Ep. 119 - Staffing: Who to Hire, How to Manage Them, and When to Let Them Go

This episode is about staffing your academy, start to finish. I break it into three parts. First, who to hire when you're still wearing all the hats, and why your first real hire off the floor is an admin, not another coach. Second, how to actually manage staff once you've got them: roles and tasks, SOPs, objective standards, incentives, and quarterly reviews. Third, hiring and firing, how to grow coaches from inside your own room, how to onboard them, and how to know when somebody has to go. The through line: if your staff is underperforming, it's usually because you never made it clear what "performing" looks like. That's on you, not them. - Why an admin is your first hire, not a coach - The math on paying somebody $1,500/month and what you have to go generate to justify it - Head coach + assistant for every program (two layers of redundancy, always) - Roles and tasks vs. SOPs — two different documents, and why you need both - Take a picture of the clean front desk. Seriously. Put it in the SOP. - Making everything objectively measurable so reviews aren't "I feel like you're not trying" - Bonuses and incentives that get profiles filled out and waivers signed - Quarterly reviews as a relationship deposit, and knowing each person's actual motivation - Reviewing coaches by walking a student's experience through the class - How to give feedback without making somebody cry (learned that one the hard way) - Gino Wickman's GWC screen: do they Get it, Want it, and have the Capacity? Run it. You'll find a lot of people in the wrong seat. - Farming your own coaches with a paid "how to teach" course - Onboarding staff the same way you onboard students — 30/60/90 with real touch points - Hire slow, fire fast. And a don't-shit-where-you-eat policy. <!--THE END--> 1. **Roles, tasks, and SOPs.** If it's not written down, it's not their fault it didn't happen. It's yours. 2. **Buy back your time.** Read *The E-Myth* by Michael Gerber. Audiobook counts. Just do it. 3. **Onboard and review your staff on a cycle.** You don't find your best staff members — you make them. Same as your students. Grab **The Unstuck Academy,** free ebook, quick read, goes deeper on a lot of this. There's also a podcast episode where I read the whole thing to you if that's more your speed. 👉 https://growjitsu.com/free-book/