Laura Munkholm:
Alright. Good morning, everyone. Gosh. I did that right on

Eric Tepper:
the Stephanie.

Laura Munkholm:
It hit 10AM. I like it. Yeah. Yes. Uh, thank you so much for joining us for our Walla webinar series. Uh, those of you that are joining us for the first time, this is our monthly webinar series where we dive into all types of topics around studio, uh, business operations, how to use Walla more effectively, and generally how we can help you all make better business decisions, move your business forward, and do it with a little more ease. And today, we are talking about optimizing your lead management and really sales. When we get down to it, we're talking about sales. So, of course, naturally, I brought in Eric Tepper, who is one of our favorites. He's worked with so many businesses in this industry, some of the biggest businesses from, you know, the giant franchises to individual studios helping design sales processes and nurturing leads through kind of that thought process of, hey. I'm interested, and then getting them to actually dive in by the intro offer, by the membership, and start enjoying your services. So Eric is gonna be chatting through some of his strategies today, and I'll be popping in and out of Wuala to help you guys get a visual on how you can practically apply this day to day. Um, before I turn it over to Eric, just quickly, I wanted to give you guys a heads up. If, uh, you haven't used SQL before, it's it's or this platform we have on our website. There is a chat functionality. Please pop in now, say hello, where you're from, um, what kind of studio you have, or the name of your business. But if you do have questions during our session, there is a q and a button, and I would highly encourage you to use that. That's where I'll be looking throughout the presentation, um, and it helps me track whether we've answered things or not. I can mark it as read, and other people can actually vote. So if you have the same question as someone else, you can just vote it up and say, yeah. Me too. I was curious about that. So hopefully that keeps us all streamlined, and we can dive in. Eric, I will turn it over to you. Please introduce yourself, and let's get rolling.

Eric Tepper:
Thank you, Laura. Thank you so much for that introduction. And it is always a pleasure to to be on a webinar with you and Walla. Um, you know, Walla, I've been, you know, working with and use your products. So, um, my name is Eric Tepper as Laura said. I have been in the wellness industry for almost thirty years now, It's crazy. We used to use pen and paper. And, uh, I I launched my own company selling wellness about four years ago. I've worked with, um, over 30 brands and over 250 locations across the country in London and in Australia. Um, and a lot of my clients use Walla because it's a a fantastic product. And I also run a company that, uh, uses Walla called Redlight Method, which is an emerging franchise. And, um, I have a presentation, so I'm gonna share my screen. And here we go. Okay. So I imagine that most of you right now in the wellness business, you're thinking about the new year and you're thinking how do I grow my business? And for some of you, sales is a dirty word, right? It's like how do I create sales without selling my soul? Because none of us went into this business to to be great salespeople. Um, in fact, I would say, you know, for most of us, we went into this business because we love people and we love our modality. And we just wanted to share it with people. Right? And now you might find yourself at a place where, okay, I'm losing a little bit or I'm breaking even or I'm making a little bit, but what comes next? How do I take it to the next level? So today, we're gonna look at sales and kind of the science behind it and how to be effective, but we're also gonna look at how do we leverage the tools we have. And when I say tools, I mean the conversations that need to happen with someone who's interested in your, uh, your services and tools like Walla because it really is about creating an experience with somebody. And it's all about information, conversations, and timing. So, you know, I think all of us, we just wanna grow our communities. That's it. And when you have more members, naturally, you have more revenue. And when you have more revenue, let's face it, your business is more fun. Because, you know, you you might wanna have that member party and it's gonna cost you a thousand dollars. And if you're losing money, you go through the whole mental gymnastics of, well, can I spend the money? It's literally coming out of my pocket. But when your revenue is flowing, you can make those decisions and you don't really think twice about it. You can come from a a place of, um, abundance, right, which is a lot more comfortable. And when your community is growing, it really becomes not just a win win scenario, it's what I like to refer to as a triple win, a win win win, which is our members are winning because they're getting the results, they're enjoying coming to your services and they love interacting with their community. Our teams win because let's face it, our instructors love playing to a full house, right? And your teams that are, uh, on the hospitality side, they love interacting people with people. They don't wanna be in a quiet studio, and we win because our studio is successful. So why sales is important? Why having a really well structured sales program is important? Um, if you don't have a well structured sales program, you're still gonna sign people up. People are are gonna sign up for your studio. There's a natural rule called the twenty sixty twenty rule. And it says that 20 peep 20% of the people are gonna sign up no matter what. You can tell them you shouldn't sign up here, it's awful and they're still gonna sign up and try it. And then there's 20% of the people who are never going to sign up no matter what. Then there's the 60% in the middle that are open to persuasion. So this group on the left, these people know of your your studio. They know somebody who goes to your studio, but they're not your clients. So they're not benefiting from your services, they're not part of your community, and you're not collecting any revenue. Without having a good process, 20%, maybe 30 will sign up. When you have a great process, you can raise that to 45, 50, even 60%. I have a client in Miami who closes between 8090% of the people he interacts with. It's it's crazy, but it's a very hands on process.

Laura Munkholm:
Right.

Eric Tepper:
And while that might not seem like a big swing, you know, we're talking about more than 10 people in that community. There's thousands of people that surround your studio that would be interested in what you have to offer. Now, I wanna be really clear about something. When we talk about a sales process, we're not talking about being great at sales or having a better offer. That's that's not what it's about. What we're talking about is really a natural extension of your love for people and of your services and making it easy for people to get what they want by saying yes. Because every single person that inquires about your studio, they want something. There's something that's important to them and it's our job to tease that out and figure that out so we can see if we're even a good fit. It's like dating, you know, you really wanna know is this person the right fit for me or not. Um, and I know that no one on this webinar, your marketing strategy does not involve driving around in a van, lassoing people and forcing them to come and take classes with you. So everybody truly wants something, they opted in. And, you know, the analogy I like to use is is like if if I went to a really great restaurant over the weekend and I saw Laura on Monday at work and and she said, how was your weekend? And I said, oh my god, I went and had the most amazing sushi. You have to try it. She's gonna be like, oh, okay. I'm gonna try it. That's selling and it's not trying to get anything out of it. It's a sharing experience. So, um, in order to build this effectively, we wanna talk about what the science is, and this is all gonna fit into how you use Walla or any system that you're using and how do you, uh, construct these conversations. So there actually is a science behind sales. And all you have to do is think about any impulse buys you've made. Laura, do do you ever make impulse buys?

Laura Munkholm:
Um, yes. Oh, nice. Yeah. Yeah.

Eric Tepper:
Me too. And for for all of you listening, you have whatever your, you know, guilty pleasure is that you repeatedly have impulse buys. But there's a moment when something goes from, oh, this is cute or this is interesting to I gotta have it. Yeah. And I was working with a group yesterday and one of the managers shared she was standing in a house and this she was looking for a house and this was an empty house and she's standing in the kitchen and in that moment, she envisioned Thanksgiving dinner with her family that she hasn't even created yet. And it was like she was teleported to that. What happens is little hits of dopamine start going off in the brain and we feel good. So when we connect people with what they want and they start to see, you mean coming to your studio three times a week, I'm gonna get community, I'm gonna get health, I'm gonna feel good. The little hits of dopamine start going off. That's why we call it retail therapy. Now, here's the trick about it. As as humans, we're built on this pain and and pleasure thing where we run towards pleasure but we run away from pain. So that's why our sales process can't be icky. Because if it's icky, it immediately causes pain and we resist. But if we create this pleasurable experience, they naturally wanna say yes to us. Yeah. So besides connecting people with their goals, there's also the experience of the process. And the experience that creates pleasure is when people are seen and heard and known, they're the center of attention. They're the guest of honor and they're being taken care of. That creates a lot of pleasure. So what's most important in a sales process is we wanna tease out what's important to someone, why is it important to them, which is even more impactful and why not. And once we capture that information, we wanna create, um, we can then build a bridge of here's where you are today, here's how to get where you wanna be and that bridge is coming to our studio. And we wanna be really specific because this is not about us and how great our services are. This is about talking about what they want, what's important to them, and how our services help them get there. Um, there's a great marketing book out there called StoryBrand. I don't have you read it, Laura? Yeah. Yeah. They are the heroes. We're just the the knowledgeable wise sidekick or or guru who helps them in their journey and that's what we wanna create in our sales process. Now here's where it really gets great in in leveraging your tools. And we're gonna go in a minute into specific aspects of the the sales process. I highlighted a few steps. But in order to create a seamless experience, like, I don't know if any of you, like, Laura, have you ever had the experience you go to a place and you say, here's what I need. And they say, well, let me introduce you to so and so. And then so and so says, how can I help you? And you have to repeat everything over again. And they say, oh, that's not my department. Let me introduce you to so and so. And then they say, how can I help you? And by the end, you're frustrated. So we we we don't wanna do that. We wanna take and we wanna build on it and forward the information so that every person they interact with in the sales process, in their journey is taking what they already what we already know and building on it and forwarding it. So, um, here is the where we're gonna focus today. And, Laura, do you wanna share, um, what this looks like in in Walla? And so the the key points we're gonna focus on say and there's lots of steps we could and and we're not gonna be able to go in a lot of depth in one hour. But we're gonna look at the first interaction, which is when a lead comes in. Right? So they just have raised their digital hand. They've said I'm interested. Then to when they come in, but before they go into that first class, the interaction between you and the instructor or if you are the instructor and how that works going into the class and exiting the class, and then the invitation for them to become part of the community.

Laura Munkholm:
Yep. Okay. Perfect. Well, let me let me share my screen, and I'll take you guys into Walla so you can see exactly what we're talking about in this context. So in Walla, if we go into the sales tab, you'll see lead tracker. And some of you may not have designed your lead stages yet, so you can, you know, maybe right away after this webinar or even as we're going, you can look at your lead stages and add ones that either correlate with what we're talking about or your specific sales process. Um, but here, I'm gonna show the pipeline view, not the table view. The table view sometimes is better for acting, um, or or a team to look at. But this is going to be kind of the visual that we're talking about. So the new lead coming in, like he mentioned, these are a little bit more like the manual touch points. But here's the first visit booked. So I'm imagining that's what you're talking about with your second tab before that first interaction. Um, this is our first class completed, and they've got their intro offer active. And then I'll let you go into it from here. But I I do wanna highlight, guys, the the people that are automatically added into this new lead column here are the folks who, uh, have come in via a lead form, one of our WALA lead forms that you might have on your website, um, on landing pages. Anybody who comes in through Meta ads. Like, if you have any kind of lead capture advertising going on in Facebook or Instagram, um, that you've set up in the marketing suite, your third party connect. So you've got Google and Meta connected to Wuala. And then, um, lastly, it's Google leads. So the other piece that you have to build manually, and we've got a great video on this in the knowledge base and the marketing suite training, is essentially anybody who comes in any other way. So they created a profile online, but they never did anything. Right? Like, those are people who maybe said, hey. I started the process. They were in line at drop off for their kids, and then they got distracted and never finished and booked their class. Or somebody who came into the studio, talked to your front desk, got a profile set up, but still hasn't booked, still hasn't bought anything, still hasn't come in. So you do have to create in your, uh, essentially, a journey, um, to automate a lead stage to be added to those folks. So we can talk about that separately outside of this webinar, but that that's the visual here.

Eric Tepper:
Yeah. And and one thing I and let's stay on your screen, Laura, because my my visual is not as important. Okay. One thing I love about the the lead, the sales pipeline, the lead tracker, if you call it, is it's customizable. So, you know, when you figure out in your studio what is my process, what are the the key steps on where I need to to say this is where this person is in the journey, this is where this person is, and I need certain actions to happen then. You can customize that so that it matches that and gives you a lot of information about your lead pipeline. So when let's say somebody filled out a meta a meta lead and they said, wow, this is interesting. It flows into wall and it shows up in the new lead. Here's, you know, what what I create with my teams, you've got five minutes. Because if you think about people's lives, if you think about your own life, there is a lot of distraction out there. Whether it's social media or news or your own work or your own family. So the fact that we got somebody's attention with an ad and they said, wow, what is this? Is this for me? You've got their attention for no more than five minutes. It's probably more like two minutes. But so studies actually show, if you reach out within five minutes and it is a phone call, not an automated text because because you can trigger the automated text saying thanks for inquiring, we'll be in touch soon. A personalized phone call within five minutes, even if you don't connect with them, you are 10 times more likely that that person's gonna respond and show up in your studio. Now the other part about that is that if you book them within twenty four to forty eight hours of when they inquire for the first experience, they are more likely to show and they are more likely to sign up and be a part of your community. Because if you think about it in your busy life, if you took five minutes out of your day to have a a person to person conversation and then arranged your schedule to go in that night or the next day, it keeps driving that interest forward. Now, that doesn't happen by itself. The conversation that you have with someone and and it's so funny because so I I work with a lot of brands. I was just virtually shopping a brand that's been existence for, like, twenty years. They're one of the biggest in the industry. And, um, out of 10 studios, eight called me, which was great. I was thrilled that eight called me. And the ones that I spoke with, they said, hey, we got you, you know, we saw you inquired, when do you wanna come in for a free class? And you see how vague that is. Yeah. And if you remember, what is this process about? It's about being seen, about being heard, about me. So, you know, what we wanna know in that first interaction, and and I typically build this with clients so it's customized. What is the person doing for fitness right now? What is it that they are working on? What is their goal? And as soon as you hear that, you can kinda hear an opening where you say, oh my gosh, you are gonna love your experience with us and here's why.

Laura Munkholm:
Right.

Eric Tepper:
Or, you know, we've gotten several clients from that same thing and here's why they love our studio. And then saying, look, don't take my word for it. The best way to experience it is is come in for yourself and experience it and see how it feels. Did I reach you at home or work? Great. You get off at 05:00. I've actually our instructor, Laura, tonight is our most popular instructor. She has two openings in her class tonight. Can I book you into that one or tomorrow morning? Which one works better? Yeah. And then, Laura, what would you do in Walla once you capture that information?

Laura Munkholm:
Yeah. I was just gonna say one of the great things about our kind of we call this section, this panel here, working the lead. Like, this is a great place to to capture your notes, to communicate with your team your other team members. But if you're on the phone with them, you can immediately say, okay. Great. We had a conversation. Maybe you even create a template for your team that's, like, their, you know, current workout, times that work for them, what their goal is, or whatever it might be, and you can put that right into the notes here. And then if there is a follow-up date or a follow-up activity, you can put that there as well. Um, so that way when the next person comes in, those notes will be right down below. The other thing I see a lot of our clients doing specifically if there are, you know, we wanna really focus in on the people who are most interested in stress relief, or we wanna have a very different conversation with people who are, you know, perhaps on their GLP one journey, and they want to bring, you know, bone and muscle strength into their lifestyle because this is a new thing for them. You can create you can add tags here, and you can say, like, listen. I want to categorize all of those people together because I wanna make sure I have specific educational content going out to them later on. So don't be shy about using tags for that. The tag functionality is fantastic for future communication, marketing, education. Um, but this section here, it is manual to fill out, but that's intentional. The the, you know, who is working this lead? Are we targeting is this somebody who just told you they live a half hour away and they come into work two days a week right by your studio? Great. My plan target for them is probably gonna be, like, an eight classes per month, not our highest tier unlimited. So you you know what to communicate, what you're selling to them. And then also if you find out where they came from, this is where you select your referral source here as well. So this section is gold when it comes to internal staff communication, but also having a consistent thread when you're having a conversation either in person, on the phone, text messaging with this prospect.

Eric Tepper:
Yeah. Fantastic. And tagging, can't emphasize how important it is, uh, it it because you can customize the journey based off of the tags, and the tags are based on their interests. So it's like you're customizing speaking to them, which is which is, again, has them be seen, has them be heard. I heard what you said to me. I'm repeating it back to you. That also creates dopamine hits in the brain. So, um, um, one one gap that a lot of studio owners and managers often call out, I'm gonna give you this as like a little tip. Okay? Mhmm. Is, um, well, what do I what happens when they book themselves if it's like a self select And I can't get a hold of them before they show up to the studio. So this was something that I saw in a lot of studios. We added literally one phrase to a voice mail and a text, and we saw, like, a 15% lift in terms of people who actually had conversations. That phrase was, we got your request for this day and time, and I just need two seconds of your time on the phone to finish your profile so that I can get you set up for class. Plea I'm here till 07:00 tonight. Please give me a call.

Laura Munkholm:
So if someone booked their class, they signed up online, they booked a class for tomorrow afternoon, you're still calling them and saying, hey, Eric from selling wellness. We got your request to attend class tomorrow.

Eric Tepper:
Yep.

Laura Munkholm:
Just need two minutes of your time to confirm some profile information? Okay. Yep.

Eric Tepper:
Yep. We're so excited to meet you. We want you to have a great experience. I need one minute of your time on the phone to to finish your profile. If you could give me or my team a call, we're here till 08:00 tonight.

Laura Munkholm:
Wow.

Eric Tepper:
Yeah. Awesome. That triggered, um, a much higher response rate And then the show rate went up to like 80 on people who had booked their first class actually showing up. Now, if you have a paid offer, it's a lot different. But even with a paid offer, I'm gonna say you still want that information because every every opportunity, the more information you have, the more the opportunity to personalize the experience. Now, um, let me, I'm gonna actually, I'm not gonna share because this'll this'll be more in your screen, Laura.

Laura Munkholm:
Okay. I'll go

Eric Tepper:
back to Let's say, you know, somebody is a lead and we haven't got a hold of them. No problem at all. So, um, what we use in the lead tracker is we use the contacted, uh, bucket very rarely. And in that contacted bucket is anyone who we've attempted to reach out to, but we're waiting to hear back. And this is where we leverage the journeys in Walla. So this is where we build out a whole month worth of journeys. And in those journeys, we also plug in where we're manually going to call and send them a text afterwards. Laura, do you wanna you wanna show that?

Laura Munkholm:
Um, so just sharing a journey. Can you guys see my screen right now? Oh, sorry. Now I need to put it on speaker. There we go.

Eric Tepper:
There we go.

Laura Munkholm:
Alright. So if I go into journeys let me just make my screen a little bit bigger for you guys. Um, essentially, what you can do I've created a journey. Let me let me search for it. Uh, everybody who has asked for this, we just added a search functionality in journeys, so it'll be easier if you've got a 100 Journeys. Okay. So I've got a sales pipeline journey started, and I actually have a ghost client. So this is basically either bought the intro offer or, you know, booked a class but then never showed. So I have that automatically moving someone in my, um, you can move them into a lead stage, a ghost client or contacted, like you're saying, lead stage. But you can also start the communication funnel. So this is where you can say, I want to email or email and text this client over time. Um, you can do, you know, they no showed or they purchased but didn't show five days ago, ten days ago, thirty days ago, whatever your cadence would be. That's how you'd build that out.

Eric Tepper:
Yeah. And and I think it's really important to point out, um, journey messages. You don't want them to be generic where the same per where where it's like, I could be receiving this message, but so could anybody on the planet. That that's not impactful. Um, what what's impactful is when it speaks directly to me, and that's also why we recommend that in the automated journeys, you have strategic touch points where you're actually manually picking up the phone and calling them and leaving them a message and then sending a quick little personal text. And and in the text, you could even say, by the way, I'm a real human. I I shop at the Whole Foods on thirty second just like you. Like like, something like that that really personalizes the experience.

Laura Munkholm:
Well and you can also so from the conditions in our marketing suite, you can do things like, obviously, what we were talking about before. I want to connect or I wanna send this specific message to the people who have this specific tag. Right? The cowbunga tag. Um, so you can you can say on lead day three, uh, when they you know, we talked to them. They booked, but they never showed. If we know that they're in this for stress relief and that's the tag we have, they're gonna get a different message than maybe somebody who had weight loss or flexibility or, you know, recovery as their desired outcome. So that's that's one area. And then also if you're using our personality typology, if someone created their profile and they filled it out, we also have personality type in here. So you can again, like, these tools are meant to give you higher levels of personalization in every touch point you have. And I can tell you right now, the studios that have more customized journeys that don't just send the same message to every single person are the ones that see much more engagement, open rates, click rates, and those people coming into the studio.

Eric Tepper:
Yeah. And remember, because I know some of you, as soon as we said open rates and click rates, you went, oh, this is very much about sales. We're talking about engagement, which gives you an opportunity to share the love of your studio. That's it. That's what we're talking about when we talk about engagement. And, um, you know, by the way, we we I did, like, a really, like, a year long look at studios that rely fully on automations versus studios that combine automations with personal touch points. The ones with personal touch points convert typically on average, like, 15 to 20% higher. Wow. Yeah. That's a lot. Yeah. It's it's a huge difference. And, um, your journeys in that in that contacted bucket, I know in a lot of cases, it's, you know, a week, maybe two weeks, and then we consider them in a long term follow-up. Um, we actually find thirty day follow-up process works best. I can't tell you how many times I talk to a studio owner and they say, I didn't wanna pick up the phone on week four, day five as I was queued to do, but I did it because I know that's what you're telling me to do and the person picked up and I almost didn't know what to say because they picked up and I didn't expect them to pick up. So, you know, we tend to think like they're not interested, you just never know what's going on in people's lives. You know, it's a busy world out there.

Laura Munkholm:
Yeah, absolutely.

Eric Tepper:
Yeah, so let me go into the the next step which is, here we go, which is they come into your studio. So, you know, now hopefully we've captured some information and, um, you know, maybe we tagged a team member who we knew was gonna take care of them when they came in the studio, which you can do in Walla. But when they come in, you wanna have a conversation before they go into that first class because the time that lapsed, they're probably not even thinking about here's what's important to me. They're just thinking about, okay. I'm gonna try this thing. So, um, you know, there's a whole conversation, what we call intake, which flushes out and brings to the surface what's important to this person and why is it important? What's the emotion behind it? Here's just a general structure that that I recommend is the easiest way to start is in the present, which is what are they doing currently? If you have that information already in Walla from your phone conversation saying, you know, Laura, I thank you so much for the information you gave us on the phone. Um, I know you're a a Pilates pro. You've been doing it for twenty years, and you were talking about, uh, a lack of, like, progressive strength training. So if it's okay, I just wanna talk a couple more minutes about that to make sure that we're really connecting the your experience today with what's important to you. Is that okay? Yeah. You see how that is like, oh my gosh, they actually listen to me on the phone. Right. How rare that is? That does not happen.

Laura Munkholm:
Okay. I can tell you right now, you guys, after going to I I travel all the time. I go to studios everywhere. The number of times I walk into a studio after booking ahead of time, first of all, almost never has anybody contacted me ahead of time. Every once in a while, I get a pre class text. But most of the time I walk in, and it's either a group of, like, current members all talking, but to the front desktop person or the teacher, and I'm kind of like, hey. How's it going? Or Or it's a front desk staff person staring at a phone or staring at a computer and almost never takes their eyes up to me unless I initiate conversation. So just know the bar is relatively low out there when it comes to what what is actually happening in most businesses. So this is like, holy crap, you're gonna blow their minds. If you actually listen to them on the phone, can reiterate back to them what they actually said was important, and then present a solution. It's it's gonna make a big difference.

Eric Tepper:
This is a four seasons or or Ritz experience.

Laura Munkholm:
Yes. Yes.

Eric Tepper:
Um, so after you talk about present, you know, you wanna dig into what the we then call the past, which is why did they start this routine? How long have they been in this routine? What's missing from this routine? And that's gonna give you a really good picture of why they chose to come into your studio today. Because if Laura goes to Pilates four days a week and she's been doing that for fifteen years, there's gotta be something going on. Like, why the heck would she break that routine? Once you hear the opening, that's when you can say, oh my gosh, Laura. You know, we've gotten so many Pilates people in. They said exactly the same thing that you did and here's what they loved about our classes. Bam. Now we're creating value and she's going, oh my gosh, this this might be exactly what I never knew I always wanted. And then and then once we start talking about that, then it's asking questions about so, you know, with this if this was a good fit, if you enjoyed it and you felt like this helped you with the building muscle that was missing from Pilates, Hint hint, I just repeated back to you what you said. How many days a week would you work this into the routine? And great, how do you think you would feel even in your Pilates if you had more strength? Right? And you're painting the picture of the future. So your intake conversation, these are the key elements. Now the, the next step is how do we then connect this with the instructor and paint the picture? And for me, this is the most important step. Okay? Because if you say great, here's your instructor and they go in and the instructor says, let me set you up on the machine, it becomes again generic. So being able to to say to them, hey, Laura, this is Tammy. Um, she's one of our favorite instructors here. Tammy, Laura's first time, she is a Pilates queen. She's been doing it for twenty years, but she's really looking to get in some progressive strength training because she feels like that's been missing. You you've got it. Tammy has got your back here. She's gonna make sure you have a great class. I'll be waiting here for you when you're done so you can let me know how it went and and I can show you how to book more classes. Okay? Now the instructor, if you had all that like, Laura is is someone who has taught before Yeah. If you had all that information, could you create a custom experience as an instructor?

Laura Munkholm:
Oh my gosh. It's night and day knowing what somebody's done versus not. It's as an instructor, it's always so tricky trying to figure out how to approach a brand new person, especially if you haven't had a ton of time to go communicate with them. So it's great to have somebody help you do that job.

Eric Tepper:
Good. Good. And it also when we repeat something three or four times in the experience, which is this is your goal, here is how we help, by the time you've heard it the third or fourth time, it starts to sink in in your head. K? Because remember, we're building this bridge of how coming here consistently is gonna help you get what you want. Now the, um, um, when they come out of the first experience, k, out of that first class, I mean, more times than not, my guess is all of you who are here in this webinar get great. It was awesome. Let me think about it or I'll book on my own. And then the person's out the door and and maybe they do, maybe they don't. The the the disconnect is they don't see why they need a membership yet because they don't understand you know, most people don't know how their bodies work. They look to us as the expert. You know, that instructor up there, they are like the medical professional. It's like if I go to the doctor and I say, oh, I got a sore throat. And the doctor says, oh, you have strep Eric, take this twice a day for the next six weeks and you'll feel better. Where do I go? I I go and I fill the prescription and I take it twice a week, twice a day, and I feel better. The instructor or if it's not the instructor, the the person who originally interacted having this next conversation will bridge that gap from a great experience today to coming consistently. And, um, here's what it looks like. Laura comes out and I say, Laura, how was your first class today?

Laura Munkholm:
How was your first class, Laura? Oh, sorry. Great. Good. Super fun. Good.

Eric Tepper:
How are you feeling physically? Because I know you you do a lot of Pilates and this was gonna be different for you.

Laura Munkholm:
Um, hard it was hard. I'm exhausted.

Eric Tepper:
Okay. Is it a good exhausted?

Laura Munkholm:
Yes. Good exhausted. Good.

Eric Tepper:
Good. Did you have a favorite part of the class?

Laura Munkholm:
Um, gosh. Just the cooldown was the perfect cooldown for all of the hard work we just did.

Eric Tepper:
Yeah. Yeah. That's everybody loves that part. Um, well, I peeked in and you were killing it. You know? I mean, obviously, you're experienced at taking classes, so you picked up the queuing no problem. You know? I know that you have a really structured routine where you go this is where the information comes in again.

Laura Munkholm:
Mhmm.

Eric Tepper:
You know, where you go four days a week to your Pilates studio based on your goals of of adding some progressive strength training and, um, your experience today, how many days a week do you see this working into the routine?

Laura Munkholm:
One to two.

Eric Tepper:
Oh, that's fantastic. See, that question is what we call a trial close question. That that is literally tells me, okay, Laura's actually committing in her head to coming once or twice a week. Now I can continue to paint that picture and say awesome Laura, we we get people who do Pilates all the time and they put this in once or twice a week as like their heavy lifting day. And, you know, based on what we talked about, the specifics of your goal, you add this in once or twice a week. Your first thirty days, you're gonna be sore just like when you first started Pilates and it's an adjustment period. But by like the second to third month, you're really gonna start to notice those strength gains and then it's just fine tuning and and maintenance at that point. Does that does that sound like a good plan for you?

Laura Munkholm:
Yeah. Great.

Eric Tepper:
Awesome. So I just yeah. You had an moment.

Laura Munkholm:
For you on this because I'm I I definitely I'm actually curious if everybody could just, like, give a thumbs up in the the chat. How many of you have full time front desk staff people, um, versus just a teacher? Because this is this is like the, you know, hopefully a lot of people have the staff to be able to do that. Yep. We've got quite a few thumbs up coming in. Um, yeah, because that's I think the teacher having this conversation or or getting a teacher to have this conversation sometimes can be trickier than the the front desk staff. But it's it's one of those reasons why front desk staff can end up paying for themselves when you find the right people.

Eric Tepper:
Yeah. And and even like, I've worked with studios that don't have front desk staff. If the instructor is really bought into the studio and the studio success and you share this with them that, look, you're just gonna be helping this person get what they want and have a full full full class, um, and you get that buy in. It's a super easy conversation to coach on. Um, but this is what really bridges the gap. So then I I'm not just saying, oh, you should buy our unlimited membership.

Laura Munkholm:
Right.

Eric Tepper:
I'm showing you here's how you get what you just told me you want. And that's not salesy at all. That really is you you've given me the green light or a yellow light or a red light and I can take that. And now I can invite you to to join our community. Now this is this is interesting because, um, I can't tell you how many times I've seen a studio, somebody has a great experience, they have this interaction, and then there's this awkward silence where we both sit there.

Laura Munkholm:
Alright. It

Eric Tepper:
it's like if I said to if I said to Laura, Laura, I'm having the most amazing party at my house this weekend. There's gonna be a DJ and an open bar and fire dancers and a buffet. And and in her head, she's like, I wanna go to this party. Yeah. Well, if I don't say you're invited, will you come? Yeah. Right. If I don't say that, she's left like, okay. You know, I mean, if it's Laura, she would just say, hey. I'm coming. But Yeah. But, you know yeah.

Laura Munkholm:
Exactly. You've gotta say the words. I my favorite thing here that I've experienced is just like, alright. Great. Let's do it. Like, what do you want me to get you booked into the next class? I see here you've got let's get you booked. But I just I love the great. Let's do it. Just kind of excitement factor.

Eric Tepper:
Yeah. Like, awesome. Let me help you get booked in your next class. I just need a couple pieces of information. I may have a card on file I can charge or, you know, what source of payment did you wanna use? That step, while it seems so simple, is skipped over at least 50% of the time.

Laura Munkholm:
Wow.

Eric Tepper:
Yeah. Because, you know, we we don't wanna be pushy. We're worried they might say no. You you you don't get anything. Wait. What's the phrase? You get 0% of what you don't ask for? Yeah. I think that's it. So just extending the invitation to become a part of your community is a huge part of it. Now, um, and I recommend this is just kind of a side note. I recommend you use an a b option when you're presenting. So when Laura said once to twice a week, if I have a four time and an eight time option, I might show her both and just say which one works better for you. Um, giving a an option, it it it feels for the person like they're in control, they have choices versus just saying here's your option. Now it's like, well, if I don't like that, I take nothing. So an AB option, what we call a witch pitch is is really the way to go. So now this is where going back to using leveraging Walla, right? Now let's say Laura did not say yes. Let's say she was on the fence, she had some concerns, let me see how I'm gonna feel tomorrow. We want to somehow close on a next step. And let's say she agreed to, um, you know, let me see how I feel because I do have a a tricky, you know, SI joint. And I said, no problem, Laura. I wanna make sure this feels good for you. Um, is it today is is Friday. How about it would it be okay if I called you on Monday to see how you're feeling and then we can just see where you wanna go from there? Would that work? Yeah. So Laura, how would I set that up effectively?

Laura Munkholm:
Yeah. A great way well, first of all, for many of you, you don't have it's not like a free class. Most businesses on Walla have some sort of, like, a week trial offer that's, you know, a discounted free week or I'm sorry. Not free. A discounted week or a discounted month or an intro three classes. So there's almost always a next step you can close on, which is getting them booked into their nest next session. Because mo the vast majority of people walking in, I mean, we always say shoot for 80% of your folks to buy the intro offer that are walking through your door, um, already have paid for the next step. So the next step is getting them booked, but also that personal check-in. So let me share my screen, and then I can show you in the in the lead tracker. So, essentially, what we can do here in the pipeline is we can say, okay. Great. First visit visit was booked. First class was complete.

Eric Tepper:
I don't think you're sharing, Laura. Oh, I'm

Laura Munkholm:
not sharing my screen.

Eric Tepper:
Yeah.

Laura Munkholm:
I'm sorry. There we go.

Eric Tepper:
There we go.

Laura Munkholm:
Can you see it now? Yeah. Um, I actually have these two stages backwards. First visit, this should be first visit completed, and this should be intro active. So, um, they're they're active in their intro offer. They've come to their first visit. Did I just do that right? Sorry, guys. Oh, well. Well, these two should be swapped. Um, intro, I put it as the intro active. After they've come to their first class, they've completed their first class, you could leave the people there. So after somebody's booked, you can automate it to say their first visit was yesterday or their first visit was two days ago, and then this person will automatically move into first visit completed. And so whoever comes in, whoever's job it is to be managing the lead tracker can see, okay. Great. Today's the day I called John River, or, you know, John River already got his call. So now I'm gonna move him into Intralactive, and this is our time to make sure over the next month or two weeks, whatever your intro offer is, you have another touch point or you have a follow-up date associated with him. So there are a few different ways you can run the tracker based on how long your intro offer is. If it's a week, two weeks, a month, or if it's class based, then you can decide to use the the kind of automated triggers to move people along automatically, or you can use your salesperson, front desk staff person, manager to manually move them. But I do highly, highly encourage you to use you know, we had a conversation at the front desk after that class. Great. He has hip injury, um, and wants to see how it feels tomorrow. Great. That means I should be following up with him tomorrow and make sure that that's assigned to me so I can be the same person checking in on him. But that way, now we can move out of this, and we've got a follow-up date tomorrow for them.

Eric Tepper:
Laura, is there a way I know I'm putting you on the spot. Is there a way to when somebody checks in, um, like, if I'm at the front desk and I didn't know this person was coming in where there is an alert, if I wanted to have like, say, for example, you are coming in tomorrow and you check-in and you're in your one week paid trial where when you checked in, there would be almost like a pop up note that says, like, Laura's on her one week trial. Make sure to ask her this.

Laura Munkholm:
No. But when you're checking people in, it will say what visit they're on, and it will say they're on their trial offer on on this roster. So it'll say, like, visit two, and they're they've got one pass left of their, you know, three pack trial offer. So it's very clear on the front desk check-in.

Eric Tepper:
Yeah. And this would be a great opportunity where, you know, if it's if it's my studio and I know Laura's coming in tomorrow, I might send a message to my front desk person. Hey. You know, coming in, make sure when she checks in that you mentioned you know, ask her how her hip was, and the notes are in there. Right? And also mention, you know, the membership options that we talked about.

Laura Munkholm:
And this is where these audiences on the dashboard can come in really handy. So these are all unique to whoever is logged into the software. So if you have a front desk staff person that's, you know, your normal daytime front desk staff person, they might have here, let me remove a couple of these. But let's say their cards on our first class tomorrow. Um, you can make this like, this is first class with Alyssa. So if I'm a teacher logged in, I could see and go through the list of people who have their first class booked with me tomorrow, and I can go through and text each one of them. But here, I'll add an audience, and you can build an audience to be anything. Right? Like, their first visit is tomorrow, I wanna show up to 10 people, I think it allows for, on the front or on the dashboard, and then it'll show me anytime, um, somebody has their first visit tomorrow. That's how I built this audience. They'll be on here. So I can click through and just say, okay. I'm gonna send Frank a text, and you can even create a snippet that's reminder for their first class. Hey. So excited to meet you tomorrow. Just here. I have it. Remember to bring your grippy socks. Or, you know, we're super excited about x, y, or z. This is what to expect. Make sure you get here ten minutes early. Parking can be tricky for a 04:00 class. And then send that off. So the audience is on the dashboard. You know, lead tracker is definitely watching your funnel, but these could be the, like, okay. These are my critical folks. I gotta make sure every single one of them is touch base with today. Um, Laura, I

Eric Tepper:
think there's a question in the chat. Can front desk access the lead tracker, or is that only manager access?

Laura Munkholm:
It's up to you. You get to decide. So within your permissions, um, under business settings, uh, staff permissions, I believe it's under sales. Sorry. I'm looking for the the bucket that it's under. Sales CRM. So, yeah, you can decide, um, the lead tracker here. So you can say, yes. I want my front desk to have full access to that or my instructor. So this is where you decide who can see what and who can edit what, who can just view it. So that's all the detail there.

Eric Tepper:
Great. Um, I know, Laura, you wanted to share a little bit because we where we started this whole conversation was about, you know, growing in the new year and, you know, part of that is is being able to set smart goals, know where you are in relationships, you know, what actions to take.

Laura Munkholm:
Yeah. Absolutely. So I we did a check-in to see everybody who is registered for this, and so we added you into as of hopefully last night, I think it should be live in your site today. Um, if you go into your performance tab, so if you've got Wuala open on another tab right now, you can click on performance, and now you should be able to see, um, your studio performance and your goal setting, which are new sections in the software for you. So we did a webinar actually the last two weeks. Um, we've had progressive webinars kind of teaching how to use this these functions. So you can pop into our, um, webinars and watch if you'd like to see how to set up your goals, um, and then actually see how to, you know, track them, what the AI summary and action items are so you can see how, uh, our AI is gonna be helping you with decision making. But also, you know, basically, we've got this new lead tracker now. So you're going to be as you're using the lead tracker more and more, as you're actively, um, optimizing this kind of sales process you have in nurturing your leads, Now you've got a beautiful dashboard to be able to see, okay, how many leads were created last month, um, how many made it to the intro offer, how many made it to their first visit. We've got a beautiful conversion funnel here so you can see how people are moving down the stages and then where they're coming from. So, um, all of this is decided by your lead tracker. Everything that you build in your lead tracker, um, is what funnels into that report. So if you're let's say, I click on Micah. If I just log a phone call with him or manually message him, That's gonna be what feeds now the studio performance lead response time. So all of the actions taking in the lead tracker are going to be feeding this report. And the nice thing here is it's gonna give you a quick, like, alright. Great. We've got a ton of leads coming in, but here are the areas we need to focus on. Um, and so it'll give you specific, like, alright. This is gonna be important. This is gonna be important. We've got that other piece dialed in. We don't need to spend our time there this month. So, anyway, this is something I'm excited for all of you, um, this webinar to check out. Um, I know I've been chatting with quite a few of you about it and would love to get your your thoughts, your feedback, and just wanna call this out too, this little let WALA help button for any of you that were on our webinar with Josh last week, um, Josh and the customer success team are the ones fielding this inbox. So if you click on let Wala help, it's actually going to email, um, our team, and it kind of pre feeds the information from that dashboard. And it says, hey. I'm reaching out regarding the Real Talk analysis. Here are my details. I love help with, um, improve the lead conversion section. Can you give me some ideas on how I can leverage WALA there? And then our team will work with you on how to use the tools more effectively. So very, very excited to get you guys in there trying it out, and, hopefully, this is going to be, um, you know, a really well timed feature to move into 2026 and start to, you know, take a crack at those goals.

Eric Tepper:
Yeah. Um, there was a question, and I'm not sure I got it. But can you give an example of a workflow for a studio? Like, when are front desk making the calls throughout the day or the end of a shift? So, um, I I think okay. So what what we do is we look at, um, throughout the day, there's one person who's gotta be responsible for new leads coming in. And that's something you might work out like a schedule. So we've had it where if, like, the studio is so jam packed, if the the owner might be responsible for certain time periods, and then the manager says, I've got, you know, the inbox or the new lead bucket from this hour to this hour. This person's gonna make sure that they look at it from this hour to this hour. That way we know exactly, you know, that those are taken care of. Outside of that, it really just depends on the flow of your studio and how many people you have working there. Um, you know, if you bring a class in, you there's usually a gap. Like, you might have a class come out, a class come in, and then there's silence for a little bit. That's like a a critical call time. It's, like, during that time, or it could be, like, after the last class or before the fir it just depends on your staffing model and and the flow of your studio.

Laura Munkholm:
I mean, I've actually been to Tanner's studio, the one that's opening or that asked that question. He has a massive studio with, like he can fit a 100 people in a class, and I've been there working at one desk with a 100 people walking in. So from your perspective, yeah, those, like, those moments when it's that half, you know, fifteen minutes before check-in until five minutes after class starts, your front desk staff people are probably way too slammed. In most studios, the front desk staff is slammed during that window of time. So that might be just whoever, you know, a manager or, uh, you know, owner or whoever is going to be helping out during the day gets those windows. But I would say, you know, even starting somewhere where you have somebody once an hour that's on respond. Obviously, we want the first five minutes. That is the dream, but not every studio has the staff to be able to do that. Um, but I I you know, generally speaking, for most businesses, it's not 50 people, 50 leads an hour that you're getting. It might be a couple people that you're reaching out to. Right? So it shouldn't be tremendously time consuming. It's just somebody keeping an eye on it. And then the other thing too is you can be cc'd on any like, anybody who fills out a lead form, you can be cc'd on account creation. So if you want that to, like, pop up in your phone that, like, oh, I just got an email. Welcome to your new account from Walla. Or somebody just created a a profile off a lead form. You can do that as well, and then it's kind of reactive.

Eric Tepper:
Yeah. Great question. Any other questions anybody has?

Laura Munkholm:
Um, I did see I think it was Catherine a little bit earlier. Uh, does data support use of phone calls to contact clients versus text message or email? So the what we do in WALA in order to track contact is if you log a call. So let me show you that again in Wuala. Um, okay. So if I go in sorry. I had a chat going with support in there. If I go into my contacts and click on Erin here and I go to log a phone call, um, this counts as, like, a phone call outreach. Now I will tease it out to you guys that we are integrating phone starting, I believe, in q two of next year. So it is coming. It's gonna be pretty exciting, and, honestly, I think a lot of you guys are gonna benefit. Um, basically, what'll happen is you'll be able to click that button and it'll dial. Like, you'll be able to dial straight from Wala. So it's coming.

Eric Tepper:
Laura, can I can I give you and Walla just a a shameless plug? Is is that, you know, I I I having worked with a lot of studios, I also work with a lot of CRMs and and member management. And the two things I appreciate about Walla, one is the development pipeline is the most aggressive I've seen, and two is the people and the responsiveness. Like, I usually get questions answered same day. And if not same day within twenty four hours, even if it's to say, I don't have an answer, but we're working on it, we'll get back to you, and they actually get back to you. Imagine that. So so those two things alone with all the functionality really makes it a joy to have WALA as a partner.

Laura Munkholm:
Thank you. You're welcome back anytime on these.

Eric Tepper:
And if anybody what's that?

Laura Munkholm:
I'll pay you after.

Eric Tepper:
And and if anybody has any questions for for me, like, about, you know, building these conversations and your process and setting goals for the new year and where do I start, um, you're you're feel free to reach out to me. Um, there's no there's no charge for it. You I'm always happy to have conversations. I this is what I love doing. So feel free to reach out. This is my email. That's my phone number. I don't answer my phone a lot, but I do respond to text. And it was just so great to be with you, Laura.

Laura Munkholm:
Yeah. Thank you. And, guys, please keep an eye on the product portal in Walla. I know we've got lots happening, and we're constantly trying to do our best to educate everybody on how to use the tools more successfully. But for those of you on this call, hop in, check out your goal setting, your new performance dashboards, and, yeah I I can't wait to hear how this goes really just optimizing your lead management system. Alright have a good day everyone.

Eric Tepper:
Bye and have a good holiday.

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