Wages, Schedule etc for a new Assistant Trainer

[evelynthemare]

Hi everyone! I opened my own lesson and boarding barn about a year and half ago. I am now getting full on lessons and have found someone to become an assistant trainer! I teach basically 3-7pm weekdays and 9-4pm on Saturdays. I am now planning on bringing in a bunch of new lesson kids and doubling lessons and she will teach on Sundays. My question is: how do you split up lessons between trainers? One person gets beginners and other gets more advanced riders? Switch every week? I want to make sure new beginners i teach them at least every few weeks to make sure they know me and i know all the students. How do you do it?

also wondering what your experience with a reasonable starting salary for an assistant trainer would be. Thanks !!

[Wonders12]

Congrats on your successful business!

There are a million different ways to do this. It’s all about what works for you and you assistant. I value consistency in a program and would divide it up beginners with the assistant and advanced with you. You can work in “clinics” with the other trainer every 5-6 weeks, but I think it’s really hard on students (especially beginners) to swap instructors.

Pay GREATLY varies. You can do salary, hourly, per lesson, or per student. First take a minute to ask yourself what the long term vision is for this assistant. Is this a high turnover position where they get experience then move on in 6-12 months? Is this permanent/something you hope to grow into f/t? My baseline for lessons is generally: 1/3 to the horses, 1/3 to the facility, and 1/3 to the instructor. So a school-horse lesson bringing in $100 will pay $33 to the instructor. For a privately owned horse, 1/2 goes to the instructor. HOWEVER, this is only a starting point and gets adjusted for things like experience, barn finances, and responsibility outside of lessons. (If they do no admin work or help in the barn, I might pay less for them to stand in the arena and be handed clients.)

[HJdaydream]

When I worked as an instructor for a lesson barn in a big city (Dallas), I initially made $40 per student per hour and did all of my own scheduling. I came into the job with 3 years teaching experience. I will say- that was HIGH. I could teach a 3 student group and make $120 in an hour.

During my time there the program transitioned to a different owner and my pay decreased- to $20 per student. Still good pay, especially for group lessons. I would make $60 in an hour for a 3 person group lesson. I left the program around that time to go back to school, and last I heard the pay was about $10 or $12 an hour.

I was also treated as an independent contractor and given a 1099 at the end of the year, aka I was responsible for paying all my own taxes.

Just an example of my specific experiences, hope it helps!

[OneTwoMany]

We don’t have an assistant trainer on staff, but I’ve hired people to fill our groom positions who were assistant trainers at prior jobs. IME, if the assistant trainer’s job is to give “up down” lessons their salary/pay has been more or less in line with what an experienced groom might make. For our area, which is about $15 an hour.

[poltroon]

I would agree it’s probably better to keep a set of students consistently with one teacher. You might do something like the intake lessons (in most barns I’ve experienced the first few are privates) yourself and then hand the beginners to the assistant for a while and then take them back. You might find that you get enough check-in with the other set of students just from normal scheduling issues of days off and vacations.

Wonders12 wisely wrote:

First take a minute to ask yourself what the long term vision is for this assistant. Is this a high turnover position where they get experience then move on in 6-12 months? Is this permanent/something you hope to grow into f/t?

This is pretty key. If you want the person to stay you will have to find enough money to make it sustainable for them, which can be hard to do. Congrats and I hope it works out brilliantly - a thriving lesson barn is a really terrific situation.

[Mac123]

Most programs have trainers who handle different types of riders. The head or top trainer will take the more advanced riders or riders who are ready to show. Then there may be a trainer who handles the “lesson program” type riders - the once-a-week-ers or the beginners. There may be an in-between trainer, too, depending on how big the program is or how specialized the lesson program trainer is. There’s generally an agreed upon handoff point, where the student transitions to the next trainer, although this is usually based on feel rather than a hard and fast rule.

Consistency is key with new riders, so I would advise having an assistant who does all beginner lessons or lesson-program lessons, transitioning riders to you as they are ready to show or as they are more advanced in skills and are ready for your instruction.

This situation works best with an assistant who is not looking to become the head trainer…not yet, anyway. Look for a young pro who needs to develop their teaching skills and will benefit from running a lesson program for a while. Potentially, if the program grows enough, that person could step into a “second in command” sort of role as they grow and develop, bringing on another beginner trainer once that happens. But you don’t want to hire someone that will be resentful of the “good” riders being passed on to you. You need someone who understands what the position is and whether or not there’s a possibility of that growing in the future (which is entirely up to you and the size of the program you want to have).

As far as pay, it’s done all sorts of ways, as others have mentioned. A % of lesson fees is common, although the % varies, as is a set hourly wage, or even a weekly salary that includes an expected workload (which may include exercising or tuning up lesson horses or giving a hand with cleaning lesson tack, etc.).

Make sure that your pay is commiserate with the type of person you’re looking for. Are you looking for someone to just handle beginner lessons? Maybe a set $15/hour is applicable. Are you looking for someone to truly grow into being your assistant trainer? Perhaps a % commission with a plan for % increases as their skills and program increases is more enticing to the type of person who would fit that job.

Ultimately, you need to first decide what you want your program to look like and what types of trainer(s) you want under you. There’s no right or wrong answer to that question, but you WILL save yourself a lot of turnover, pain, and headache if you answer those structural questions first.

[bear_necessities]

I would have an online shared calendar that is easy to use and update between the two of you. Being that it’s your facility, you could do all of the “evaluation” lessons when a new client arrives and determine which trainer they fit with best. I think it’s good for clients to know both trainers, so that one could fill in for the other without huge disruption. But it could get confusing to constantly juggle people back and forth. Also, some people thrive on consistency.

I think it’s also important to find an assistant who was “raised” the same way you were as far as riding methods/training. You can’t be teaching two totally different things within a program. I was an assistant trainer for almost 7 years for a good friend of mine who has her own facility. Either of us could teach a client or take them to a show because our styles are similar. We tried to be a “united force” so that if something came up, both of us would give an acceptable, similar answer.