Geronimo Unfiltered

Want to know where your studio is quietly leaking members? Book a free 15-minute studio check-up and I'll show you the quick wins hiding in your member experience: https://bit.ly/p-your-studio-check-up

Follow Geronimo Unfiltered so you never miss an episode:

Spotify

Apple Podcasts

Subscribe to our YouTube

The Geronimo Academy IG

600 members. Four studios. Zero paid ads. Kat from Good Times Pilates breaks down the exact seven-step experience every new member moves through before they touch a reformer.

I'll be honest, this one broke my brain a little. Kat has built Good Times to 600 members and four studios in under eight years, and almost none of it came from ads or a referral program. Her edge isn't a clever offer. It's a seven-step experience that makes people feel like they found her on their own, makes them feel seen the moment they walk in, and sends them home better than they arrived. We mapped the whole thing out, step by step, so you can run it on your own studio this week.

In this episode you'll hear:

Why Good Times treats itself as a lifestyle brand, not a Pilates studio

The seven-step member experience that runs before a single first class

How to make new members feel like they discovered you organically

The welcome message and community guidelines that set people up to succeed

What a five-star arrival and first-class check-in actually look like

The post-class moment and follow-up that turn one visit into a habit

Why niching down hard grew the business instead of shrinking it

The "pretend you're a client" audit to run on your own studio this week

The real referral numbers behind 600 members

Chapters

00:00:00 600 members, no ads, no referral program
00:01:48 The right people find you (lifestyle brand, not a Pilates studio)
00:06:42 Why do you exist? Stand for something
00:09:22 Business by design: why niching down grew the studio
00:12:43 The 7-step member experience, start to finish
00:12:45 Step 1: The welcome message that sets people up for success
00:16:30 Step 2: The tours and what to expect
00:17:08 Step 3: The arrival experience
00:20:33 Step 4: How they enter the room
00:21:30 Step 5: What the teacher does for a first-timer
00:25:00 Step 6: The post-class moment
00:25:56 Step 7: The follow-up that closes the loop
00:28:23 Why no callbacks, no ads, no compromise
00:29:12 Where to start: pretend you're a client
00:30:42 The real referral numbers behind 600 members

If this one hit home, listen to "How Kye Made His Studio a Second Home + Created a Membership Base FULL of Organic Leads" next. It's the same organic-growth playbook from a different operator.

And when you're ready to find the quick wins hiding in your own member experience, book your free 15-minute studio check-up here: https://bit.ly/p-your-studio-check-up

👉 Want to audit your own studio structure? Book a free 15 minute studio check-up here.

Follow Geronimo Unfiltered so you never miss an episode.

Geronimo Unfiltered Official YouTube

@thegeronimoacademy

Ange and Tanya from Feel Good Pilates have built four studios on track for $4M with one business partner and zero drama. This is the framework, plus Doza's own war story of nearly losing the business before Geronimo Academy even started.

Around 40% of studio owners are in business with a partner. Most are one tough week away from the argument that never quite gets resolved. Money stress shows up, resentment shows up, and suddenly you're parked in a suburban street on the phone to your lawyer working out who gets the house.

Doza has been there with Ben in the first year of Geronimo. Ange and Tanya have run a cleaner version of the partnership model from day one.

In this episode, Doza pulls out a big piece of paper, draws a line down the middle, and walks them through the two-column rule live. Then he maps it to the eight KPIs every studio business runs on.

If you've ever felt foggy about who owns what in your partnership, this is the episode to send your business partner.

In this episode you'll hear:

The two-column rule that ends partnership confusion forever

Why one throat to choke per KPI is the most underrated rule in business

Doza's full story of nearly losing his business and his oldest mate

The eight KPIs every studio business actually runs on

Why Feel Good Pilates have only ever had to fire two people

The single ego trap that kills most business partnerships

The exact starting move Monday morning if your partnership needs this conversation

Chapters:
00:00:00 Cold open
00:01:59 Why partnerships go murky
00:03:14 Doza and Ben, the lawyered-up war story
00:06:49 The mastermind room that saved Geronimo
00:08:01 The two-column rule, drawn live on paper
00:08:28 Who's actually the CEO at Feel Good Pilates?
00:09:00 How they secretly run a RACI model
00:10:18 Ange's column: culture, retention, team, ops
00:13:17 Numbers: why this one is always shared
00:15:20 Tam's column: lead flow, sales, content, brand
00:17:03 Mapping the 8 KPIs to one throat to choke
00:18:26 Why this clarity is why they'll hit $4M
00:19:00 Buy back your time: what each partner would delegate first
00:22:53 Did the split happen naturally?
00:25:20 The biggest mistake Doza sees in failing partnerships
00:28:18 Where to start Monday morning
00:29:48 Where the pilates industry is going
00:30:30 Vision reveal: 10 studios in 10 years

Where to go next:

If this hit, listen to The Real Reason Your Team Isn’t All In (It’s Not the Money).

Ready to audit your own studio structure? Book a free 15 minute studio check-up here.

You can't grow a fitness studio on media alone, but you can't grow it on a business plan alone either.

Doza sits down with Danny Kennedy, host of one of Australia's biggest fitness pods with 12 million+ downloads and counting, and reverse-engineers Danny's $49 / $250 / 1:1 offer stack live on camera.

Then Danny flips the mic and teaches the belief loop that decides whether you'll ever actually do the work.

If you own a studio, this one maps straight back to your bricks.

You'll learn about the attention engine, the conversion engine, the 5-minute lead rule, sell by chat, and the mindset piece most studio owners skip.

Want Doza to do the same diagnosis on your studio?

Book your Studio Check-Up Here.

If this one landed, go back and binge: Matt Purcell - Turn Content Into Cash.

Enjoyed this episode? Here's where to find more:

Follow Geronimo Unfiltered

Follow Doza on Instagram

Follow Geronimo Academy on Instagram

Chapters
00:00:00 Intro
00:03:04 You're in the media business in 2026
00:05:41 Personal brand — when's the right time to lean in?
00:06:25 Attention engine vs conversion engine
00:09:00 Why we canceled our short-form shoots
00:11:21 12M downloads, a 5-year commitment, and 2 years of silence
00:14:08 Your reality is always catching up to who you're being
00:19:53 The Vegas cocktails moment that changed how Danny records
00:22:41 Danny's offer stack — app, school, 1:1
00:29:09 The 40-out-of-100 signal you're under-pricing
00:38:30 The 5-minute lead rule — 100x more conversions
00:40:01 Pods as ads — how Doza grew 500% in 12 months
00:41:50 Sell by chat — 5 chats a day, non-negotiable
00:44:14 Doza's diagnosis: kill the app, build the back end
00:47:34 Bricks & clicks for studio owners
00:49:46 Monday morning — where do you actually start?
00:52:03 The belief loop, drawn out
00:55:29 The black coffee theory
00:57:35 You don't experience the world as it is, you experience it as you are

Most studio owners are doing one of two things with AI right now.
Ignoring it. Or trying to automate everything and breaking their business.
Both will lose.
There's a third path - and it takes 45 minutes to set up.

Try Gerry - our free AI sales roleplay bot → https://bit.ly/p-gerry-sales-call-bot

Get a free 15-minute studio check-up → https://bit.ly/p-your-studio-check-up

Claude Code found $2.3 million of hidden money in our business in five minutes.
Stuff we'd been chasing for two years. Four people couldn't crack it. AI did it in five.
But the first place most studio owners go with AI is sales.
That's the one thing you should never automate.

In this episode, Doza and Geronimo Head Coach Ryan walk you through the three Northstar principles that stop you breaking your business with AI - and the three workflows every studio owner can have running by Friday.

Try Gerry - practice your sales script with our free AI roleplay bot → https://bit.ly/p-gerry-sales-call-bot

In this episode, you'll learn:
— The 3 Northstar principles that stop you breaking your business with AI
— Why you should never automate sales (and what happens if you do)
— Why "departments are dead" and workflows are replacing them
— Workflow 1: How to build an email marketing project that sounds like you
— Why Claude beats ChatGPT for gym owners (and the exact stack to switch to)
— Workflow 2: How to turn voice recordings into team playbooks in minutes
— Workflow 3: The HR project that scripts hard team conversations for you
— Why you're now the Chief Sprinkle Officer in your own business
— The "AI Friday" rule that stops you wasting your week down the rabbit hole
— How to use AI in a Pilates studio, yoga studio or gym without breaking what's already working

If you've been ignoring AI - or breaking your business trying to use it…

Listen now.

Tools mentioned in this episode:
— Claude → https://claude.ai
— Claude Code → https://claude.com/code
— Wispr Flow → https://wisprflow.ai

Chapters
00:00:00 Claude Code found $2.3M in 5 minutes
00:01:32 The trap most studio owners are walking into
00:02:51 Northstar 1 — Don't start with AI, start with workflows
00:03:33 Northstar 2 — Skin to skin (human in the loop)
00:04:09 Why you should never automate sales
00:06:04 Northstar 3 — You're still the operator (the Iron Man rule)
00:07:49 Workflow 1 — Email marketing project
00:10:39 Wispr Flow — the tool that changes everything
00:14:03 Why most studios get email dead wrong
00:15:36 Workflow 2 — Playbook builder
00:17:51 You're the Chief Sprinkle Officer now
00:19:38 Workflow 3 — HR project (the whisper in your pocket)
00:22:48 The "AI Friday" rule
00:23:42 Where to start on Monday

Your team will never run through a wall for a revenue target.
But they will run through one for a vision they're written into.

Most problems in your business come back to one thing - no vision. Not lack of leads. Not pricing. Not your team. No vision.

You think hitting the next revenue number will fix your team's energy. It won't. Your team is not going to fight for $1M, $2M or $3M. Why would they? They're not the ones taking it home.

Ryan managed a $1M studio. He quit. Not because of the money - because there was no future he could see himself in.

In this episode, Doza and Geronimo Head Coach Ryan break down why revenue targets fail as a team vision, what a real vision actually looks like (3 years out, written in present tense, in magazine format), and walk through 5 real client case studies of studios who rebuilt their vision and watched culture, retention and team buy-in shift in months. They finish with the exact "Monday morning move" to start writing yours.

Practical for fitness studio owners, gym owners, Pilates business owners, yoga studio owners and any wellness studio founder whose team is showing up for shifts but not for the mission.

Book your free 15-minute studio check-up → https://bit.ly/p-your-studio-check-up

Want the Vision Book template Doza references in this episode? Get the exact rip-and-raid template delivered to your inbox → https://bit.ly/p-vision-book-template

CHAPTERS

00:00:00 — The one thing every business problem comes back to
00:00:36 — Ryan: why I quit a $1M studio
00:02:36 — What would've made me stay
00:03:10 — The Vision Book: 3 years, present tense, magazine format
00:04:02 — What actually goes in a vision book
00:04:39 — No vision, no fork in the road
00:05:34 — Why a clear vision creates instant buy-in
00:06:31 — Case study: She Can
00:09:21 — Case study: New Strength
00:12:29 — Case study: More Time Academy
00:14:43 — Case study: Frontline
00:18:21 — Case study: G3 King of the Mountain
00:23:32 — Your team will not get excited about a number
00:24:34 — Monday morning move
00:25:30 — The Geronimo manifesto, read live