The Myth of ‘Just Hire a Front Desk Person’ — What You Actually Need

In this episode of The Pilates Business Podcast, host Seran Glanfield unpacks one of the most common misconceptions in the pilates business world: that hiring a front desk person will magically solve overwhelm. 

Speaking directly to boutique fitness business owners feeling stretched thin, Seran reveals why adding staff without the right systems in place can actually create more stress, not less. She shares practical insights on how to streamline operations, improve client experience, and build a sustainable pilates studio that runs smoothly - without relying on reactive hiring. 

If you’re struggling with burnout, inconsistent processes, or feeling like your business depends entirely on you, this episode offers a smarter, more scalable path forward.

Learn more about Thrive at www.springthree.com/thrive

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Transcript

The Front Desk Myth

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Just hire a front desk person. Have you ever noticed how casually people say that? Like it's a magic fix. Like once someone answers a few emails, checks a few people in, everything will finally feel easier. But what actually happens, well, you hire someone, you train them, you answer more questions than before, and somehow you're still exhausted. So if you've ever thought, why didn't this help the way that I expected it to, this episode is for you. Because the problem is not always necessarily the front desk person. It's actually this belief that hiring alone, just hiring someone, will automatically create freedom and flow and ease in your business. So today I want to break it all down for you to help you understand what your studio actually needs to grow. And yes, it might be more people, but it also might be a few other things as well. Well, hi there, I'm Sarah and Glanfield. I'm a business and marketing strategist just for boutique fitness studio owners like you. If you're ready to be inspired and make a bigger impact, you're in the right place. All you need are a few key strategies, the right mindset, and some support along the way. Join me as I share the real life insights that will help you grow a sustainable and profitable studio. This is the Pilates Business Podcast. Welcome back to the Pilates Business Podcast. I'm Sarah Anne Glamfield. I'm the founder of Spring 3 Studio Business Consulting, and this is where I share with you the smart strategies, the ones that actually help you to build and grow a strong, sustainable, and highly profitable studio business. This is based off of the insights that I have gathered from coaching and consulting very, very closely with hundreds of studios for well over a decade. So I'm all about giving you what works, taking away what doesn't, and making sure that you are able to move your business forward towards the goals and the success that you want for yourself and your business. And today I'm talking about perhaps one of the most common and often the most expensive and stress-creating mistakes that I see studio owners have to deal with on a very regular basis. And what we find is that as your business grows, you can no longer do it all yourself. There is more people and more demands on your time, bigger decisions for you to make. So answering emails at midnight, handling cancellations at 5 a.m., uh managing uh subs over the weekend, you know, putting out tiny fires all day long, these sorts of things tend to catch up with you. And at some point, you finally say it. Maybe it's someone who says it to you, maybe it's a mentor, maybe it's a coach, maybe it's a friend, maybe it's your spouse, maybe it's your partner, maybe it's your it's a client even that says you just need to have a front desk person. And it sounds logical, right? It sounds responsible. It sounds like, oh, this is a step in the right direction. And yes, of course, you need help. And it makes sense. So you hire. And for a brief moment, you feel relief until perhaps the questions start. The interruptions, the constant, hey, how do I do this? Or this happened, or what what I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do next. And suddenly, instead of buying back your time, you just added more to your plate. And I think that there is a bit of a truth to hiring that most people will not say out loud. And it's something that I think many of us learn along the way. And that is that hiring in and of itself does not automatically reduce your workload. Okay. I've said it, I'm sorry. You probably are nodding along if you felt like this ever and hired someone ever. Uh, it doesn't automatically reduce workload. Hiring only really works when the business is designed to be supported by someone other than you. And those are two slightly different things. And so I want to talk a little bit today about why just hiring someone doesn't actually solve your problems, honestly. And we often are chasing that as the ultimate solution. And so instead, what is it that actually needs to be in place before hiring can actually create that freedom and growth and ultimately, ideally, more profit uh for you and your business. So let's first of all talk a little bit about some of the reasons why hiring a front desk person can often backfire. And I think we can start off with this sort of very sort of uh common scenario where, similar to what I just described, where the studio owners are often in a spot um where you're hiring more reactively. You you're overwhelmed, you're stretched thin, you can't, you don't have a minute in the day. And so you just hire whoever you can. And you bring someone in, maybe it's a friend, maybe it's a client, maybe it's a a friend of a client, um, and uh, maybe it's someone you found online that you've interviewed and spoke on the phone once, and you're like, Yes, you're a body that breathes, I will hire you. And we see this a lot. Um, most of the time, we're often hiring teachers into these types of roles as well. And they just, they're there and they are keen and they want to make some extra money and you want to fill their time because you want to keep them as teachers. And so you hire them to help you with some of these other things. And we bring them in, we bring them in without a lot of clarity. So perhaps the role in and of itself is pretty vague. Perhaps the expectations are a little bit fuzzy. Uh, perhaps all of the things you want them to do and how you want them to do it, you know how to do. It lives in your head, it's on your list. Um, but it's not that easy to share that. And the impact is that you become the bottleneck for every decision. Your team depends on you for answers. Uh, you're managing people, you're often on top of managing the business. And so instead of feeling like you've got this freedom and flow and ease and uh sense of strong support, you actually feel perhaps a a little bit heavier, perhaps there's a little bit more responsibility involved, that you are perhaps feeling that weight on your shoulders and perhaps this sort of like feeling of where you always need to be uh available to them, right? Otherwise things might not get done. And so what we can see when those scenarios happen is that hiring itself is not the solution, right? Hiring just hiring a person into your business does not fix the overwhelm. But designing it to support you and your clients and the impact that you have with other people in it, that's what is truly going to help remove the overwhelm. So if there's a lot of uncertainty and if there's a lot of if there's a lack of clarity around who does what, around how to do things in your business, then hiring someone into the business is not just in itself going to help. And I think oftentimes the other part of this is the thing that brings studio owners often to the point of hiring is that this idea that they're overloaded because they're doing too much. That is often the case. We filled our plate and then we filled it some more and we filled it some more and we filled it some more. And I hit, you know, the the analogy the other day of sort of like, you know, you're on the treadmill and uh or you're running, or you know, you're you're you're going as kind of pretty decent pace, right? And you're you're you're going pretty fast, you're out of breath a little bit, and then you know, someone comes along and hits the plus button, hits hits the incline button a little bit. And so you you're running to keep up a little bit more, you're running to keep up a little bit more. Um, and if that is how it feels, you're probably that's how we feel when we're feeling somewhat overwhelmed often. It's sort of like, how long can I keep this up for? Right. And often typically, when we find any business owner in that kind of place where they just don't know how long they can keep this up, it is this feeling of overwhelm. Um, and typically when you're feeling that way, uh, where you're constantly sort of putting out fires, like playing the whack-a-mole, right? And and you're you're reactive in so many ways, it's often because there is a lack of structure. It's not necessarily because you can't do more. You probably could. You probably could take, you know, you could find a way to do more. I'm sure you as ambitious uh as I know that you are, um, that you don't want to because you're exhausted, right? And that's absolutely fine, absolutely right. In fact, uh, but the problem isn't necessarily that you haven't got the capacity. The problem typically is that you're missing out on structure that is ultimately going to help you to be able to do, to, to achieve in your business, to create progress in your business, um, without you actually working harder and doing more and being more exhausted and just, you know, hitting max speed on that treadmill, right? And so it's often because there isn't a lot of uh processes in place or things haven't been uh mapped out or documented in any way. Um, standards aren't set, standards aren't clear, standards might not even be super transparent or communicated particularly well. Um, and so whenever things come up, they're almost like a new thing that's happening. And so you know how to do it. Maybe one other person knows how to do it in the business. But the impact is that that front desk person, we're gonna call them in the quotes, the front desk person, um, asks you everything. Everything from how to make uh do a cancellation to how to uh set is the email okay to send? To is this social media poster right to do? You know, and and they're asking you everything. So almost you're doing their job and yours at the same time. And there's probably a lot of inconsistency because you're not available all the time to answer their questions. Uh you're still reacting to their needs and the clients' needs. And so mentally you are on call all the time. And the reality is that, you know, you want to give people directions. But if you ultimately want to have someone in your business that is going to add value, they need to know what the sort of framework is for making decisions. So we don't want someone to just hit the button on the iPad to check people in. We want a role that can do more than that, who can see the things that you see, right? And that only happens when the business is built in a way to delegate those types of responsibilities. And I want to be clear about this. This is quite different from delegating tasks, right? And so what you actually need before you hire is a shift often in the way that you're thinking about hiring. All right. And I think that a lot of business owners think that hiring is about a people decision. But actually, it requires you as the leader to change and shift what you do as well. So it's more of a leadership decision of how do you want your role to evolve? Because there is a little bit of we keep ourselves stuck because we know how to do that stuff. And the next stuff is perhaps we don't know how to do. So perhaps we're less inclined to kind of want to step up into that role. Some of that happens sometimes. Um, and I think if you want to grow your business, you have to be open and willing to step into some unknowns. And that takes a courage, first of all. Um, and then it takes a little bit of trying, and then it takes a little bit of commitment to getting it done. And that's when you then ultimately feel confident. When you first opened your business, you didn't know how to do any of the things you did today, but you were committed to figuring it out. And now you're confident you can run your business, right? Probably with your eyes closed. And so, in order for you to get to that next level, you need to have that same willingness. And it also means then letting go of some things that feel very comfortable to you, right? And letting go of things that you know how to do very, very easily. And that means that we also want to pass those things on to someone else. And so, hiring isn't just about other people, it's actually often about you and your role as the leader. And so you want to get super clear about what success looks like for yourself, what success looks like for your team. You want to make be really, really clear about what decisions does the role own. So, what do they, what are they able to make a decision about in the business? What outcomes matter the most? And ultimately, what is their responsibility? Okay. Because if you're not clear about what success looks like for that role, you don't have clear metrics or clear outcomes that you want them to achieve, then there's just a lot of guesswork on everyone's part. And that often leads to a lack of communication. Lack of communication often leads to, you know, just a lack of understanding between yourselves and the folks around you. And that often leads to various types of tension on different levels. And ultimately, perhaps down the road, turnover of team frustrations and perhaps this idea or this notion that hiring a team is more trouble than it's worth. And so, in order to hire well, and I would say to you, you know, as you grow, hiring is something you want to really feel like you can get good at. Because if you want to grow your business, you're gonna be hiring a lot. People are not gonna stay with you for 20 years. Um, they are gonna leave. People are gonna come in, people are gonna grow with you, people are gonna leave your business, some of them because they want to, some of them because you've let them go. So everything around hiring, you kind of as a leader of your business, as your business grows, you need to get good at this piece, actually. And so, in order to hire just a simple role, a front desk person, you will still need clear priorities, clear ownership of decisions and clear boundaries, right? And so it's not just about having more help or more hours from that person, which is always the first question. How many hours does it take? How many hours should I give this person? You want more clarity around the role, first of all. And so the first thing you do before you hire is you want to implement some structure into your business and think about the way you want that your business as an organization to run, to operate, right? And in and of itself, organization means you have to be organized. And so I know that for most of you, this is all kind of a new notion. Um, you know, you come in from the teaching world and you're figuring it out as you go, and that is great. And by the way, it doesn't matter if you've been hiring for 20 years or two months, the structure is always going to be supportive to your growth. And so as someone who cares deeply about your business, as someone who wants to be a good leader, who wants to be a kind leader, who doesn't want to micromanage, right? Um, you want to have a team that feels good, you want to have a team that likes you for sure, right? That's what we all know, that all that energy is good. But there is a way of doing it where that doesn't also mean that you are involved in everything and doing it all with them. And you so you you want to design a business that does not mean that your team members are still dependent on you. That does not mean that you can't fully step out of the weeds, that does not mean that ultimately your growth is tied completely to your energy levels and your ability to avoid burnout while pushing yourself to the limits, right? So the leadership piece of it is not about doing more, all right? It's about designing your business for that next phase of growth. And when you are clear about your role and everyone else's role, you start to move towards this place where you are leading and guiding your business forward and you have a team of fantastic, high achieving uh uh team members around you who understand their position, their roles, their responsibilities, their ability to make decisions on certain things and not about certain things, they know what to bring to you, what they can run with. And it's all of this because you've created the structure in the business. So let's just recap really quickly because if you've ever been told, just hire a front desk person and it didn't solve the problem and just created more problems for you, you're not doing it wrong, right? You're just probably given what I would call incomplete advice, right? It's like that easy throwaway, oh, just hire a front desk person. It would all, it will make it all better. It's it's not complete, right? And this is sort of my one of my biggest frustrations with a lot of the advice that is out there. It's a lot of this sort of like, oh, just do this. But there's a lot of context that comes with making these types of decisions that that facilitates how successful they are in your business. And what we do inside of Thrive is take you through how you can take that, perhaps that, that, that tool, that tactic, that strategy, and apply it to your business and make sure that you're not missing all these other pieces that will ultimately, no matter how incredible that tactic might be for someone else, it might not be the right fit for your business because you're missing these other pieces, right? So, what we know when you have got the structure in place, when you've got context and complete advice, and you've got the right strategies, the right support for your business, we know those pieces are all gonna fit together really, really nicely and you are going to be able to move forward towards your goals. So within your business, that real support comes from very clear roles, right? Not vague, just hire a body that breathes and can type for 10 hours a week, right? That's not what we're looking for here. That's that's not at all gonna help you. We're looking for clarity around decision making for those people in those roles so that you're not constantly chasing and might or waiting to hear or uncertain whether things are being done. And you want not just more people in the business, you also need to have leadership in the business. And you are the leader who is driving that forward. And a lot of what we've work on inside of Thrive is helping you to step into that leadership role and make sure that as you do that, there is nothing that is missing from the business. And so we help you stop building businesses that rely on you for everything and start building studio businesses that can actually support a team, create profit, and give you that flexibility to be able to be in your business teaching or doing whatever it is that makes you happy doing in your business, or take time off out of your business. The studio owners inside of Thrive very, very quickly are able to implement the structures that we recommend inside of their business that allows that freedom and flexibility. And when you've got someone who is there side by side, giving you guidance, helping you avoid making very costly, time-consuming, and stressful mistakes, this is where we see this very consistent growth month over month. And so if you're ready to hire well, if you're ready to develop your leadership skills and to build a studio that runs without you holding everything together all the time, go to springthree.com forward slash thrive and learn more. That's also where you can book a discovery call to have a chat with me and my team about what it would look like for you to join Thrive and where we would encourage you to focus first. And ultimately, what I want you to take away from this conversation is that the freedom and flexibility that you might be looking for in your business doesn't just come from hiring quickly or anybody. Um, it comes from leading and from structure. So I hope this is helpful to you as you go about building your boutique fitness studio business. If you enjoyed what you heard today, I'd be so appreciative if you could go take a quick minute, go to wherever you're listening to this and rate and review this podcast. It would mean a ton to me and help to get it out there into our amazing community of studio owners so that more teachers and business owners just like you can feel encouraged and supported on their journey in our industry. Did you love this episode and want more? Head to spring3.com and check out my free resources that will help you run a profitable and fulfilling studio business. And before you go, one last reminder there is no one way to do what you do, only your way. So, whatever it is that you want to do, create, or offer, you've got this. Thanks again for joining me today and have a wonderful rest of your day.