Episode 356: Your First Hire: Who It Should Be And Who It Shouldn't Be

Who Should You Hire First? Build the Right Team for Your Business

Who should your first hire be—a practitioner, instructor, admin, or manager?

For many boutique fitness, Pilates, physical therapy, and wellness business owners, hiring happens when they’re already overwhelmed. But hiring out of desperation can lead to putting the right person in the wrong role—or hiring someone without being clear about what you actually need.

In this episode of the Female emPOWERed Podcast, Christa Gurka breaks down how to determine who your business really needs next using an accountability chart.

Instead of building jobs around people you already know and like, Christa explains how to define the role first, identify the outcomes that person needs to own, and then find the right person with the skills to deliver them.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• How to determine who your first—or next—hire should be
• The difference between an organizational chart and an accountability chart
• Why you should define the role before looking for the person
• How to identify which “seat” will give you the most valuable time back
• Why your best instructor or clinician may not make the best manager
• The difference between being the right person and being in the right seat
• The 3–5 measurable outcomes every role should own
• When hiring an admin makes sense—and when hiring another practitioner is smarter
• What a true operations manager should take off the owner’s plate
• Why hiring based on skill set matters more than convenience
• How the right hire can help move you out of day-to-day operations and into the CEO role

Who Should You Hire First?

Instead of asking:

“Who is the least expensive person I can hire?”

Ask:

“Which seat, if filled today, would give me the most high-value hours back and help bridge the gap between where my business is now and where I want it to go?”

If your schedule is maxed out because you’re treating patients or teaching classes, another clinician or instructor may be the right hire.

If you’re spending hours answering calls, scheduling clients, following up on leads, collecting payments, and managing cancellations, an administrative hire may create a much bigger return.

And if you’re tired of managing every team member, solving every problem, and overseeing every system yourself, it may be time for an operations or studio manager.

The Accountability Chart

Every business needs a few core functions:

CEO/Visionary: Sets the direction and protects the long-term health of the business.

Operations: Turns the CEO’s vision into a business that can run day-to-day without the owner in the room.

Marketing: Attracts qualified leads.

Sales: Turns those qualified leads into committed, paying customers.

Admin/Client Support: Owns the client experience outside of the actual service.

Practitioner/Instructor/Coach: Delivers the exceptional client experience the business promises.

One person can fill multiple seats, especially in a small business. But each seat needs clearly defined responsibilities and outcomes.

Key Takeaway

If you can’t clearly articulate in one sentence what a role is responsible for producing, you’re not ready to hire for it.

Before posting your next job opening, map out your accountability chart. Determine which seat you want to get out of, define the 3–5 outcomes that seat owns, and then hire the person with the right skills to deliver those results.

Don’t build a job around a person.

Build the role your business needs—and then find the right person to fill it.

Resources Mentioned

Download Christa’s free Accountability Chart to map out the roles your business needs and determine who you should hire next.

Learn more about the Fit Biz Accelerator, where Christa helps business owners build, refine, and optimize their accountability charts, systems, and teams.

Enrollment for the next cohort opens in December, with the program beginning January 2027.

SEO Keywords

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Transcript

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2:01

Hey there, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Female Empowered podcast. I'm once again your host, Christa Gurka. Today, we are gonna be talking about, I feel like one of the more important decisions, and certainly one of the very first big decisions most boutique fitness, wellness, healthcare business owners make, which is who is gonna be your first hire? I think back on those early days of, this would actually be Pilates on the Beach When we opened Pilates on the Beach back in 2008, yeah, maybe, deciding who our first hire was gonna be, right? And it is a difficult decision. It's something that we get asked frequently in, in our mentorship groups. It's something people ask me just randomly, Who should I hire first? Should I hire a practitioner? Should I hire a PT? Should I hire an instructor? Should I hire a coach? Should I hire an admin person? Should I hire a manager?" And oftentimes because many of us are, building the plane as we're flying it, as we are getting our businesses going, we're hiring usually under duress. We're hiring when we're swamped and overwhelmed, and what I want this episode to help everyone with is how to create a little more clarity around when you need to hire and who that person actually is. I equate it to going grocery shopping when you're hungry. It's... You definitely make bad choices or poorer choices or reactive choices because you're starving. when you wait to hire, or you're deciding to hire when you're really under duress, or you need something really quick, I do think we just don't make the best decisions. what I wanna walk all of us through today is something I wish somebody had handed to me definitely earlier and it's called an accountability chart. And why I like the term accountability chart versus organizational chart, 'cause sometimes they go- they- people interchange those terms, but the difference really is that an organizational chart tells people who reports to whom. The chart itself is built around people, and when a person leaves, I feel like the system breaks, versus an accountability chart, which is built around function. an accountability chart answers the question: What result comes from this seat? What does this seat own? What are the three to five responsibilities that if this person does well, they're gonna knock it out of the park? it's built around function, and it survives when a person leaves. 'Cause if a person leaves you just- are gonna hire for that same skill set, that same role, versus try to figure out how do I make another Mike or another Jane? You're like, "How do I just find people that can do these things?" that's why I like the term an, an accountability chart versus an organizational chart. And this is the very, very first module that we teach in our Fit Biz Accelerator program. those people that started the accelerator in August, they've already built out their accountability chart, and over the next 12 months they will be refining it as they get more clarity on their business. And the people that started the cohort in January of 2026, they've already built out, refined, optimized. now if someone leaves, they're like, we need to fill this role. This is a s- skill set these people need to have in order to be successful in this role A very common thing that happens in this industry, and I actually probably think in most small businesses, is We have an instructor or a physical therapist or maybe even an admin person, and we're like, we think that person has an extra 5 to 10 hours a week, I'm gonna make them the social media manager," or, "I will let them do the books," or, "I'm gonna let them write the emails." But what we don't n- understand if we don't have this process in place of looking at an accountability chart is those roles are not interchangeable. Does the person who sits at the front desk actually have the skill set to be a social media manager? Do they actually understand what the role is? Do they want the role, and do they have the capacity to do the role? In other words do they have the time capacity, but also, do they have the skill capacity to do that role? And usually what happens is we fill these roles with people that are already on our team, and then we both end up being resentful because they're not doing the role as we had initially envisioned, and they don't really wanna do the role, now they're resentful that they're being required to do the role. one of the things when we build out this, do this exercise and build out this chart, I'm actually gonna give everyone a... There'll be a link in the show notes, and at the end of this podcast, I'm gonna give you a link where you can download just a an, a... Why can I not think of the word? Just like a blank accountability chart, right? you guys can download it, and you can fill it in yourself, and then maybe you can help decide which role you need to hire for. when we talk about an accountability chart, the way that it looks like... And if you're listening later, maybe down the road, you're gonna... I would advise that you try to go watch this on YouTube 'cause I'm gonna do a little drawing, and then this way you'll be able to see it. an accountability chart usually is... And an org chart looks the same, but usually the CEO is at the top. That's usually whomever the, the owner i- the CEO. Oftentimes, it's a founder, not always, right? But this is usually a person that's the visionary. If you've read the book Traction, this is where we get this from. They come up with the ideas. They're responsible for growth. They do... Set the customer experience, all of that stuff. Underneath the CEO, every business runs on three tabs or three functions, really. You have ops, operations, which is basically the day-to-day running of your business, like doing... providing the service, physical therapy, Pilates classes, yoga classes taking payments, scheduling calls, HR. That's all operations. Over here, we have finance This is basically money in, money out. And then over here, and this you might break it up into two, but it's basically sales and marketing. you have to have people know about you, which is marketing. You have to sell to those people, which is sales. You have to serve them properly with all of the ops for the business, and then you basically have to have money in and money out. Underneath ops is usually where you have the rest of your team. this could be like PT instructor, admin Over here maybe you have a social media person, maybe not. And I know what you're thinking. You're like I don't have all those people on the team." Maybe over here is a bookkeeper But here is what I wanna tell you. usually when a business is small, or even when it's bigger, I think at a million dollars I was still sitting in the majority of the seats. I... only one person can sit in each seat, but one person can sit in multiple seats, right? if you're thinking like, "How? I don't have that many people," no, of course you don't. You sit, as CEO, you sit in this seat, you probably sit in the op seat, you sit in the sales and marketing seat, you sit in the finance seat, and then probably maybe you're the PT, maybe you're the instructor, and maybe you're the admin person. Maybe you sit in every single seat here, right? when you're deciding, this is why this is really helpful, 'cause when you're deciding what to delegate or who to hire, the one thing you should decide as a CEO is which seat do I wanna give up? That's how you decide who your first hire is. if you're like, "I no longer wanna answer phones, and take payment, and schedule people," then this is the role you're hiring for. If you're like, "I no longer want to reconcile my books and do QuickBooks," then this is the seat you're hiring for, a bookkeeper. If you're like, "I no longer wanna teach or treat people," then these are the seats you're hiring for. If maybe it's like, "I no longer wanna do HR and all the things that are responsible for ops," right? this is why you build out an accountability chart, because this way you decide, "I don't want to sit in this seat anymore, this is the skill set that I am hiring for. Who's gonna be my operations manager?" Now, if there's a PT down here that you're like, "Oh, maybe Sally can be the operations manager," what we have to do is make sure that Sally has the skill set of this seat and can do that seat, right? Just because she's a great instructor, a great physical therapist, doesn't necessarily mean that the, that she can do this seat, right? Oftentimes, this, these higher level seats, this would be called like executive level or leadership level, all of these people need to lead, and they need to manage, and they need to hold the people underneath them accountable, and not everybody has that skill set. We all know that managing people is probably one of the most difficult parts of our job entirely. And maybe an instructor doesn't have a managerial skill set, but they, if you're gonna move them up the chain they need to be able to have that skill. what happens is most owners, most of us, and I did this too, we don't design a role and then go find the person to fill it. What we do is we meet someone we love, or we have someone on our team that we love, and we're like, "Oh, that, they're amazing. I really like this person." And they build the job around that person Versus finding the person that's right for that role. Hiring out of desperation might feel to you like it's progress in the moment. Those people that are like, "Oh, yeah, I met this person. She's amazing. I think she's gonna be great." And they're like, "I just hired her to be my director of operations." I'm like, "Do you even know that they have the skill set to do it?" Because it might feel like progress in the moment, but it usually always creates tension down the road because you don't know if the person has that skill set, and you don't know necessarily how to train them. If you can't clearly articulate in one sentence what that seat, what that role is responsible for producing, you're not ready to hire I'm gonna say it again. If you cannot say very specifically in one sentence what this role, what this person will do to be successful and what they are responsible for producing, what the outcome of their role is, you are not ready to hire. let's take Pilates instructor. A Pilates instructor, what are they respon- what outcomes are they responsible for? They are responsible for facilitating a, maybe a group Pilates class where the clients would give a r- review or rating of four or five stars. They could be responsible for maintaining cleanliness in the studio space, the group class space, before and after class. What is an administrator responsible for? What are their outcomes? The outcomes of the administrator are to be the first impression of the business, to be able to handle incoming and outgoing calls in a timely manner, to maintain schedule utilization at 80% or above, and decide what needs to be done in order to keep that utilization. I'm making these up. These were for mine. They could be different from yours, but you have to know, and the hire has to know, what are the three to five things I'm responsible for, and as long as I am doing these to the best of my ability, I'm gonna rock this position, right? another thing that happens a lot, where I see this happens a lot is where they're like, "Oh, we have a great client. They wanna do some Barter arr- arrangement. They're gonna be our front desk person, and in exchange, we're gonna give them classes. Unless that person has administrative customer support experience, they're probably not going to be the best person for that role, right? It feels, it might feel good and easy and safe for you as the owner to be like, "Oh, we love this person. They know the studio." But do they really know the studio? They just know it from their end. They don't necessarily know it from the back end. They don't know the work that goes into keeping the schedule full. three months later, the schedule's a mess. No-shows aren't being followed up on, 'cause this person doesn't understand the process of following up with no-shows. Leads are going cold, 'cause this person doesn't understand how to follow up with leads. And now you're stuck having to have a difficult conversation with a really great client about how they're not filling the role properly. You didn't hire a bad person. You didn't hire the right person for the right seat. Research shows, and this was something from the Harvard Business Journal, that new f- hire failure, when you hire a new person that fails, it 80% of the time points to the wrong fit for the role, not necessarily a lack of skill or ability. It usually is because they might be the right person, you just hired them for the wrong role. one of the things they talk about in Traction, which was where this accountability comes from, is you have to have the right people. Right people means they align with your mission, vision, and values. You believe that they are bought in to all of that, and they're all gonna move in the same direction as the rest of the team. That's the right person. They also have to sit in the right seat, which is what we talked about in this accountability chart. You can have a great person, but if you put them in an operations role, and they don't know or not comfortable leading, managing, and holding people accountable, they're the right person in the wrong seat. when you design a seat, what you wanna do is map out literally every seat your business needs to run on. And for right now, what I would say is you have a CEO, just like we did in this accountability chart. You have operations, which by the way, sometimes the CEO sits in. You have finance, and you have sales and marketing. And then obviously, you have your instructors, maybe an administrator. Hold. Let me take a quick sip of water. if we go back to Let's just say that it's small businesses that are probably the owner is sitting in sales and marketing ops and finance for right now, which is fine. let's talk about underneath that. Let's talk about instructors and administrators, Like I said before, administrators, customer support people, client liaison, front de- whatever you wanna call them, They own, like I said, they own the first impression of the business. They handle calls. They're the first peoples- people see when they walk in. They handle the integrity of the schedule, keeping it at whatever utilization you dictate. They handle lead follow-up, they handle retention conversations, and they handle all customer service related inquiries. An instructor or practitioner, like we talked about, they own the clinical client delivery, whether that be movement, whether that be a class, whether that be client outcomes, and then you're... They also have to adhere to your standards and protocols for delivering that client session, whether that be PT, evaluations, whether that be group classes. again, when you have a protocol and a standard of how you want those classes to be run, that is what they are responsible for. Now, if you're gonna move up the chain a little bit and maybe put a manager, maybe someone who's a manager and sits in the operations seat or someone between the admin instructors, maybe a, a studio manager, and then they report to the CEO, right? That is a different skill set. if they are instructors, that's great. They're gonna sit in the instructor seat, but then when they sit in the manager seat, they have different roles and responsibilities they are responsible for. The manager owns holding the team, b- the instructors and the administrative staff accountable to their standards that they are responsible for. the manager is holding this admin person accountable for making sure that the leads are followed up on, the retention's staying good, the schedule utilization is optimal. This manager is responsible for the instructor or the PT and making sure they're accountable for their client outcomes, they're accountable for their standards, completing plan of cares, et cetera. The manager is responsible for running the systems that the CEO decides. They create SOPs and processes. They are the one that's leading from the front that the CEO doesn't have to be there for every, every single shift. this is a manager that's a buffer basically between the CEO and the, support staff. deciding "I don't wanna have to be here for every shift," maybe that's the time that you're like, "I don't want to hold all the... I don't want all these people reporting directly to me" maybe a manager is a person you need to put in that role. "I don't wanna be the one that has to build out and execute and implement all the SOPs," maybe that's- a manager, but that manager needs to have a skillset where they know how to operate. They need to know how to have difficult conversations with support staff if they need to hold them accountable for something they're not doing. They need to know how to implement, create and implement systems. You shouldn't have to train them on that. They should know how to do that. They should have to know how to decide, if the schedule utilization we want is at 80% and it's at 72%, they should be able to make the decisions on why is it at 72% and not at 80%? And bring the decision to you of, "This is what I think we should do to get the, up to the next, get that 8% back." it's them bringing you... They're owning outcomes, they're bringing to you the reason those outcomes are not met, not just telling you those outcomes aren't being met. They are saying I think our t- utilization dropped. We had to be closed for two weeks last, last because of the construction, and then the week before was spring break, I just think I, I really see the next two weeks are ramping back up. I don't think it's an issue." Or if they're really seeing the issue, then maybe th- then they bring that to you with a solution to how to improve that outcome. that is why every seat on this accountability chart should have three to five measurable outcomes before you ever post the job. I'm gonna give you an example of something that we had a- we helped a business work through in our mentorship program, I'm gonna give you two different examples. one, Studio A, both of them are looking to hire a manager, And I'm saying that in air quotes 'cause a lot of people have a different idea of what a manager is. Both studios hired a manager. Studio A, the owner never wrote down what the seat actually owns. The... What they did was they promoted an instructor to manager, and what the manager did, spent most of the time, was whatever felt urgent on that day. this client complained about a cancellation policy, and that's what they handled. Then this instructor needed time off, that's what they handled. And mostly it was, like, admin and scheduling. Studio B also hired a manager, but the owner had already built out what this manager was supposed to own and be accountable for- All the time. they knew that, the manager knew when they were hired that they were supposed to run the staff meetings. They were supposed to hold the staff accountable for their arrival policy when they were supposed to arrive. They were s- gonna be running... I think I said that, running the, the team meetings, right? They were supposed to be reviewing weekly retention numbers. They were supposed to b- be bringing solutions to the owner on how they can improve their weekly retention to get to their goal of being 80% utilized. They were accountable to the, with the administrators, or the administrators were accountable to them to make sure they were following up on the leads and they were watching the retention as well. even though both studios had a the same job title, six months after the hire w- happened, they were both in completely different places. And what happened was Studio B recognized that none of their instructors had the skillset to do these skills as a manager, they actually went outside and hired another person to come in that had more managerial, operational experience. And yes, even though it cost them a little more at the outset, at six months later it had well paid itself back because now the owner was really freed up to do the things that the owner really wanted to be able to do. And really, honestly, her time was way more, was way better spent being in that higher level visionary seat versus putting out fires on a day-to-day basis, right? now let's go back to thinking about which seat or which role you should hire for first Oftentimes there's a conversation around, do I hire a front desk person? Usually because it feels like the lowest risk, lowest cost option, right? It's the least, probably the least paid person on your payroll. Sometimes that's right, but sometimes it's not. And the question becomes what's the... It shouldn't be like, who's the least expensive person I can hire? It's which seat, if filled today, gives me, the owner, the most time back, the most value, high value hours back in my day? And what puts the biggest What bridges the gap between where I am now and where I wanna be? if you're s- if you are an owner that is still teaching classes and seeing patients, and you're like, "I could use those hours to really grow the business," and your calendar is maxed out because you're client-facing, then pos- probably hiring a clinician is the best first hire, If a lot of your time is spent following up with calls, scheduling people, tracking people down for money, telling them there's a cancellation, then maybe you're... If you could focus that time on your $250 PT session, hiring an, an admin person for 16, 18, 20, $25 an hour is probably the right call. But again, you need to know what is this person gonna be accountable for that when you're interviewing, when you're checking resumes, when you're following up on references and things like that, you are making sure that the person you're hiring is not only the right person, but is going to be able to fill the right seat in the business. some things to look for, if there is gonna be someone that's a client-facing administrator, a customer support person, they sit at the front desk, probably having someone that's super shy and doesn't like talking on the phones and is not engaging with people is not gonna excel at that role. And I'm not talking about introverted versus extroverted, 'cause I'm actually very introverted, and I do well at that seat because I just know how to communicate with people in a way, I know that what they need to hear in that moment in order to make their experience successful. it doesn't necessarily mean introverted/extroverted. It just means if that person is gonna be too shy to say something or is not gonna be able to hold the line in terms of cancellations or really doesn't like talking on the phone and is not gonna pick up the phone and call leads, that's probably not the best person for that role. it's a really, again, one of the really important reasons, it's you wanna have in each of these roles, what are the three to five things each of these roles is accountable for? let me give you some examples of what three to five roles could s- sound could look like for each of these categories. let me give you some examples here. let's start from the top. let me pull out my little... Sorry again. Like my little drawing? I like my drawing. let's start from the top. The CEO, the visionary. Why does this seat exist? the CEO sets, sets the direction and protects the long-term health of the business. Ultimately, the CEO sets the direction and protects the long-term health, financial solvency of the business. they own the vision. They solve big problems, here's the big caveat, that no one else can solve. does that mean that they solve the cancellation problems? No, because probably somebody else on the team can solve the cancellation problems. Set and protect culture and values, have the final say on major financial and strategic decisions, and you can even put a dollar amount to that. We had that anything over $5,000. Be the face of the ba- brand, public visibility, and thought leadership, if you wanted to. There are some CEOs that don't wanna be the face of the brand, and that's perfectly fine. now let's go under here, maybe the director of operations, a manager, a COO. what does this role exist for? The CEO... The COO, sorry. The COO, the director of operations, the person that sits here, turns the vision of the CEO into a business that runs day-to-day without the owner in the room. I'm gonna say that again. Your operations person, your manager, your s- second in charge, your right-hand person is to... Their role, if you said it in a sentence, is your role is to take my vision and turn it into a business that runs day-to-day without me being in the room That's technically what their role is. Their job is to make your life easier, is to solve problems before they get to you. It's also sometimes... I saw somebody post this on Instagram, and I thought it was really amazing. It was the role of the COO is to reel in the entrepreneurial visionary or the entrepreneurial maverick without choking it. basically, how can you take the vision, implement and execute it, but also make sure that this CEO, most visionaries are like, "I have this idea and this idea," without choking it and stifling its innovation. I thought that was really interesting. what are the three to five things a manager of operations do? Owns the daily operations of the business. That includes staffing, scheduling, facilities, systems. That means hiring, firing, HR. They're managing the team. They're hiring, they're onboarding, they're doing performance reviews, they're running the weekly meetings, they're owning the SOPs, and they solve the day-to-day fires the owner doesn't have to What if we come over here? What if we separate these two out and do sales and marketing? let's do sales... Let's do marketing first, 'cause marketing, you do marketing before you do sales. a marketing lead, and this could be the same person, right? The marketing lead, what are they responsible in one sentence? Keep. Find and keep qualified leads coming in the door. I use the term qualified, You want the right type of buyers coming in. find and keep qualified leads coming in the door. They own the content calendar and the brand voice. They drive lead generation, whether that's organic or paid or both. They manage the email newsletters and communications. They track the marketing metrics, and they own also the local visibility. This is like your organic community, referral partners, all of that stuff. Once those people get in, the sales director, And again, you, I don't want you to think you have to have all of these people. Oftentimes the CEO sits in all of these seats. But this, whoever is accountable for sales, what they do is they turn the qualified leads that the marketing team is bringing in into committed paying customers. That's it. Your job is to turn the qualified leads that come into the studio into paying committed customers. they own the sales process. That means intro offers, conversions, consults, follow-up, retention. They wanna make sure that their conversion from new client to member is on track to hit our utilization goals. They manage and re-engage the lead list. Are we losing them? No inquiry goes cold. And then they train anyone who's responsible for the sales process. That could be the instructors, that could be the admin, that could be the ops person. Now, let's talk about an administrator and front desk. We talked about this a couple times. But this person in one sentence is responsible to own every touch t- touchpoint a client has with the business outside of their session once they become a client. once someone becomes a client, this person is responsible for all their touchpoints outside of the session itself. they own the client experience, they manage the schedule, cancellations, wait lists, they handle inquiries and customer support. They support the sales process for sure. Maybe they manage the inventory. That's, that could be you, that could be this person, that could be this person. Instructor, PT, coach, right? They are responsible for delivering an exceptional client experience that the business is selling on an ongoing basis that's literally that's what you're hiring for. you wanna tell these people, right? Is, if you're hiring a manager, you're gonna tell them when they interview, "Your job is to take my vision, implement it in a way that's gonna drive this business forward, that runs the day-to-day operations without me being present. Can you handle that?" There's a difference between saying a lot of people write tasks, like answer emails, answer phone calls. That's different than owning client co- communication. You're actually, what you're trying to tell them is what the outcomes they're responsible for, again, only one person can sit in each seat, but you can have the same person sit in multiple seats. When you're starting your business, you're in this seat. Janitor cleaning crew, all of that stuff, that's why it's important to decide to have this built-out system that when you go to hire, you're like, I know exactly what role I need to fill, and I know exactly the type of person I need to find to fill that role." And many times it's not someone on your team Oftentimes, people... I did this. I took my best clinician instructor, and we made them manager. They were not great at being a manager. They were really great at hustling and being clinicians and instructors, but they had a really hard time managing people. That's There's nothing wrong with that. I had a hard time managing people It's also important to recognize when it's time for the business to grow beyond you, if that is what you want. If you wanna stay a solopreneur and keep your team lean, there is benefit to that as well. You're not managing people. But also recognize as soon as you bring someone on, you stepped into that role of having to manage people. Small service-based businesses that where the owner remains the primary hand-on service provider always hit a revenue ceiling, right? There's only much of you, there's only much you can do. If you don't work, you don't earn the money. if you wanna grow your business behind, beyond yourself, at some point you're gonna have to hire. And it's really important, again, like I said, I'm gonna go back to this, you make sure you hire the right person. That is on making sure that person is i- in alignment with your mission, vision, and values. you have to have a mission, vision, and values. Then you have to make sure they're sitting in the right seat. Do they possess the skill set to be successful in that seat? w- what I'm trying to tell you in this is, rather than be like, "Oh, I think I need an admin person. I think I need another instructor. I think I need a manager," I would do this exercise where you decide h- where you build out your own accountability chart. And you can decide which are the three to five things that person is gonna be responsible for. And then they should be responsible for it, rather than... Now, there might be some training involved and this is how we do this here. This is the current process we do this." But at the end, they should be responsible for it. I'll give you perfect... I'll give you a perfect example of a manager or an operations person. Probably what happens right now, and some of you might giggle when you hear this 'cause I bet you're like, "Oh my God, how did she know? That was me." we're in the middle of summer almost the end of summer, and the air conditioning breaks in your business. The AC goes out. currently what's probably happening is, even if you have a manager, currently what's probably happening is it could take a day or two for anyone to even mention that the air conditioning is broken. Then you might get a Slack message, a text message, an email, or an Post-It note on your desk that says, "AC's not working." Now you become responsible for figuring out how long has it been broken. I have to call someone to come in. I have to meet that person when they come in. They have to tell me what's wrong. We have to send time to fix it. Do I have to cancel classes and make all of those adjustments, right? Sound familiar? When you have the right person in the right seat as your director of operations or your studio manager, whatever you wanna call it, this is how that process goes. Air conditioning is broken. The instructor or the administrator, whoever notices it first, hopefully it's when they walk in and they go, "Oh my gosh, the air is broken," they Slack you a message that says... They Slack the, not the owner, they Slack the director of operations, the manager, a message that says, "Air conditioning is out. How would you like me to proceed?" The manager then says, Go to our knowledge base or our HQ and call our HVAC company, our AC company. Ask them to come out. Let me know when they can come out. If you can be there to meet them, great, and if not, I will go there to meet them. If they can't come out before this class and it's getting worse, we are gonna cancel that class. Please do Let the instructor know and then call the clients and let them know the situation." Or they're like, "We have several fans in the back. Let's put the fans out we keep it as cool as possible. If the HVAC company cannot come today, here's two other places I want you to call. See if you can get them out today." Then what happens is- The director of operations Slacks you, "Hey, I just wanna keep you abreast of a situation. The AC's out, but no worries. We called our company. They're gonna be there at 3:00. The front desk person's gonna meet them there, and if they can't finish the work, I'll show up at 5:00. We've canceled the 5 o'clock class for now, but as of now, everything is back on tomorrow. We're hoping the AC will be done today." Period. That's how it happens, and all you have to do is give a thumbs up. "Great. Thank you. Let me know if you need me for anything." That is how the right person in the right seat in a manager role is supposed to handle that situation. I know we talked about a lot of stuff. your main thing is before you hire, build out an accountability chart. And if you're like, "I have no idea how to do that," then grab the download. It's just a blank, it's just a blank one where you can fill in for yourself. But you can also apply to be in our next cohort of the accelerator, which enrollment opens the beginning of December. We start January 2027. And literally, it's the very first module. We do this, the very first thing we do on call number one, by the end of January, you have at least the outline, and then we optimize it over the next 12 months. if that's something you're interested in, go visit the christagurka.com/accelerator page to get yourself on the wait list that you can be one of the first people that gets into the accelerator when enrollment opens in December. ladies. That was a lot. If you were listening to this, it's probably confusing because I was doing a drawing, but this video is also up over on YouTube, maybe later tonight, have your phone on the couch, and you can be watching it over on YouTube. And if you have questions, go ahead and DM me over on Instagram. I read every single one. And until next time, bye for now.