Names Make Group Classes Feel Personal

Today's episode shares effective strategies for making group classes feel personal through using your clients' names before, during, and after class. We look at what you can do to learn names and why it's important to make an effort to build community in your classes. Tune in!

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Transcript

Olivia: 0:08

Hello. Hello everybody. Welcome and welcome back to Pilates Teachers' Manual, your Guide to Becoming a Great Pilates teacher. I'm Olivia. You get the latest updates when you join my community at buymeacoffee.com/OliviaPodcasts or follow along on Instagram at @PilatesTeachersManual. The Book is available for purchase now. You can find it at shop.OliviaBioni.com. You can also purchase my book on Amazon in the Kindle format, but it is more expensive because Amazon takes a big cut, but there's an easy workaround. You can convert any file, including my book in either it's EPUB or PDF format to a Kindle friendly file by going to amazon.com/sendtoKindle save your wallet and get the same awesome book on Kindle, I will say that the EPUB format is the most like an E-reader in terms of page turning and the font fitting the entire page. A PDF is just a PDF, so you will likely need to zoom in and like move around if you're using it on your phone, but depending on how you use it, the PDF works just fine. Today's episode is about something that is so simple, but so important, and so often the bane of a group fitness instructor's existence, which is remembering and using your client's names. This can be a difficult part of leading group classes as a Pilates instructor, but teaching any group of people anything will run into this challenge. The good news is it is completely possible to learn and use your client's names when you teach, and I've got some strategies to share that will make that process easier. I know that it's a challenging aspect of group fitness because your name is on the class schedule as the teacher and clients see it when they sign up. You're constantly introducing yourself to new people at the start of class, every day. And as a result, our clients often know our names before we know their names. If I can share a personal anecdote, I used to be really bad at remembering people's names. I might remember something about them, like their child just moved into the dorms at college, or they just adopted a kitten or their left knee was bothering them in Eve's lunge, so I needed to get them a knee pad, but their name would elude me. I felt like when a client would tell me their name, I forgot it as soon as they said it, just like in one ear and out the other. And it's always an awkward moment when I had been teaching so many classes to them, and if I asked for their name, it would feel uncomfortable and awkward, and I was terrified of calling them the wrong name and then revealing that I didn't know what their name was, especially when I had known them for such a long time. So if that sounds familiar, I'm here to let you know that you are not alone. It's actually a pretty common experience, but because it's kind of embarrassing, you may not have talked about this with other teachers or with other people. The good news again, is that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and you can remember your client's names. Here are the strategies that worked best for me: changing my mindset, repetition, adding a visual cue, and making a personal connection. Okay. Changing your mindset is simple in theory, but not easy. I told myself a story for the first several years of teaching group fitness, both yoga and Pilates, that learning client names was hard and that I was bad at learning names. So the mindset shift there was changing that belief about myself. I started telling myself that learning client names is easy and it's fun, and I'm great at learning people's names. Of course, to make sure I'm not just delusional and lying to myself, I started to e mploy other strategies in addition to this one. But removing that mental block that I had held made a big difference in how I felt about the process of learning people's names. Because learning people's names is one thing, and then building a mental obstacle that says I can't do it before I even got to learning the name was like an unnecessary bit of energy to have to overcome every time I learned someone's name. So what if I took away that obstacle? Then I would have more energy to spend doing the learning the name, and not just convincing myself that I could do it. Learning names is also easier than you think. If you teach several group classes a week, there aren't brand new people in every single class. Some clients will take the same class with you every week or multiple classes with you every week, which decreases the overall number of names that you have to learn. Every class you teach also doesn't have brand new people in it 100% of the time. There will be familiar faces and learning the names of those people who are in your classes regularly is often easier because you see them more frequently. There's more opportunity to do the other strategies, repetition and making those personal connections. Repetition, of course, is huge. I teach an intro class on Monday nights at Club Pilates where I meet up to 12 brand new people every week, and when I go around the room saying hi and introducing myself, checking in about injuries and asking about hands-on corrections, I have a process in which I say their name multiple times. This isn't what you need to do necessarily, but as an example, this is I'll say, "hi there, I'm Olivia and I'm teaching tonight. What's your name? Hi Jessica. Thanks so much for coming. How's your body feeling today? Awesome, Jessica. That's good to know. Any injuries, surgeries, anything you want me to know about your body? Is it feeling mostly cooperative today? Awesome. I'll take that, Jessica. I love that for you. I do offer touch cues when I teach. Is it okay if I tap your shoulder or scoot your knee a little bit, Jessica? Awesome, thank you. I'll introduce everyone to the equipment at the same time so that we're all on the same page, and I've got just a couple more people to say hi to, but then we'll go do some Pilates together. How does that sound, Jessica? Awesome. Thank you so much for coming in, Jessica. It's so nice to meet you." So that might sound like overkill, and that's literally every instance in which I could use someone's name in an introduction spiel to class, but I am really making a genuine effort to use their name more than one time. I'm making eye contact with them. I'm connecting their name with their face as I'm doing my welcome spiel, even if you don't say your name that eight times that I just said it, if you, if you just say it two or three times in that first minute, it stops you from doing the loop that I got stuck in. Someone says their name and I just can't hang on to it. It's just a, I immediately forget it. So saying their name, even just a couple times in that first introduction goes a long way to helping you remember their name. Another thing for me was adding a visual cue. I realized that I am not an auditory learner. You can tell me something, and I don't remember it the same way as if I see it on a piece of paper. I see it on a board. I see it in a book. Seeing helps me learn it. Sounds don't stick in my brain, but visual information does. So seeing the person's name helps me remember their name a hundred times faster than just hearing it. So knowing that about myself, I talked with the management at my studios and I said, Hey, could we do something with a name tag, something that would eliminate relying on them telling you their name verbally? Like, can I see their name at their station? Community and inclusivity are a big part of the studio I teach at, and adding name tags was in line with that studio values. So I was able to make a case that it would improve the member experience and encourage more instructors to use people's names if they could see the name. Like it would take the mental load off of even having to remember it because the answer is right there. So for me, seeing the name, how it's spelled, even their handwriting helped their name stick in my head. And if your studio likes that idea of a name tag, it also eliminates the fear that you'll call them the wrong name. You can just read their name, they wrote it. You have the right answer right in front of you. So we now have a system in our studio where we have whiteboard markers and little whiteboard name tags at the station where members come in, grab a marker and write their name as they come in. And the more people in class use the name tags, the easier it is to remember their names. And ironically, the less I need them to write down their names. I can even write their names in if they come late to class or if they forget to because I've learned their name. Or I can do process of elimination based on knowing the names of everyone else comparing it to the class roster. This has a secondary benefit, which is helping people in class learn each other's names. Because so often the same situation that we're in as instructors where the same people are coming to our class, people in our classes are often taking class with the same people from week to week, and maybe they introduce themselves or maybe they just became acquaintances because they were seeing each other from week to week, but they're also in a position where maybe they don't wanna ask the person what their name is again. And just creating that expectation that everyone writes their name on their name tag at the start of class eliminates that kind of awkwardness of trying to ask someone's name for the 700th time. Making a personal connection can also help. For myself, I also do yoga and run, so if I see a person who does yoga or runs, I'll comment on that and make that connection with them. If they're wearing a Las Vegas Golden Knights jersey, I'll connect with them about Las Vegas, my hometown, and make that connection that Liz, for example, is from Las Vegas. It can be anything. The names of people, you know, my sister's name is spelled a particular way, and if I see someone who spells their name like it, or different than it, I can just make that connection. It doesn't even have to be a big thing. It could be like purple shirt, Rebecca, you know, something like that. Anything that builds that connection in your brain is gonna help you remember their name. Now, the example I gave was in an intro class where it is unlikely that I will see all 12 of those people again. They may not all sign up for the membership, they may not be here. But you can also employ this every time you have a new person in your class who you do have the potential of seeing week to week. An honorable mention for strategies is if you've seen the movie House Bunny with Anna Faris and Emma Stone. Anna's way of remembering names in the movie is to repeat their name in a deep monster voice. This also works, but you will definitely get some looks. So why is this important? Why should we make an effort to learn the names of people in our class? There's a psychology component. People get a dopamine hit, they feel good when they're addressed by name. It also shows that you as the instructor, care about the people in your class beyond their physical abilities and what's going on in their body. It is a little bit above and beyond what people expect from their fitness teacher. It will set you apart from other instructors in a positive way or, if I'm thinking optimistically, it raises the bar for all instructors to make those connections with the people in their classes. It builds rapport, it builds a therapeutic alliance. It builds trust between you and your clients, and it makes it a lot more fun, in my opinion. So if you're just getting started learning people's names, trying to use people's names. I love to welcome people into my class by name. As they're checking in on the computer, I see their name light up green when they attend. I can say hi and address them by name. One year, a few years ago, I made it my New Year's resolution to learn everyone's names and I told the people in my classes that I was making this effort to do it. I asked it as a favor, which is another fun little psychology trick. I said, "Hey friend, can you do me a favor and remind me your name? Thank you so much." This aspect of doing a favor for someone also is a way of building trust and rapport. And then at the end of class, I say goodbye to them by name or congratulate them by name or say something, you did a great job and add in their name. It helps class end on a high note, and it means you get to use everyone's name twice in class. As you start getting more comfortable knowing and using names before class to welcome people in and after class to say goodbye, you can start using people's names in class for both corrections and compliments. It is important to note that using people's names should never make them feel called out or singled out. If you're correcting the same person by name over and over again, it is not gonna feel great for them. So you have to use it for everybody, and you have to do it really frequently so that using names becomes the norm. I will use people's names to say they're doing great. I'll use their name to say, if they're modeling the setup for an exercise correctly, if they're already in the position, I'll say, Hey, take a look at Sarah. She's sitting facing the foot bar. Can we all join her here? I can also say, because I'm saying everyone's names, something like, Hey, Susan, can you lower your hips a little in this plank? While I'm helping someone else, and then I can do two things at the same time. I can give one person a verbal correction and one person a hands-on adjustment or help them adjust their equipment, whatever, at the same time. But again, you have to do it all the time and you have to do it for lots of people in the room, ideally, everyone in the room. And then it gets fun when you get really good at people's names, when you've really built this connection and this rapport with the people in your class, you get to do my favorite thing, which is banter with the people in your class. Banter is so much fun and it lends well to teaching if you have a sense of humor while you're teaching. I can say to people in my classes. "Alright, we've got one more plank in this series. Oh no, Rebecca is shaking her head. She says, no more planks. We've got this one last one. Pinky promise."And I can say something like casual and fun like that. Banter is highly contextual and I wouldn't say that about Rebecca unless I had already said lots of people's names unless I had already built this relationship with Rebecca. And I'm gonna keep using people's names, her name, other people's names throughout the class. But if I said something like that for Rebecca, I might then compliment her at the end of her plank series on how she pushed through or made that last plank her best plank. When you get to use people's names at that level, it really feels like a community. It really builds that energy that we're all in this together. We're not anonymous bodies doing movements. We're really a community. So in summary, I think one of the best things that you can do beyond teaching a super amazing Pilates class is to build those connections and create a sense of community in your classes. The people in your classes will notice this. They will appreciate it. There is a reason that they came to class in a group instead of doing something on their own in their house. And I think this is something that we can offer as teachers if we put a little bit of extra effort into getting to know the people who take class from us. Huge thank you to all my supporters on Buy Me a Coffee, including our newest member. Kathy, thank you so much for joining the project. I'm looking forward to connecting for a coffee chat with everybody soon. I hope you have a great couple weeks and we'll talk again soon.