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5 Things That Your Trainers Need to End Their Sessions With a Bang

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Picture two gym members—let’s call them Brianna and Kaye.

Both of them begin their day excited at the idea of working out. It’s because they’re determined to finally work on their fitness goals after years of slacking, binge-eating, and procrastinating. 

So, Brianna and Kaye show up at the studio for the first time, both dripping with excitement. Determined to have an absolutely great time, they each give their all during their 45-minute workouts. But towards the final set of their sessions, their moods begin to diverge.

When the buzzer goes off, signalling the end of the workout, Brianna leaves the gym in high spirits. Smiling ear to ear, she gives out high-fives and heartily says goodbye to the trainers and other studio-goers. She even tells them, “See you tomorrow!”

Meanwhile, Kaye speed-walks to the exit with her shoulders slumped… and she goes home without a smile or even a quick goodbye to the trainer.

Now, a question…

Between Brianna and Kaye, who do you think is more likely to return to the gym the next day?

Brianna, of course! 

She left the studio probably feeling the best she’s felt in years. So, why wouldn’t she show up for another session? 

Meanwhile, it didn’t seem like Kaye had a great first day. At the very least, that means it’ll take a LOT of effort and self-discipline for her to come back… if at all. And she will most likely spend the rest of her day dreading her next session, which means she might not show up at all!

This story shows the importance of ending your sessions with a bang. 

You never know who among your members is contemplating the idea of never coming back to your studio. But if you can provide that explosive finish to your sessions, you can give them some fuel to keep coming back.

And not only does that do wonders for your attendance and churn, but it also provides a more lasting impact on your studio members’ lives.

So, what exactly do you need to end your studio’s sessions with a bang?

The 5 Things

#1. A Set of Expectations

Delivering that explosive finish that spells the difference between high and low churn, it falls squarely on your and your trainers’ shoulders. And as the studio owner, the onus is on you to remind the team about what you expect from them.

During your team meetings and pre-session huddles, tell everyone that you can’t have a session that goes all the way through and just peters out. You don’t want members looking around at the end of the session feeling like, “Oh, it’s done?”

They have to feel pumped up, accomplished, and raring to go back for another round! 

So, lay some ground rules. And make sure everyone’s on the same page about what you want to happen.

#2. Quick Feedback Loops

Along with setting a set of expectations, you have to implement quick feedback loops to make sure your expectations are met. Know that 45 minutes in each session are long enough to turn around a session that started badly. 

If you notice that your members are not that engaged in the workout or if the energy seems low, step in and intervene. You can have another coach work with your lead trainers just to pump up the energy. That way, you can still end that session with a bang.

Whatever you do, don’t let a session go just because it seems like it won’t end well. It IS your responsibility to make sure it does. 

So, don’t hesitate to pull your team together for quick feedback huddles whenever something isn’t going well.

#3. A Showrunner

In every single session, you should have one person in charge – a coach who is running and controlling the room. That way, if a trainer leads the warm-up and the vibe’s a little low, then the showrunner can do something about it. 

For instance, they can say, “Let’s get everyone to drop their weights mid-session because the vibe’s really low. We’re all just going to do the same tempo squat for the next three sets to bring everyone together again.”

Your showrunner should know they’re in control and that they can totally own the outcome of the session.

#4. Self-Awareness

Another thing you need to end your sessions with a bang is a self-aware team of trainers and coaches. 

Each and every member of your team should have enough awareness of the atmosphere in your studio. That way, they’ll know if they have to work extra hard to create that explosive end to your sessions or just keep doing what they’re doing.

#5. A Build-Up to the End

Now, let’s get a bit more practical.

You want to build up tension and energy towards the end of your session, right? 

One trick to do is to turn the music down a bit halfway through the session, then turn it up in the last few sets to get the members’ blood pumping. 

Another thing you can do is start screaming out countdowns to let everyone know there’s one minute left to their workout. Then, continue counting down the last few seconds in a loud, booming voice to create that massive energy.

And once the buzzer goes off, go around and give high-fives, fist bumps, toe taps…whatever you feel like doing to create that explosive vibe. Make sure everyone feels they’ve just accomplished something great – and that they should be proud of themselves for that.

If you can send your members home feeling the best they’ve felt in a while, you can almost guarantee they’ll be coming back for more sessions in your studio.

Start and End Studio Sessions With a Bang

Finishing with a bang.

Sometimes, it’s all you need to turn a so-so kind of session into a 5-star experience for your members. And now that you know what it takes to end your sessions with an explosive bang… 

The only thing left is to go out there and make it happen.

Do it right and you can expect to keep record attendance in your studio, contributing to lower churn. And ultimately, you’ll have a more impactful studio!

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How to Create a 5-Star Experience For Your Studio Members

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ctto: f45_training_birkenhead

Low attendance.

It’s one of the telltale signs that you’re about to see a lot of member cancellations in your studio pretty soon. And yet, many studio owners get surprised when it happens. 

But it’s only logical, don’t you think? 

See, when you’ve got low attendance rates in your studio, that means your members aren’t loving their time with you. It also means they don’t feel good enough after your sessions to want to keep coming back. 

And if members don’t see the point in showing up to your sessions… then it’s only a matter of time before they leave your studio for good!

So, if you want to fix the issue of high churn, your goal should be to consistently hit record attendance. To do that, you’ve got to create a 5-star experience for your members.

5 Things You Need for a 5-Star Session

Creating a five-star experience for your studio members… It seems a bit arbitrary, don’t you think?

Let’s say you just had a group session. And your trainers and coaches feel pretty good at the end of the session – so much so that they’d rate it four stars out of five. 

But does that mean your team actually delivered a four-star experience for your members? 

No, not necessarily. And it’s because what you and your trainers feel is subjective and might not reflect the actual experiences of your members.

So, what we need to go after is a consistent, objective goal of giving your attendees a 5-star experience. And the best way to do that is to create a formula. That means assigning one objective for every star. 

That way, if you are only successful in hitting three out of five objectives, you can correctly conclude that your members just had a three-star experience. And if you were able to hit all five objectives, then you can rest assured that it was a 5-star experience for your members, too.

Now, to kick things off for you, I’m going to share the 5-star session formula my team uses. These are the five key objectives we strive to hit at every session so as to create a five-star experience for our attendees:

#1. A Big Community

No one signs up to team training to just train on their own in the corner. Chances are, they’re looking to be part of a big community.

That’s why your job is to be the light and the fuse that brings your individual members together, forming a community. 

As the studio owner, you must take on the responsibility of being a community manager. This means you should be able to break the ice for your members and have them bonding and connecting with each other even before the session begins.

Now, it really does take some time before strangers warm up to each other. But you can speed up the thaw by playing games and connecting people who have similar interests. 

For instance, you can ask your members to tell you one interesting fact about each other… or else they all get extra time on the treadmill after the session.

You can also break up the big group into smaller groups, but make sure you team people up with other members who might have the same interests as them. Then, spark some conversations by dropping tidbits like, “Hey, I think both of you are headed to Bangkok for the summer!” 

As you watch those conversations start to take their natural course, you can tell you’ve succeeded in planting the seeds for a big community.

#2. An Electric Atmosphere

Now, this is not about being loud or being a cheerleader-type of trainer to create the illusion that everyone’s having an awesome, electric session in your studio. What this is about is playing to your team’s strengths and designing an actual great experience for your members.

For example, you might want to pair one coach who has a gift for raising people’s energy with another coach who’s talented at spotting individuals who need help with their form or execution. 

So, while one trainer goes around the room helping individuals out with the workouts, you have the other trainer holding the room and keeping that electric energy flowing. And they’ll do it by shouting out things like, “Now, don’t you dare drop that ball! I can see what all of you are doing right now!”

#3. A Tailored Touch

Here’s an objective for you:

Every time you walk up to a member in every session, you need to add value to their time. It’s either a progression, a regression, or a target that you give them. 

Never walk past someone without giving them a specific, tailored touch.

You should let them know that you are well-aware of their goals. And that you’re hell-bent on helping them achieve those goals.

If you took the time to learn about your members’ reasons for being in the studio, providing this tailored touch should be easy for you… but it’ll be absolutely mind-blowing and life-changing for your members!

You need to communicate to every member that even though they’re in team training, their individual needs and goals are accounted for. If they feel that way, you can expect them to keep coming back to your sessions – because they actually see the point in doing so.

#4. Education and Empowerment

Apart from being adept at workouts and helping members achieve their physical goals, you need your trainers to be inspirational. 

They should be able to educate and empower your members. And an important way to do it is by helping members adopt a better mindset about going to your studio and creating habits that help them get fit.

Admittedly, this is one thing that your coaches might struggle with a bit, so help them out. Have them listen to motivational podcasts. Get them to follow fitness TikToks. And put them up to the task of sharing one thing they learned about mindset training during your team meetings.

#5. An Explosive Finish

It’s easy to start your workouts with a bang when everyone’s still in high spirits. But the real challenge is ending the session with a bang when both coaches and members are already exhausted.

There’s nothing worse than the timer running out for the last part of the session and everyone’s just looking around, saying, “Oh, is that it? It’s done?”

You don’t want your session to just peter out. What you need is for your members to leave your studio in an ecstatic mood so they’ll have the motivation to show up in your studio the next day. 

So, don’t let your sessions end with a whimper. Always go for an explosive finish.

Time to Get Record Attendance in Your Studio


One final thing…

You have to understand that the magic is not in knowing this 5-star session formula. The magic is in being able to implement it.

So, I want you to take what you’ve learned from this article, then go out there and make it your own. 

Sit down with your team and brainstorm what your studio’s five stars are. Once you’ve identified your own formula, the hard part comes next: putting those five stars up there and creating 5-star experiences for your members.

It won’t be easy—I’m not going to lie.

But it’s the best way to hit record attendance and maintain low churn in your studio.

And in my book, that makes the hard work worth it.

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3 Best Tips to Launch Your Parachute (And Get Quick Wins for Your Studio)

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f45_training_castlehill

Stacey was one of our clients who launched an amazing Parachute campaign for her studio last February. And given that February was the month of love, they did a little campaign to promote one obvious thing – Love.

And to show that love, Stacey offered a promotion that went like this: 

Here are 10 free training days for somebody you love. You have to claim it today.

Just from this simple marketing campaign, Stacey’s studio was able to bring in 20 people on that very same day! 

And after the promotion was said and done, out of the 20 people, they got six who turned over into paid members. That’s not bad considering the fact that they didn’t have to shell out any money– they just had to get their existing members to bring friends along. 

What Stacey did for her studio is an example of a strategy we call the Parachute Method that focuses on getting quick wins for your studio. 

If you’re interested to learn more about this one-of-a-kind strategy and apply it to your studio, then keep reading. This article is specifically made for you.

What is The Parachute Method?

As mentioned earlier, the Parachute Method allows anyone to get a quick win for their studio.

But how does it work exactly?

Let me explain.

See, the Parachute Method is a database campaign targeting your existing leads. It’s basically making another offer to the leads on your pipeline and getting them to sign onto a membership once and for all. You can do this by sending promotional emails to get these leads to pick up where they left things off with you.

Now, here are two reasons launching your parachute can give you quick wins: 

Reason #1 – No Ad Spend

Would you believe that the Parachute Method requires zero investment on your part?

It’s because you either have already paid for these guys in your previous Facebook campaigns—except you didn’t cover them at the time—or they’re organic leads who came through your website. 

They can also be previous members who cancelled and are only now looking to come back.

Reason #2- No One Refuses a Parachute

The whole idea of The Parachute Method is this: 

You launch an offer to help people. And once someone replies, that’s them putting their hand up, saying, “Yeah, man, I could really use some help.” And then, you’ll parachute and grab them!

That’s the thing – they’re putting their hands up and we save them. 

We already know these people need our help. That’s why they’re in our pipelines in the first place. Perhaps, they just weren’t prepared enough to commit the first time. But that only means their problem still lingers and they still need your help. 

The 3 Tips

Tip #1 – Learn How to Rewrap Your Parachute Every Month

You now know that there are truly some nice, quick wins to be won with The Parachute Method. However, some studio owners I’ve worked with also noticed one big challenge with this method:

It’s the fact that the system seems to work extremely well the first few times before it dwindles in terms of its open rates and results. 

Studio owners would be getting between 15-25 people for the first few emails they send to old leads. But then, that interest peters out as they send more emails within the same year.

Fortunately, the solution is simple:

Rewrap your parachute to keep it fresh, relevant, and seasonal. You want to make sure that you’re not just sending the same text or email every month—as if you’re not putting any thought into it. 

Think of how marketers rewrap the same Kickstarter or the same 50% off for the same offer every time they send out marketing materials. That’s what you want to emulate when you’re launching your parachutes. 

So, you want to mix up your email and text blasts every single month, especially during holiday months. If it’s February, for instance, you could send out a Valentine’s Special shape-up offer like Stacey. And you could also send out Spring Fling offers or a March Madness offer—even if it’s technically the same offer every time. 

You can keep your parachute relevant by making these little tweaks that make them appear fresh and in-season…

And none would be the wiser!

Tip #2 – Nurture Your Lists and Add Value

If you’ve got 100 leads on your pipeline, I want you to think that there’s no other way to grow your studio but to interact with those people on your list. Having this mindset will force you to treat them in a caring, nurturing way.

At the same time, you should also be willing to provide your leads with value before you send them an offer. You could send them tip sheets, newsletters, and healthy recipes they might want to try. 

Do anything that could make you a valuable resource for them.

Tip #3 – Build Authority and a Good Relationship with Leads

Truth is, building authority and a good relationship with leads shouldn’t be hard. It all comes down to how much value you can provide and how you communicate to your leads.

Instead of just receiving promotional emails or dry ones…

Your leads should be receiving your emails and texts as if they’re getting them from their best mates. For example, they should get emails that say: 

“Don’t tell my boss I did this!”…

These get more clicks and opens. 

Why? 

It’s because communicating in this manner builds your relationship with your leads.

Launch Your Parachute Today

Now you might be wondering: Why do I need to nurture, add value, build authority, and build a good relationship with my studio’s leads? 

Well, the thing is, if you can consistently do all of these things together, it will be easier for you to go out there with an offer. It will also make a whole lot of sense for your leads to accept it and finally become members of your studio. 

In contrast, if you simply ask, ask, ask, offer, offer, offer, and sale, sale, sale… Things will get pretty repetitive. In the end, they would probably be repulsed by you and unsubscribe to your list.

If you can make it a point to regularly do all of the things I mentioned, you’re sure to reap all the amazing benefits that the Parachute Method has to offer.

So what are you waiting for?

Start implementing it today!

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How One Studio Achieved a 2% Churn Rate (And What You Need to Do to Get Results)

How One Studio Achieved a 2% Churn Rate (And What You Need to Do to Get Results)
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You want to see results in your studio as soon as possible. But things just aren’t going along as fast as they should. And opportunities get missed constantly.

Such issues are usually the result of a lack of organisation. 

One of our clients was in this very situation. They struggled to get more traffic, gather leads, and raise engagement in their studio. The client’s membership was down by 150 people and their visits were only twice on average. 

When we started working with this studio, it turned out that all they needed was some structure and better organisation. That’s why from the moment our client became more organised, things took a turn for the better. 

In fact, the results were astounding.

Their membership started growing despite the disruption that was going on due to the global pandemic. The visits jumped up to 4.8 and the engagement soared.

And none of that happened by accident.

See, our client took action to remove one of the main causes that prevent studios from taking advantage of opportunities and getting results:

They got rid of the drama and the disorganisation it brought. 

You can do the same.

This article will show you how to make your studio more organised, approach your business with a clear head, and start reaching your goals.

Drama Makes You Miss Opportunities

New studios struggle with a particular issue that ends up keeping them down:

They spend most of their time on the urgent rather than the important.

Worst of all, that situation tends to carry on as people get accustomed to living in a world of urgency. At that point, there’s so much focus on the drama that studios miss key periods of the month and even the entire year.

In other words, you’re so caught up in urgent matters that you don’t think about tackling the important moments. This reduces your overall impact and causes you to make less money.

Drama can also cause you to neglect crucial aspects of business, such as getting more flow in your studio and making your team more organised and effective. As a result, nobody, including the owner, understands their role.

Of course, all these changes when the studio gains clarity on its goals and what needs to be done to achieve them. 

And getting your calendar on point is the first step toward that clarity.

The Calendar Is Your Friend

Much can be said about your cash flow from the way your calendar looks. But ultimately, if you don’t apply time blocking, that usually means bad news for your studio.

Now, the main benefit of time blocking is that it helps you single out the most important things that will generate wealth and cash flow and build up your assets. It’s the time you book for yourself to do all of the things that will drive your bottom line.

To put it simply, your calendar isn’t only for marking meetings. In a sense, it can become a logbook for your success.

The problem is that many studio owners don’t view their calendars as the powerful tools that they are. They don’t really understand that the point of a well-organised calendar isn’t only to keep track of your daily activities. It’s also to stay focused on the quality of tasks that take priority in your day, month, and year.

Seeing the calendar as your ally will allow you to carve out the time you need to improve your studio. And focusing on the right tasks might turn out to be just the boost your business needs.

Creating Your Own Luck

Tying in with time blocking, another critical aspect of your studio business is to be prepared and plan your actions.

Truth is, the most important things in business happen by design and intention, rather than mere luck. You might even say that relying on luck is often the worst choice a studio owner might make.

But luck in business is a bit more of a complex notion. In fact, we could talk about two distinct types of luck: dumb luck and the other kind.

Dumb luck is something like when you find $50 under your seat at a cafe. It’s something good that happens to you without any input or direction on your part.

However, the other kind of luck doesn’t work like that. Instead, it’s the luck that you create for yourself.

Imagine doing all of the necessary preparations for your studio. You come up with a formula, and you might’ve seen it play out with success all around you. Then, you see an opportunity appear. Finally, you take action.

Suppose you’re successful. 

In that case, it would be easy to attribute your success to business luck. After all, you’ve come across a perfect opportunity. And when you acted upon it, you actually got the results.

Now, most people would describe that as the “right place at the right time” type of luck. But the truth behind it is different.

What people call business luck actually consists of three key factors:

  • Thorough preparation
  • Spotting the opportunity
  • Taking massive action

Your team needs to be trained and your systems in place. Furthermore, you must be prepared mentally to jump at an opportunity. Then, when the time comes to act, you know precisely what to do and have all the mechanisms in place and ready to go. Finally, once you start acting, you have to do it consistently and with great scope. 

When all of these factors come into place, great results become possible for your studio. 

And that’s the luck that you create yourself, not a game of chance.

Let Go of the Drama, Organise, and Jump Into Action

Being prepared and focusing on the important aspects of your business are, without a doubt, the crucial aspects of your business. 

If you can learn to let go of the drama around urgent matters and pay attention to the key points, everything will start to fall into place. You’ll create a sound foundation for a well-organised studio that works like clockwork and reaches goals without issues.

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What Numbers Say About Your Studio – And the Secret Key to Growth

What Numbers Say About Your Studio – And the Secret Key to Growth
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One of the greatest challenges for many studios is that they aren’t growing fast enough.

This problem leads to numerous hardships and additional complications for businesses, as well as plenty of frustration.

After all, you put in all of the effort and give it your best, but things still seem to move forward at a snail’s pace. Then, when you try to determine the cause of the slow growth, you realise that so many aspects of your business need attention.

So you start playing whack-a-mole, chasing after the source of your business issues. You try to cover every base, sending yourself and your team into a spin. But it’s not clear what works and what doesn’t.

In the end, the only things you’re left with are feelings of uncertainty and a lack of control. And it’s all because of a simple mistake in the approach:

You can’t afford to make reactive decisions in your business. 

By the time you start patching up the critical spots, it might become nearly impossible to control what happens. That’s why the best way to go is to make your decisions proactive and based on data. 

This article will explain how to leverage numbers to grow your business and avoid the common pitfalls of an unprepared studio owner.

The Four Futures Outcome

Imagine an aeroplane flying from San Francisco to New York. 

On a regular flight, getting from one city to the other would be pretty straightforward.

But imagine if the plane veered off course by only two degrees. In that case, the aircraft would end up in Baltimore instead of New York.

In other words, a small mistake can lead to significant consequences in the long run. 

The same principle applies to businesses, and it’s the basis of the Four Futures model.

Based on your metrics, your business might be looking at one of four possible outcomes: 

  • Good
  • Okay
  • Poor
  • Disaster

Furthermore, these outcomes can manifest over different periods, which is why monitoring your metrics on a three, six, nine-month, and yearly basis is crucial.

Naturally, you’ll want to gravitate more towards better outcomes, ideally reaching great every time. But to do this reliably, you’ll need to understand how metric tracking and measuring work and why it matters.

What You Need to Know About Measuring Your Metrics

When studios don’t understand their metrics, they might find themselves in a strange situation: 

They might be winning without even realising it. On the other hand, they could be on a downward spiral and not know it.

This is why understanding your studio’s metrics is crucial.

Now, the essential things you need to know about your metrics boil down to three key principles. The first one is simple:

Your numbers should never be a mystery.

The reality is that so many studios have no idea about how many leads they’re getting. Not to mention their conversion rates, rollovers, and other metrics.

It should go without saying that missing out on the crucial numbers can make you leave a lot of money on the table. Plus, your team likely won’t have a clear direction towards success. 

Next, you can’t keep making decisions based on emotions.

This isn’t because emotions are necessarily bad in business. Rather, if you allow your feelings and stress levels to dictate your decisions, your team will never know which version of you will show up. This will make the work process unclear.

Your decisions should be driven by data because that’s the most definitive and measurable way to go. 

Finally, understanding your metrics will allow you to get help whenever you get stuck.

If you don’t know where you are and what’s working and what’s not, nobody will be able to help you to their best ability.

Now, these principles require you to get familiar with at least some crucial metrics. Let’s look at them in more detail.

The Numbers You Need to Know

At the bare minimum, every studio owner should know about one critical set of numbers: 

Leads.

To be precise, you should understand how many leads you’re getting weekly and monthly, as well as their sources.

Some of the leads will come from paid sources, while others will be from organic sources. Knowing how many leads either side brings will inform you about the cost-efficiency of your marketing. 

Then, you should view the number of leads in comparison to how many sales you’ve made. And if you express that ratio as a percentage, you’ll get your conversion rate.

Another crucial metric is your rollover rate. The magic number you want to reach in that regard is 80%, but getting there will require you to understand some other numbers. 

In particular, you’ll need to keep track of your overall number of members and whether your studio is at a weekly net growth or loss. This particular set of numbers brings us to one metric that will be the key to your studio’s growth.

The Key to Growth

To put it simply, growth is rollovers minus churn.

Now, this is simple in theory. If you want your studio to grow, you need to increase the number of rollovers and reduce the amount of churn. 

In practice, however, it can be a more complex matter.

To increase your rollover, you need to boost your leads, conversions, and sales. And to reduce churn, you have to improve engagement and your retention systems.

All of this work starts with tracking your numbers. If you do that correctly, you’ll be heading in the right direction.

Leverage Numbers to Bring Your Studio to the Top

Understanding the crucial metrics in your business is the very thing that makes or breaks a studio. In fact, it’s the main difference between the top studios and the rest. 

Remember, the studios that truly succeed have a clear grasp of their numbers and know how to tweak them to get optimal results.

If you devote enough time and effort to learning about your key metrics, you’ll be able to make your studio as efficient as possible, making it stand out from the competition.

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Why You’re Paying Too Much for Your Studio’s Marketing

How to Leverage Magic Offers
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Some believe that there’s no such thing as overspending on marketing. But the truth is, the right offer can save you time and money while attracting new leads and helping your studio grow.

Running a studio involves much more than holding sessions and providing a direct service to your clients. There are many challenging aspects of this business, including creating marketing campaigns, driving lead generation, and new member onboarding.

These areas, especially marketing, are challenging for many studios mainly because they fall outside what studio owners generally perceive as part of their jobs. 

However, marketing and its related activities aren’t necessarily only challenges. They can also represent valuable opportunities for growing your business. 

In fact, the solution to these challenges might be easier than it seems, especially for those studio owners who understand and leverage the concept of the self-liquidating offer.

In this article, we’ll explain what the best type of offer is and how you can put your marketing in line with your overall goals.

Why You Want a Self-Liquidating Offer?

A self-liquidating offer is a special method of marketing that functions so well, it’s a wonder most studios aren’t using it. Essentially, this offer type functions so that your leads actually give you the money to reinvest back into your studio’s marketing.

In other words, you create a system that allows for an unlimited marketing budget while creating a base of engaged leads who become the following legendary members of your studio and community.

But how do you construct such an offer?

The answer is by bringing in the right people. 

Furthermore, this is possible because you don’t present your offer as a studio owner. Instead, you present it as a doctor.

When you go to a doctor, they don’t try to sell you stuff, right? They simply prescribe what you need based on their diagnosis, and that’s it. 

You can do the same thing if you get involved with the right people. Instead of selling, you can prescribe the solution to the problem they’ve got – the solution they can find in your studio. At that point, everything else becomes much easier for you, your team, and your leads.

Keep in mind that the entire thing is much more detailed than these general principles. Because if you want to create a self-liquidating offer, you have to get accustomed to some key numbers.

The Numbers You Need to Know

The business aspect of running a studio consists of several crucial areas. You have the CPL, or cost per lead, which represents how much it costs you to get a lead from a market. This number turns into cost per acquisition and, finally, into cost per member. 

All these numbers lead to another crucial piece of data, which is the LTV, or lifetime value. This number represents the value of each of your clients when their entire time spent with your studio is taken into account. 

Now, the LTV for most studios is about $2,000, and that involves holding onto a member for around six months and charging realistic prices. You can think of this number in terms of how much your studio gets out of a client during their involvement. 

The way you construct your offers ties directly into all these essential numbers. And if you think about it, the regular gym model is actually broken in that respect because it includes free trials during the acquisition process. And those free trials cause them to lose money. 

Worse, it isn’t just about those studios not earning money – they’re actively losing it because, on average, getting a lead costs about $20. 

You might think that that’s not a huge number on its own. But when you take into account that only about 30% of leads convert, it becomes alarming. It can mean that the cost per member for most studios can be upwards of $150. 

It’s clear that in order to make the most out of your marketing and onboarding processes, your studio should abandon the idea of free trials. 

Instead, you can leverage the concept of magic offers that make all of the calculations work for your business rather than against it.

How to Have An Arsenal of Magic Offers?

With everything said so far, you might think that creating a magic offer would be some overly complex process. But the truth is…

Creating a magic offer for your studio is effortless! 

And this process starts with a very straightforward exercise that involves building your magic offer map. 

You’ll need to create 12 boxes, one for each month of the year. The first box can contain a proven offer type, for instance, a 28-day kickstart. And the main thing about this first offer is that it should include plenty of segments, like training, induction sessions, a tank, or VIP passes. After all, this offer is meant to open a new year. 

Then, you’ll need to come up with various other offers over time and never stick to the same offer for too long. Because if you persist at a single offer, the market can get fatigued and start to lose interest. 

Here’s where it gets interesting: 

Your variety of offers doesn’t mean you have to invent something entirely new. 

In fact, the point of the magic offer exercise is to try and come up with several variations of the same basic program of your studio. This way, you can create an entire arsenal of magic offers that won’t tire out the market. For example, you can use variations of the core program for Valentine’s Day specials, New Year – New You programs, and countless others. 

Remember, variation is the essence of your magic offer. 

You’ll undoubtedly be able to think of a number of different iterations of one core idea. And that will become the foundation of your studios’s marketing and lead generation.

You Can Create the Perfect Marketing Model

Once you get into the concept of creating a self-liquidating, magic offer, you’ll find that there’s no need for excessive marketing expenses in your studio. 

Your offers will become much more attractive and varied, driving a more significant number of leads your way. Best of all, you’ll have something unique to present to the market every time, and you’ll avoid falling into cliches. 

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How to Understand the F45 Studio Member Curve

How to Understand the Studio Member Curve
ctto: f45_training_eppingvic

Your studio community consists of different groups, and not all members are motivated the same. Here’s a breakdown of the member curve and what it means for your studio.

Member management is a crucial part of running a studio. In particular, every studio needs to have a foolproof retention system to keep clients and become successful. That said, one of the most important points is to show the members that you care about them. 

There are several methods to achieve this effect, including proactive and reactive approaches. And studios that master these methods have a significantly increased chance of retaining existing members and attracting new ones. Even better, they create engagement among clients and remind them why they joined in the first place. 

Understanding the studio member curve and the role it plays in community management is critical in that regard. 

This article will explain what the member curve means for your studio and point out the proactive and reactive methods you can use to influence that curve in a positive way.


The Membership Curve

This depicts the level of engagement your members have with the studio. It usually follows the pattern of the so-called “normal” distribution curve, which means that it starts low, rises into a single peak in the middle, and goes back down. 

At the start of the curve are the members with the most sessions. And the number of sessions falls as you go further along the curve. That means when you get to the end of the curve, the members there have zero sessions.

Based on this curve, we’ve classified the type of studio clients into five groups, from the most to the least sessions:

  • Super
  • Selfies
  • The Fringe
  • Red Flags 
  • Bin Chickens

“Super” members are those extremely engaged people who turn out to your parties and openings and follow you on Instagram. The “Selfies” are self-motivated members who want to do their thing and don’t engage in most activities that go beyond the training, while the “Red Flags” are people who show a reduced interest. “Bin Chickens” are that handful of people you don’t need in your studio.

In terms of numbers, you’ll likely have a similarly small number of “Super” and “Bin Chickens” members and a bit more of “Selfies” and “Red Flags.” 

But the majority of your members that form the peak of the curve will fall into “The Fringe,” which will be the group you’ll want to focus on the most.


Targeting the Fringe Group within the Members

“The Fringe” group is the biggest group in your studio and consists of people who do just one to three sessions per week. This group requires special attention not only because it’s the largest but also because of one particular reason:

We’ve found that most cancellations originate from The Fringe. 

In other words, this group needs to be managed much more actively than others because it represents the bulk of your community. More importantly, it can considerably impact your client retention rate. 

Many studios take a passive approach to community management and simply go with the flow. But this approach can be counterproductive, especially when it comes to The Fringe. 

Remember, people in this group are on the borderline between cancelling and converting into full-price clients. And the only way they’ll stay with the studio is if they feel the extra attention coming their way.

Particularly, offering them one more session weekly is the single most significant conversion method for The Fringe. But it needs to be a proactive move. If a member starts considering cancellation, it’s usually too late to react to their decision.

In terms of specific ways of member re-engagement, there’s a four-step blueprint that will help you target The Fringe. You can use it to move the group’s members down the curve and move to the group of satisfied and loyal clients.


Four Ways to Re-Engage Members

The blueprint of reaching out to The Fringe members consists of the following steps:

  • Attendance report
  • Sending a “You Rock” message
  • Celebrating with a video
  • Keeping notes


Here’s how it works:

First, do attendance reports every week as they are extremely useful for analysing the situation in your membership curve. These reports should show every session that every single member had in the previous week. Using those statistics, you can find the people who did between one and three sessions – The Fringe – that requires your focus.

Once you have that group defined, choose a number of people to send a “You Rock” message to every day. It would be best to use every opportunity you find to send that message. For example, when they nailed their previous session, are nearing a milestone, hitting their personal bests, or showing amazing results. 

You can leverage video to share these messages of celebration and encouragement. Videos are incredibly effective and don’t take too much time to create and send. Messaging your members this way will create a great impact while requiring minimal effort. In fact, for many Fringe members, receiving personal video messages was a key reason that made them decide to stay with their studio instead of cancelling.

Finally, ensure to keep notes on all these activities. These notes will help you organise the outreach better and avoid repetitions, which is a real risk if you manage everything without writing it down. This way, you can keep track of who you sent messages to and how they responded to them.


Boost Members’ Engagement Where It Counts

A thorough understanding of the membership curve and the groups it consists of will give you an excellent foundation for activities that will boost client engagement in your studio. 

If you focus on the right groups and reach out appropriately, you’ll start to see much better retention rates. At the same time, your clients will become more motivated and satisfied, ultimately leading to better results both for them and your studio. 

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