Speed to Lead with Cody Sweet

In this episode, I speak to Cody Sweet and gain valuable insights from the fitness gym world and apply those concepts of lead generation and client conversion to the Yoga Studio world

In this episode:

• Learn how to effectively market your yoga studio and generate leads with Facebook ads and landing pages
• Discover the importance of timely responses to leads and the significant increase in conversion rates when following up within 60 seconds
• Understand the benefits of paid ads in providing a steady stream of leads
• Find out how to onboard and engage your team for better participation and success
• Gain knowledge on creating compelling intro offers to attract new members
• Explore successful marketing and sales techniques for yoga studios
• Hear from experts in the field who have achieved success in the fitness industry
• Get tips and advice on maximizing organic leads and referrals

Tune in to this episode to gain valuable insights and strategies that will help you take your yoga studio to the next level.

Cody https://www.sweetfitnesskickboxing.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cody.sweet.sfk/
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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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Subscribe, Rate, and Review:
Don't forget to subscribe to Yoga Biz Champ. Follow us on social media @yogabizchamp, rate, and review the podcast. Your feedback helps us grow our community and reach more yoga enthusiasts like you.

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

Transcript

so welcome to two white bold guys in the fitness

industry hey Cody Michael start again welcome to yoga beiz Camp I'm excited to have Cody sweet with me today welcome Cody thank you so Cody uh I'm going to read your bio but uh what am I doing having a kickboxing guy on my yoga studio podcast we'll get to that but Cody sweet is the owner of sweet Fitness kickboxing a 600 plus member studio in Chico California Cody studied his career in Bangkok Thailand as the manager of Bangkok Brazilian jiujitsu and Bangkok fight lab he then moved into marketing Consulting for dozens of martial art facilities this is where Cody found his way in the boutique Fitness industry Consulting for a chain of a dozen Fitness kickboxing Studios which led him to opening his own studio in December 2018 Cody now now owns a multiple Studios about to open another one and was a speaker that IH Ursa 2023 on lead generation for boutique Fitness Studios and it's coached nearly 100 Boutique Fitness Studios on their lead generation and Marketing System he's best known for assigning 160 new full price members on contract in January using his four-pillar system that he teaches to his clients welcome Cody I'm so glad to have you here thank you I appreciate it thanks for having me man I um I've seen you around and then I joined one of your webinars I think with Boutique Fitness Solutions and I just rewatched it just as a little just as a little reminder all the way through it it's like Michael's got a question Michael's got a question Michael's got a question so it's like yeah let's just get Cody on and you know as a marketing background I really relate to a lot of things that you you're saying and you know from owning a studio myself and so what my why I've got you on here is because you're in the fitness kickboxing high-fiving type of uh R Community right which is very different to my world which is the yoga world but your world is lightning years ahead of the yoga world as far as lead generation sales being comfortable having sales conversations and so my interest is like is you know how do we have these conversations how we how do we take these tried proven tested things that work into a more softer um you know not not high-f in type of style of business so um yeah so I just I've kind of broken I'll talk into three areas that I'd like to get into today which is kind of lead generation and marketing uh sales and intro offers because that's a whole other thing and then kind of the team participation and onboarding I think that you really excel in those areas yeah man we definitely get into whatever you want man I love talking about this stuff so I mean I'm here as long as long as you want me here all right all right good well one of the things I wanted to talk about um because one of the things that I wrote down right away uh that you said was in lead generation and you speed to lead yes super important yeah super important and it's something that I see messed up almost every single time right like I think a lot of people unless you've really looked at the studies and then kind of internalized the concepts you don't really understand especially with paid advertising why you need to follow up basically immediately right so there's a marketing company out there I don't remember it's called Great White media or great shark media something like that but anyway they released their data where they found that if you fall up with the lead within 60 seconds so 60 seconds you are 391 per more likely to make a conversion out of that lead above average 31% from one minute to two minutes it literally drops down to like 180% or something and then from two minutes to three it drops down to 120 and then it's like 80 and 60 it's it's a significant ific decrease a lot of people don't realize that because unless they've done a lot of paid advertising which organic leads and referrals are the best right of course are the best the problem is typically you don't get a flood of referrals and organic leads every single day every week mon they can be tough right so pay ads you can really turn that faucet or that fire hose on but the difference is an organic lead or referral they already know who you are they know about you they know what problem you solve they probably have a friend that goes there so they already know the price they know the commitment like they're pretty much they're a shoe in right they're ready they're ready to sign up so if somebody comes through your website and messages you and takes you an hour to get back to them or even a few hours to get back to them they're pretty well bought in already from a paid ad they have met never maybe have ever heard of you before never seen you maybe never even thought about doing yoga or whatever modality you offer they see your ad and they like oh that could be cool but they're not so bought into you yet right so the more time you give them to think they're going to forget about you their kid gets sick they you know they have a big work project whatever it is right it's and I've seen up personally that if we fall up with a lead within 60 seconds almost always they respond if we wait even 20 30 40 minutes that response rate goes down significantly right so it seems like oh what's one minute versus 10 minutes it really does make a big difference and I was shocked and I think everyone who really tracks it will be shocked as well as how big of a difference it does make so we always try to follow up immediately if at all possible I can see a whole bunch of yoga studio owners just putting their heads under the duvet covers right now yeah I mean it makes a big and it can be tough right and like we don't all follow too right let talk about yeah the actual lead part so new customers I remember when I opened my studio you know marketing background I open with a bang you know it's like you know they got a yoga mat and a whole kit the first time around like I I invested in all that stuff and um so I opened with a bang and but I remember thinking at that time I've got my community now that's it I'm set right that's not the truth right I I ended up calling it feeding the Beast because you constantly have to feed for the churn you have to keep feeding new people in and I think yoga studios in particular really shy about that part like I I you know on con first time meeting with people I'm sometimes hearing that they're getting two and four new people in a month and I'm just like you you can't really you know that's that's a tough way to make a living and tough yeah yeah yeah but it doesn't surprise me right it doesn't surprise me um but yeah I mean speed delad super important and then you just mentioned going out with a bang coming with the bang with like the yoga mat and all that but that's what we do we do it year round right I call it an irresistible offer stack yeah right so thing you wanted to talk about a bit I don't want to jump too far ahead but that offer is super important the stronger offer you have not only are they more likely take action and join because they get all this cool stuff but you can also generate a lot of extra right well if you just advertise like get a free session or a free week everybody's doing that everybody in your city is doing a free session a free week or whatever right or you know three classes for 20 bucks or whatever they're doing but if you have an irresistible offer stack so for us it's get a free 7-Day VIP pass which is literally just a free week but it sounds cooler that way right yeah um free boxing gloves free hand wraps free t-shirt free glove bag save $149 so we use that in all of our marketing and all of our Facebook ads Instagram ads Tik Tok ads on our website on our Instagram that's the that's the that's what captures the attention right that completely so there's two yoga studios and one has a free session and one has a free 7-Day VIP pass get a free yoga mat free water bottle free XY andz well I mean which which ad are you going for right it's it's a pretty obvious a pretty easy choice so you're those things on your on are they getting all those things free on their intro offer period or do they have to commit to something get we do not do like an intro offer period like they come in they do a free session we blow them away with an amazing experience and we give them what we call the god father offer right an offer is so good they can't refuse they say hey Michael you did amazing today you know we do the high fives right boom high five so Michael you know we have a super special offer for you if you join today you get X Y and Z right so they come in do a free session and we have all the stuff laid out and if they sign up after their first session then that's kind of their Fair fast fast action uh discount kind of deal if you people call it right we give them the gloves and wraps and all that and I know a lot of studios are like oh I can't afford to give all that St away but if you buy it in bulk we spend about $28 on all of that stuff um so you know you can get you can probably get some very nice yoga mats branded um overseas and have them Shi you you might have to buy a few hundred at a time to make it financially worth sense but I have 600 pairs of boxing gloves getting delivered today right um yeah and so that's that's how we do that and and it then we give it gives them a reason to sign up right then on the spot but also we use it to generate our leads so instead of just doing a free class which do we have that big stack yeah so let's talk it we got the lead right we got to get in front of eyeballs of our potential clients and I feel a lot of people can be resistant to paid ads I love paid ads I love um very specific smart targeted ads not wasting money kind of stuff um and but it's like how do we get in front of those eyeballs so I think you know for me I'm I've always got my clients doing a radius around the studio kind of marketing of their intro offers um now uh your process I believe is um is Facebook or social media ad leading to landing page leading to contact with the studio is that the the steps yes yeah very very direct very direct we run a Facebook ad landing page where they can take two actions one is the close it and leave or one is to enter their information to uh to redeem the offer that we're offering and then we set an appointment so just to be clear your landing page is not part of your website because a lot of my Studios and all the studios out there they do have a you know an intro offer landing page just built into the website but you're talking about a very separate landing page that doesn't have them wandering off onto reading bios and clicking over to social media it's like it's one page that has one call to action basically right which is action they do two things either they can leave or they can put in their information right if you send them to their actual website there's just too much information there's too many distractions on there like you alluded to right they can go to social media they can read bios and all this I don't want them to do all of that stuff because I know that stuff takes time and a lot of people are using their phone when they're at work or you know their kids maybe their kids are just running out of the shower so they have to get off their phone like we don't want them spending a lot of time on the website because I know they they are less likely to actually opt in and put in their information and if they don't put in their information well then now I can't get them in the studio right so we want to be very simple very sure and direct to the point here's who we are here's the offer here's how you get it and that's the landing page is very short and sweet you can send them to your website after that so they can look at more stuff if you want but not before so why

why would you have them put the uh their information in where they're going to get contacted back versus them just purchasing uh a week or a free trial or what's the behind so for one I so a lot of yoga studios I assume you use something maybe like mind body or or Marana Tech Walla the issue with sending them there to like purchase their their trial and whatever there's a lot of friction right so a friction just means how many actions how many steps are you asking them to take so like if you send them to mindbody well now they got to create a mindbody account let's not talk about a mindbody account creation pleas exactly questions right it's like what's your name your birth date your address your date of birth your emergency contact we only target ads ads are really only getting serve to mobile users right people aren't clicking on your Facebook on desktop anymore it's mobile so if they're on their phone for one they don't know what mindbody is like we know what mindbody is they don't know what mindbody is y they don't know how to make a mindbody account they don't want to make a mindbody account they don't want to fill in their address their birth date there create a password a username so you just ask them to take 20 steps to offer to get your offer I don't want them to do that because I know they're not going to do that maybe the five people who do that yeah they're super highly qualified leads right you're going to probably sell those five but the other 50 who left well now you've lost them and you didn't get their information right so we want to have as low of friction as possible name email phone number now if you want to make a mindbody account to self schedu after cool after you capture their name email phone number then redirect them to my body if you want but I can tell you the majority of your leads still aren't going to do that portion of it so if you're relying on people who fill out that entire thing and book their own class their own weekend purchase maybe you get 10 of them but you would have gotten a hundred if you would have done it the way that uh with the less friction right so you're just you're losing out on so much okay um I'm just gonna throw one in here uh do you know Desiree from Sanctuary Fitness in Pasadena yeah yeah I know yeah so I was at Boutique Fitness Solutions thing after bold um year or so ago and she was genius with me I'm I had a conversation with her I'm like my partner lives in Pasadena has been looking for kind of a fitness Community I got home and I got an email from her so nice to meet you blah blah blah blah um to get you guys going and pasaden I've set you up with an account here is your I've set it's under your email here's your password I've put three classes on your account so you can get booking it's like H how do I say no to that yeah awes so good yeah when I was just in New York she sent me a whole uh she shared her like notes with me of like cool places to go in New York and restaurants and stuff like that desire is great and that works awesome right what she did for you guys thing is if you're running paid ads you haven't captured their contact information yet to do that for them and you just send them straight Mind Body most people won't do that and most people aren't going to self schedu there's also an ISS issue with letting people will self schedule in the sense that I know if I get a lead right now it's 11:20 a.m. here in California I want to follow up immediately and I want to try to get them in my studio today we never we never ask them when they want to come in we tell them when we want them to come in right I know I can already hear yoga like oh no no no no hear me out out I agree with you we got to book we have to book him yes and we got to get him in soon because like I said maybe a big project at work or their kid gets sick or or they just lose their nerve like I always tell this uh this story I to my staff I was gonna go buy a brand new uh Chevy Tahoe when they first came they it's like $80,000 I don't really need a brand new Chevy Tahoe but I saw a black one I was like I'm buying that truck like I want that truck so I drive down there well and they don't have the truck and like the sales guy wasn't super on top of it so I left I was ready to train in trade in my Lexus that day to buy a $80,000 vehicle that I didn't need just as an Impulse buy well by the next day they called me back and I'm like I'm good I don't want it anymore like I changed my mind that quickly like within 24 hours right so if they would have had one there that day I'd be driving a brand new Chevy Tahoe right now but because they didn't I saved $80,000 that I didn't you know didn't really need that truck but I was ready to buy them so somebody sees your Facebook ad or your Instagram ad and then they opt in they're ready right then let them wait even until tomorrow or the next day and they very well may change their mind like ah you know I just got this medical bill like I literally just paid a medical bill for $150 just before this call so maybe that happened to them they're like well there goes the $150 I was going to spend on yoga so I'm not doing that anymore right I'll go next month and we all know that next month me means never typically right so we want to schedule them two day if at all possible but we're doing it not like hey Michael super excited you want to try a free week of kickboxing um you're going to love it it's so much fun hey I've got a couple of spots tonight at 5 or 6m how does one of those work for you Michael so I believe the way that we do it is not aggressive people think like that it's very like when I say hey we need to schedule appointment today it's like yes that's what we're trying to do but we do it in a very non-aggressive way right yeah yeah yeah um peel back to the lead so the lead I mean I mean short are we going to be in agreement here short movement-based ad has to have the name of the city Town up front yes like screaming so if you see my ads that's literally what they are is hey Chico ladies or hey Cho name hey Chico ladies hey and then on the border of my so we've actually been running a lot of image ads um image ads have been working great for us we so not so meaning not so movement based no just image ads but what we do to do that pattern interrupt is we have bright red borders on the top and bottom of the ad with white text that says like Chico ladies or hey Chico or something like that to draw their attention yes yes and that's working super super well for us um typically I used I would always run video ads but I've seen at least with me here in Chico a trend of images have been working much better lately okay yeah that's good to know um because you need I mean folks you have three seconds to get your message across basically right I always say to people you know especially the teachers that the the teachers that are scared of putting them or owners that are scared of putting themelves out there on social media I'm like I I flick my finger up and I'm like that's how much time you have after that your history they've forgotten about you right it's like but what you're saying and what you're saying about the immediacy uh and then now made me think about how many times I th put something in my Amazon cart to buy when I'm in that mode and then when I go back later I'm like oh yeah I don't need it anymore and so it books do you have or Audi books do you have in your Amazon wish list right like that I've got things in there from 10 years ago that I never bought I was like oh I gotta buy that and 10 years later I never bought it right so the ad we the call out of the

city so for us it's typically women so go hey you know Chico ladies or hey Chico moms that works really really well yeah yeah yeah and even like I've used in the past I've used a lot of selfie Style videos and literally I'm in the camera hey Chico ladies or hey Chico you know um and that immediately they're like oh that's me and then they're more likely to look at your ad yeah and can we also say that slick doesn't it doesn't have to be slick anymore authentic is kind of like homegrown authentic yeah we use all iPhone video and photos for our ads we I've done professional videos professional photos they do not convert as well as just photos from an iPhone um because people are used to seeing that that same type of Med in their feet yeah yeah when they see the professional stuff yeah it looks super nice and they're like oh yeah that girl's a model this is clearly fake right like I mean it's like you can just tell it's just not the same Vibe it's not authentic well and that is the word right I think in you when you don't have a lot of time you have to get the vibe across and uh the you know I've been doing really well with winback uh campaigns with uh ex exporting an old here's a free one folks export your old your database of people that haven't come back upload them as a custom audience in your Facebook and oh yeah a good idea show them what they're missing yeah have a landing page have a win back separate winback landing page and just bombard them with you know especially the people that dropped off at coid you know and you know haven't got the confidence to come back in studio yeah show them show them the Vibes and the the everything than you for me there it's very targeted right it's like it's it's um it's like you're not throwing you know when I say about smart marketing you're not throwing money willy-nilly this is people already know you right and they just need may need that nudge to come back so yeah um but yeah so um but then okay so the ad the location based ad screaming out goes to a landing page um I Heard use um so whatever CRM really right because like I know Walla and Mind Body have now got built-in crms and so that's becoming more you know bigger in the fitness world that it's getting built in for the lead capture um but you use an external um I use click funnel my Landing software yeah I use click and and marketing background yeah and I use zappier to zap it into my CRM I come from an internet marketing background not a fitness background actually right like I started in the market internet Market first then I went to open my own gym after I had already worked with like dozens of other people's Studios so I basically got to like T all my theories and techniques other people's money they paid me and then I was like I got tired of being H computer all the time so I'm like I'm gonna go open I'm gonna open my own gym now and I had already had like most people's Studio owners biggest problem is just getting enough leads and enough new people right yeah well that's what I knew that was the easiest part for me I already knew how to do all that I done it for dozens and dozens of people so I came at like from the reverse side but so the reason that's the reason I use clickfunnels because it's very heavy in the internet marketing space yeah and as Studio owners we have to Market we need new clients and we have to Market and we have to really work on the retention side of things right and so and also in there a lot of owners um you need to be having your Facebook pixels all built into the system too right for remarketing yeah yeah and I mean I don't do a ton of remarketing personally um but we always have to have the pixel to run our conversion campaigns properly right if you're using landing page you need that set up to run it properly and I see a lot of people don't don't have the pixel set up they can't run conversion campaigns can't run them properly um you definitely need to have those Basics those basics in there to make the campaigns work well um I'm curious for the leads what have you done I also say for marketing you it's money or effort right and so effort can be real Guerilla based do you know do you have any Scrappy stuff that you've done you prefer money you don't like money I want to work that hard right that's I always say too lazy to work a real job that's why I became a business owner right yeah so the only one thing that we do besides like the paid ads that works extremely well for us is um for like three or four maybe five months out of the years we're in California we have a downtown Thursday night market like a farmers market where they walk off downtown and there's thousands and thousands of people there right it's a pretty big thing every weekend have a a full Booth you know custom design with our logo and all that stuff and we get out there and we do tabling um but you have to do it right most people do not do it right they go out there they lay out their stuff and then they sit in their chair and they wait for someone to come talk to them it does not work do not do that right so we actually I'll take me and whoever like my most outgoing coaches or whatever I'll get my two most outgoing coaches to go do it because I don't usually do it anymore and you stand in front of your booth and when people walk by 100% you ask them you're like hey how would you like to do some free kickboxing like hey have you done kickboxing before like you know hey you with the with the bald head have you ever done kickboxing for you want to do a free kickboxing oh yeah come here come here I'll get you all set up right um we don't just stand there and be like okay free week free kickbox we're we're I want to say we're like we're hunting so it's like okay get that guy get that get that guy right you know I tell my studio is for those things cuz I love those Community things I had tons of those when I had my studio and always got involved in in them and uh but for those type of things I'm having my Studios now rent the spin boards because I'm telling you every Market event I go to those spin boards get attention they get a lineup they get attention um and it's very interactive and so um and with those you can you know all your friends in the area you can get them to donate prizes and things like that yeah all

right I the other important thing that with those community events try to SCH get their lead information there and try to schedule them yeah don't just hand them a flyer to walk away lot plac you want to be like we have a QR code like oh you want a free week awesome go go take out your phone for me cool scan this QR code yeah all right enter your information in up there awesome I've got class tomorrow at 5 or six pm how does one of those work for you Michael like we're trying to schedule them right there have you used SMS much as far as um enter this code enter this word yeah so that how we used to do it and unfortunately our CRM SMS messaging is really really slow now and it didn't used to be so I've kind of been bypassing it but yes that's what we used to do a lot of that a lot more at those now we've gone to the QR code because it bypasses them having to uh text that number yeah all right so we've got them in we we've got this lead we've got them in let's just talk a little bit now about I just want to pros and cons of fre versus paid yeah text versus call uh and the chat so yeah I mean we only text we don't call our leads for a couple of reasons one because when we first started the studio I was managing it and I'm not going to sit there and call people all day right I'm just not going to do it but then two we've just found text to work really really well people if you text them right away people are very likely to respond whereas people are I think not very likely to answer unknown number right yeah if somebody calls me it's an unknown number most of the time I'm not going to answer that call right now so you can do a double dial you call them they don't answer you call them right back immediately again that helps right because they're like oh this person's called me twice in a row they must know me um that helps but still I just find that phone calls are very labor intensive are you doing this are you doing your phones from a phone or you using a Tex system so you're not using you're not using like a text based Marketing System for the you're like you're down and dirty person person iPhone um you can use something like go high level right which has an app on your phone that can work great and it's very fast but the reason we don't use like our CRM or whatever because I want the notifications immediately so we can respond to them immediately right I know like some studios you know they get the CR they get the text through their their CRM and then they check their CRM 20 minutes later and they respond then they go coach a session then they come back and they get busy and like oh I got to check this check text in the CRM so I want that notification I want it buzzing right lead comes in bam hit them up immediately that's so that's why we use iPhones um and we just haven't switched to like go high level which can work as well just because right we haven't used it for five years I I haven't I haven't had the B enough pain point to to add it in yet yeah so I think with the marketing software is now built into like say Walla where they've got the lead gen that goes straight into the system so you just want to make sure that people are in that situation where it's all built in you got to be you're saying you got to BEP thiss speed to lead you need to have a t-shirt for that speed to lead yeah it's at 60 seconds that 31% increase in conversion right if there's two tips I can give to any type of Studio owner or honestly any service-based brick and mortar business follow up with your leads immediately and try to get them into your studio your business today if Studio ERS do those two things they will see a significant increase in business right follow up immediately and get them into your studio today so a lot of crms aren't very conducive to that as far as the speed to lead yeah yeah and today I mean I always say you've got to get people in on an intro offer like you say if that you know some two three week kind of intro offer which is pretty standard in my world um you got to get them in two or three times in that first week or else they're not going to see value in your studio by the you know by the end of that conversion period um sales versus free uh intro offer versus free I think this comes down to how good your sales team and systems are behind the scenes like I feel like if you're doing free or one week or something you short and sharp I feel like the team's got to be really dialed in on that yeah so we do free for a couple of reasons one because free always generates more leads than paid right so if you're doing it from your offer a free offer brings in more leads than paid and then two I'm very much a firm believer that for one we have the most amazing staff that we possibly can we always say we sell Fun number one um we've won best Boutique gym in our city the last three years in a row our mission statement is to help people change their lives by giving them the most fun workout they've ever had so like my coaches are all high energy boom boom high energy right so I know somebody comes in we give them an amazing experience I know the large large majority of people they know after that very first session probably even before it's over for sure that if they want to become a member of our studio or not so I don't want to drag that on longer and give them a week two weeks three weeks where I know we have to keep getting them back bring them back in for the session get them in for another session we just want to sell them right there after that first session so give him that Godfather offer after the first session like hey Michael we have a super special first day offer for you if you join today you get X Y and Z so we're giving them a reason to join then because I know from our stats for every free s-day person that come so they come in thinking they're GNA do a whole free week right and they can we give them that offer the first class all of last year we converted 60.5% of all free trials to a contract after first session after the first session not the whole week but after their first session so we know six out of 10 are going to come in and sign a contract right um so I don't want to extend that I want to get them sold right then because I know if they don't sign up after that first class they're highly unlikely to sign up yeah yeah that's I mean that's great conversion as well what do you know uh what your lifetime value lifetime how you how long you so I don't know exactly because Co kind of we opened 15 months before Co so that's really throwing our lifetime

down yeah ours is like 800 and something bucks from based on our CRM but I have no idea how accurate that actually is I don't really look at the lifetime so much um in Boutique Fitness at least with Fitness kickboxing Orange Theory Fitness has said that their average member stays about 8 to 10 months we do one month agreements but even with that one month agreements you get people who you know cancel and you know their cards get declined whatever i' say ours probably Falls in around that eight to 10 months as well and you say contract so what I'm seeing in um uh it I'm seeing a lot of success in um not having contracts in this economy so it's it's kind of like it's I'm finding it a little bit easier for people to commit without the commitment if that makes sense yeah um but you in your world you're going for the what 12 month 12 months absolutely yeah um so I know for us for one we have a lower price point than a lot of boutiques so we do $99 a month on that 12 Monon agreement right most boutiques like exponential Brands you know U cycle bar all those they're average about 130 across the board ours is lower um we operate on volume you know we have five 600 six 700 members I found for us that works really really well we're able to generate a high volume of Trials and leads so it works well I like the agreement we call them an agreement but it is a contract the 12-month agreement because then you only have to sell them once if it's a you know people do like class packs like go a 10 class punch card well now you got to sell them over and over and over what a pain right pain in the ass I don't want to do that and then month the month I know for everybody who walks away because they won't sign an agreement we're going to sign five or 10 or whatever more who will sign the agreement right so we're willing to let the one walk to get like five or whatever it is on a contract and that works super well for us and that is a h so that was my business model I my studio was I sold it eight years ago now but you know back then the the price was $89 a month and for me I went on more volume as well then it wasn't the high price point but I kept that credit card bill with tax under $100 so it was like like that every month when you saw that it wasn't sticker shock and it was like okay well I get in a few times a month it's value for me right and um yes um all right I want to touch on last part here is the well actually we didn't touch on free versus paid like do have you done paid no I've never done paid at my at my studio okay okay and the reason we've never done pay is we can operate on a high volume of Trials right so if a lot of times like when I work with clients if they're like oh I can't have a bunch of Trials you might need to go paid in that route so you're getting a higher qualified lead a higher qualified trial but you're going to have lower volume right for us we can have three four even five trials in a class we prefer to have two we can have several in a class you know we've got six classes a day so we can operate on a high volume of Trials so for us free works great but if you have limited capacity for trials then you really need to look at paid yeah okay yeah um the people part so um I mean it's always you know in my world we're not we're not chest bumping right but but I do find you know in my world sometimes it is a little bit hard on the smaller Studio you know the the community Studio I sometimes find um Studio owners have a little bit of a hard time getting everybody on board getting everybody participating so I've opened I've opened four studios in the last little while and one of them three weeks in and she's just going she's going I've got these ones that are promoting themselves they're getting people in helping build their classes getting people in the next week and then you've got the other ones she's like I just can't even get them to hardly answer an email and not participate and so I will say this comes down to the on boarding and the expectations kind of at the beginning and so um and I feel like in your world you have a lot more expectations of what people are going to what you want them to do than in my world um and I want more in my world um yeah yeah so can you talk about that because I always say it's onboarding if they're not if they're not kind of aligned with our mission and vision value after that and it's not we come back to where we had this conversation and then it's like decide if they're a fit or not but um can you talk about your process yeah yeah so I mean that my sister was a yoga instructor and she's you know she's talked to me about it and how like and I I'm not a yoga guy so I could be wrong but from what she said a lot of yoga studios are it's a lot of the employees are very much laidback and maybe they're not even employees they're more like volunteers work exactly exactly and so you're probably not going to get them bought into the same level right so at my studio very much we always say we hold the standard right like we want this to be the most fun job you've ever had but it is still a job like there is still stuff that has to get done right so we have that expectation right out of the gate and they know we have like a a coach's manual we have a manager's manual we have Sops so like checklist right like it's a job we need our yes systems complete our our our studio needs to run proper right so we don't have people who are just instructors they're mostly instructors but they also have to work the desk a little bit between classes and stuff like that um so they know that they have those roles to do they're trained on doing those roles and the manager holds the standard right we have to let them know that they have to do those roles so if they're not doing it they're literally not doing their job right and if you don't do your job they probably don't have a job for very long right soall AR like volunteer you know yeah they've got to do the things and we've got metrics and stats for the stuff that we can track right and they get feedback we say we always get feedback early and often right like we always want to give feedback and it's always you did amazing at X Y and Z also we need to do this because of why so we give them the why of why something is important so they understand and we have to hold the standard on that we have to let them know like cool so for this next session I'm going to make sure that you make three connections with your trial every single round cool can you do that for me Michael awesome cool high five right and I always find with a staff that's a important thing to ask like can I count on you to do that for me like get them to to confirm don't just say hey do this for me say hey Michael can I count on you to do this for me please yes awesome great job man thank you bam so that's how we hold the standard yeah and it's it's it's important right it's it's like you've gone through all this money and effort to get people in right and they can't be it can't be disjointed between what you've presented and the experience when they come in right and so I'm going to give an example of that here in Vancouver I did a a trial at a fitness studio uh granted I was going in kind of in the early in the morning you know for some of the group stuff but I was never once greeted my name was never once mentioned I never got an email or followup or anything during that period and at the end of it at the end of it I was just allowed to walk away and I did and that happen all the time I had a client they own a couple of spin Studios they came up and did a half day of Consulting with me and they're like well after the you know after the trial's class like we call them and we text them and email them and I'm like why are you doing that I'm like they just had an amazing experience they had so much fun your staff is amazing don't let them walk out the door like that's it's called leakage right it's like yeah just let and it happens so often yeah yeah it happens so often right it's like you wanna we almost never we always try to never let anyone walk out the door it's what we actually do our coaches it's their job after class all right guys everybody it was Michael's first class everybody give it for Michael then the coach goes up to Michael Michael you did awesome boom high five you did amazing blah blah blah blah hey Michael go follow me up to the front um Kyra is gonna show all Kyra's got a special first day offer for you whatever and takes the coach takes them to the front desk for them to go over the membership options to give him the Godfather offer right so they're not they're not able to just like walk out the door um we've literally had one person walk out the door and the manager like went chasing after him like hey Michael come back come back real quick right like you know if there's a bunch of people in and out of the studio but yeah we're not letting them just walk out the door and that relationship and the name I mean it's the looking them in the eyes person to person it's everything right I mean it it it is so important do you know what the Swedish word in the English language is your name yeah right so that's what we always say our what's the swet word in the English language their name cool so someone comes in we use their name early and we use it often so we're using their name over and over again early and often it's the sweetest word in the English language like if you meet somebody and then you see them again six months later and they remember your name you're like oh like you know it makes you feel good right same thing in the studio so we're always using their name building that connection um it's super super important Cody thank you you've given me so much information here to share with our listeners I want to ask you three and questions so I want uh you to tell me something people don't know about you I used to be a super skinny long-haired skater kid with hair down to here are you going to send pictures yeah I've got pictures man I've got pictures what's your favorite business app website or tool what's a go-to favorite business app website or tool all stack you know mine's gonna be a little different it's Instagram because if I want to learn something from somebody I go on Instagram find somebody who's done it and I DM them and be like Michael you're so amazing I love what you've done like hey would you be open to like a 30 minute phone call I'll pay you for your time I love what you've done um you know can I can I yeah so Instagram is how I've connected with a lot of people and gotten a lot of very valuable information while we're on Instagram let's talk just quickly sales by chat on social media like how many Studio owners get a new follower or social media people for the get a new follower and don't even say hello yeah we follow him back and we try to we like hey Michael have you ever done kickboxing before I'd love to give you a free 7-Day VIP pass yeah so that's what we do I mean costs no money and very another thing we do well that's eus money right that's yeah yeah but you can do a really low effort we'll actually follow like 50 people a day from like one of our competitors or like a hair salon or something like that we'll follow 50 a day anyone who follows us back will DM them and offer him a free week that's good for like a a week no problem and it takes like three minutes a day yeah yeah um one of my I have uh I'm all yoga studios except I have one lree Fitness Studio so all lree plus one um but she is um geofencing the competition um and the when they get Geo fenced in so it's the it's the ads that show up on the apps for that right it's but when uh when they get Geo fenced within the comp I's walls you can then Target ads to them after they leave that location yep yeah exactly that's awesome tell me a favorite personal app website something favorite personal where do you H or where do you hang out where do you hang out where's man where do I hang out I don't know man uh personal I mean so I use Instagram of course Instagram your that's your that's your relax yeah yeah I say the app I might use the most is Instagram or maybe um just audiable I like to listen to audiobooks when I lift I don't yeah um and I heard you mention talk about Tik Tok on the other webinar too and uh I for learning I use Tik Tok a lot because you can literally just search you know repurposing content and you get these just fantastic quick 30 second um kind of learning environments how do people find you Cody where did where do people find you do you have any offers I mean I work with like Studios uh F mostly Fitness kickboxing or like on the boutique Fitness side of things um Instagram's the best place cody. s. sfk so sfk like sweet F kickboxing put it in the or yeah yeah or they can shoot me an email Cody sfis kickboxing.com those are the best places and you're on Instagram at where yeah yeah cody. s. sfk okay perfect well thank you so much for your time I really appreciate it we're both uh no hair both white and both wearing black today shirt yeah it's a great look it's a great look thank you so much and uh I really appreciate you sharing your knowledge with everybody today Cody of course thanks for having me Michael I appreciate it man all right thank

you sorry