The Secret to Long-Term Memberships - Chris Appiah

In this episode of Yoga Biz Camp, Michael welcomes Chris Appiah from The Sales Arms and Stephanie Breaux Bradley. They discuss the importance of intro offers in the yoga and fitness industry and strategies to convert those intro offers into long-term memberships. 

Chris explains that the three-class offer works best for someone who is new to fitness and is looking for structure and guidance. On the other hand, an unlimited intro offer works best for someone who is already familiar with fitness and knows what they want.

Chris emphasizes the importance of tailoring the experience to the client and finding out their "why." He explains that the sales process should be continuous and not just limited to the intro offer. Member management is also crucial to ensure that clients remain consistent in their fitness journey.

During the episode, Michael, Stephanie and Chris also discuss the challenges of the boutique fitness industry, the importance of visuals in the studio, and the psychology behind pricing packages.

Show Notes

• Importance of intro offers in the fitness industry
• Tailoring the experience to the client and finding out their "why"
• Strategies to convert intro offers into long-term memberships
• Continuous sales process and member management
• Challenges of the boutique fitness industry
• Importance of visuals in the studio
• Psychology behind pricing packages

THE SALES ARMS
YOGA BIZ CHAMP DIRECT BOOKING LINK
WITH THE SALES ARM OWNER CHRIS APPIAH

LINKS MENTIONED IN EPISODE:
www.cars.com
https://sendhelios.com/
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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
http://www.yogabizchamp.com/podlink

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of Yoga Biz Camp. I have a returning friend so I won't do too much introductions with her. Stephanie Bro Bradley. Hey Stephanie. Hello Michael. And I have Chris AP from the sales arm.

Welcome Chris. Welcome. Thank you for having me, Michael. I appreciate you. I'm so glad you're here today. We met at the Bold Conference last year. Yes. The Mind Body Bold Conference and I think that was when you realized Stephanie was a a sharp kind of person to team up with because you guys are working together now since then.

Yes. Stephanie has been a pivotal part in just helping me really organize my company, the sales arms, and just allowing me to understand different areas of the industry where we can, get our names out and really be able to help more people. So She was running around that conference connecting [00:01:00] everybody.

I feel right. That is her superpower. We actually spoke about it recently. It really is. It really is amazing. It's the sight to be seen if you've never seen it before. And I will say, I've always told her that her superpower is her southern wet. I appreciate y'all talking about me, like I'm not here.

Anyway, this is all about Chris, but it's Stephanie now. Let's move on. Stephanie is side. I'm gonna just reread your bio Chris, and then we'll dig in. So Chris is obviously, I haven't really said this, Chris is from the sales arm, which is a company that helps fitness businesses by making vocals and connections.

So let me just read this. Before the sales arm, our founder Chris, was the VP of sales for the largest franchisee in the exponential fitness organization, and played a pivotal role in reviving full failing studios across the country. With his program in place, studios increased memberships by over 500% in just one year, monthly studio revenues went from [00:02:00] 25 K to 65 K on average and continues to grow today.

It is that experience that sparked the idea to start the sales arms. Chris has over a decade of sales experience in the fitness industry, having worked for some of the biggest brands in the industry. 24 Hour Fitness, Peloton, exponential to name a few. Chris manages his team at the sales arm where he teaches them best practices for sales and high level lead and member management skills.

Having worked in so many aspects of fitness boutique, big box commercial, copper awareness, wellness. Woo. Personal trade and amenity management. Chris has seen all aspects of the business over the last three years. The sales arm has experienced tremendous growth. What started as a team of two working in just a couple of studios evolved into more than 20 employees who have helped to grow over 300 studios nationwide, who are currently supporting over 70 active clients.

It's cool. Huh? Cool. You know what's even cooler is that his feet are still on the ground with a studio that he owns and that he's the weightlifting [00:03:00] champion in New Jersey, which I think is just tremendous. I hope everybody that All right. Yeah. Yeah. And the reason why I think it's so cool is that in this industry, as when you've walked the walk and you still have feet on the ground and you can still see what's going on, I think that perspective brings so much to the table as well.

 So I'd love to start talking to you because I think this is where a lot of us all kind of start is in the intro Wafa kind of period. And so I'd love to pick your brain on what you're seeing in that, because to me, I always say this is, that's the sexy part I love.

I love that period between selling a intro offer and converting to membership. So in my. In my world, which is pretty much most people listening to this podcast are yoga studio owners or yoga studio wannabe owners. And I'd really love to talk about that because a few years ago, mind Body Data suggested that the magic [00:04:00] time was for group fitness was three weeks to convert.

I'm seeing a lot of people go to. Two, two weeks. And then I'm also seeing. A massive turnaround in the last year, and you're probably seeing this of a lot of people going direct to membership without an intro offer, but offering a discount maybe on the first month. And I also want to talk about how we hate free.

Can we dive in there? Is that enough for you to start, Chris? Definitely. It's definitely enough for to start and complimentary, not free. It's compli.

What the, I've seen two that work really well that I personally agree with too. And that's three classes in a week's time or a two week unlimited. Yeah. I'll speak to the first one. Yeah. Three classes in the week's time. In most cases when anybody is going through, trying to figure [00:05:00] out.

Where they're gonna call home in their next fitness facility. They wanna try different instructors. They want to feel, the experience within the four walls. And sometimes it's, it, in most cases, it's very hard to really get that with one class, right? So yeah, I'll say that if you're go into that one class, just one class or drop in, you.

May hate the teacher. You hate the style, you hate the music, and the entire studio is judged on that experience. I've been in classes where I'm screaming in my head wanting to get outta there. It's so Exactly. And. And because of that, right? You as a studio owner wanna put yourself in the best position to succeed.

So giving one class doesn't really set you up for that, right? It, what it normally sets you up for is somebody saying, okay, I have to think about it. I have to go speak to somebody. I gotta [00:06:00] compare it to another studio where when they know that they can come for another class or three. They are preparing themselves for a full experience within your business.

They're not going to hold you to that first class. We always hope that first class is absolutely amazing. You knock it outta the park. It's a great experience, you, you never know what can happen, like you said. Yeah. Some classes you're like yelling in your head like, what's going on?

This can't be, the true experience. And then you take that second and third class and you're like, wow, this actually is an amazing facility. The people here are amazing. I dunno what happened on that first day, but I think I can call this place home. And that those, the three class offer is best for somebody who.

Isn't a crazy exerciser, it's really just trying to find themselves in fitness. That's where I find that offer to [00:07:00] be best. So if they, just, if I can jump in there, if they, if you are giving them three classes in that first week, and let's say they only take one of those, would that set them up for feeling like failure that they didn't make it in there?

Or does that help with the conversation? That is, that can kinda make them feel like, it, like it is setting them up for failure. And maybe we'll get into this a little bit deeper in our conversation, right? But that's where your team really comes into play, right? One, once that person gets out of class, Figuring out exactly how their experience was.

When they're puff sweating, whatever, it's when the endorphins are high right after that class. Really getting that, getting their experience and how it for them. Then making sure, helping book. Yes. You're guiding them to what's gonna make the experience even better [00:08:00] off of what you heard from them right after they came outta class.

You should be the one, and your team should be the one really helping them set themselves up for success. Because in most cases you get outta class sometimes you're like, Whew. I can't even believe I made it through. I really need to, take a second to, to figure out if this is gonna be right.

But when you're speaking to somebody and they're highlighting all those great things that you just experienced, you leave those doubts by the wayside. You get into that conversation, you're like, you know what? Sign me up for Thursday. I'm gonna, I'm gonna come back again. Yeah. Very excited about it.

Do you help? Do you help? Because you're the sales arms. Do you help the studios train their staff too on those kind of things? Because I do find my rockstar studio owners are the ones that. That book, the next class comes from every angle. It's from the teachers. Hey, we're gonna work on [00:09:00] this class next week.

Make sure your book before you leave or see the front desk or grab your app and book in now. And then also people on the front desk. So I find if you're coming from phone calls, texts, and people on the ground front of house, that's where the magic really can. Yeah it's important for us at the sales arms when we do start working with the client to lay out exactly, what we're gonna be doing, but what is also gonna be best for them in-house to create the best experience and the most seamless, transaction for the person on the ground.

So I always make sure once I think it's more around in the second week, To ask, what is your process for your in-studio sales? And from there, in those answers that I get, allow me to know exactly what portions of the in-studio sales process that I need to educate that team.

[00:10:00] So I like, can I interject? Yeah. Oh, who's gonna stop you? Of course you did invite me. As a past studio owner, I don't think that when I first got started, I understood the fullness of sales needing to go on all the time. Yeah. Every day. Like just to continuum. Cause everybody who's listening here, Knows that you have 15,000 things to work on and you're always looking for the next thing or putting on out fires and being reactive.

And the idea to me that needs to be cohesive and continuous, I think was lost on me. Some moments. Yeah. But you don't know what you don't know when you Exactly. And then you don't know who's falling through the cracks and you don't know what you're supposed to say to who and, yeah. Yeah. Also, Steph, there was a point in time in boutique fitness where a boutique studio was new, and right. There was a lot around and [00:11:00] it was a, it was something that people hadn't really seen before coming from. Big box gym. So it made it easy for somebody to come in and say, wow, this is such a personal touch. This is great. I don't get this in my big box gym. I'm gonna sign up right?

Fast forward to where we are now, there's all these big pan companies, self-esteem, brand, exponential that have, that are opening, boutique studios. At a rapid rate around the country where now you go a shopping plaza and there's five different boutique studios in that same plaza that you have to choose from as a consumer, and you're like, I don't know which ones go right.

And what's setting the best studios apart? Is that interaction, right? Yeah. Reaching out to the leads that are coming in. Finding out these people's why, what's driving them to even wanna take care of [00:12:00] themselves. And from there, tailoring. Your experience to, to their needs. Yeah. They need to really do that.

Few years ago you were thing, there, and now it's even more important to yourself apart from everybody else and in the industry. Cause of how rapidly the industry has gone. It's a positive that we're, that as an industry we're continuing to grow, but as a small business owner that just more competition, more challenges, more people in the same modalities as you. How do you set yourself apart? Yeah. And. And that's what our goal is at the sales arm for our clients, is to be that studio that's gonna call every single person. Take the time to ask why it's important for you to even take care of yourself.

Yeah. We stop there. I'd love to talk about that because on [00:13:00] my podcast, I've been talking about that a lot lately and with all my studio owners, but, What you touched on there was the why, which I feel now in my world, that's getting louder. When you're trying to stand apart, it's really taking the time in whatever manner, whether it's in the signup process or at the front desk finding what the goals are because then, You can v i p tailor them to the right classes.

I have one studio now that is, we've gone old school and we have a Monday through Sunday printed schedule, just off a laser printer. Cut it out. They're on the front desk so that when they have the conversations with somebody, they can now circle those classes and say, I think you should take these classes because that's where you're gonna feel better by taking those classes.

So that goal part for me is really huge right now. The visuals. The visuals in studio are very big as well, right? Cause [00:14:00] again we're in a very tech focused era. You have all your information on your website, when they're in your right there in front of you. And if you have a schedule and a calendar where you can circle, take this class.

Or you have a pricing sheet where somebody can truly comprehend. I had one that said, do the math. And it literally exactly, it literally said, do the math. And I made it easy for them. Hey, this is without that they have to do the math in your head. Oh, we have a four class monthly that's gonna be 79 a month.

Yeah. Yeah. $18 a class. It's like they're gonna say, I need to think about it. Cause they're just growing too much. Yeah. Can we, I wanna go reel it back a little bit to the intro offer. So you were talking about that second week 

but the first week to me, Can we talk about that first week? Because that's the juicy one, right? Because if you're not getting them in that first week, they've lost [00:15:00] half of their, time it's a two week intro. And so I have my studios, whether it's via automations or human, but there is a watching what's going on there.

It is. Have they purchased and not come, have they purchased and come and not come back? All of those things. So what are you seeing in that first week where, cuz we want people to create a habit and come multiple times so that they see value in their purchase in the studio, right? Yeah. So you're speaking more to the like or unlimited intro offer, right?

Where you become as much Yeah. Which is probably most common in my world. And I would say that should be reserved more so for somebody who knows their fitness level, who has done things before, fit in studios, because that person knows what they want. They're essentially trying to figure out how often can they actually [00:16:00] make it to this facility.

Yeah. Comparison to the person that you, that. That person needs stability. They needs, so you're talking two intro offers. Two, two intro offers. Okay. Now we're talking for two different avatars, right? Yeah. The person who is a big exerciser just moved to the town looking for a new facility.

You're gonna wanna give them a one week or a two week unlimited offer cause. They know what they want. They wanna try the menu. Yeah. They wanna figure out if you are the place that they're gonna take that out. Yeah. Whereas the other avatar where you're gonna sell the three class two, they're not sure what they want.

They're more new in fitness. They need you to structure it for them to have that success and. The three classes allows them to visualize that success. Whereas unlimited, [00:17:00] unless you are a big exerciser, you can get lost in the Yeah. Yeah. Unlimited, right? You do one class, you're like, oh, I'm gonna go home and figure out when it's gonna be best for me to come back.

You have to take that same initiative with that, with the two week person and book out their first three, and from there, Okay. You can let them, you can let them kinda have a little bit more leeway. Okay. So you are concierge them into booking the first three classes on the first visit or on the first visit, yeah.

Is when you're. What you think is best for them, knowing now that they can come at least two times in a week. Yeah. The goal, I say for everybody is to at least get that second class booked so that when you see them on that second time, you can celebrate them saying, Hey, you're better than most people out there.

You beat the odds. Yeah. Yeah. You're odds. I love that. If you make it three [00:18:00] so Chris, would you say that person that's done that is more, that's done the three class are more than likely to go to, to say a 10 class pass and be a once a weeker and feel successful at that?

I, it depends. It depends on, on, on how you present it, right? I in a lot of times, people are always trying to present. Unlimited package Yeah. Has the highest price point. Yeah. For, for the studio. And it gives the person the most option to come in. But that doesn't psychologically build in success, right?

Yeah. You want somebody, in my opinion, to start in a lower package, so that they can. So they can complete that and say, Hey, and then I did it. And then go up to an unlimited rather. So cuz what I also say to studio owners, if someone buys a 10 class pass and they're burning through it, there's a conversation for going [00:19:00] into an unlimited, right?

You're using that. Exactly. Exactly. I love that. Yeah, go. If you go opposite it's almost a saving conversation because the person in most cases feels like, I bought an unlimited, but I only came three or four times. I don't know if it's worth it for me to do this. And now you are trying to save them and downgrade them into something where they're coming two times a week, one time a week.

I think it's, if you look at, if you look at the intro sales process as. Your intro offer as just that, your intro into the business and you are focused on a two to three month journey to help create a habit for a person. Yep. Intro offer. You have the first package that they buy, and then you have the final of what truly fits them, right?

Yeah. Because now you've you've seen over a course of time the [00:20:00] habits, how often they come in. Yeah. You now know with, their work schedules and maybe they have kids, things like that. And you can truly prescribe what will be best for them to feel most successful. Yeah. And that's being able to finish a, the what you purchased.

I love that. I think something you said really spoke to me because I think that. As a studio owner, you put your packages together and it's okay, see what we have, what works for you? But what you're speaking about, does it take more time? Absolutely. Does it take more like investment on my part?

Absolutely. But if I'm just having a conversation with one person and learning about what they want, what they need, how they work, I'm establishing that, like you said, over the next two to three months to really get to know them. There's, that also increases retention tremendously because I've started out the relationship looking out for you.

Yeah. But I've also, I think studios need to realize that a lot of people [00:21:00] coming to your studio are looking at you as the expert and truly want you to guide them through the process. That is the case. But, and that is where almost every studio I see is falls short, right? Cause we're all, we're very sales focused.

Yes, we wanna get that person in, we wanna get them, and then you have to get to the next person to start selling them. And that person that just bought is at the beginning of their fitness journey. They're like, oh. Steph was awesome. She got me here. Where? Where'd Steph go? Steph is busy trying to sell the next person.

And now you know this person's just sitting there what am I supposed to do? This is where the member management aspect comes in. Very big for studio because it takes two to three months to really create a habit. Yep. Working out in whatever modality it is, right? So you need to make sure you have a plan set up to work with this person over the next three, [00:22:00] two to three months to make sure they're consistent and they create that habit after, 60 to 90 days if they've been consistent and you've been that.

Accountability buddy. That's what I call it. That first holds them accountable to what they originally said to you. That person ends up staying nine months to a year at least. But you see a lot of cancellations in that first, in the first two to three months because those people didn't get nurtured.

They had, they were, yeah. They were excited. It was amazing experience in that, with that intro offer. And now they're just left alone to figure it out on their own. Yeah. And most people aren't able to do that with their fitness. So let's talk about how you come in here because you have a really great approach.

You come from a fitness industry. I looked at your LinkedIn, you between, you have sales and fitness. Sales and fitness. Sales and fitness. You're like a long line on your LinkedIn. So where the sales arm comes in, you [00:23:00] have a really different approach because you actually go into their data, right? So you are connecting into their software. Cuz we say the numbers don't lie unless your numbers are really screwed up and sometimes you go in there and they're Yeah, but you're you have a process, right? So you go because I know in my world, let's talk about this first. I know in my world, sales is a, can be a bit of an icky world in word in the yoga world, right? It's like we're of this li we're of this lineage of yoga and it just doesn't fit our, thing. But you are going in there and having the conversations where we tell us who you are.

We will represent you. Who as you are. But then you're also going into their data to make strategic decisions. Can you talk about that process? Yeah. So we, yeah. So when we start working with a client, like we, we want you to be as [00:24:00] comfortable as possible. We want to feel on our end as if we're part of your team, and we want you to feel that as well.

So the first thing we're we ask you is, If we, if I was a client, How would you sell us, right? So we can understand the conviction that you speak. You speak with how you sell, the people that you see currently. So we can emulate that same sound, but when again, we don't. We don't want to make this where it's all new for you.

So we come in, we go into your platforms that you have currently. We never tell you to switch anything without actually going in there, experiencing what working in your studio feels like day to day. And then we do a data mine. Of your system, right? So what we will normally do is maybe like a complimentary class to see who [00:25:00] in your database is even willing to come into your business at all.

And what that allows us to find out is, okay, you have 3000 prospects in your system. We're gonna give, offer all of them a complimentary class. How many of these people are willing to even take a, a compliment class to come into your facility? Now we have that group of people outta that group of people.

How many are willing to actually pay for your service and if and everybody, that doesn't even get that far. Our goal is to figure out why, right? So that. Because at one point you had interest, right? You have your, we have your information. You gave it to us right? Through whatever, channel it was that you gave, you gained that lead.

Why don't you want to come and spend money here, right? Because that's gonna allow us as a business to be better in the future for somebody else. So we always want to figure out, [00:26:00] Exactly where the low hanging fruit is in your database, and if people aren't coming in, what needs to be changed? We'll share that with the business owners so that early in the process we can work all of these cakes out because often people feel that sales is their issue when in reality the issue.

It can be so many different things. There was an instructor who, yeah. Yeah. I think you need to repeat that again for the people on the, yeah. Yeah. So I think that's important, right? Because we're talking about we can have all the data and we can have all the sales and all that stuff, but if it's a shit studio experience, then none of that matters.

It's hard for a lot of studio owners to look themselves in the mirror and say, yep, my, but you can be the mirror here, right? Cuz you're listening to the conversations. I think that's the key Michael [00:27:00] conversations like in this whole process, whether it's sales, whether it's pr, whether it's Secret Shop or whatever it is, you can't find out answers unless you engage in conversations.

And let's be honest, everybody walking through your door once a guide and they all wanna speak about themselves. So you might need to ask two or three questions and they're gonna talk and your goal is just to listen and then apply. And like Chris uses, love the word prescribe. Like they're coming to you because I need to be on a health journey.

What do you recommend? I do? Yeah. And by you catering to them in the manner of hearing them and strategically placing them in the package or membership that they need to shows to them that you care and then they value you and they trust you to follow you. Wherever it is, you're gonna take that because then it doesn't feel salesy.

Right? Absolutely. You're just finding out information, which if you ask nine out 10 and probably 10 out of 10 studio owners, why did you open up your studio and what makes a difference? They're gonna say community. Yeah. The [00:28:00] best way to have a community is to have a conversation. I completely agree, but, and but it's very hard, especially if you're in a high traffic area.

You have 16 to 20 lead new leads coming in today. It is very hard to keep up that conversation with every single person that's coming in. Yeah. Yeah. In most cases, it's set for one person. A general manager. Or maybe a front desk employee who's, or it's gonna be across five people over a week shift.

Exactly where you where you can't make a connection. Having conversation with you knows, and that's makes our service very unique, to connect with your prospects, right? Everybody. We're boutique fitness. It's supposed to be a high end experience, right? It shouldn't just be automation and automatic emails going out, right? Every [00:29:00] high end facility that you go to, whether it be restaurant fashion, There's you're speaking to an individual.

There's a concierge there that is helping you through your experience, that's gonna make sure that whatever you need is handled right. It, the, in most cases the studio doesn't have the bandwidth to hire so many different people to handle these conversations, in off time, we're not talking about when people are in the studio now, there's only one of you, but there's seven new people there. How are you juggling, being able to communicate with everybody and give an individual experience to each person if you only have that one person to do the job?

And that's how the fitness business has been set up for years now. But it needs to change, right? It, it really needs to change to to speak to the clients that we're trying to bring into our [00:30:00] businesses. I hear resistance to phone calls, studios making phone calls. How do you help studio owners overcome that fear of spamming people?

I hear People don't answer. And the end, the other thing, I have conversations with studios in different parts of the world. So for example, Australia, which they're not so much getting the sales tech as much yet, and the they're, and they're quite resistant to sales calls.

So different places around the world. How do you. I believe sales calls are very important in the process, but it's when you use them that makes them successful. In the day and age that we're in right now, there are so many companies doing Rob all these up people's phones with fake stuff.

There's scammers who are [00:31:00] calling to try to get credit card information. For people, it makes people very very weary to answer the phone, right? So I always tell my, I tell my team, we all know now is that we're in text message. Text messages get read. On average, about 90% of the text messages that are sent are read.

So what I tell all of my clients is open the conversation. With a text message. Once you get somebody to respond, that's when you want to go into setting an appointment for a phone call. Ok. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. You'll always be best explaining your experience over the phone. Yeah. Everything but. You have to build some type of rapport relationship for somebody to answer that phone, right?

So finding out what the best time to call them [00:32:00] is, what their workday is saying. Give you, call this. And we'll go over everything. It'll be super quick, it'll be super easy. And you'll see a way larger increase in your, yeah, that feels less intrusive, doesn't it? It feels like Here's a gentle opener.

And I do see, the, with the automations, I do see the studios that use the. The text message for conversations is so powerful. Like really a powerful way to start around. That's what it, that's what it's all about. Yeah. That's what, that is what I teach my team every day. It's all about having conversational tests.

Yeah. Hey Michael, this is Chris from the Sales Arms. How's your day going? Yeah. I'm, I don't I wanna start with how are you, right? Is everything good? Ok, awesome. I'm reaching out [00:33:00] to let you know X, y, Z. You don't, you can't just immediately go into Yeah. Selling something to somebody without understanding how they're in their day.

How they're feeling, right? Because then, You're starting the conversation off clearly not caring about the person on the other side. Yeah. If all it takes is that that warm question. How you doing today? How is everything? It's nice to speak with, like just, yeah.

And I think that light stuff you've been taught from a young age. Yeah. And I think that you can also. It's not a success if you're having conversations on the front desk to tell people what to expect, Hey, by the way, you might get a call in the next week for us checking in on how you're, so you're already setting that up, that it's not a sales experience.

We're gonna check in with you. So does that you, do you find that works as well? That kinda, yeah. So in, in the. In short, in the perfect setting, right? You've built rapport with them. When the lead came in while you are in the booking process, [00:34:00] they come in, right? You already have information on them.

So your front desk is continuing the conversation with them, right? They go into class and ideally after the class, your instructor asked them, What are you trying to get outta taking class here? And it's the same answer. It should be the same answer every time. Okay. Austin, if you come here at least two to three times a week consistently, you'll be able to reach those goals.

In most cases, most modalities, if you're consistent two to three times a week and you do this over a long period of time, you're gonna reach your goals. So if you're instructed to ask that, and they say that and then they just. Share that information with the front desk. All right. Just go over to Chris at the front.

Yep. Two or three times a week is gonna be perfect for you. He'll set you up, no problem. Transfer of trust from the instructor to the front desk, and then the front desk, prescribed exactly what the [00:35:00] instructor had said and just gives them an alternate choice to choose what's gonna be best for them.

That's. That's the ideal in studio situation with every, but all the parts have to be working together and one of the hardest things that again, we see in the industry is the disjointed team. The front desk saying one thing. Instructors, hopefully. Prescribing and telling the peop new people in there what's gonna be best for them.

And then hopefully you have your team at the front desk after class asking how the experience was and then price presenting what you have to offer them. In, in, in most cases there's something missing in that chain. Yep. In the best studios. All of them are working together. It's a handoff each time.

Yeah. That's the power. And I also say that we're not selling a product. We're selling how people leave feeling. [00:36:00] Ultimately, we want people to feel better and leave feeling better. I'll say, I've said this on my podcast before, even with my yoga teaching, I don't care about the poses anymore, but I care how you feel, you, how you feel when you leave, right?

And that's what it's all about because yeah. It's more exercise and fitness has come such a long way from just being superficial in the sense of how you look and doing it. This is my getaway. This is my therapy, this is what I used to just feel good and get connected with me again.

It's bigger than just weight loss and transformation and everybody that's in the studio as to that experience. And like you said, it's about how you're feeling when you leave. Did you love it? Do you want to come back? Did this do what it did this, do what you needed it do. Yeah. For you.

And that's what's, that's what's important now because like we said earlier, there's five different modalities in, [00:37:00] in one strip ball. You can get exercise no matter where you look, right? You're joining somewhere where you really feel a part of the community where you feel heard, where you.

Being vulnerable amongst a group of people that, that you don't know, that become your family almost. Get very close. You know that nine yoga group, every time class is in there, everybody's high f after class. It's wait a. Is everybody a second cousin here? My best class, Louisiana.

My best class was 11 o'clock in the day and they all went for lunches afterwards. Exactly right. Like you build you build this community. And I say this to my staff all the time. I'm like, I know our job is tedious. I know we're calling, we're texting, we're saying the same thing over and over again, but you have no idea.

Who's not supporting that person on the other [00:38:00] line. Yeah. In their effort to be better for themselves. How many partners are saying, oh, you're gonna pay for the gym again and waste your money? Or oh, that doesn't work. Oh, yoga, are you just stretching? All these people in the head of that prospect who's not supporting them in trying to be better for themselves.

We as the salespeople for the studio, right? Whether it be us at TSA or it's your front desk stack, have to be that person for every person that is interested. In studio, you never know who is, who's not supporting them in trying to be a better version of themselves,

support and into class and. Now they're going to lunch after class, with those same people. And they're and they have that support that they've been looking for. Again, it's bigger than just they're there. They're still there 20 years later. [00:39:00] Exactly. Thank you don't you just love him? You could just listen to Chris all day long.

Love him. Thank you so much. I'd be scared and intrigued to work out with him. I'd feel like I was near death and he'd be like, come on, let's go. So Chris, tell me something that people, most people wouldn't know about you. I th most people would know about me. Lemme think. I would say the big one that Steph mentioned earlier in the beginning of the conversation I fell in love with power lifting about three years ago.

In, in that short time I've become, I'm the current. State champion in my weight class two times. Wow. Over in New Jersey. And I've really fallen in love with it because it's like everything already. I do my life every day. You just have to do a little bit more work to try to be a little bit better than you would the [00:40:00] day before that.

And. I can translate what I do in power to everything I do for my clients on a day basis. I'm just trying to be a little better for you every single day. And, Will some days be worse than others, right? We might not hit the lift we want. Yes. But you come back in the next day, you brush it off and you do your best to be better.

I would say, power lifting is that one thing a lot of people dunno about me, that I really find, strength, energy and drive to be better. My day to day with the sales arms. So Steph, we're gonna be in New York in October. I think we need to do a little stop over at his gym. Hey, come on.

Easy. Chris. Is cur allow in class Is what? Is cursing allowed in your classes, Chris? Yes. Staff. You know that she's good then. You're good. We're both good. Steph. Oh Chris, do you have a [00:41:00] favorite business website or app or something that you use a lot that you love? I, yeah, I do. I'm a little biased because I am a partner in the company, but Helios, so Helios is a sms app for fitness businesses.

Quick story on them. A few friends of mine who are developers were, were so intrigued by what I created in the sales arms, and they were like, what can we do to make your day to day easier? And I've used every SMS app that is out there, and there's nothing that's really specific to the sales process.

That we use in the fitness business. So they built an entire SMS platform around my sales process. But now they've evolved in being a SMS [00:42:00] provider that is willing to build around your needs. So the developers as opposed to saying, this is our platform. This is how to use it, these are the features, here you go.

That's there. But these developers are open to hearing your feedback and creating what you need as a business owner to make your experience a little bit more customized and the platform best for you. So what they've done for me in terms of creating a SMS platform that works for my sales process, they'll tweak for.

Any other small business owner. I think that's really amazing in the space now because right now it's kinda, you get what we got and that's pretty much it. Great. We will thank you. We will. I'll link to that in the show notes. And what about anything anything, a personal website app?

So I'm a big car guy I often find myself [00:43:00] just researching cars that are out there, cars that I can get that will appreciate, which is and just kinda just perusing through, what's new, what's good, that's old. Cars com. It's weird. It's so weird. I love it.

I love everyone like a family member. Hey, get a new car can help me. I'm like, oh, I'm, my relaxing is reading Mac website. So not everybody's, we all done something strange, so Chris how do people get ahold of you? Where do they find you and how do they try to work with you? How does that go?

Easiest way to find us is going our website the sales arms.com. You can read about, a lot of the clients that we work with, blur my story and how we got started and just book a discovery call. For us, it's important to, to get to know every single person that we speak with and make sure that this is [00:44:00] something we can truly, build around them.

One thing I tell everybody that I speak with is I don't want be a burden on your business. I want to make sure that this is something that will be successful. Everything we do is month to month so that the business owner isn't locked into something. Okay. That may not work for them. And that's one of the big things that's important to me, right? Yeah. That it's always a help. And I think we need to be clear to people. I always say to my studio owners, you, we invest in things. Not to cost us money, but to make us money. Like coaches and platforms and sales and like the idea is it, for it not to be an expense that drags you down, but a expense that lifts your business up.

Exactly. Especially if you look at it from like the standpoint, do you need to hire like a full-time sales manager at your studio? Do you wanna hire a fractional sales manager? Yeah. That can run it for you. And every studio business plan is going to be different. Figure out what [00:45:00] works for you.

I think the, I think what people really appreciate about our program is that you are essentially getting to work with four people for the price of one, right? We, you have somebody that's going to be your day-to-day sales rep who's gonna be doing all of your phone calls, all of your texting, your outreach, your follow up but then you have.

Somebody who's going to be continually data mining the back end of your system, trying to get older leads to come back in. And then you also have a marketing team member, right? So we also. Help expand the grassroots footprint for our clients as well. So that marketing team manager builds out a list with the studio owner of, apartment complexes, condo communities, restaurants, all small businesses within a five mile radius to create business to business partnerships.

So [00:46:00] that you have a avenue to generate organic leads of people who live, work, shopping and eat within your area. So it's very hard to find that in one person, and that's what the industry is set up to Now. It's get a general manager, have them do all, wear all of these hats. And hope for the best is that they're successful.

So for less than the cost of a general manager or even a sales manager working with us, you're gonna get about three to four people who are staying specifically in their lanes to help grow your business Overall, in the areas that are most important, that often are most tedious, that fall by the wayside.

Perfect. I know a few of my clients, I'm gonna be hooking up to you already, so that need your help. Thank you so much, Stephanie. Thanks for joining again. Oh, no. And Chris, thank you for the TA time today. Really great to connect with you again, and I hope to see [00:47:00] you in New Year, New York in October. Yes, you definitely will.

Thank you so much for your time, Michael. I appreciate being on, and anytime you wanna do this again, I more than thank you my friend. Bye bye. Bye.