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Welcome to Pilates Elephants. I am Raphael Bender.

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So I almost didn't make an episode this week and I want to share with you why.

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So this episode is about why I almost didn't make an episode.

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Riddle me that, Batman. So as I'm recording this, it is the 4th of January 2026

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and it's about 30 minutes before we usually release an episode every week here.

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And the reason I haven't, usually we have like three or four episodes in the

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bank that we've recorded but haven't released, but we don't have that this week.

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And the reason is that Heath and I have been working on something pretty hard

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for our mastermind clients.

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So these are the people I coach one-on-one and Heath coaches one-on-one to help

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them grow their Pilates studios.

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And so don't worry, dear listener, there's a big lesson in this and that's why

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I'm actually making this episode.

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I wasn't going to make an episode today, but I thought this was a really valuable

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lesson for you if you're an instructor or studio owner.

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And so this will just be a short one where I want to share just a brief case

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study of what we did this week that stopped us from pre-recording a couple of

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episodes and then how you can apply that in your studio.

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So the basic principle is that people don't fail because they don't care.

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They fail because they're,

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the system requires skills that they don't currently have.

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So let me explain what that means in our context and then what it means in your context.

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So for our mastermind clients, we have this wonderful system where the first

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thing we do when we start working with someone is we build out a KPI dashboard with them.

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So the KPI is Key Performance Indicator, and it's basically all of the key metrics

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that tell about the health of each part of their business.

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So their client acquisition, their client conversion, their schedule efficiency,

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their retention, their financial metrics, labor costs, profitability, all of that stuff.

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And when we look at that KPI dashboard, it gives us a really good high-level

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overview of the health of the business and lets us pinpoint actually what's

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the one thing that is holding this business back from going to whatever the next stage is.

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And then from there we give that business owner

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one key task to do which is to

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deconstrain the thing that we found so we might

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find that client acquisition is their biggest pain okay so we give them you

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know go run this ad or you might find that scheduling efficiency is the key

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thing so we might say okay you know cancel these three classes and put on two

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more classes at these times you know whatever it might be we give them a task

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to address the main constraint and so it's fantastic system,

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but what we've found is that a lot of studio owners don't fill in the KPI dashboard

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and don't even look at it in between sessions.

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Which, you know, was a real head scratcher for us because it's such a powerful tool.

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It's like driving a car without looking at the road in front of you.

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But what we realized as we sat down and talked about it and looked at,

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you know, back at the experiences that we'd had working with people is that

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these studio owners, they desperately want to grow their studios,

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but they're just stuck in the weeds of execution.

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They're overwhelmed. they're busy doing essentially

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low value tasks like you know admin the books

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teaching cover classes things like that and they're just they're stuck on a

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treadmill and they feel like they just don't have time to do the thing that

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paradoxically will actually create time and eliminate overwhelm is like knowing

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what your numbers are and knowing what you need to work on,

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and and going okay everything else is not as important as

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running that ad or adding those two classes or whatever it might be paradoxically

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they don't do that because they feel like they're overwhelmed they don't have

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enough time so that the the the thing that stops them doing the thing they need

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to do is the actual reason they need to do the thing in the first place hence the paradox.

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And so you know with heath and i were scratching our heads and thinking like

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well why don't people you know why don't they do this because we fill out the

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kpi dashboard with them together in the first session every time.

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And so they get to see it, but then they just never look at it again.

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They'll look at it and go, oh, that's amazing. But then like the next month,

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they haven't done it. And then we go, okay, great. Well, let's do it together again now.

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So then basically that, pretty much from almost all of our clients with one

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or two exceptions, it only gets done when we, you know, essentially sit there

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with them and literally do it together in real time.

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And so, you know, this was mystifying to us until we realized that it's just,

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they didn't have the tools to make it easy.

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We were asking them to do more work than they had the resources for.

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And so the reason, so now we're back to, finally we come to the reason why we

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didn't record the episode this

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week and why I'm recording this episode is because we've been working,

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we've hired another full-time team member whose job is to actually fill in the

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KPI dashboards for all of our coaching clients.

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So this person just like literally, that's what she does.

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And so we've got their KPI dashboard, 100% up to date. We've got their,

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we'll have their class attendance schedule all up to date.

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So when I like, you know, Mondays at 9am, the average attendance was this,

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you know, Sally's classes, the average attendance was that, you know,

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level one reformer, the average attendance was that.

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We'll be able to tell which classes are performing, which ones are underperforming

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at a glance every month. We'll be able to look at that together.

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And so basically moving forward, we've created this system where they'll have

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a standing booking every month.

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So they'll sit down with me or Heath once a month at the start of the month

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and we'll look at their KPI dashboard,

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which will be 100% completed because my team will just have read-only

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access to their systems and my team will go in and fill out the dashboard for

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them and we'll make decisions about what's most important based on what we send

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the dashboard and then we'll send that studio owner away with one high impact

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task that they can accomplish that month in order to deconstrain the biggest

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constraint in their business right now.

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So that is the process that we've been building. And so I've spent,

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you know, the last week, you know, training up this person and building out

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the spreadsheets and doing all of that kind of stuff.

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Um, and hence we didn't get an episode out. And so here's, here's the lesson, dear listener.

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I said, people don't fail because they don't care. They fail because the system

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requires skills they don't currently have.

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And so this applies to all humans, it applies to myself.

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It applies to my clients, my mastermind clients. It applies to you and it applies

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to your Pilates clients as well.

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And so I'm thinking about in your studio, you know, people who buy an intro

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pass, but don't book their classes.

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People who buy an intro pass, book their classes, and then don't show for them.

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People who buy an intro pass, book their classes, show for them,

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but then don't purchase a membership. People who purchase a membership, but then don't use it.

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People who, et cetera. So basically people who don't do the thing that they

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need and want to do for their own health and well-being.

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Why don't they do that?

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So, and the reason is, not because I don't want to do it, not because I don't

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see the value, but because they don't see how to do it.

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It's hard work, cognitively and psychologically.

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And so, you know, the lesson that I learned, you know, really about this,

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from this episode is rather than giving people flexibility and giving them work and options,

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give them a structure, make it a set and forget, make it a no-brainer and make

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it just something that happens.

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And so I have a few mastermind clients who already have this set up in their business.

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And this isn't necessarily a prescription of how to run your memberships or

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your schedule or whatever.

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But the idea here, I think, is to essentially make it easy for people to do

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the things that they want and need to do for themselves. You know,

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they've bought a membership.

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They've stuck up their hand figuratively and said, yeah, I want to do Pilates.

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I need to do Pilates. And yet, then they don't show up to do it.

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And so essentially making it easy for them.

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And so that, you know, if we were dieting at home, it would be like not having

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sugary drinks in the fridge just makes it much easier to not have a sugary drink.

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If you've got lots of healthy food at home, lots of fruit and fresh veggies

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and all that kind of good stuff, it's much easier to make good choices for yourself.

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And so we just employ the same psychology with the studio. So this is really

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about what we call a success path.

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So basically mapping out the steps to achieve the goal and not just mapping

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it out, but making each step inevitable as a consequence of the previous step.

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So what we have to do is take the first step and then bam, it's like a kind

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of rolling downhill from there.

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So what I mean by that is when somebody buys an intro pass and they're like,

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They receive a call from someone in your studio within 10 minutes that welcomes

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them and books their classes right there for them on the call.

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Then when they show up to their class, they get, you know, you have a conversation

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with them that talks about what's your long-term plan?

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You know, how many times a week do you want to work out?

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What's your actual goal for being here in terms of your fitness and your health?

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What do you want to achieve? Okay, great.

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You like Tuesdays? let's lock you in for tuesdays every week fantastic

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once a week is that what you want to do fantastic let's lock that in and so

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actually just like creating that that agreement at the beginning of what they

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want you know for understanding what they want and then creating that and just

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rather than having them giving them options every week like oh just book in

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wherever you want come as many times as few times as you want etc you can cancel

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you can reschedule it's super flexible.

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Paradoxically that flexibility creates friction to actually doing the work whereas when it's,

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set in to a specific date and time, it's something they just show up for every

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week or twice a week or three times a week.

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And again, I'm not necessarily saying that you should say, hey,

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you can only attend this studio if you commit to this specific time.

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Although I do have a few clients who do that.

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And let me tell you, those studios have a way higher or a substantially higher

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capacity utilization than other studios where they do casual drop-in.

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So casual drop-in studios where clients can book and cancel themselves,

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et cetera, on the Intermanet.

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We see like 80% to 85% really is the maximum.

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That's a really well-run studio with very functional wait lists,

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with good booking app, et cetera, and lots of classes.

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You can get to 80%, 85% if you're doing it really well.

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Whereas for studios where they book clients into a specific class,

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so when you sign up for the membership, you're not signing up for like a once-a-week membership.

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You're signing up for Tuesdays at 6 p.m. you're signing

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up for that specific class in perpetuity you never have to book

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or you know anything it's just like that's your spot those studios

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run at 95 to 98 percent capacity

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utilization routinely because people just like all of the classes have permanent

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bookings in them so uh you know it does it does increase the efficiency of your

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studio as well but more to the point people attend more regularly because they

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don't have to like remember oh

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you You know, when am I doing Pilates this week? Oh, I can't do Thursday.

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You know, they don't have to think about it. It takes the effort out of it.

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And so I think that is, that is, and we can apply that same thinking to each

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step of the process. Okay.

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So, you know, when, when they buy the pass, someone calls them up and actually

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just talks them through, like does the next step with them, booking the classes,

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right? So then they show up for the class.

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Then you take them through the class. I don't have to think about that.

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Then at the end of the class, you have the conversation. How often do you want

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to come? What are your goals? Okay. Once a week. Okay. say twice a week,

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whatever it is that they said they want.

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Which days suit you? Okay, this day and this day, great. Let's lock that in. Let's do that now.

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Okay. It's like, just actually just ask them what they want and then,

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great, let's do that and let's do it now. So it just takes it off their plate for later.

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And dear instructors, you can apply this kind of process to all kinds of things.

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Like if you're looking for somebody to cover your classes, right?

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You're going away or if you want to upsell a client to one-on-ones,

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like you can apply this same type of thinking to lots

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of different situations where you basically first you

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have to get alignment with what people actually want and need and

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then just make that the default option so just

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make the default is it happens unless you do

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something to prevent it happening rather than the default

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is it doesn't happen unless you do something to make it happen all right dear

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listener so that is why I almost didn't record an episode this week and but

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I decided that it was actually going to this was a valuable lesson for me and

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I hope it'll be valuable for you,

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and that's all I got for you so much love and I will see you in the next one.