How to make your pilates studio stand out in a sea of competitors - just be better

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PE How to stand out in a sea of competitors: [00:00:00] Welcome to Pilates Elephants. I'm Rafael Bender. If you own a Pilates studio and you are worried that there are many Pilates studios opening up and they are undercutting you on price, and you're worried about the industry becoming commoditized, and you're worried about how to make your studio stand out in a sea of Me too competitors, this is for you.

I'm gonna share. How to make yourself stand out, and I'm gonna give you very tactical advice, like spec specifics of exactly what to do. Alright? So stick around because I'm gonna start out by explaining why I'm gonna share this advice and why, why it's gonna work for you if you, you know, I've, and, and the reason this is top of mind for me right now is I've in my, uh, private business coaching.

Two of my clients this week have said this to me that they're [00:01:00] worried that, you know, like they run very successful studios. One of 'em runs multiple successful studios and they're worried about competitors opening up. And, uh, you know, they're ba both were wondering, should we, you know, should we kind of do the latest thing?

Like should we, you know, put towers on our reformers, or should we get chairs, or should we offer, you know, strength based reformer, or should we. Basically do the latest thing in order to compete with these other studios that are doing the latest thing. And here is my answer. Here's what I told them and I'm gonna give you the same advice that I gave them.

'cause I think, okay, if two of my clients, uh, are worried about this, then me are probably, a lot of other people are worried about this too. So here's the thing, Pilates reformer is wildly popular right now. And it's been wildly popular for more than a decade. And, uh, at some point it is going to become less popular.

Like it can't continue to be the most popular form of exercise on the planet forever. Something else is gonna come along [00:02:00] and at some point Pilates will drop to number two and number three and number four. And at the same time, whilst it, you know, which is something. Many of you may be concerned about, and at the same time, the fact that it's wildly popular now also means that there are bazillions of people opening Pilate Studios on every street corner, and there's way more competition than there used to be if you're a studio owner.

And, uh, there's way more price competition in particular than there used to be. And so both of those situations, you know, can, can cause some anxiety. So here are my thoughts and here's what I, here's what I've seen. You know, based on my experience of history of other industries and what I'm seeing working for my coaching clients right now,

things come and go. Fads come and go, and that is just human nature. Fads come and go in every industry, in every walk of human life, whether it's restaurants, fashion, movies, art, or [00:03:00] exercise. Uh, you know, the, the, the, the best, most popular thing 10 years ago in each of those categories is probably not the most popular thing right now in each of those categories.

And that is just, that's the, that's the way of the world. And if you follow the fad, if you do the latest thing, you'll get people, but then those same people will flock. To the new latest thing when the latest thing that you are doing is now no longer the latest thing. 'cause that's the thing about, the latest thing is they go outta fashion.

And so there are, there are aton of two cycles of fashion or two spiel. You know, probably multiple, but let's think about two cycles of fashion. Like if you think back to if you're old enough. Your family photos from the eighties and nineties. Okay. And you think, and you look at the, the, your hair in those days and your fashion in those days.

Now there were some hairstyles in the eighties and nineties that were quite extreme. They were very [00:04:00] cutting edge like they were fashion forward in that time. You know, I'm thinking massive bouffant, explosions of, of hair teased up to kingdom come. Now in the day they were the latest thing, but now we look at them and we kind of cringe or laugh.

And then there were people in the eighties and nineties that had like, yeah, it was an eighties, nineties version of just a classic hairstyle that had been around for a hundred years. You know, like for example, for a woman, long hair, right? Not teased up or you know, done in any kind of extreme style, but just, you know, classic long hair.

Now when you look back at your family photos of the eighties, if you look at the, the teased up hair, you kind of cringe and you think, gee, that was, you know, that's no longer the, the latest thing. But if you look at the, at the just classic hair, it's, well, that's still a style that's present today. Now, today, it's not the latest thing.

But it is still a thing. It's still popular, and that is the same in every area. Like if you think about fashion, you know, in the seventies [00:05:00] there were some crazy fashions. In the eighties there were some crazy fashions and the fashion forward people had that real seventies look or that real eighties look.

But then there was people just wearing pretty. Regular jeans and a t-shirt, you know, plain colored t-shirt, non-panel, non fluorescent, just a, maybe a black t-shirt or a white t-shirt, or a gray t-shirt. Some, you know, basic color and just a regular pair of blue jeans. Not massive bell bottom flares, not, you know, low riders.

You know, just like regular Levi five oh ones sort of thing. Um. And sure it's, they're not a hundred percent exactly what the current fashion is, but they, you could walk around in that outfit today and not be out of place. Whereas if you had like massive bell bottoms, uh, low riders or the eighties, you know, fluorescent green, uh, leotards, you know, you would be well out of place in most social context today.

And it's just the case of, so we have these two speeds of fashion. So the one that changes very quickly and very radically. [00:06:00] And then the other one that is relatively constant over a much longer period, you know, I'm thinking jeans and t-shirt is the, is the slower. Speed and the, the, the tis hair and the, the, the fluorescent colors are the fastest speed and on the fastest speed of change, you get to be the latest thing and everybody's wearing it, but then two minutes later, nobody's wearing it.

Whereas at the slowest speed you get to be okay. It was, it's never like the wildly popular thing usually, but you know, 20 years later, 40 years later, it's still pretty normal and PE people still have some version of it. And that's the same with Pilates. Okay. I wanna tell you a story about, um, restaurants because I spent the first year or years of my career in work working in restaurants.

When I left school, I did an apprenticeship as a fine whining, fine dining waiter in French restaurants here in Melbourne, Australia. And that apprenticeship doesn't exist anymore. But I learned, you know, the wine regions of the River Valley in [00:07:00] France. Had a flambe, CREB Suzette's at the table and fill it, a fish at the table, and all of those types of skills I learned classical, uh, service, food service.

And, um, in my, in those days, that was kind of the late eighties, early and through the nineties in Melbourne. French restaurants were very popular. There were lots of fine dining French restaurants in, in Melbourne at that time. And then sometime around. And so basically if you were, you know, if you had a French accent and you opened up a restaurant, you could succeed in Melbourne in the eighties and nineties.

Uh, 'cause French food was, was very popular. And then sometime, I can't remember the exact date, but around the late nineties, early two thousands, somewhere around there, the French did some, uh, atomic. Uh, explosions on Anol in the South Pacific near Australia called Miro Atol, and there was massive outrage in Australia.

Basically, people in Australia boycotted everything French, including French restaurants, which, you know, it's. [00:08:00] Not very logical. 'cause the poor people who run those restaurants, they weren't actually like you, you know, most cases they, they were just Australian citizens who'd been here for decades and just had French heritage and a French restaurant.

But it's like, so what, what are they gonna do about the French government's nuclear testing? Um, but sad as it is, you know, a lot of those businesses went out of business in, in that time because people just boycotted French, all French things, including French restaurants. And so now in Melbourne there are, there are only a, a small handful of French restaurants.

Still around. And, uh, guess which French restaurants didn't close down? You know, most of them did close down. Guess which ones didn't close down? The best ones didn't close down. Close down. And, um, I'm gonna define what I mean by best. So when it comes to, you know, the latest thing versus, you know, the classics and this, this podcast is really an argument for the classics when it comes to the latest thing versus the classics.

In the latest thing [00:09:00] is about the appearance and in the Pilates world, that would be about which bit of equipment you use, which workout you use, which cues, which cues you use, what you wear when you teach all of the trappings, you know, the the external things, whereas the deep, slower, more classic.

Elements are just the things that don't change over time. Great results and great service. Those are the classics. They don't go outta fashion. And you know, this cuisine and that cuisine may come and go. People may boycott French restaurants, but you guess, you know what doesn't go outta fashion.

Phenomenal food and phenomenal service. And guess which French restaurants are still around in Melbourne today? You know. 40 years or 30 years later, it's the ones that have phenomenal food and phenomenal service. Not the ones that had the latest, greatest, you know, fad. It's the ones that just did the basics incredibly well and you could go and get a steak fruit there, or you know, some [00:10:00] whatever French dish.

It was just done perfectly and it, the service was immaculate, and, and it's been that way for decades. And dear listener, I mean, you probably have this in your own experience as well, and, and I, I really, I use, I like, I like the food metaphors. I'm hungry. Um. You know, you probably have restaurants that you go to very on a pretty regular basis.

Like maybe there's one or two restaurants that you love because the food and the service there are always dependable. Right? And maybe these restaurants aren't the latest, greatest thing. Maybe it's your favorite little Italian place, or your favorite Thai place, or your favorite Indian place, you know, uh, that you go to because it's just so good and it's, you don't go there because it's exciting or because it's new or because it's.

Varied. You go there 'cause it's just really fucking good. It's just good. It's just does like, it's, there's nothing special about it apart from the fact that it's really fucking good. [00:11:00] Like it's just a standard butter chicken or a standard, you know, steak and chips or a standard salad that you get. But it's just a really good one.

It's always really, really good. And those that's. I bet you I'd be, I'd be shocked if you don't have some place that you go to on the regular that fits that description. Now there are probably other places that you try out. My wife and I were out for dinner at our old favorite pizza place that we go to when you always order the same thing.

'cause it's just really fucking good every Friday night. And then afterwards we're walking along, said, oh, we take me to Yo World, which is this new place that's popped up and you go and get frozen yogurt and you put toppings on it. And yeah, so that was fun. We went there. It was really nice. But guess what?

Latest thing. In a decade, I'll be absolutely astounded if that shop is still there. And I would be astounded if the pizza shop isn't still there in a decade because it's, it just serves basic pizza, but it's just done really well. And so that's what I'm talking about. Dear listener. Now, should that pizza shop get worried about the yo well, and go, huh?

Maybe we should do [00:12:00] frozen yogurt too. No, I think that would be a terrible calamitous mistake because what we actually love about that pizza shop is it's not the latest thing, it's just super predictable, high quality food and service. Now, uh, you know, dear listener, if you are thinking about, you know, excellent service and great results, right?

Well, maybe you're thinking, yeah, well great. I already have, you know, great service and great results, right? But do you, I'm gonna link to a study in the show notes here, say that found, and this was a study of like over 2000 people in the us. That, um, found that 65% of people think they're above average intelligence.

Think about that. 65% of people think they're above average intelligence, so you might be one of those 15% of people who think that you are above average Pilates teacher, but in [00:13:00] fact, you're not. 'cause 65% of people can't be above, above average, dear listener, by definition. 49% of people are above average, or 50% of people are above average.

Um, and so, you know, what does it mean to give truly great service and great results in a Pilate studio? Well. In my view, and you know, Heath and I have discussed this many times, I've discussed it with Nathan, Nathan Ross, Reese on this podcast and also with James Tari. Results are about the physical changes that your clients experience, improve strength, improve range of motion, improve body control, and then from that flow sec, a whole host of secondary results.

You know, peace of mind, uh, more, more positive emotions, better sleep, you know, better functional ability in their life, et cetera, less back pain. And so that's the results. And they come, they are strength, range of motion and control. And then the second part is the service. And that's all of the things about the experience [00:14:00] associated with coming to your studio.

So of course it's greeting clients within one second after they walk in the door with a warm smile and a genuine, you know, welcome. It's remembering their names and their dogs' names and their kids' dogs' names, and their sore knee, and which is their favorite reformer in the fact that they need an assist to get their legs in straps, you know, et cetera.

So it's all of that stuff. It's the jokes that you crack and the music that you play, and the pa the ease of parking and how clean the toilets are, and how easy or difficult it's to book on your app. And, you know, whether the change rooms are, um, congested, you know, before class and whether the classes start on time.

And all of those things combined, uh, go to, you know, contribute to great service. Now, not all of them are equally weighted, but those are the things that contribute to great service. When we, when we think about great results in great service, well, how do you know if you are, if you are delivering those things?

And I'd say, I think there are three measures that you can track, which don't necessarily tell you directly. Like the only way if you know, if [00:15:00] you're delivering results is actually measure your client's strength. And then you measure it a bit later. You see if they've got stronger. But you can measure indirectly because.

I believe these things are what, you know, these are like the perfect spaghetti dish or the, the perfect neise salad or the perfect steak. Diane, the perfect crap Suzette that you, or the, just the perfect rosemary and salt clusters, pizza dough at like that my wife and I get every Friday night that these are the things that.

Keep people coming back, and so if people keep coming back, there's a pretty good likelihood that you're doing a lot of this stuff right now. You might be thinking, great, well, my classes are waitlisted, so I must be doing a lot right now. Dear listener, probably you are doing almost all of these things, right?

But if you own a studio, can you say the same for all of your instructors?

And I'm gonna bet that you, there's a [00:16:00] high probability that for almost all of you, you can't say the same for all of your instructors. Now maybe you have one or two amazing instructors that you just love and you would trust them with your most finicky clients. And maybe you have three or five. Uh, pretty decent.

Okay. Instructors that can get by and their classes aren't terribly empty, but they're just, you know, they're not as good as you in your heart of hearts. And then maybe you've got one or two instructors that you know deep in your belly are not that great. Now, how do you know this? Well, it's just based on their class numbers really.

So do you track capacity utilization per instructor each month? And what I mean by capacity utilization is the percentage of spots in that class that were actually filled with paying clients average over the month. So if you have 10 reformers, just to keep the mathematics, but nice and simple. If on average you had eight clients in that class over the month, now average means, you know, you might've had six.

Some days you might've had 10 other days, but you averaged eight. So you [00:17:00] can't, I mean, the only way you could average 10 is if you had literally 10 every single class. So you're gonna average, you know, somewhere around eight to 8.5 or 80 to 85% capacity utilization if you are really good. Because once you start getting up above 85%, it becomes really difficult for people to get in and people start dropping off.

And you know, even if you're fully booked, you'll find almost every week, at least one outta the 10 people will no show or cancel the last minute or whatever. So basically if you're averaging 80 to 85% capacity utilization across the month, that is, that is one of the three key indicators that I'm gonna share with you that tell you that yeah, you are doing a really good job teaching that class.

Because people kept coming back to the class. Now people keep coming back to the class if the class is really good, but maybe they just come back to that class because it's Monday night at 6:00 PM and it's just, that's the time that suits them. And you know, the class is okay. It's not amazing, but it's like, well, it's just the only class I can get to.

So they come to it. So the capacity [00:18:00] utilization by itself is one of three measures, but it's not, not the only one. The next one is.

What percentage of your members cancel each month? And so if you have a hundred members at the start of the month, and of those 110 of them cancel during the month, at the end of the month, 90 of those original hundred remain. Now, you might have gotten more from new clients, but of those original a hundred that you had on the first of the month, if you've lost 10 of them by the end of the month, that's a 10% churn.

And the best studios have between five and 10%. Obviously 5% is better than 10% and you'll, it's very, very difficult to get below 5% because you can't a hundred, you can't eliminate churn. People leave for their own reasons. They move house, they change jobs, they lose their jobs, et cetera. But if you're above 10%, it's probably a you thing.

And really, if you're above 5%, it's probably a you thing. So five to 10% is ideal. If you're more than 10%, [00:19:00] uh, you are not. Optimize. You know, you're not, you're not making the perfect steak fruit yet.

And then the third metric is the now you can't really track turn by per instructor. Unless you have a, a studio where people book into the same session with the same instructor week after week. But otherwise, it's just a general metric for the overall quality of your classes in your studio and the service and experience in your studio.

And then the, so the first metric is past utilization should be 80 to 85%. The second metric is churn should be five to 10%. Lower is better. And then the third metric is the first visit to sign up conversion rate. And that is the percentage of people who visit your studio on your intro offer. Who then sign up for a membership or a 10 pack or whatever within their intro offer period.

So if you have a, an intro offer that's like four classes for $60 in your first two weeks, for example, what of those, if you [00:20:00] have 10 people who buy that intro offer in this month, of those 10 people, if five of them purchase a membership within the month or within their intro period, we would say you have a 50% conversion from first visit to sign up.

So of the 10 who had their first visit, five of them converted to membership, so 50% conversion and for a large group studio, so like five plus reformers where everybody's, you know, I'm really thinking more 10 plus reformers, but yeah, probably 10, let's say 10 reformers is what I'm, I'm actually thinking.

Around 50% conversion. First visit to sign up is KPI. So if you are doing 50% conversion, that means your classes are pretty good. If you're doing more than that means your classes are outstanding. If you're doing less than that means yeah, your classes aren't as awesome as they could be. And for a small group studio, say four clients, where it's much more bespoke, I would expect an 80% conversion.

So 80% of people who try it should continue on. Now, if you're somewhere in the middle with six [00:21:00] reformers or something, well it should be somewhere in the middle between 50 and 80. And the reason for that is, you know, in a larger studio, people are just by nature more anonymous. There's by nature, less personal interaction.

Uh, it's probably a little bit less expensive. And so all of those things contribute to the fact that just make people less likely to, uh, convert. So 50% for a 10 bed studio, 80% for a four bed studio, and somewhere in between. If you're somewhere in between. The kpi. So if you are within all of those KPIs, now you can track this last KPI per instructor.

So if you look at, of all the clients who bought a intro pack in June, let's say whatever month, look at the clients who did their first class with Sally. What percentage of them bought a membership? And look at the clients who did their first class with you, the studio owner, what percentage of them bought a membership?

And dear listener. I predict that you will find that people who do their first class with you, surprise, surprise, are more likely to convert to a membership than people who did their [00:22:00] first class with Sally. No offense to Sally, but that means Sally's not as good as you. So I predict what you'll find if you track these numbers.

Now, if you don't track these numbers, you cannot say truthfully that you have excellent service and excellent results. You just don't know. You hope you have excellent service and excellent results. You don't know, you have to track these numbers. 'cause this, these numbers track people's behavior. They track people voting with their feet, with their time and with their wallets.

And that shines that, that illuminates what people actually think. So when you track these numbers, your capacity utilization per instructor over the month. Which is just by the whole studio. And then your first visit to sign up conversion percentage by instructor over the month. And you might have to track the first visit to conversion over a longer period depending on how many instructors you have and how many first visits you have, just so you have a meaningful [00:23:00] sample size.

But if you are not, if any particular instructor is not within K, the KPIs I've mentioned, that means they've got room for improvement. So if your capacity utilization is 85% and Sally's is like 60%, well that means Sally's not as good as you objectively, right? If your first visit to sign up is 75% and Sally's is 45%, Sally's not as good as you objectively.

So you need to teach Sal. So, so in other words, when I come to your restaurant and you cook, I get the perfect meal and I give a five outta five rating. Whereas when I come to your restaurant and you are not in that night and Sally's in charge of the kitchen and Sally delivers the food, I get a, I get a three and a half star experience and it's like, it's not bad, but I'm like, yeah, we probably could have cooked something that could at home.

You know, this wasn't an exceptional experience and dear listen to, that's the hard truth and. If you are already [00:24:00] tracking all of these numbers and all of your instructors are within KPI, well, you are awesome. I'm gonna take my hat off to you, and if you are either not tracking them or you are tracking them, and your instructors aren't in KP, you're not a bad person.

You're not a failure, you're not a bad instructor. But you've got some opportunity to really build your business here and this is how you stick. This is how you stick out. This is how you stand out. You are that restaurant that like you've, that visit that you've visited 20, 30, 40, 50 times and every single time it's outstanding.

That's the restaurant that you know you want to be, so that when people. Dear, listen, think about your own behavior, right? Imagine if you know you go out to dinner, imagine you go out to dinner a couple of times a week, okay? And sometimes you go to your old faithful restaurants, the ones you know are just gonna deliver and that you love it.

And then sometimes you try somewhere new. You know, you go to your will and so dear, listen, just say you lose your job, or you get downsized, or your mortgage payments go up, or whatever. And so you have to hold onto some of your money and think like, oh, we can't go out to dinner, you know, twice a week, and we can only go out to dinner once a week.[00:25:00]

Well, where are you gonna go? You're probably gonna go to the place that you know is going to deliver. You are not gonna waste your one night out on somewhere that's more speculative and might be terrible. And certainly if you go somewhere and it's average the first time, you will know way be going back to that place.

So you earn people's business by delivering an exceptional experience again and again, and again, and again and again. The same exceptional experience. That's what they want. And how so now we come to the point of it. How do you.

So it's, here's the thing, dear listener, it's very hard to be truly exceptional at anything. It's really, it's easy to make steak and chips. It's really fucking hard to make an exceptional steak fruit every single time. And it takes, it's easy to teach a [00:26:00] Pilates class. It's very hard to teach an exceptional Pilates class every single time for a, and it takes so much time and effort.

That you just can't be exceptional at more than just a few things in your lifetime. And if you're constantly changing to the latest thing, you don't get the chance to become truly exceptional at anything because you just don't get in enough reps.

Okay, so here's how to get your staff to make the perfect steak fruit every time. Now, this is not easy, but. It works a hundred percent of the time, every time. And if you listen to this and think about it, nothing's gonna happen. But if you listen to this and do it, you will transform your business. Alright?

This is what we do in our business, and this is what I advise my clients, like I said at the start, the of the episode. So, firstly. I'm assuming, dear listener, that you are the best teacher in your studio. Now, how do I know? [00:27:00] What do I mean? What do I mean by best, highest capacity utilization and highest conversion from first visits to signups?

Most five star reviews might be another one that you could measure. So I'm assuming that you are the best instructor in your studio as measured by those things. And so what we're gonna do is bottle you. Now, I would say, you know, 999 out of a thousand studio owners and I have literally talked to more than a thousand studio owners, and this was me, you know, in the first like eight years that I ran a studio as well.

Most studio owners don't like to tell their instructors how to teach. They, you know, when I was, when I owned a studio for years, I would just be like, okay, great. You're a great instructor. I don't wanna presume to tell you how to suck eggs. So you just go the studio's that way, go do your thing. And then there are some studio owners, and I've been this person as well, who do have a way that they want it done, but just don't have the energy or the time or the, just the, the emotional energy too.

To [00:28:00] audit their, their, their, their instructors classes on a regular basis to do one-on-ones with their instructors and to coach the instructors to do it exactly the way they want it done. So if you are either or both of those people, dear listener, uh, this is for you because this, uh, it is, it's not easy, but it is very simple and if you do it, it will a hundred percent work and you'll have every instructor in your studio will be as good or better than you.

Alright? So firstly, you need to film. Yourself teaching a lot. And when I say film, I just mean put your phone in the corner of the studio and just record all your classes that you teach and teach. Uh, teach a bunch of classes. Teach 20 or 30 classes. Film yourself. And then of those, choose the five best ones.

Five. Where you just nailed it. Are you like, oh my goodness. Best class. Best class ever. Perfect programming. Perfect queuing, perfect progressions. You know, it was just a really great class. I challenged people at exactly the [00:29:00] right level. I worked all of the body parts in all of the directions, all of that stuff, right?

So really, really banging class. Get five of those that are different now. They don't have to be radically different, but just not literally the same, you know, programming. And then you take those five videos and you turn them into five standard classes that you teach right? Now, I, I should say that those classes need to be standardized, right?

So if you're teaching an open level class or a intermediate class, or a beginner class or whatever, like if it's open level, all of the classes need to be at the level that you want your open level classes to be taught at, right? They can't be like one super hard class and one super gentle class because what we're doing here is we're establishing.

We're bottling what you, you do as an instructor and we're establishing the, the, the, the playbook of how to teach a great class at your studio so that the, the, the burger comes out perfect every single time. Doesn't matter who's cooking it. Alright? So [00:30:00] you've got your five best banging classes that are your perfect open level classes or your perfect beginner classes or whatever type of class we're talking about.

And you need to do this for each class type, right? So if you have beginners classes and intermediate classes, you need to do five of each. And you take those five videos. And then you, you turn them into a program, right? So you take the video of your, of your class and you write, you type out on a Google Doc, the program, okay?

We did this exercise for this many reps on this spring. Then we did this exercise for this many reps on this spring, et cetera. Okay, so you, you put all of the layers. If you did the hundreds with the knees bent, then you went to legs straight, then you went to one leg low and one leg bent. Like write out every single thing that you did from a programming standpoint in that class.

You know, in order how many reps or how long you did it for the spring setting the body, body position, knees bent, knees straight, all of that stuff. Right, so that it can be reproduced. Exactly. Then. Turn, uh, transcribe your video. So just use a transcription service, like D script or there's lots of, you know, just go to Google and type in, type in your transcriber video.

Okay. And there's lots of places you can get that done. And then edit the transcription. [00:31:00] Take out all your ums and ahs, take out all of your jokes, and you're talking about the client's dog and the kids, and all of that stuff. And just leave the queuing, okay? And then turn that into a queuing script, and then copy and paste the queuing onto the programming.

So you've got a Google Doc with the program. It's got the exercise name of the exercise, the spring setting, the body position, the foot pass position, uh, the number of reps you did, and then next to that, it's got the cues, the precise exact word for word cues that you used in your best ever version of teaching that class.

Now you have three things. You have a, you have a video of you teaching that class. You have a program, a class program on a Google, Google Doc, and then you also have a queuing script on that Google Doc. And you do that for each of those classes. And then you go to your instructors and you say, Hey, hey team.

I. I'm gonna, uh, teach you how to be a better instructor. Now, how do I, what, what, what do I mean by better instructor? I mean more popular with classes. At 80, 25% of capacity [00:32:00] utilization have reached over the month and a first visit to sign up percentage of over 50% if you are in a large group, or over 80% if you're in a small group studio.

And when we get kick. So the first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna learn to teach this class, class number one, let's call it. Okay. So you'll, you'll show 'em the video of class number one. Oh, sorry. Don't show 'em the video. Give them the program and the queuing script and say, okay, now here's a video of me teaching this program, using this script.

And show them the video. And they'll say to you, ha. Like, you really just literally say the script in the video and it just really works. It really lands with the clients. And you'll be like, yep. That's why I'm showing it to you because this is how you cue these exercises really Well. This is the script I use and this is what really works.

Like, and dear listener, maybe thinking like, oh, scripting's, you know, it's not creative. It's not artistic. Well, think about how you teach, right? I mean, you must have taught thousands of classes at this point. If you own a studio, when you cue a particular exercise, like maybe when you cue short spine or long stretch [00:33:00] or side splits, right?

I'm gonna bet you basically say the exact same words every time you teach those exercises. You basically have a script, right? And why do you use the same words? 'cause you found what works. Like when you say certain things, almost everyone gets it straight away. And when you say different things, like people don't get it as much, there is a better way of queuing each exercise.

I'm not saying there's one best way, I'm just saying like. There are a few ways that work really well and there's a bazillion ways that don't work as well. And once you find one of the ways that works really well, you tend to repeat it. And I bet that's what you do. That's what I do. That's what all of the great instructors I know do.

They basically have a little script in their head. Now, you might not have written out the script, but you probably say the same words each time you teach. You are very close to it. So what we're doing here is we are not like crushing the poor, you know. Creativity of this delicate, you know, songbird of your instructors.

We are giving them a life hack and saying, Hey, look, you don't know the gr great script yet. You are using like one of the second or third tier scripts. That just doesn't work as well. I'm gonna, they [00:34:00] probably cue it the same way every time they teach it already. Just not the best way. So they probably already have a script.

They probably cue it the same, but just their cues aren't as good as your cues. Why? How do I know that? Because their classes aren't as full. 'cause if the classes were as full, you wouldn't even be listening to this episode, this episode. You'd be bored and turned off by now and thinking like, huh, my, my instructors are all perfect and you know, they've all got like 90% capacity utilization, so I don't need to listen to this.

So the fact that you listen to this tells me that, you know, very likely your instructors aren't as good as you. So you know the better cues. So teach them your cues, right? It's a life hack. It's not crushing their creativity. Alright. Teach them those cues and have them teach those cues to you and have them teach those cues in their class and have them film themselves teaching those classes, have them film themselves and then have them that this is the genius step, critique their own video.

Right? And how they critique it is they use, uh, loom, which is just a free screen recorded video where you can pay, um, pretty minimal monthly fee. [00:35:00] And they just play the video of them teaching and then they screen record and they, they, they record their comments, oh, I think I did this really well, this bit here, kind of sucked.

Should have done this a bit more like this. Didn't get this cue quite right. Chose the wrong spring for Sally there, et cetera. Right? And then what you'll find is them critiquing. What are they critiquing? They're critiquing it against your video and your script and your program, right? And what you want is them to teach it just like you.

So the why is the video important? Of you teaching because the script in the program tells them what to, in which, but it doesn't tell like where stand in the or how to their voice when pause. Or where to look or when to just walk over and change someone's spring without saying anything whilst you're queuing the rest of the group.

But all of that stuff is included in the video. And so what you want is for them to teach and their video to look the same as your video. So where they stand in the room, the tone of voice, the pace, the pauses, the cadence, the focus, the spring changes, all of that should be the same as yours. Now, obviously, if their clients are different and they, you know, Sally needs one spring [00:36:00] less instead of one spring more, then they need to do that.

In terms of the cues that they use and their position and all that stuff, it should be all almost as identical to yours. And that's what they're critiquing. So they, they're critiquing how well they mimicked your exact delivery, your exact cues, your exact program. And a 10 outta 10 is, they're identical and you get them to critique it, and then you watch every fourth or fifth one that they submit to you.

And what you'll find is their self critique will, they will. Actually improve quite dramatically by just self critiquing. But you need to check their work every fourth or fifth one just to make sure. Like, like sometimes they go off the rails and they're like, oh no, I think I did a really good job. And you look at it and you're like, uh, no, that wasn't really good.

Or maybe sometimes they're really down on themselves and you think, actually, no, that you did a great job. This is perfect. This is exactly right. So you do need to check their work every fourth or fifth one that they submit to you. Uh, but them self critiquing will be amazing. And you'll see a dramatic lifting quality.

And then you just go through those. Five classes. So you, you have them teach that one [00:37:00] class and then you teach them the second class, then you teach 'em the third class, and then basically you get to this weekly cadence where they're all submitting, they're all teaching the five classes, and they're only teaching those five classes.

They're not making up their own shit. They're just teaching the five, your five approved classes, using your cues, your programs, your spring choices, your progressions, your layers, and your positioning in the room, and all of those things. And at that point, when you look at those and all of a sudden you're starting to see, huh, their capacity utilization's going up, their convert first visit to sign up, conversions going up, the churn is going down.

They're getting more compliments, they're getting more five star reviews. Clients, you know, there's a pep in their step. The tendency's up churn is down. At that point, you have an A plus team, and at that point you can say to the team, Hey, we could go one of two ways here. I could just add more classes to the mix.

I could give you my next five, you know, all time great classes, and we could just. Build our repertoire. Or you could take my classes and you could do, like, we always gonna start with footwork or always gonna end with mermaids or whatever your thing is in your studio. But I want you guys to now add a sequence in the middle.[00:38:00]

Okay? If you want, you can add, but it has to fit these rules, right? It has to work all the body parts in all the directions, whatever the rules are at your studio, right? And it has. And so then you get them to critique and you watch their critiques and you check that they're not going off the rail rails and teaching something random.

But by the time they've taught. To perfection for a few months, like they should have. You know, the, the essence of how you teach and the philosophy, like unconsciously of how you teach, and so what they make up will fit very likely with what you do. And so at that point, you've got three or five or seven whatever instructors who are literally as good as you, that you could give your most fastidious, your most anxious client to that person.

You'd be a hundred percent confident that that client will be looked after just as well. As if you were there personally yourself, and you can be at home asleep, spending time with your family, sitting on a beach in Maui, and your studio will run. And the the clients who arrive receive the perfect steak fruit every single time.

Doesn't matter who's serving in the [00:39:00] kitchen. It's always perfect. And then you will be dear listener, differentiated from your, from your, from your competitors. Now, how will this differentiate from your competitors in a, just in a practical, nuts and bolts way. So true story. Uh, one of my clients, um, ran a successful studio for half a decade, no competition in the local area.

And then all of a sudden, within about six months, three major franchises opened up all within a couple of blocks of her, and she noticed like her class attendance went down, her revenue went down, uh, for a couple of months, like went down the first month and went down more the second month. And then the third month it started going back up again, and then the fourth month it basically normalized.

And what she found was that clients went away because the new thing came along and they were like, oh, there's a new Asian, French, Italian Indian fusion restaurant opened up in the neighborhood. I'll give it a go. And so people went and gave it a go and they offered [00:40:00] super low prices, you know, a month free, unlimited, et cetera.

And people were, whew, let's give it a go. So they went and gave it a go and everything was shiny and everything was, you know, fancy. And then after their month, they came back and they said, you know what? That studio was shit. The classes were, shit. The ins, there was like one good instructor there, and then there were eight bad instructors, or the instructing was super patchy.

And some the class levels were just so random, and some classes were super hard and some classes were super easy and they were all labeled as open level or, you know, like the, the quality wasn't there. In other words, dear listener. And think of your own behavior, right? You, there's your, your old favorite restaurant that you go to every Friday night.

Like I go to this place called Proof Pizza Area with my wife Jules, and we always order the same thing. You know, the, the, the plain pizza with sea salt and rosemary and it's so good. It's so good. It's so good. And then we have warm olives with that. And they are so good. The Sicilian olives are. And, uh, [00:41:00] then the yo world opens up around the corner and we think, huh, well why don't we try the yo world this week?

Let's go crazy. And we try the YO world. And we go there and, and afterwards we say, how was that? And we say, yeah, that was pretty good. And then next week when we say, okay, where do you wanna go? It's like, let's go back to Proof Pizzeria, because guess what? Yo world was pretty good, but it wasn't like, oh my fucking God.

Amazing. Right? It wasn't like a hundred percent chance of success of having a fucking awesome meal. Whereas proof pits are out. That's what you get. You order the order, the, the, the wood-fired pizza with rosemary and salt and the warm olives, like a hundred percent chance, you'll be delighted every single time.

And that's why we go, that's why we go back there. So that's what happened with what, that's what will happen with your clients as well. Dear listener, if a big. If a competitor opens up around the corner and they're cheaper or newer or fancier, or they've got towels on the reformers or chairs, or they do hot Pilates, or they have some kind of other fancy, whatever the latest thing is, okay?

When you're listening to this, people will have a sticky beak. They will go and try it, but guess what? They're gonna find that the food is inconsistent and it's just not as good [00:42:00] at, it's just not as good. It's just not as good. So that's a deal listener. It's not sexy, it's not complicated, but it's pretty fucking hard.

Just be better. Just be, but just make a better burger. Just make a better steak fruit, make a better wood-fired pizza with salt and rosemary. And, um, in my opinion and my experience and the, the, the lessons I've been able to learn from history, that is how to differentiate your studio from a sea of me two competitors who are trying to undercut you on price.

That is how to avoid being commoditized. I mean, there's a million fucking pizza restaurants, right? I don't see them all as the same. I mean, there's dominoes across the road. We never go there. Why not? 'cause we don't see it as the same. They don't have this particular wood-fired bread with salt and rosemary like that.

The proofreads are out their menu. If you look at the menu, it's the same fucking menu as Domino's Capric, Hawaii and [00:43:00] vegetarian. Uh, marina, you know, like it's the same. It's Margarita. It's the same menu, right? There's nothing like quote different about it. It's just fucking better. That's what's different about it.

It's better. So that's how I recommend that you differentiate yourself, dear. Your listener is just be better. And how do you be better? You, you relentlessly focus on quality and how do you relentlessly focus on quality? You train your instructors on a weekly basis to teach just like you because you are a great teacher.

Otherwise, you wouldn't have started a successful business in the first place if people hated your classes. And just objectively, if you look at the numbers, I'm very confident you'll see that you are the best instructor at your studio. So just teach everyone to teach just like you. Alright, I hope you found this useful.

Well, you haven't found it useful yet, but what I can tell you is that if you actually apply this. It works a hundred percent of the time. Every time [00:44:00] you will turn your instructors into super beings, they will. They will be transformed into greatly improved versions of themselves professionally. And that's, that's a skillset they'll have for the rest of their lives.

So you'll change their lives and your clients will experience much better results and have a much better experience. And they'll tell their friends and they'll come to more classes and they'll pay you more money and they'll give you more reviews. And it's not easy, but it really, really works. So instead of stressing out about what to do, instead of dancing on social media, instead of putting in more gizmos and gadgets and trying the latest thing, just be better.

Much love and I'll see you in the next one.