x-factor—that little thing you can’t put your finger on that creates an attractive charisma. For example, we have a coach with the personality of a bologna sandwich but Yoda-like charisma. And it works for him. People love coming to his classes.
• Coachability. At Brick, we have a simple method to quickly tell if a potential hire is coachable. Invite them to train with classes and your other coaches for a week. This not only lets you both put out feelers but also see their ability to handle instruction and coaching. Very quickly you can tell if this coach is a good fit. If they balk at the idea or have a book of reasons why they can’t—that’s an immediate red flag. People will surprise you for better or for worse so the sooner, the better. Side note—we have a recommended reading list for our coaches designed to educate them on how to be better coaches and people. Coach your coaches to be coachable and how to properly coach others!
• Proficiency of movement. This is a non-negotiable area. Your coach sets the tone for class and, at times, the entire gym. Your members bring a range of preferred learning styles, audible, kinesthetic, and visual senses. If a coach is not proficient in said movements they cannot confidently deliver the information. Therefore, they’ll send mixed signals between anyone with those learning styles, and wires become crossed. This leads to many challenges on and off the training floor. Frustrated and unhappy members don’t support a fruitful, healthy community. Remember, all of your members are one bad class or experience away from quitting! Priority one for your coaches is the passion to want to get better at their craft and work on it daily!

If your potential hire meets those top criteria you are off to a good start. Things you also need to check off your list…

• Can they handle group classes? They might be a great 1-on-1 trainer, but coaching group classes requires a very different set of skills.

• Can they handle pressured situations? They have to be able to respond quickly and figure out what to do without showing your clients any weakness or doubt. Nothing is a big deal unless they make it a big deal. Are they able to call audibles in class, quickly create solutions, and execute? This is key in scaling options for injuries, inabilities, or a class plan of 10 members that jumps to 25 in the next class. The coach must quickly adjust and adapt their floor and workout tactics with a smile.

• Do they know how to troubleshoot? Your coaches face challenges large and small thrown at them daily by your members. If your coaches face a situation that they can’t quickly identify, analyze, and solve, your clients lose faith.

• Do they have social awareness and social acuity? Your coach might be teaching a great class and say something they think is hilarious. But what if it’s offensive to a member? Generally, coaches who do this have a pattern of doing so, thereby losing respect among members. The coach needs to have that special set of skills to read the room. Even worse than a bad-joke-coach are coaches who believe yelling and reprimanding adults is the proper way to gain respect and control. I recommend the book How to win friends and influence people as well as anything on NLP—Neuro Linguistic Programming.

And, of course, always check your gut. Where there is doubt, there is no doubt. While instructing people is the #1 task of most coaches, don’t forget that they need to fit and reinforce your culture while representing your brand properly. If anything seems off, don’t make the hire! The wrong staff can cause irreparable damage to your business. Do your homework!

Rising tides,

JP