I tend to lean towards one of the reasons for burn out with trainers is a lack of willingness to set boundaries.
I see it in other small businesses as well, like, “we have to do this or our clients will leave!”
An example from the small insurance broker I work with, the boss kept saying he couldn’t ask the business owner for the Birthdays of all his employees so that we could quote with different carriers because it’s “to much” for the owner. So, the VP spent 30 minutes combing through old records to find it. Turns out we needed the Birthdays for 2 people…Pretty sure the owner knew his own Birthday and it would have taken him far less than 30 minutes to confirm his business partner’s, if he needed to confirm.
Constantly that business owner is saying “we have to get this done in this timeframe” and it’s a way to short timeframe to do without error or to deal with the carrier, etc. I’m pretty sure he gets annoyed with me because I will say something like, “you need these applications in by this date for your desired start date” and when they don’t do it, I have no problem saying, “OK, we have to push the start date back because you did not get the tasks accomplished in the timeframe I told you we need them.”
He also makes comments to the effect of, “we made a deal with this carrier so we HAVE to use this carrier/vendor.” No, dear, that’s not how business today works. If the carrier/vendor is not holding up their end of the bargain, we can and SHOULD look elsewhere.
Similarly, I see it in the horse world - places starting to get overcrowded because the owner is fearful of turning down a client or turning down one of 5 horses from a client means they will lose all the business. That can be overbooking lessons, taking in to many horses, doing to much.
Sometimes it is the start of the business, sometimes it is gradual. I remember one person stating that of a 15 stall facility, only 5 were needed to “make the minimum” and this was a good business strategy during some economic down turns when only 8 were occupied - so the business stayed afloat relatively easily and survived. But then they wanted more and not just “a new trailer because this one is old” but “new fancy, all the bells and whistles trailer”. New vehicles, new other things - then it back more and more horses were needed in training/boarding in order to cover those expenses. More work, more was expected of the employees because they didn’t want to hire to many, etc.
It’s a snowball effect and rather than saying “I’m full”, the fear became so much that if one horse is turned away, 10 more were going to go instead of trusting that the service and care was so good that the one horse will jump on the first opening. So fields that used to have grass didn’t, which meant more hay was needed and more injuries due to overcrowding, etc.
The places that have lasted in the long term - some do have an element of land in the family long enough to not have mortgages, but the most common denominator was that they set boundaries - such as you will use my farrier because it is easier for me, or my vet, or I absolutely will not blanket your horse, I don’t do blanketing for any horses.
A sense of worth is needed as well - like if the price is 3D, it’s 3D - I had someone 3D print something for me and asked how much. He said $50. This was a new hobby for him and he was excited about using his new printer but then we had a discussion and I told him he needs to understand his worth. So how much did the materials cost? Minimal (not including printer cost as it was not bought to make money off of), ok, how much time was spent…well, it was a new printer, he didn’t know a lot of stuff so he spent probably 10 hours total trying to figure out how to get what I wanted. So I paid him $100 and told him - that’s only paying yourself $10/hr. That’s very close to minimum wage. Pay yourself $20/hr for the work, minimum. We discussed that the project he did for me had a lot of extra issues due to lack of knowledge so moving forward the hours needed will shrink so what took him 10 hrs for me will likely only take 2 for someone else, now that he knows what he’s doing, so if that price drops to $40, he’s still making more money. It also helps offset the time spent away from his wife and infant child creating this masterpiece for me.
I think he is considering turning it into a business but he’s not quitting his day job just yet. He is still making things for people and charging them for it.
Anyway, that’s my opinion and something to consider regarding burnout.
