Retention Strategies with Crystal Zakaluzny

Crystal's shares her transformation from being a certified fitness trainer to becoming a highly sought-after consultant. Throughout her career, Crystal has gained invaluable experience in various sports and coaching different teams, making her a true authority in her field.

In this episode, Crystal dives deep into the realm of retention strategies, shedding light on the significance of keeping your customer base engaged. She emphasizes the importance of a compelling intro offer and the power of having one great thing to sell. 
Crystal also reveals her secret weapon:  understanding the goals of your customers and building automated systems around them to  deliver tailored messages that resonate and drive results.

Crystal delves into the personal touch, stressing the importance of personal phone calls and the concierge experience when nurturing your customers. By identifying their objectives, Crystal reveals how recommending the right classes and instructors can play a pivotal role in helping them achieve their yoga goals.

Crystal shares a brilliant guerrilla marketing strategy to attract customers to their yoga  studios. Additionally, she opens up about the importance of building relationships with like-minded businesses and giving back to the community.

If you're looking to gain valuable insights into retention strategies and learn how to keep your customers engaged though automations and personal touchpoint, then you're in for a treat with this  episode of Yoga Biz Camp!

Crystals Website
Connect with Crystal on Linkedin

Software Mentioned in this episode:
Mindbody
Mindbody One Community
Fitdegree
Loopspark
Brandbot
Typesy

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Michael Jay - Yoga Biz Champ 

Michael Jay, the Yoga Biz Champ, stands as the go-to Yoga Business Consultant, embarked on a mission to elevate yoga studios from mere survival to genuine thriving.

With a rich background as a yoga teacher, former studio owner, marketing expert, and yoga studio business coach, he possesses the insider knowledge necessary to elevate your yoga venture to new heights.

His passion for yoga, combined with a sharp business acumen and a sincere desire to see studio owners excel, encapsulates his professional ethos. Michael is not one to offer one-size-fits-all advice; instead, he's dedicated to providing tailored guidance, tangible outcomes, and supporting your studio to emerge as the next Yoga Biz Champ in your community. 

• Certified Yoga Biz Consultant • 
• FitTech Partner •
• Yoga Studio Launch & Growth Specialist

FREE RESOURCES AND BOOK A CHAT LINK
https://yogabizchamp.link/podlink

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Don't forget to subscribe to Yoga Biz Champ. Follow us on social media @yogabizchamp, rate, and review the podcast

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https://yogabizchamp.link/podlink

Transcript

Crystal Zakaluzny

 [00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of Yoga Beer's Camp and season three of this podcast.

I have been on hiatus for a little while, so I'm excited to be back. And today I have somebody who I respect a huge amount, and that's Crystal zakulzny.. Welcome Crystal. Super great to have you here. We have a little bit of a history together. You are part of the mind body group.

You were part of my training when I took the certification. I'm in one of your mastermind groups and we hang out on the mind body calls a lot and. You are just a big part of my life and my consulting business and a huge resource to me and many others, so I'm really excited to have you here.

Crystal. I'm excited to be here. Yay. And fellow Canadian. Yes, I am one of the few. And very Canadian too. Yes, I am. I'm just gonna read your [00:01:00] brief bio crystal Crystals is a retention strategist in the fitness and wellness industry, has helped businesses worldwide boost their retention and their profits.

As a former studio owner, crystal understands the ins and outs of email marketing, customer engagement, and retention as tools that ensure success in your business. 

 You've got a huge of list of accomplishments here. Mind Body certified business consultant, software consultant mind body manager, software course instructor for mind, body intensive, and University.

Can fit Pro specialist trainer sports, conditioner coach athlete development certified Kaiser, spin instructor, Pilates instructor, yoga instructor. Ha, I never knew that. T R x suspension trainer, level one fitness kickboxing, level one functioning training. SP specialist, certified power skating coach and level hockey coach.

You've been around. I've got a few and that doesn't even lift all the sports. I have a [00:02:00] lot of sports. Yeah. And that's kinda how I started. I was coaching so many different sports, from skating to hockey, to volleyball to basketball. I have certifications and all those types of things too. So I was doing a lot of that, which really had me in the fitness industry.

And then I needed to make a career change. Oh, I thought I needed to make one. And I was like, where do I wanna venture? So I was working out at a gym, taking classes, and the owners said, why don't you take the personal training course? So the rest is history. I took the course, I was still working full-time on the side.

I was the personal trainer, eventually left my full-time job and just went into the personal training. Plus, because I had the hockey side of things, I then started to train teams. So I was training W H L teams, triple A teams. And so then I needed a space to train those teams because I was renting school gyms and it was at odd hours and what could I do?

So I decided to open up my own business. So [00:03:00] my business became it was called Double shift Conditioning. It became a fitness studio. Plus it provided me that training space for all the different teams that I was working with, which then led to basketball teams and this team, plus the general population that came for classes.

So it really just exploded all at once. I loved still working with the school groups and athletes and everything, but then grew my team to a team of 16. Ran two businesses at the same time. Cuz I had the hockey business in addition to the fitness studios. So I was one busy person for quite a long time.

Yeah. And for those folks that don't know, hockey's really big in Canada. Yes. Which make makes me that true Canadian, like I said, really Canadian and live in pretty good and yoga classes. In my experience, yoga classes go down on hockey nights. Do they? Yeah. Big time in Canada, how did you, how, what was the [00:04:00] transition?

You did all of this, you're working with teams. How did you become what you're doing now? So I became a consultant almost by default. I broke my leg on the job in 2015 while I was coaching hockey. So I was away from my business for four months, which I had could attest. I had all my systems and processes in place because it ran without me.

I couldn't even physically get to my business. Ended up having lots of complications with the legs, a long story, couple surgeries. I ended up just closing my business. I couldn't even. So I chose that. I needed my health over that, so that kind of led me to some rehab and everything with my leg. Got back to my legs.

All good now, but I need something else to do. I was like, I still wanna be in this industry. What can I do that's not the physical part of things. Yeah. Which led me then to the consulting. I waited, the course wasn't even ready yet. It was in beta. They had me on the list so that as soon as it was dropped kind of thing, I could get in.

And that was 27. This was the mind body. [00:05:00] We had the mind body consulting course, so that was 2017 that I took that and I've been doing the consulting ever since. And you, so can we talk a little bit about what type of clients that you work with mostly? We're on a yoga podcast today, and I know that part, but you do have a big variety of types of clients that are attracted to your service.

And I think that's evolved over time. So when I first started, I was mostly fitness, that's where I was comfortable. So fitness meaning yoga, Pilates, a gym. And over time that's evolved just as I've got to be more involved with appointment-based businesses. So now I do have clients that are the wellness, the spa, the medical spa.

So a different type of customer as well. Whoever I'm working with, there's still marketing. Retention, all of those different strategies that are applicable, whether they are wellness or fitness. Yeah. It's just a different class base is just a different strategy, than an appointment bank.

True. Yes, it [00:06:00] is for sure. But lot of similarities. We still need sales, we still need retention. We still need marketing. We still need communi. Yes. And I love each customer that I work with, cuz it brings something different to the plate. Yeah. Yeah. And so now I feel like you, I've watched you over the years and I feel like you've honed in a little bit more on where you specialize.

Yes. Can you talk about that? And I think that happens with a lot of us. We try to be a, a bit of everything at first. But then we really realize what we're good at and I. When you niche down on what you're good at, it just amplifies everything, and that's where the retention has come in.

Yeah, and I love the sales part. I love conversion, everything, but I just really feel that there's so many opportunities with retention. You know that contact list that you have that is maybe 10,000? 5,000, what? 20,000. We don't have to market to them. They already know the name of your. [00:07:00] So reach into that group and just retain them.

Keep them. So whether we're retaining them and all the strategies in place for that, or we're actually winning them back if they haven't been around for a while, just working within that. Cuz there's no marketing dollars that have to go into that. We just have the list. Yeah. So it's, I always say with people it's either money or.

True. And right. So because, some people don't have a lot of money to put into marketing but you have time and energy. And and some of that is, it doesn't always have to be about spending $10,000 on a, Facebook ad campaign. It's like being really smart and strategic to what you've already got and a little bit more gorilla kind.

Mark. Oh yes I'm fairy gorilla. I love all of that because coming from owning my own studio, I know what it's like of not having the dollars to spend on the marketing. Yeah, me too. And being able to then go, okay, what can I do that's gorilla marketing and strategies that I can keep the customers for long term versus having them.

Leave and now I've gotta market [00:08:00] again to bring someone new in. So let's talk about that because that is the, , I say that people spent all this money on trying to get people in, whether it's, postcards around town whatever it is there, there's a lot of energy ads and newspapers, whatever, to get people in the door.

But then when they're in. The leakage, I call it leakage. It's like all these little bits of leakage happen where we don't pay attention to some of those things. So let's talk about that first of all, let's talk about the gorilla part. What did you enjoy? Anything in particular about the, that scrappy gorilla phase of where your energy helps get people in the door?

Anything work really well? Getting them in the door. Even some of the small things that my studio would do was sidewalk chalk. It's inexpensive. Oh yeah. But we were all over town of, yoga this way, or fitness this way, and drawing arrows and different things. And yes, it washes off in the rain, but it wasn't any Barrier in the team that I live.

And so it was small things like that we were able to, I [00:09:00] love that. That's people in our direction. Yes, it's, and I had some team members that really artistic too, that they love to go out there and do those types of things. That doesn't necessarily me, but they could. Tap into the artistic part of what they liked and be able to create.

So we had messages and fun things all over the place with that, so I love it. That was something that was really simple and inexpensive to do. Yeah, I, my, I think my strategy was always building relationships with the like-minded businesses worked really real, really well with me. And that was me going to the health food store, the massage therapists, and knowing them by name and, a monthly visit of, Hey, here's the updated brochures, here's the updated schedules.

But I also did it the other way where I had a community corner and You know where, because in our business we refer a lot of people out to physiotherapists and massage therapists and what have you. So I always had a community corner where I gave back to them as well, and that worked really well for me.[00:10:00] 

That's awesome. My crowd was actually school groups, so I would go into each of the schools. I wasn't allowed to solicit like here's yeah. Marketing or different things from them put out. But I could go and talk to the physical education teacher and say, here's what I have for programs, if you're interested in bringing your students, or I can come to you.

So I really set up this relationship that filled those down times in my studio. One o'clocks, the eight ams, the. Small time, like I wanted to have every hour busy and that was my way to do it, was to bring those groups or me go to those groups. I taught those groups. I did all that stuff.

We did we, the local groups came. It was hard with energy. The attention span. It's like when a leg doing a leg stretch and all the hockey boys, and then their leg goes out to the side with a strap and they just start kicking each other. Yes, and I worked with a lot of high school groups. It was amazing.

I always had a funnel of people who wanted to work at my front desk or be my [00:11:00] cleaning staff. Ah, all the time. I wait list. Basically people would leave their resume, like if there's any opening, let me know. And I knew what type of person they were because I've been interacted with them over several classes.

And if they were late, like that wasn't my potential hire. So that helped me still hiring. So they weren't kicking the kid next to them sometimes, but I wasn't hiring that way. So we get them into the door. What are you seeing now? As far as, we're trying to keep them all right. So we've got them in the door.

Usually in a class-based business, it's usually during it through an intro offer or half price, or there's usually a deal for the first period, 2, 3, 4 weeks. Yes. So that period, I love that period. To me that is, that's the sexy stuff. That's the, you've gotta pull all the stops out.

And I think, back in our day, crystal, when we had our businesses, we didn't have the automations that we have now, right? [00:12:00] So it was all handcrafted emails, everything was, very done quite manually. But we've come a long way now with the software where we can have now all these great automations through a funnel.

Yes. You talk about things that you see that work and things that you don't see work during that fi period. I see sometimes overcommunication, so there's almost too many communications in that time. And I also see. In balance, so we're not seeing a balance of email, text message, phone call, and in person.

Yeah. Okay. So often what's missing is the phone call. People aren't comfortable with that. Yeah. And the phone call is so key just because interact with that person one-on-one. We can all that in person, but. It's that personal connection and I feel like that's sometimes the myth. So we have to have that combination of, let's not [00:13:00] overcommunicate, but let's make sure we're effective in each of those communication methods.

Yeah, and I think at the same time, You probably see this, there's the opposite side of things where the studio owner is afraid to overcommunicate because they don't wanna lose people. And so we really get everything put into crammed into one monthly email newsletter that everybody gets. And we wanna make sure we have that dedicated sales funnel with the appropriate and are often offering all of their pricing options instead of just what's your main pricing option?

That amazing membership that you have, that's what you're trying to sell. And that should be the only thing that's listed in the sales email down the road. If we feel we're gonna lose them at the end of that intro offer, now we can talk other offers, maybe your 10 class pack or whatever your offering is, but just really push for that main membership first.

For the listeners here the process would be great intro offer. [00:14:00] So really a studio's main focus for marketing should be on the intro offer. Do we agree? I would say yeah. And then. It's about having one great thing. You're, the goal should be in a class-based business usually is to build monthly membership, right?

Yes. Yes. And so if we only have that as the focus and then everything else, temp class packs or one class a week deal or whatever, it's a down sell, right? If they don't take you up, It's still an opportunity because we wanna have that mix. So if we have 10 new customers on the intro offer, we know only five or six are going to purchase.

So not everyone's meant to be our customer. And of those five to six, half of them are probably gonna get the membership, half are probably going to get a 10 or five punch pass, whatever you offer. So it's that mix of it. Because I find sometimes people are like, if I don't sell a membership, it's a fail.

No. Sell them a punch card or something too. Yeah. Keep them there. So how can we convert them for to stay for the [00:15:00] long haul? So having that balance, I think is good. It's just knowing that we're first really gonna focus on the membership and don't clutter up the email with, here's our 20 different pricing options.

So we had a I had a private with you last week. We had a a mastermind group and I was the only one that showed up that day. And so I had got a private, and so I had a particular scenario with a client and I got to pick Crystal's brain or about 45 minutes. And one of the things during that process was that's becoming more and more p.

In my work with my clients is finding out the client's goals at the beginning. Yes. And so there are ways, so mind, body I mean we all work, we both work with, we're talking about mind body today, but we both work with pretty much all the softwares out there. Yes. Various one. Yeah. And but there is a way, mind, body, and probably in some of the other softwares where you can turn on a feature where they have [00:16:00] to, in the signup process.

Answer what the goal is. Yes. But then we can take that one step further into putting that into an automated custom based marketing to that client around that got particular goal. We can, and that's using the client indexes. So a client index is basically a question is like, what is your reason for visiting?

And then we can have all the answers. So maybe it's de-stress, it's increased flexibility, it's lose weight. Then we take those and that those answers, and now we can funnel particularly to that answer. So someone was saying they wanted to increase flexibility. We can have a whole automation built around.

And if we didn't know their goal, we find that out on the first phone call on their intro offer. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that's great. Cause I, I just think the goal is becoming more and more important in messaging. And I feel I'm having that conversation more than I ever used to. Are you finding [00:17:00] that as well?

I really focus on that because I don't want the first phone call to someone on the intraop or just to be, so how are your classes going? Yeah. I want it to be, why are you here? Yeah, what's the reason behind that? And then now I can prescribe to you the some ways to get there. Because if they're saying I need to de-stress, then I can say, these are the classes on the schedule you can attend that would help with this.

And give them particular, here's where you need to head, or we would recommend you come three times a week to achieve this goal, or one time a week. What does that look based off of where they're actually. And can I book you into your next class while we're on the call? Yes, exactly.

Little concierge concept is what we need. Yeah. I think that is the thing, right? It is. It is the the v i p concierge. It's find out the goal and then deliver up the messaging, but also in that nurture, sexy time, it's about getting them into the right class. With the right [00:18:00] teacher that's gonna help with their goals.

So if somebody's coming for example, and they want to de-stress and lay around on their back, but you're sending messages to about a hot, sweaty class where they're gonna burn all their energy, that's just yes. Doesn't match. It doesn't match, so I really love that. And so you are, in that scenario, we're talking about mind body that would connect into Marketing Suite where you can set the triggers.

Yes, for sure that you could set based off of how they answered the de-stress, increased flexibility, whatever their goal was, then you could trigger all of those types of communications off of that, plus you. That is a reference in your client profile before you actually make a phone call. Yeah. So where in the phone call, where in the process are you making that phone call?

Usually week one. Week one, and there's no talk of pricing. There's nothing to do with that. We're just finding out what their goals are. How can we make sure they're booked for their next class, is again, that whole concierge experience [00:19:00] so that we can, because sometimes they've only come one time and maybe it wasn't with the instructor or class style that suited them.

And so we can make other recommendations. And I used to find, we had spin at the studio that I had, and sometimes people just. Didn't have their bike set up properly or their pelvis was tilted the wrong way. And so we would talk them through that so they could come try another spin class. Cause it just, they weren't aligned.

And I didn't want them to shy away from it just because of that one experience. Yeah, I love that. So we've got these automations, we've got the personal phone calls and I think, I think we went a little too far, few, couple of years ago of going all in on automations and I feel. This year, 2023.

More conversations are Yes, automations, because I think we got excited about them two or three years ago. Yes. Yes. Automations. But it's the personal part is really important. I had, one of my clients said something to [00:20:00] me which was very revealing when I was talking about the phone calls and the client said yeah, but I don't have a connection with that client.

And I'm like ah, that's such an interesting thing because even if you grow, it gets a little bit more complicated. So for me, what I'm seeing now is like, how do we keep those touch points of personalization that can be done across the board? So for example, we have five different people on the front desk during a week making those phone calls.

How do we make that seamless? So they're tools to help with that. There are, and even my staff had scripts that they could use, right? And you're not gonna just read them verbatim, but it gives them a guideline of how to start that conversation versus it just being a. Free for all right. Yeah.

We wanna make sure that there are, there's some guidance and because not everyone is comfortable talking on the phone anymore, we've lost that skill. So maybe not everyone on your team is suited for [00:21:00] that, or they need to role play and practice to be able to make those calls meaningful to that customer.

Yeah. And sometimes they turn into 20 minute conversations. It's amazing. Yeah, it is. And. It's not just phone calls, right? So now we've got all these great automated texts. So another scenario I'll talk about is we've got this fantastic automated text. You they've come to their first class, this text goes out saying Hi, it's such and such from the studio.

Love to find out how your class was. They come back and say, it was awesome. And then I'm looking through those files of the text and I'm like, there's nothing after. Yeah, we need to respond to those so we can have all those great tools, but we have to, to me, I call that sales by chat because it, it is about relationship and a conversation.

Right? And so you have to keep that going. To direct. I love that Sales by chat you should coin that. It's already done by a few coaches out there. Like [00:22:00] it's a, I'll give this another scenario where a coach that I work with that calls it sales by chat, it's the same thing when somebody comes onto your Instagram account.

That is a potentially great, usually we just, it's oh, I've got another follower. Great. Yes, welcome. Yes. Reach out to them. Welcome, welcome them. Thanks for following. Is there anything you want, it's, start a conversation anyway, but it's the same thing with all these automations of text.

Like you don't just let them stop, right? Like they, it has to be going somewhere. And that is to help them into the right class, the right style, so that they see value in your studio. Yes, for sure. And I, it can even be as easy as a thumbs up, an emoji, whatever as a response just to keep the conversation going too.

Yeah. So is there anything on that, that first period, that intro or anything you see where people are really hitting the mark or really missing the mark? Like a common thing that [00:23:00] they're just, I think if they're on or if they're very consistent, I think that's, They see that success, right? And knowing that you're gonna get nos, they have to be comfortable with that.

Yeah. That we're not, everyone's meant to be our customer. Like I said, if we've got 10, five or six are gonna stay with us, not all of them, but we need to also be dialed in of like how interactive have they been? If we get to week four in a 30 day intro offer and realize that customers only come one time and we haven't reached out to them.

To check in, find out what's going on. We have a mix there. So it's making sure those customers are coming at least two times a week to experience what your business has to offer. Yeah. Yeah. So again, that goes back to week one, I think. It does, right? We see that track. We track every single name that comes in, and when I had my studio, my membership advisor did that every single name.

We knew exactly who was on week one, who was on week two, who was on week three, or [00:24:00] depending on how long your intro offer is. Totally dialed in. She could name them off. I could name them off. We met every week for her to go, okay, here's where we're at. This person gave me this objection. How do I handle it the next time it comes my way?

So we could practice and prepare. And sometimes I was learning as I went too. I would never heard that objection before. And how could we handle that in the future? So if someone has got their software, Quite often you, because you're a software geek, but you go in there and you see a whole bunch of things that they just are not turning on.

That could be as simple in a software marketing suite as turning it on. Yes, you're right. What are you seeing? What are you seeing? What could you advise a lot of people to turn on that have a automated system that they're not even. I think it's to use the contact logs would be the main thing cuz then I could schedule all my calls and even assign them to who's at the front desk.

So if I know that James is working on week [00:25:00] three and that I could assign that call so you can have that. Whole sales funnel built out in there. Yeah. Plus now there's the new lead management and mind body, and a lot of customers don't realize they have it if they're on the Ultimate Yeah. Or ultimate plus package.

It maybe just needs to be activated and now we've got a pipeline that we can move that customer from the point that they make their profile all the way to the sale and see them column by column. And that visual, that's all a lot of people need is that visual, that reminder. Yeah. So those would be two main tools.

To be tracking all of that. Yeah. And then there's, there are other tools like loop, spark, Axel. There's some out there that will have all the automations of email and text, but then also have the tasks. Yes, you can set up tasks right to-dos or phone call reminders or anything. So a lot of those programs have that.

So then you've got those reminders for whoever on your team needs to create that. And some of [00:26:00] them even allow you to assign it to a team, which is great because now we're, our team changes. We don't wanna just assign it to it can be like the front desk team or the sales team is man managing that, and we're able to allot that and assign it to the team and whoever's working that day.

And then take care of it. Yeah, I think that's the magic right now is trying to figure that part out, right? Because we quite often have multiple people on the front desk, so if we can put that bucket in so that people log in on Tuesday and know what needs to get done that day, and we have a system to track that, I think that's genius, and I love Luke's part for that.

Are you seeing any other tools out there that work like that for. I still really like brand bot for a lot of that too. That integration. All the reminders and the ability to go from text to email to a phone call reminder, all of those types of things, work well and tracking that conversion. And then we can track two of who didn't purchase.

Or didn't follow up or even a sign that somebody's had no [00:27:00] visit in so many days, but they're on the intro offer or even not on the intro offer. Yeah. We travel clients at risk. Yeah. And especially on that intro offer, like we, we just referenced a few times the first week, but really in that first week you are looking for have they purchased and not come.

But they come and not come back. So those are a lot of the things I look at in that first. Of trying to get them in a multiple times. There's so many areas to monitor and check, and that's why I find, having a sales tracker, something you're tracking each person, you're then able to see, okay, I'm checking in looking at their account.

Do they have something scheduled? Do they have something? And that's where the phone calls come in. You're always gonna check their account before you make a call. So I usually advocate in a 30 day intro offer that it's a week one and a week three call week. Yeah. And I agree with you that I see a lot of, I see some, people out there educating people on funnels of communication [00:28:00] and they're talking about price and sales in week one.

Stick till the end and we're gonna have this great pr and I'm like, that's too soon. I've just I haven't even got my bare feet on the floor yet, Fred. It's too soon. And so my way around that. Is value. The first period, oh yes, you're not selling anything, but it's, giving away, if you're teaching, if sun salutes is in there, send a video on, send a video or a pdf on sun salutations.

Or if you're new to breathing, send something out on how to do yoga, breathing. It just value to help the experience be better and not selling. And then I'm a big advocate of extending that past the intro offer. So once they got past the intro offer, cuz we've, had all these touchpoints continue that they go into a member automation of some type and now you're texting and emailing and phone calling again at different points of that member journey of here's a recipe, here's a video, [00:29:00] here's a pdf, all the value apps you can have so that you retain them for the long haul.

Yeah, cuz it's a relationship. Sales pitch, right? Yes. It's like communities built on relationships and it's about people walking in and knowing your name and and I'm seeing right now people talking more about community again, which I love. Yeah. Because that's, and to me that was the entire basis of my entire business was built on community and people feeling.

And I think that's where, when we show a lot of love at the intro offer, now can we extend that and what does it look like? So I like to look at what are all the ways we can engage that customer? Is it recognizing their birthday? Is it recognizing how their anniversary, how many years they've been with you?

Is it recognizing a milestone? So five visits is 25 visits, a hundred visits, and it doesn't mean we have to give free classes or [00:30:00] prizes or rewards for any of these things. It's just the recognition. Yeah, I was just on, on one studio and now I know I'm watching her on social media and they've had flags printed up with a hundred, 500.

And then she, and she wrote, we didn't think we need a thousand, but we're they're at the printers right now. But it's their, are people holding up their thousand thousand visit flag? And so they're collecting these flag. Which is amazing and now that's great social media.

You can put that in your newsletter of who's just made it to the next Milestone club and mine too. I had the visual at my studio of stars, just staples or stars from Staples that I just put their first name and their last initial, and then it was under the a hundred. Club, and then I made a big to-do when I was moving that star from 100 to 200.

Someone in class today is moving to 200 who might it be? And the suspense, and then the whole group cheering and applauding, like that was so exciting. Yeah. I love that. I super love that. All right, we're [00:31:00] going through the journey here.

We're at the end of the funnel. We need to try and keep this relationship. Any techniques there towards the last. The phone call is the week before. Yeah. Week three is when you're trying to make that sale. And if they are, not interested in being a member, now we're giving them those other options.

They can even make that purchase right then the idea is let's sell it to them now so they can go ahead and keep on booking, because they most likely have found some classes they enjoy and if you're a busy studio, we wanna make sure they can book those classes ahead. So that's a selling point in itself and often a lot of us have an upsell.

We have. Membership pricing option that's visible to everyone. So say it's 199 a month. Yep. And then if we purchase while we're on the intro offer, we can get that for 1 79 a month. Yeah. But only while you're on the intro offer. So we create that urgency. And so we're able to then have something that's an upsell for them, an exclusive.[00:32:00] 

To call, which allows 'em to then become a member. Yeah, I love that. I really like that strategy. Mind body makes it a little bit difficult because you've either gotta manually discount it or promo code or brand bott has a way, and I often just have a separate. For selling it if you're trying to sell it online, right?

So I'd often have just a separate contract. You can set it, but it's only visible to those on the intro offer if you're using the membership icons. But they have to be logged in is the key. That's where the complication comes in. They must be logged in to see that pricing option. So it depends on how savvy define, yeah.

So the credit cards on file, so theoretically you could say, do you want me. You're on the call. Do you want me to process that? You'll get an email or at the front desk. You try and close it there. So you've got either or, that's where on that week three, you're trying to just make the sale.

I'll set it to start as soon as your intro offer is completed, but we'll [00:33:00] process the payment now and you wanna do the process, the payment for the reason of now it pulls 'em out of your automations. Okay. Because you don't want them to get that last chance for your membership .

Just one. Yeah. Yeah. You don't want that.

Okay, let's talk about post covid. The big conversation is people changed habits and yes. We had a conversation ourselves the other day about, places like Canada, Australia, fewer, a little bit slower than the states coming back and building that confidence backup to get.

Back into person. Yes. So that's a, there's a lot of studios in this place right now that where people have either gone all online and are staying online or they're a little bit still fearful of going back to in studio. So are you seeing any campaigns, any winbacks, anything working successfully? I think if people still have a large suspension list, they reach out to those members, right?

To ask them when they're coming back. There's no disadvantage to not reaching out to them. Others who just haven't been in, like they [00:34:00] have no pricing option even available to them or anything. That's where we reach out. Even offering the intro offer again can be a great offering, especially if it's been time, like I could do that if they haven't been in for six months.

Yeah. Let's offer an intro offer again, because they go into this amazing thing, same funnel. And we start to show 'em all that love again and what they've been missing and different things. And that's where the phone call is really nice then, because we're reaching out to an old friend.

Yeah. So in my body you can set it up so you can't purchase an intro offer again, or you set it up that it's open to everybody. Is there any I that's been a thing with some of my clients about opening it up and then getting abused by. People, they don't want abusing them. And so often we'll have like a behind the scenes intro offer that is available as a second time.

And so that way, that's why we need the conversation. I can get you back in, I can set you up on the intro offer, so now we can then [00:35:00] sell it behind the scenes. So again, that is a bit of a barrier, but we wanna have that conversation. And it's the relationship anyway, right? Yes, for sure. And then we're making sure their credit card is up to date, their address and different things.

So you've got all of that on file. And a win back too. Once we get to six months, it's getting to be a little bit further away. So if we can have strategies in place before that, if they haven't been to class in 14 days, what are we doing? If they haven't been to class on 30 days, you're talking about why they have their membership it might be a member, you're not catching that before. Before we have to actually win them back. We just wanna make sure they're so engaged in our business. So for example, if you have a hundred members, do you know out of those a hundred, how many came to class last month? Because now if you've got say, 20, that didn't come out of that a hundred, you've got 20 you need to be on top of and encouraging to book again.

No, you don't need to give any other deals, nothing like that. But we need to be on top of that, of whether it's a text message at 14 days an email at 30 days saying, just book [00:36:00] again. Yeah, book again. Again, concierge, we noticed you haven't been here. Don't have to miss them yet. It's only been 14 days.

You don't have to have, we miss you. It's just. So try keeping the habit. Yes. Yeah, it is. Because once people get down to not using it, then they're kinda like I'm not seeing value in my investment every month. Exactly. So we wanna make sure that they're still feeling value. The other thing I'm seeing is an amazing Winback right now is looking at everybody who has unused credits.

So maybe they have a class. Yeah, like a class card or something they haven't been in for a while. You've phoned them and you say, it's not a sales call, it's, Hey James, you have three visits left on your 10 punch card and it expire. Expires X date. Yeah. Can I book you into a class this week? Yeah. What a great way to reengage people.

I actually did, we just did that with a studio, and it was by email, but it wasn't a, it was just a factual email of, Hey, we're just giving you your account [00:37:00] update. You've got five punches left and an expiry data of this. Here's the class schedule. Can't wait to see you back again. And it worked.

Just people going, oh yeah, I've got an investment in that. And they don't have to spend any money. Yeah, they will because they're gonna love again that they've come back to class and how amazing they feel. So then they'll purchase again. But right now, when people are worried about paying for groceries and recession inflation and all these types of things, we're not asking for an exchange.

And it's a really easy phone call for your team if they're not used to calling to reach out to a customer. Cause we're not trying to sell. We're just trying to engage them. Yeah, just so seeing lots of wins. I just made a list for a business yesterday. They got 130 calls to do this week. They have 113 calls.

Yes, it's a hundred. Yes. They gotta get those done because that's exactly where we want them to be headed. Get these people reengaged. Yeah. Yeah. And because they're already invested. We just need to get, in a yoga [00:38:00] business, we call it bums on mats. We just need to Yes. We just need to get right back in and back in the habit and back of falling in love with, cuz really it's the, it's, they're purchasing the feeling that they leave.

Yes, and once they get there it's just to get them there. They remember how amazing they feel at the end of class and oh, they're so and I haven't seen it in a long time, cuz we've created that community. Yeah. Those are key things to keep them coming back. Yeah. Are there any other segments that you look at when you're looking for kind of retention?

Winbacks. I'd like the no return report, just that they've had a visit in this certain period of time and haven't had one since, and we can pull out if they have a future schedule so that's really nice. In that aspect, I am always looking to if do they have something else booked? Again, I mean that sometimes that's a little bit manual, but even I used to call it like the hit list, so I would look.

The class roster and someone at your front desk can spend the time during class to make sure, go into everybody, see if they're actually [00:39:00] scheduled for something else. And if they're not, that's the person you're reaching out to before they leave the building to ensure that they are booked for their next class.

Yeah, and I think that, don't you think that. It comes down to culture a little bit because it's I feel that has to come from all directions. And I feel that sometimes studio owners are a little scared to ask their star teachers to participate in, helping encourage people to book and be part of that process.

But I do think the most successful studios are doing that at the front desk. The teachers are part of that conversation, Hey, next week we're gonna be working on this. Make sure you book before you leave. Or make sure you see the front desk to make re, ensure you get your spot for next week.

So I feel that the most success comes when everybody's in on board on that. But I do feel there's a lot of, I don't know, I see a lot of owners scared of having to [00:40:00] ask their teachers to do one more. Oh, but I as a, I never wanted to teach an empty class. And my staff always used to bug me too of oh, crystal hates you if there's not a full class.

Like it has to be full. And so that's my job too, to make sure they know that, Hey, I'm teaching on Saturday at 9:00 AM Hope to see you there. That's all we have to casually say, yeah. And now they're gonna book their next class. And maybe it's because they love me or they liked my style, but I'm also encouraging them to go to other classes as well.

But if I don't invite, yeah, there's nothing to receive. Yeah, I teach, I still teach three virtual classes and every single one. I'm back on, I'm back on the mat tomorrow, 6:00 PM I know it's core. Don't be scared. We have a lot of fun, but every single class I'm talking about the next class or the next couple of classes because yeah, I like that energy of more people.

It's way more fun for me, but it, there are a lot of divas out there when it comes to some teachers, and I do feel that [00:41:00] the, there's a mentality out there where the teachers wield a lot of power because they're the ones that bring the big numbers in. And so quite often it's very hard for an owner that hasn't done any structure in the past to bring structure.

And that might be baby steps of how they're going to implement that. So it might be some automations to start with instead of having individual staff members do something or have someone who's neutral, like front desk, not the individual teacher handling some of these requests. Yeah. Like the booking again.

Yeah. And I always had when I had my student areas had written note like a notes, announcements by the front that I asked everybody. Announce at the end. And I don't think that's a big ask for a studio owner to ask their teachers to reach. But again, it's just you've already got a live audience there.

Keep them informed and coming back. They may not open their email. And it's just so important that they're booked for their next class. I just feel like [00:42:00] that's, and I see that, whether it's wellness or it's different things too. It's make sure they're always booked for their next opportunity with you.

And if they're not, help them do that. Yeah. And that's throughout, that's not just the intro offer, right? That's just creating that habit with people and. Yes, and that's why I love to do things that they haven't had a visit in 14 days, that there's a text message that goes out, that's when do we expect to see you for your next class?

Just very simple, right? They're more likely to engage with those types of things. I've, oh, you've noticed. I haven't been there. Even though it's automated, it can still sound personalized or that you are reaching out or this whole hit list idea of checking the class and seeing, okay, who isn't signed up for the next class and why?

I'm just gonna pull up my Instagram here because I posted a text the other day that I thought was the perfect intro off a text. Two seconds here. Hey Michael, this is Nathan from xx. I just [00:43:00] wanted to personally welcome you to our studio. This is my direct line. Is there any information I can get you or question I can answer for?

Excellent. I love that. I literally posted that on my Instagram. I'm right. Steal this

because I got that it, it may be an automation. But the first one is probably an automation. However, if you respond, the next one is not going to be an automation. It's gonna be a real person. It is, yeah. A person behind the scene. So that's where that sales by chat you mentioned is so integral.

Yeah. And it may not be Nathan that you're speaking to. True. True. All right. And it's it simple. That wasn't complex, was it? No it's super simple, but it, what got me on that one was how personal it was. Yes. So I'm the face of my studio and I am welcoming you to this and I. I think that's important for a studio owner to [00:44:00] have that welcoming feel.

I just had one of my studios who is so scared of going onto camera I just had her do a video of a walkthrough of her studio and she's not speaking, she's just literally showed me through it and she showed it to me this morning and I like got goosebumps from it, because it's like that was her showing off her studio.

She may not like the camera, but nobody's gonna show it off as well as you do cuz you're so involved and you own it so well. And anyway I l it's personalization and community and connection. That's awesome. And have more videos to come from her. So what are your favorite tools right now? You are working with all, you are working with all the different softwares and it really, it depends what you're, if you're with fit degree.

You can use fit Degree works really well with Loop Spark Mind. Body Works well with Mind Body [00:45:00] its own marketing suite. It loop, spark round Robot. What's your kind of favorite combinations these days? I don't know if I have necessarily f favorite tool, not aspect. It's just about whatever email marketing platform or CRM you're using that you're using it well.

Because there's so many disconnects of, even if you're using a constant contact, do people know you can set up automations in there? Yes, you have to manually dump the customer into that automation, but it does the work for you after that. So you can make anything great as long as you're using this. Yeah, so I think that's good advice, right?

Because I think the automations, I mean we're probably what, under $200 usually for an on automation. And I think. Used you can make it pay for itself and then some. Yes. Oh, for sure. And it's endless of what you can do with a lot of these, but, or people will set up and then not update at certain times.

There's just so many key things that no matter what tool [00:46:00] you use, if you make the most of it, it's gonna benefit your business. Yeah. And so also what crystal spoke about there with Constant Contact was you can do. Integrations with most of the softwares like MailChimp or Constant Contact, where I think at a base level it can trigger off when a purchase is made kind of thing, or an account is created, but it's not, then all your other automations are not gonna trigger off based on.

The behavior in your software, right? So it's a little bit more manual, probably for $30, if you've got the, like we said before, time or effort yes. Money or effort, in this way it is, you're not spending all the money, but you're gonna spend a lot more time on manually.

Doing lists and buildouts and what have you. So and often that's a once a week task, right? Yeah. Dump everybody into this. That's just purchased in the last week and there's still will hit the automation in a integration. Yeah. Yeah. But it's not [00:47:00] gonna be as effective as all the triggers like birthdays and visits and things like that.

That's the power of the automated systems. And I think also now the lead generation and the buckets of touchpoints we need to be doing during that time. Yeah, I'm just trying to be cognizant too that everyone has a budget so we wanna make sure whatever the budget is that the tool they're using is effective for them.

Cause they may think, oh, I have to use this an upscale to something, when really they may not need to. Yeah. You may be able to do it for MailChimp for a couple of years until you build up enough and then you can go, okay, I'm ready now to make the leap into the software. Yes, for sure. Yeah. Alright.

I'm gonna ask you a few things about you. Something about you that most people wouldn't know. That I used to box. Oh. So I, when I had my fitness studio, I'm of course loving fitness. I wanted to work out somewhere else sometimes. So I drove to a neighboring city. I went to a private boxing club, hired my [00:48:00] own trainer for there and would go once a week for, I'll call.

It was almost like a therapy session cuz the de-stress that you can have with boxing. Oh yeah. Yeah. And the intensity of the workout, like I had to do the real thing of weigh in and weigh out and sometimes we'd lose three pounds and a one hour workout. That's how we and gross you would get.

Then I got to the point that he wanted me to actually fight, like actually have a boxing match and I was like, whoa, we're just gonna keep this till like turning in fun. But dialects still say that box still got the boxing gloves and everything. So I have a similar story. You. My dad, he was a barber, but on the side he was a boxing coach.

Cool. And I wasn't a sporty kid. If they did yoga back then I would've been really happy. But, it was all competitive stuff. Anyway, so I went and did training at my dad's club and it was all fine. The mirror boxing, the shadow boxing, all of that stuff. The first time I got in the rink and got hit, I.

This is not for me. [00:49:00] All right, so your favorite business tool, website or app, I think you probably know this one. Mind body. MINDBODY one, ah, mind, body one. So I've been part of that community since 2017. I love it from the network, the sharing, the strategy the troubleshooting, whatever it is. And when we had monthly webinars and I never missed one when we first started, like it was absolutely, and still is an amazing tool where you can.

Get help from others or learn from others. Even if you don't wanna post and you just wanna read, like I've met so many people just through that's all even going to bold. Crystal from Canada. Crystal from Canada, because they knew me through Mind Body one. Yeah. And for those that don't know what Mind Body one is, mind Body one is a mind Body's community site.

It's a community platform where there's different segments and groups in there. And like we have a consulting group and [00:50:00] then there's the main feed and yeah. So people post their problems and people step up and. And it beats support really, doesn't it? Cuz like you get a lot of different answers from people and a great dialogue and community.

I have to admit, I haven't hung out there very much lately. I used to, but I haven't lately. But it is a great, it's collaborative. That's what I like. I'm not competitive. I'm collaborative with that group in that sense. So that's what people can get from that. 

What's your favorite personal, fun website or app? Okay, so it's called I've been trying to increase my typing skills. Okay. So it's kinda work related, but it's called typey. And so it's almost like gaming in some ways because you've got your little exercises to learn how to keyboard and type better, but then it has all these games and fun things.

So I'm nerdy about. All this of I'm like, wow, this is, I'm learning. But at the same time, I am having fun with some of these game-like things that are teaching me to type faster. Oh, that's also Typey. Typey. Yes. [00:51:00] You're once you go through the, but it's worth it. But you can only do, if you did 10 minutes every once in a while, you're still increasing your skills.

But can do it in a fun way too, that it's like a break from work and different things. So that's the favorite that I wanted to share with you. Oh, that's awesome. I'm gonna I'll put that in the show notes. I'll link it to the show notes. Sure. Crystal, where do people find.

They can find me. My website is crystal zach consulting.com. I'm not really in social as a whole lot, so you can find me in MINDBODY one if you haven't found me there before. That would be the main spot that I hang out most of the time. MINDBODY one and also you can find her on LinkedIn as well.

Yes, LinkedIn, yes, but you're not gonna find her dancing on Instagram and TikTok videos. No, not my style at all. What? What you're more gonna find is her running a tractor in the middle of a field because she's a farm girl at heart. Yes. Yep. Prairie Girl here. Farm [00:52:00] Prairie. Prairie girl. And I remember her sending a video, what didn't believe her, and she sent me a video of her in the tractor.

I had to, cause I was doing one for my customers, right? I'm like, here's advice from the field. Here's my view kind of thing. They knew that I was the real farm girl. You, that could be a social media thing, crystal, where it's business tips from the tractor. It could be. Yes, you're right. Thank you so much for being with me today.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge and your story, and I have a huge amount of respect for you. You're a big resource. I come to you for a lot of question with a lot of questions and I appreciate your knowledge and also your geekiness you, are you, when you learn a piece of software.

You really learn it. And I have to say I've been, with Mind body for a long time and I dare to say you probably know more about Mind Body than most people working at Mind Body. Perhaps I do dabble software every now and then. [00:53:00] And we thank you so much Crystal, and if anybody's interested in finding Crystal, check out the show notes and we'll link to her there.

Thank you so much for the all. Thanks Crystal. Bye bye.