Laura Munkholm:
Good morning everyone, thank you for being here early. Um, we are going to get started in just a minute, but if you wouldn't mind, please pop into the chat and introduce yourselves, your studio name, and where you're coming from. Um, we'd love to see where everyone is and, uh, be able to really make the content focused on your businesses. So nice to have you all. Thanks. Welcome, welcome. Alright. Everyone is starting to roll in. Thank you for being here this morning. Okay. It is officially 10:30. We will get going. Um, let me pop into stop sharing my screen for a moment. Okay, hi everyone, I am so grateful to have you all here today. Thank you for joining us for our wrap up 2024 webinar with Walla. We are going to be looking at the 2025 playbook for boutique fitness. If you haven't done so already please pop into the chat on the side, so if you're new to SQL, which is our platform that we run our webinars on, um on your right side you'll be able to see who's here, you'll be able to see the chat. Um it's intentional that you're not seeing yourselves on the screen, this is not a Zoom call where you're going to be able to see each other today, it's so that we can all focus on the content. So um, but, yeah, please please say hello, and you should be able to just quickly type in where you're from, what your business is, and hi. Thanks for those of you that are waving in. Okay. Well, let me go ahead and share, and we will get started right away on content. Okay. Everybody hopefully can see my screen. Can I get a thumbs up or two just to make sure that we're all good? Okay. Cool. Great. So, um, we are gonna be diving into not just a kind of an overview of some of the things that you, quote, should be doing as a boutique fitness studio, but also doing quite a bit of interactive work today. So first things first, I want to encourage you if you don't have a notebook, um, grab a notebook or if you prefer to be typing that's fine too. But this is hopefully something where you can walk away from this webinar and actually have checked a box or two at your business and also taken steps in the right direction. Uh, one of my biggest pet peeves is to sit on webinars where I feel like I'm just being talked at the whole time and then I leave feeling overwhelmed with the million things I have to do and and feeling like a failure in my business. So this is hopefully going to be the opposite of that. We really, really want you to feel empowered and like you have some of the tools to actually take action. Um, so grab your notebook, iPad, pad, whatever you write write on, and, uh, we'll get started here. Okay, so first things first, I love to start every kind of end of year wrap up with a reflection and I think it's nice to take a minute to look down the mountain, especially as entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs within the wellness space particularly. We are often giving a lot of ourselves and whether you want to close your eyes and just take a minute to think about perhaps where your journey as a wellness entrepreneur started or maybe even just this year where you were at the end of twenty twenty three and the things that were on your plate and that you had to accomplish. I'm sure there were lots of hurdles and monkey wrenches and things thrown in during the year that you weren't expecting, but just take a moment to thank yourself for the work you've done and the energy you've put into not just your business but also your community. Um, all of you are, at the end of the day, building happier, healthier communities, so this is not like you're out there, you know, slinging books or newspapers or cigarettes or something else as your job. You are doing something incredibly powerful for the people in your circle, your communities. Um, so just take a minute to thank yourself for the year, for all of the work, and maybe take a deep breath and, uh, let your shoulders drop away from your ears for a moment because it's a lot to be an entrepreneur and especially an entrepreneur where you have people coming to you for change. Okay. So as we position ourselves to really think about 2025, um, I think the biggest thing to start with is where our consumers are. Um, our clients are obviously a huge part of our success, our businesses, and what we're thinking about on a regular basis. So let's peek into what the modern fitness consumer is like. Um, first things first, the game really has changed for us. For those of you who maybe have been in business for years, five, ten, fifteen years, you probably at some point had a business where you relied a 100 on referrals, and you didn't have to think about marketing, and social media was something that you maybe dipped your toe into from time to time, but ultimately it wasn't a necessity. And now we exist in a society where attention rules, and attention is incredibly challenging and expensive to get. So when we think about the modern boutique fitness, in particular consumer, fitness is not on their mind all the time, you know, we like to think they're thinking about us a lot, but ultimately they have a million things coming at them every day, and they know they quote should be thinking about their wellness and their fitness, but it's just one of many things they have to check boxes on. So I encourage you to think about that when you're considering how you're going out to advertise, to market, to draw people into your businesses. You have a very small window when you have their attention to make an impact, and we'll talk a lot about that in our first step of, you know, the playbook for next year. The other thing to consider is that you have a very hard sell at first for your clients. Unfortunately, for businesses that were selling the dream body or losing weight as their main pitch, their main product, that is no longer going to be something that a consumer needs a gym for. Um, the world wants an easy fix, and if you have not been impacted in your business or had questions or been in conversation with your clients around GLP ones, this is going to become a regular thing. Uh, I spend a ton of time at fitness conferences, industry conferences, speaking to some of the leaders in both the health and wellness communities, and this is probably one of the most disruptive things that we are going to all experience. And it's really up to us on how we accept it and end up partnering and educating our clients on how to use GLP ones in tandem with your practices, with your your programming. So I I want to encourage everybody to educate yourself, to look at, um, NASEM and some of the other professional organizations to learn more about how you can get certifications and and do your best to educate your clients. Um, I I thought I'd throw in a quick little anecdote here. I I exist I probably am your ideal customer in a lot of ways. Right? I am a 40 mom who works and has income that I dedicate towards my wellness habits, practices, routines. I exist in a circle of friends who are very similar to me and who every one of you would probably love to have their eyeballs on your content on social media, on your businesses, or walking in your doors. So I I love that I get to see things from the consumer side and the business side, um, um, as I approach kind of thinking about business strategy? Well, I can tell you just over the last week as I've been at holiday parties at my kids' schools, at friends' holiday parties, the conversation has drastically changed around body bodies, and everybody is asking about GLP ones, about Ozempic, about, you know, oh my gosh, you look so amazing, Sarah, what did you do? The number of times I heard that over the last week was wild. I just like to be an observer in these situations, but I like to share the story because everybody then starts talking about, oh, I started on Ozempic or I started GLP ones, and everybody's like, oh my gosh, how is it? Is it easy? What do you think? It is real, so my my point here is it is going to be a part of our conversation now, and it is going to be important to be educated. So number one tip outside of understanding how valuable your client's attention is is understanding what they're all talking and thinking about at this point. The other thing is that your clients, your prospects, are probably very overwhelmed, um, especially with all of the content that is coming at them from a wellness perspective. So if you open up social media today, you will be bombarded with this fad diet and this fasting practice and this workout that's supposed to be the best one, this bike or ring or techno you know, tech device that's going to help you improve your wellness. There is an endless supply of information out in the world on how you can be a better version of yourself from a wellness physical and mental wellness perspective. It is very overwhelming, and actually Lululemon just did a study where they found that over sixty percent of wellness consumers feel completely overwhelmed and paralyzed by the wellness information that is coming at them, and they don't know what to do. And they also are lonely. There are two big things happening in the world right now, and boutique fitness is a beautiful solve for both of them. So all of you sitting there running boutique fitness businesses, brick and mortar boutique fitness businesses, are in an amazing position right now because the world needs us. There is no shortage of low cost, high volume gyms out there, and that is part of the challenge for a lot of people, is they walk in a gym and they see a million pieces of equipment and they don't know what to do, and they're told by this influencer to do one thing and another influencer to do another. So that can just add to the overwhelm. What you have in boutique fitness is a prescriptive, smaller situation where they are guided by an expert the entire time in a practice that is done with other people. So you're checking two boxes, you're helping them feel like they're a part of something, a community, and something that is actually healthy for them, and you're removing the overwhelm because you're telling them, listen, we've we've got a beautiful program here from a to z that is going to take you from where you are now to your goal, and you don't have to think about it. We've got it dialed in, taken care of. Our teachers are amazing. So I ask you to consider this as we go through the the playbook. Your your consumers have a lot going on, and the world of wellness has dramatically changed since COVID. So they are looking to you as an expert and it's so important to assume that role, to step into that role, and to not be scared of a prescriptive and personalized approach, because that's why they want boutique fitness. They're expecting something that is more personalized, more customized, more prescriptive, and where they can feel safe and supported. Okay. So let's go into the steps. The good news here is you guys are in the right spot. The the people who are prepared, who plan, who execute are going to come out ahead in this industry, and just the fact that you're sitting here on this webinar right now says that you are these people. So congratulations, again, pat yourself on the back, thank yourself for being here. Let's talk about step one. So the first thing I'm going to have you all do is review your messaging and your value proposition. So before I move on to the next slide, you guys can open another tab on your computer, which I hesitate to say you should do because I don't want you to lose attention. But I I would like you to open up the a tab on your computer and go to your website and look at it for five seconds, and then close that tab. So this is what I like to call a blink test, and I think we are often when when we approach our websites, when we approach our messaging, when we think about all of the things we're trying to put out there to the world about what we do, who we are, and why you should come, it's really easy to forget that you don't have a lot of time to tell that story. You probably have somewhere around five to ten seconds to grab a client's attention or prospect's attention when they land on your website. And I think one of the things that studios often get stuck in is telling what they do. And we have a beautiful webinar, really engaging, fun, exciting webinar that we did with Barry, um, and Shay that talks about messaging and understanding how to communicate with your clients. But I pulled this from a few of our clients' sites and I, you know, they were things that jumped out at me and were very compelling and and really told a story. So as you look at your websites, and actually I encourage you to have a family member or a friend who maybe doesn't know your business super super well do the same thing, and then ask them what did you get out of it? What what is it what do you think you're going to get when you come to my business? And what is it that compels you to walk through the door, if you do feel compelled to walk through the door? Here are some that I just thought were really interesting. I mean, this get the fit body of your dreams in just forty five minutes, That's an outcome. I mean, maybe that's not your specific outcome that you're doing at your business, but this business, that's the promise. They are dedicated to giving people a rockin' body in forty five minutes. That is the first thing you see when you land on their website. So that's what that business is is selling, the dream of that fit body. Another business is selling become limitless. Within two classes, I know you'll experience less pain so you can finally do what you want. That is a compelling message. So it's not, Hey, we're a pilates studio that has seven classes a day, and we have reformer pilates and chair pilates and mat pilates. It's, within two classes, I know you'll experience less pain. Wow. So, some other examples: the the best day to start was yesterday, the second best day is today. I love that, that was so fun. My point here in sharing some of these and having you do the blink test is to give you a moment to really think about is that what I want people to land on my page and see and believe and think and feel about my business? And if it's not, great, it's the perfect time to change that. You're gonna have a lot of new eyeballs on your website in the next month or two. Now if you don't know where to start, if you find that words are not your thing, it's challenging for you, figure out who your best client is or one of your best clients. Ask them who's somebody that comes into your business, who who really has experienced the change that you want your clients to experience, who has embraced your community, and ask them if you can take them out for coffee and just listen. Listen to their words, listen to their experience, and let that kind of feed your creative brain on how you'd like to share what you do and why you do it and how people can expect to feel when they come to your business on your website. Okay, step two. So a big part of capturing attention, keeping attention, and keeping today's consumer engaged with you is all about communication. Now communication is harder than ever because people's inboxes are busy, their phones are busy, and they are busy. So that communication must be compelling. And while personalized automation is absolutely critical and hopefully all of you have some sort of automated communication working in your businesses, we'll talk about how you can enhance that, I want to make sure everybody understands that it doesn't mean you can ignore the personal touch. In fact, as a boutique fitness business, clients are expecting a personal touch from you more than ever. They don't expect that from a big box gym, but they do expect it from you, and they're paying a lot more for it. So as we move into really thinking about how to communicate, just know that your clients want to hear from you. I know there is just a general feeling oftentimes that you're scared of bothering your clients. They're coming to your business for a reason. They're giving you their information for a reason. They want to hear from you. So let's start by mapping your client journey out and all of the opportunities for touch points with your clients. Um, if you have a notebook handy, grab your notebook, maybe draw a line, turn your paper sideways, map it out however you'd like, but actually put pen to paper or hands to keyboard and take some of this information out of your brain and put it on paper because it's going to help feed some of the communication strategies that you think about for next year. Okay. First things first. Where do your clients first first hear about you? And, I mean, without thinking too much about it, just jot down top three to five places your clients heard about you. So is it referrals through other clients? Is it on Instagram? Are you spending money on Google Ads? Um, do you have partnerships with your local businesses in your community? Uh, do you have amazing signage in a great location on a street where everybody knows you're there? Just quickly jot it down. Because, again, what we just talked about before, that messaging, that the the words that you're going to put in front of them mean something in all of those places. And then think about, in those top five places, what are the messages that they are hearing from you, that they are seeing? Is it just $25 first month of yoga, or is it in two classes, I know you will feel less pain? Think about the difference in that messaging and when your clients are first hearing about you, seeing you, experiencing a visual of your logo and what you do, what they're seeing, and the message you're you're actually putting out there. Okay. Second, touch point. So what happens when a prospect, a consumer, a contact first gives you their information? So that's step two on this journey, and I encourage you to think about maybe you haven't, um, maybe you haven't given a lot of time and attention recently to your new client journey, it's a great time to think about it. Go through it yourself. Have a friend or family member go through the new client experience themselves. What happens when they fill out a lead form on your website or um, scan a QR code outside your business and give you their information? What's what's the first thing they hear? How do they hear it? And what are you saying? Something I'd like do here, and we'll go through the the specific automation shortly, is not just rely on an automated welcome email from your software. I went through at one point an exercise a couple years ago, a few years ago actually, it was probably towards the end of COVID, where I went into my Gmail inbox, and granted I go to a lot of boutique fitness businesses, and I searched up we miss you. And over the however many years I had that Gmail, I had pages of the same exact email from Mindbody or Mariana Tech or whatever software platform, this was before I started Wuala, I had gone to those those studios. Verbatim, same email, and then I typed in welcome to. And of course there are other things, but I had the same email from all of those different studios. So if you're just relying on an automation from your software that you've never looked at the copy, you've never changed it, you've never done anything maybe other than adding a link to your website in there, it's probably time to do that. Okay. Next, how obviously your next step in the journey is you're hoping that person comes into your business. So when they purchase some sort of a new student special, an intro offer, a free class, even a drop in. What happens then? Do you say, okay great, we won, they came in, this is awesome, I did my job, or do you continue to nurture them and say, hey, like it's it's scary to be new, or it's a lot to learn what we're doing here in these classes, here's a little bit more information. So as you're jotting down notes and kind of thinking about it, you may be sitting there like, oh my gosh, I don't even know a marketing company built this for me, or I did this five years ago, I don't remember. Awesome, that's your action item. Every step of this process is a reminder to go back and check what you've got going on right now. Okay, so if they have a new student special of some sort, let's say it's a free class or a week or a month or whatever it is that you're offering someone to test out what you have going at your studio, what happens if they don't buy anything? Are they just gone? Did they slip away in a well? Do you have one automated win back email from your software saying, hey buy something now or we miss you? Or do you have an actual strategy around, hey what happened? You know, do you know how many times they came to class? Do you know what classes they went to? And do you have someone or a process for finding out what it was that didn't work for them? Because it's expensive to get somebody in the door and it's a lot of time and energy to make sure that everything you did on the front end to catch their eyes, to get them to, you know, step out their door, plan their day, and walk into your studio, that's that's a lot of energy from you and from them. Why didn't they buy anything else? Okay, and then what do you want them to buy next? So if you're a business that does have some sort of a new student special or an intro offer, are you shoving everybody into the same offer next, or do you actually think about what's best for the customer? Are you looking at, you know, is this somebody who came once or is this somebody who came 10 times or somewhere in the middle? Are you looking at the classes that they went to? How are you deciding what you're going to sell them, and are you making it easy for them to buy? So, again, jot down if this is something that you need to review, um, where you're going to go look, who's going to be in charge of it, and and just consider as I'm asking these questions, okay, is this an opportunity for an upgrade in our communication process? Alright. After they make a second purchase with your business, so let's say they, you know, made that membership purchase or bought a 10 pack or, you know, an eight times a month recurring plan, what happens then? Again, do they just kind of fall off the face of the earth from a communication standpoint, or are you doing something intentional to make them feel like they are a part of the community and important to you? Alright, and the last one, all of these steps in the process have been leading up to ultimately making this client a referrer or an ambassador or a champion of your business and inviting more people in. So as you think about this this kind of client journey that you have been communicating with them along and asking yourselves these questions, what can you do along the way so this person is shouting from the rooftops about you by the time they've been a member for a few months, that they are grabbing people and saying, come to class with me. I've got guest passes. I'd love to have you experience this. So a lot of this is food for thought as we move into the next step of automations and a lot of questions for you. If this feels super overwhelming because it's a ton of information, then just pick one. Pick one that you're going to really level up from a communication standpoint in the next year, and maybe once a month just look at one of the next steps in the client journey. Alright. So the next step after you've reviewed your client journey and really mapped it out so you understand where you have opportunities to touch base with your clients. Let's plan the new communication and figure out how to measure the success. So those of you that are on Wuala, I know we have a lot of people who are Wuala clients on here, but we also have some non Wuala clients joining the webinar. So the way we do this in Walla is we have journeys. So these are automated communication points or ways to move people along in your lead tracker or your, um, pipeline. So it's not just about one email or one text. There's a reason we actually named this journeys in Walla because we don't want you creating just one communication point. There's a good chance that only 20 or 30% of people are opening that communication touch point if it's an email. Texts, yes. They will get seen, but will they take action? No. This is a journey. This is in it for the long term, and that means that every touch point can't be constantly selling something to the clients. It has to be an authentic relationship, and authentic relationships are not a one way push of product. So think about that as you're curating your content that you want to send, the messages that you want to send, this is not always selling. Okay. So what we see a lot of success with our clients in Walla and just over the years working in the industry, working with lots and lots of expert consultants, is that there are five primary journeys that really should be stable, especially as we look at where we are in the industry. Um, alright, the first is our lead nurture. So we know this is a major point on that client journey, it's when somebody's given you their information. And your job at this point with your communication is to get them in the door by decreasing intimidation and proving ease. So how can you prove to them that you can make it easy to step through your doors and experience your product? So I encourage you, I implore you, please use text for this. Email is going to get lost. Maybe they'll open it, maybe they won't, but your success rate is going to be significantly higher with text. And if you can get them on the phone, even better. Offer to do it for them, offer to book them in, say hey I can give you a quick call right now, I'll get you set up with our new student special, and you can take care of it for them. Anytime you can take work off a prospect's plate it's going to be fantastic. They I promise you, I listen to clients talk about how shocked they were that people take them up on this, but they do. And also make sure through any kind of automations you're sending that you've actually captured the right audience. So I can't tell you how many times I put my information into a system or a studio and I buy the intro offer, and then I get a phone call from the studio saying, hey, you know, we'd love to talk to you about our new student specials, or I get an automated text telling me what the deals are right now, And I'm like, guys, I just bought something. You don't have to push products on me right now. So please make sure as you're designing automations, whether it's in Walla or another system, that you eliminate the people from those automations who have already booked a class, purchased a plan or a drop in, or have taken class. Because the second you kind of falter on that automated communication, they start to lose trust and they start to lose interest in opening your emails and actually caring about what you say. Alright, the next journey is our intro offer sequence. So if you do again have some sort of new student special or if you're a direct to membership studio, the first month of membership. So this is really all about preparing them for the journey into membership, and education is so critical here. This is where you have an opportunity to sell the why behind your programming, and one of the really cool things in Wuala is that you can segment this by personality type of your clients. So if you're using our skill power quiz, this is really where you can leverage those different personality types. Thinkers want to know the details of why this is going to change them from where they are now to where they want to be. They want to know the nitty gritty. Mavericks don't care, and you can probably skip half the emails that you're going to be sending in this intro offer sequence. Doers want you to give them a goal, they want you to educate them on why and tell them if you take 10 classes during this new student special period you're going to see xyz happen in your body or in your mind or in your life. And givers just want to feel like they're part of something, so make sure that you're educating your clients in a way that is both helpful and compelling. Alright, automation for ghost clients, so people who purchase the intro offer but never come in. Really important group of people. There are tons of them at boutique fitness businesses. Lots of people have great intent and don't get to follow through. So this is going to be a really important audience to track, it's a great audience to both have automations going for, and then also having manual touch points. So if you're using Wuala, you can have a pipeline group for people that purchased a new student special and have zero visits. Really, really good group to track. Automations, communication for high users, the people that are on it, they're taking class, they're coming in and doing exactly what you want them to do. This is the group where it's okay to say hey you're crushing it right now, do you want to jump on the membership we've got going? Okay, yeah, you can definitely definitely capture these people early and don't be shy about it. There are plenty of people that are going to buy into your next step early because they love what you're doing. Okay. And then automations for low users. You don't want to push an expensive unlimited membership to someone who's come in once or twice. How about offering them a lower cost, kind of dip your toe in option, like a four times a month or a five pack at the business? And just know that with automations, in wallet at least, you don't have to sell things that you're offering to everybody online. You can always use direct links to specific plans for that group. Right? So maybe I want to create a very specific type of package or membership for people who took two classes or less during their intro offer. Maybe I want to give them an extra week. Maybe I want to give them a month for a very discounted rate. Maybe I want to sell them another quote intro offer. But again, you can decide if you segment those people in a way that makes sense for what their experience is. Alright, the next journey that's really important and where I see lots of people just kind of give up on automations is new member engagement. We know that most of your clients are not going to stay with most of the people who buy a membership are not going to be in that membership a year later. So our goal with this new member engagement is to increase the number of people that stick with it, and the best part about this is you don't have to be selling them anything anymore. You're not asking them to make more purchases, they've already committed to it. Your job now is to give them high fives when they're taking a bunch of classes, those high users. Remind them, encourage them to come in for classes if they're low visit history, And then continue to educate them to share testimonials, to leverage the the habit coach emails that you can create within Walla based on personality type. But more than anything, make it engaging and fun. Let it be really, really on brand. Maybe you're a very mission driven company and a big part of what you do is partnering with nonprofits or hosting events to raise money. Share that. Maybe you are a fun, lighthearted, edgy brand. Share memes with them, whatever it is to get them engaged and opening your communication on a regular basis. But don't forget that those people are the bread and butter of your business, and oftentimes they just get kind of left in the dust once they purchase that membership. So another journey that is obviously critical but I think very misunderstood is your win back journey. So people have thirty day check ins, sixty day check ins, ninety day check ins, those are all lovely, but you actually have a very short window of time to get somebody to make another purchase if they didn't if they cancelled their membership, maybe they really just needed a lower tier package, or their 10 pack ran out. You don't have thirty days most of the time to have your brand top of mind for them. You might have a week, you maybe have two weeks, but please reach out to those people quickly. And the other thing is, in all likelihood, they don't want the same thing they just bought, otherwise they would have done it already. So it might be a conversation that's needed, it might be an automation that says hey, book a quick call with us to chat about what's best for you at our studio since it seems like this might not have worked. Don't be scared to talk to your clients and hear feedback. It's really important. We learn from what might be seen as mistakes. Alright, lastly, milestones. Do you have significant milestones in your business? Maybe it doesn't have to be 100 classes or 50 classes. Is it that your promise, like the studio I showed before, is after two classes you'll feel less pain? Maybe that's the milestone that's really important. Is it a certain number of a type of class at your business? Maybe you want to create an automation that says, okay, after you've taken x number of meditation classes or strength classes, This is what we expect and want our clients to feel, so we're gonna send a message at that point to check-in and make sure that's what the experience actually is. So if you make any promises on the early side, right, like that limit feel limitless after two classes, or I often see one studio I went to had a a very specific, like, after three classes you'll feel x, after five classes you'll feel y, after 15 classes you will see and feel see a completely different body and feel like a different person. So this is a reminder to you of if you are making any promises on the front end to your prospects, to people who are coming in as leads, follow-up on those promises and make sure they're experiencing what you told them they would because that's really valuable information. Okay, I'm going to pause here just quickly because I know this is a lot to dump on you, um, and I really just want to get a quick show of hands. Um, how many of you right now have I'm gonna type it up actually. How many have all of these automations running? Me or no. So I'll publish that poll. And for those of you that don't have all of these automations or a version of all of these automations running, just start to think for yourself what it would take to to start chipping away at it. What what is it gonna take for your business to get a set of emails, a set of texts, communication touch points dialed in in 2025? It may be that you need to hire somebody. It may be that you just need an afternoon because you can knock this out. This is totally your wheelhouse. But really consider and put it on your list as, okay, this is a must do this year. We need this communication happening. We need operations around it, whether it be automated, whether it be part automated, part manual, or alt manual. This is something that is going to move the needle on your business. Okay, about half and half, kind of what I expected, um, but let this be inspiration. There are 50 of you sitting in this webinar live right now, for those of you watching on record, 50 people live and half and half have this done, so all of you are running businesses with a lot on your plates right now. It's not that the people that have this done have figured it out and mastered business, it's just that they prioritize these things, and there are all different types of priorities in business. So this is your opportunity to think about making this a priority. Okay, um, let's move into the next step. So obviously communication and automations are a big part of the business, but you all have businesses that revolve around people, and the people instructing or guiding your clients through certain wellness activities. And your teams are a critical part of success, not just in the next year but every year. And I've put some thoughts together about what I suggest and what we see as winning teams for the new year. And really it's broken down into three critical roles. So we've got a few different sections of boutique fitness businesses, and sometimes you might be lucky to have that magical person that has a brain that can do both sales and finance ops, or both programming and sales, that's fantastic. But my encouragement is to have someone who is responsible for each one of these buckets, and not just responsible for, but setting goals and reporting on those goals within each one of these buckets. And I thought it would be helpful. You guys don't have to worry about taking screenshots or, um, you know, feverishly writing all of this down. I've actually documented reports for setting goals and measuring under each one of these buckets, but I'll be sending this, uh, deck out to everybody after the event. So under sales and leads, so whoever is going to be responsible for, um, hitting sales goals, reaching out to leads, making sure that you're selling your intro offers and that those intro offers are converting to memberships or another purchase, these are the reports in Walla that are gonna be most critical. And for those of you that aren't using Wuala, our reports I'll actually pop into, um, Wuala to show you a couple of the reports that are going to be really helpful in in measuring these things. So if we pop into our report center for the sales and leads, for example, um, you can see here right in the in the report center I had one lead that made their first purchase. But if we wanted to look at things like our intro offers converted, um, I'll go back just for a few months so I've got some data in this report. But I'm looking at all my locations right now, and I'm gonna compare the two new student specials that I have going. So you can see here my one month for 39 is much more popular. I have a ton of people who have converted. I can see how many were sold during this period, how many are still active, and then I get the breakdown of conversion rates and revenue. So my two weeks for 30 was a total failure. I sold one of them, and for whatever reason, their purchase was zero dollars, so maybe they got a free something afterwards. But my one month for 39 was really successful. I had a 41.86 conversion rate here, and I can see the breakdown of what each, you know, grouping of people converted to and my new monthly recurring revenue goal. So this is a great report to set some goals for your team. Maybe it's hey we want to have a 40% conversion rate from our new student special and the goal each month is to add an extra five ks or seven ks or 10 ks in monthly recurring revenue. Because we know we lose x number of clients every month, we wanna have a net positive. So, again, that's a great way to use our reporting to help measure the success of somebody who's in a sales and lead role. Okay, um, I'm gonna go quickly into the q and a so I make sure okay. Next, we've got a whole list of reports that are going to be helpful for your finance and ops team. So here we have obviously sales, this is going to be important, but also looking at the KPIs report in Wallace so you can see your churn because this is really critical for setting those sales and leads goals like I mentioned before. Understanding your your churn and if you've got multiple locations, your churn at each location compared to each other so that you know what your baseline is every month for getting to net positive. Cancellations, super important from an ops perspective. What's not working in the business? So I'll take you into our cancellations report. This is one that we released sort of recently, so some of you guys might not be in the, um, in the kind of headspace or process of using it on a regular basis. But if we go into our plan cancellations report, and I'm looking at all of my locations, we've broken down this report into fixable reasons versus not fixable reasons. So I can see from October to February, um, because we've got upcoming cancellations in here as well, I've got eight cancellations, 12 total, eight that were fixable. So four were financial reasons. I don't know about you, but for, you know, my boutique fitness business, I would not want people to leave for financial reasons. I would help them out until they're in a better place. Totally depends on how you run your business, but that's an option. Um, somebody had a bad experience, I want to make sure I understand why class times don't work for my schedule. But really here, the the goal is to understand if you start seeing on a regular basis that a lot of our cancellations are because class times don't work for my schedule, we know we've got some work to do on the schedule, or financial reasons. Do we need to create another pricing tier that's gonna help people who are struggling to, you know, pay for our monthly unlimited membership? Or are these cancellations things that we just can't do anything about? Can't do anything about someone moving? So the goal of these reports is not just to dump a bunch of data on you, but to actually give you opportunities for action in the business. And again, setting goals and measuring these things is going to be really important for your team and for them to feel successful. Okay, so a couple other things here: monthly recurring revenue, teacher performance, um, again you can look through these reports once you receive the deck. But the last group is your head of programming, and I often find that because many people who start their fitness businesses are experts in programming, they kind of assume this role for a while. Ultimately my hope is that your business gets to a point where you can step out and be the CEO and you can have someone as your head of programming, but we do have really critical reports in WALLA that are going to help them understand what classes are most popular, um, utilization rates, are there specific classes that are just struggling to get as full as you'd like them to. But most importantly, your teacher ranking. Your top performing teachers, maybe who's asking for subs all the time versus who's showing up to teach, and who's actually making the business money. So again, we can pop in and look at a couple of these reports so you can see, or one of these reports so you can see how this is working out, and teacher ranking is one I know a lot of studios love. Um, you can see your teachers compared to each other, so you know who's exceeding the average from an, you know, average clients or fill rate perspective. Those that are reliable actually showing up or are people getting subs all the time. And then things like retention, profitability, who are the teachers that are making you money versus losing you money. So these are things that you can look at and set goals around on a regular basis, and your head of programming can be in charge of helping the teachers that are struggling. I I like to say that reports and and things like this are not there just to to punish, and I think a lot of people, especially in this industry, struggle with, like, oh gosh, I don't want to make people feel bad if they can't fill their classes. It's about educating and helping those teachers get better at their craft. Okay, um, okay, I am going to pop into the post reports section, just we're getting close to the end of the webinar now. Sorry. Switching screens. Alright. So as you're moving through these these steps for next year, looking at the communication that happens through, um, your messaging on your website and your advertising, uh, really starting to hone in on how you communicate and message in a compelling way that's both automated and manual so your clients feel a personalized experience throughout that whole client journey, and that you've got the right people doing the job, right, the right team members who have goals and feel empowered by the data that they're getting so that they know when they're successful, and you know when you can work with them on education and growth within their role. But I want to encourage you to use and leverage the tools that you have, so whether it's the lead tracker in Wuala and really leveraging a pipeline so you've got visibility into everything that's happening on the early stages of contacts entering your system. Or building audiences. Again, I really really encourage you guys to check out audiences, use them on a regular basis. In fact let me quickly share since this is something that I just I love so much in Walla, um, if you haven't put your audiences on your dashboard and done that for each staff member this is a great way. It's like think about one thing you can take from this webinar, have every single one of your teachers have audiences on their dashboard that bring up a critical population for them. So maybe people that have their first class with them tomorrow, they can send them an email or a text, People that have been to their class maybe 10 times in the past but haven't been in the last month, that's a great time for a teacher to reach out. Or if it's a salesperson it could be new leads that came in today, or people on their intro offer that are active. Maybe your ops person wants to see your at risk members, so clients who have not taken a class in the last three months that have an active membership. You can customize and build these to be anything you want, but the point is having it front and center for your client, I'm sorry, for your staff members is going to empower them to take action on a regular basis. So you have a ton of tools at your disposal. If you feel like this is something that is overwhelming to you in your software, just pick one. Send out app announcements this month, make sure you schedule out some app announcements talking about exciting things happening in the business or maybe even your business mission and values. Have you ever communicated that to your clients? Reach out anytime to support if you need help with how to use these tools, but more than anything just start somewhere. That's the goal. This is your year, 2025 is going to be a really exciting year in business. We see AI coming into play, whether it be using it in your chat in Walla, or I'm sorry in your communication in Walla, or leveraging ChatGPT to make decisions in your business. There are so many exciting things happening in the world of technology and as you all know we are very big about listening to our clients and at the same time being innovative. So we've got some big, big things ready for 2025. One thing that we want to support you guys with, especially those of you that said, you know what? I don't have those five major journeys built out, and that's gonna be a goal for me next year. Um, we are releasing Walla Marketing done for you. So if any of you guys are interested in having our team of marketing automation specialists build out your sequences for you. Um, we're offering this starting now through the month of January where, you know, normally, we are gonna be charging $500 a month for, uh, essentially, a person dedicated to your marketing suite, but we're offering this now for a discounted rate, and you are welcome to sign up, um, or just ask questions. You can email sales@hellowalla.com to get started. But more than anything, if you don't have a communication plan set and you really just want to start somewhere, we encourage you to start with that client journey and pick a few places on that client journey that you know you want to just kind of up level your communication. Oh my gosh, my dog is dreaming behind me right now, you guys. Um, she is barking. Alright, this is something that I personally love and I thought it would be a nice way to kind of tie a bow on this big planning webinar that we had today, and that is to think about this in terms of one degree shifts. This, again, you'll be getting this deck but this link is clickable and it's a set of ways you can think about taking small shifts in your business to allow yourself to be delightfully challenged rather than overwhelmed and paralyzed. And I think all of us sitting in this virtual room today enjoy challenges. We're entrepreneurs, we're people that have taken on a seemingly impossible task to most of the general population. We've started a business and we're growing a business. So challenges are fun, challenges can be delightful, but what ends up happening to many of us is that we just get bogged down and overwhelmed, and then we don't do anything. That's our nervous systems, our stress, cortisol levels saying, hey I need to freeze right now, there's too much going on. So come back to this webinar, come back to this deck, and think about the one degree shift you want to start with. And if starting with something needs support, you can always reach out to us. Maybe it's reaching out to a friend or somebody that you've seen comment in the wall of Facebook group on a regular basis and just say, hey I need kind of an accountability accountability buddy, um accountability buddy, uh, in 2025. And it would be really nice to just say, hey, you know, once a month or once a week we ask each other how we've done in our our goals. But you can always book here if those of you on this call who are not using Walla right now would like to get a deeper dive into the software. But we are so grateful for all of you, and hopefully this has been a helpful and inspiring hour of your life. Um, I'll pause and take some questions at the end here because I know there were a few things going on while I was talking. So, um, I'll pop in here. April, will the team write copy or just enter automations? So we'll have an option in there for sample copywriting, um, it depends on the volume of how many automations you have, but for the 15 that are included in that we can include sample copywriting, yes. Jacqueline, can you create your own personalities? No, the personality types are actually designed by a a group of behavioral psychologists that are at MIT, Stanford, Penn State. This is a very, very well researched topic. Um, so that's something that are they're they're not flexible. The quiz was designed specifically by those researchers. Uh, and, guys, exciting news. We're actually about to publish some data now that we've had a couple years worth of data from studios using our personality types, and we have some very interesting insights on how different personality types engage with boutique fitness and retention rates and things like that, so very exciting. Uh, any other questions? Make lists and tag instructors. So making lists, that's what audiences are in Walla, and if you need help creating an audience you can certainly write into support and see if there is a way to create the audience that you're hoping to make. Um, and resources and education for GLP ones. So NASM, n a s m, I'm forgetting exactly what that stands for, but something something association or something association of sports medicine, National Association of Sports Medicine, I believe, um, has some amazing resources on this. And somebody asked what GLP ones are. They are essentially the the weight loss drug and it's injectable right now, there are some pills being released, but this is an unbelievably effective tool for weight loss and the data is starting to show in a very compelling way that there is way that there is muscle loss associated with it. So it is more important than ever that people who are using GLP ones also come exercise, build strength, workout. Um, but you are going to see, I mean, dramatic changes in a lot of physical bodies because of GLP ones, and it's a very popular topic right now in the fitness industry. Um, yes, the Marketing Suite course is live. Um, if you filled out our Marketing Suite survey, you received it already. If you would like a copy of the marketing suite course, um, please just send a quick note into hello@hellowalla.com, and we will send it to you. So we do have a full detailed dive into our marketing suite, audiences, journeys, automations, in very bite sized pieces, the lead tracker, how to use pipelines and lead management. Um, it's all there. We have it it's free for you guys. Please just reach out if you'd like a copy of it or if you didn't get that yet. Okay. Uh, I need to review and update my automations. Currently, we don't have support on an hourly basis for this, but, Megan, if if you need a review on it, yeah, reach reach out to support and we can work out something for you if you wanna just, you know, essentially hire a marketing expert or if depending on what you need. So please reach out to support about that. Um, but, yeah, for those of you that are interested in having kind of a done for you approach to your automations monthly and making changes, making updates, this program that we're launching Marketing Done for you is going to be tremendously helpful because it's just going to make sure it's a priority. I know before I said it's easy to prioritize other things, this is forcing the prioritization. So okay, I think that's all for questions and we are about to hit time. So thank you all so much for joining us today. It was lovely to have you all your questions and we are happy to support you in any way we can. Uh enjoy your holidays, happy new year, and we'll see you in 2025.

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