Why Your Best Coaches Are Leaving (And How Always Be Recruiting Fixes It)

So you give them one more chance. And another. And another.

Meanwhile, your A players are watching. And they're getting frustrated.

The Hidden Cost of Holding On Too Long

Here's what most gym owners don't realize: when you hold onto C and D players because you're afraid of not having a replacement, you're not just affecting your business. You're driving away your best people.

A players don't want to hang out in C and D territory. They don't want to be around people who struggle to put their pants on in the morning, who can't do role playing, who can't make a sale, who can't take pride in their work.

Your top performers want to work with other top performers. When they see you tolerating mediocrity week after week, they start looking for the exit.

And it's not just your team that suffers. If you got into this business because you care about your members, every underperforming team member is affecting them in a very negative way. Your team is a reflection of you. Your business is a reflection of you. The way your members see your business is a reflection of you.

The Solution: Always Be Recruiting

The answer isn't working harder to fix underperformers or crossing your fingers that the next hire works out. The answer is building a robust pipeline and recruiting system so you never have to feel hostage again.

When you have somebody waiting for that person's job, everything changes. You don't have to pull that trigger, but you have the option. You can properly performance manage without fear.

You can write up that coach who's chronically late and actually mean it when you say "including termination." You don't have to give one more chance, and one more chance, and one more chance until everybody looks like a jerk.

This is the second order effect of a great recruiting system: the problem of feeling trapped disappears entirely.

The Paradigm Shift: Recruiting IS Sales

Here's the shift you need to make right now: Recruiting is sales.

Think about it. If you know any military recruiters, you know it's hardcore sales. Human resources at its core is a sales job. If you hire a recruiting company for an executive position, you might pay fifty thousand dollars for one hire. Why? Because it's sales.

You're selling the team member on your vision. You're selling them on the business. And just like sales, recruiting follows the exact same process:

Leads - You need people interested in working for you Appointments - You convert those leads into interviews Show rate - You make sure those interviews actually show up Close - You get them excited about the business Referrals - Your best hires bring you more great candidates

All the sales skills you've been learning? Apply them directly to recruiting. This is ABC for team building: Always Be Closing becomes ABR: Always Be Recruiting.

You're Competing for Talent

Here's another reality check: You're not just competing for members. You're competing for talent.

Just like there's a Snap Fitness or Planet Fitness down the street competing for your members, there are other businesses competing for your best potential coaches and staff.

Right now, unemployment sits at 4.2 percent, below the standard average of 5.8 percent. That means it's a buyer's market. Anyone with talent can find a job. Your potential hires have options.

So the question becomes: Is it worth working for you? Is there a reason to work for you over your competitor?

This competition is actually a good thing. It forces you to be a better owner and a better leader. It pushes you to create an environment where top talent wants to work. And when unemployment rates change and it switches to a seller's market, you'll already be positioned to recruit only the best possible talent.

Building the Business You Originally Envisioned

Remember why you got into this business in the first place?

Most owners started with a vision of doing great things in the community, making a real impact, building something special. But then reality hit. The bills piled up. Problem employees drained your energy. You went from mission-driven to survival mode.

But here's the empowering truth: you can do both. You can affect the community the way you originally wanted to AND make a bunch of money. You don't have to choose.

The key is building systems that support your vision instead of undermining it. And recruiting is the foundation of all those systems.

Making the Switch

The fastest you can make this switch to Always Be Recruiting, the faster everything else falls into place.

Stop waiting until you desperately need someone to start looking. Stop settling for whoever applies because you're in a bind. Stop feeling trapped by underperformers who are dragging down your entire operation.

Start treating recruiting like the sales process it is. Build your pipeline. Nurture your leads. Convert to interviews. Close with excitement and vision. Get referrals from your best hires.

When you have a robust recruiting system, you can finally build the team that reflects who you are and what you stand for. You can create an environment where A players thrive. You can serve your members at the highest level. You can get back to the original vision that made you open your gym in the first place.

Because at the end of the day, your business is only as strong as the people who run it. And the only way to consistently attract and retain those people is to Always Be Recruiting.