If you are sick of hiring the wrong staff and people leaving after you have spent 6 months training them up, then don’t despair; most fitness businesses also get this wrong. But what is encouraging and really exciting is that if you change your approach and learn from the experts at apple, you can quickly re-position yourself in the market place and attract the true rock star high performers.
What can we learn from apple?
Apple is the most profitable retail store in the world with 20,000 visitors per week, doubling that of other luxury stores like tiffanies. They have great products that are simple, elegant and easy to use, but what really positions them as the market leader among-st other great companies is that they achieve such intense loyalty from their staff.
Apple learn a long time ago that it is not just about the product, it’s also about ‘the experience’. This is where gym owners in a competitive market can re-position themselves as the best and take market share. The experience at apple starts with a compelling marketing message, it then continues to build the same message with a ‘user friendly’ product and then brands that same message again in the public’s brain with a 5 star customer service before, during and after the sale.
The apple marketing message and ethos is not just recognizable for its consistency across television, social media and online but the same theme is found in recruiting and throughout the much sort after induction process for the apple employees. Apple staff then share the vision not to sell product, but to enrich people lives. They don’t focus on selling stuff, but instead invest the time to build a relationship and make visitors lives better. This attitude is evident when you call apple phone support or visit the apple stores where fanatical staff ooze apple culture from their pores.
Apple is unmatched in their tenacity to attract, train and retain good people. Store employees make above average pay for retail employees and are offered money toward college as well as gym memberships, healthcare plans, product discounts, and reduced price on purchase of stock. The retention rate for the technicians who man the Genius Bar is over 90%.
Apple treats their staff like experts so they feel valuable and feel like they contribute. This goes down to small details like naming staff roles such as creatives, specialists, concierge and genius, rather than cashier, technicians or sales reps.
5 easy steps to start recruiting like apple
- Have a workshop with your team and get super clear on what you stand for. Sometimes it helps to discuss what you don’t stand for and what you want to be known for.
- Revisit these values every week. Choose one value each week to highlight and ask your team for examples on how they could demonstrate this value in the week ahead. This helps bring a concept or an ideal into reality.
- Put your business values up on a poster in the staff room, on the gym floor, on your business cards, on your website and anywhere else you can. Let your staff, your client and your prospects know what you stand for and what makes you different to your competitors.
- Re-write your recruitment advert so that it aligns with these values. Share what you stand for and therefore start attracting people from day one that share the same values.
- Find ways during the staff induction process to get staff reciting the values and also give them small tasks or projects to complete that show they not only understand your message but that they live and breathe it.
