Geronimo Unfiltered

👉🏼Can't explain why someone should pick your studio over the one next door? Start with Britt's five-question brand framework: Grab Britt's Brand Framework

👉🏼Or skip straight to a Strategy Call and we'll help you work out what makes you different. Book a Strategy Call

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Everyone tells you your studio looks amazing, you have great coaches and an even better community. Then the studio two doors down opens with the same fit-out, the same Instagram captions about community and a cheaper intro offer, and suddenly you're fighting on price.

Here's what should worry you. Pilates cost per lead right now is a third to a half of what a BFT pays. It's a gold rush, and I still talk to Pilates owners every week who aren't making money.

Britt Austin has worked with Apple, Puma, Rebel Sport, EA Games & Who Is Elijah (Just to name a few) and her test is brutal. Take your logo off your studio and stick it on the one next door. If nobody can tell the difference, you don't have a brand.

Today Sophie and I get Britt to break down how to build a studio brand people actually want to belong to, on a budget. Then we put two real studio Instagram accounts in front of her and let her pull them apart live.

In this episode you'll learn:

Why Apple never shows the phone in its iPhone campaigns, and what that means for how you sell a 45-minute class

The five things every brand people obsess over has built, and the version a single studio can do for almost nothing

How to choose your niche

The partnership pitch that got BFT a Puma deal, and the one Britt deleted without replying

What to tell the owner who "doesn't want to be on camera", plus her rule for sharing the hard times.

Chapters:

00:00 How to find your REAL point of difference that people actually care about

06:13 The 5 Things Every Brand People Obsess Over Has Built

09:22 The Logo-Swap Test

09:54 If Britt Opened a Pilates Studio Tomorrow

11:55 If you're still scared to niche ... listen to this

16:13 The 5 Questions to Answer Before You Market Anything

19:51 How to Stand Out When You're One of Many Franchises

21:21 What Hundreds of Ad Accounts Tell Us About Founder Content

23:07 Should you EVER discount?

28:27 Why Brands Delete Your Partnership Email

31:52 Who to Partner With (and how to pitch them)

39:09 Live Brand Audits on Two Real Studio Accounts

46:45 The one type of content founders should NEVER make

53:31 The First Thing YOU Need to Do on Monday

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Britt's five-question brand framework: Britt's Brand Framework

Follow Britt on Instagram: @stateofbrand.co

Connect with Britt on LinkedIn: Britt Austin LinkedIn

If you liked this episode, go and listen to Why Million Dollar Studios Never Have to Chase Clients. Britt told you to niche. This is what that actually looks like: [Listen on Spotify] [Apple Podcasts] or [Watch on YouTube]

Ready to be the studio people choose for who you are, not your price?

Book a Strategy Call and we'll map it out together.

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👉🏼Build your own Vision book with the exact tool we use. Grab it here: Vision Book Template

👉🏼Or skip straight to a Strategy Call and we’ll help you map it out. Book a Strategy Call

Everyone tells you you're killing it. Bigger numbers, more members, better systems. Then 7:30 pm hits and your team's out the door like the building's on fire. I lived that exact version of the business. Team gone at 7:31 pm sharp, sitting in a studio I couldn't afford to light, using the glow off the cheap TVs to do my books because I couldn't pay the electricity bill.

It wasn't lonely because I didn't have people around me … It was lonely because none of them cared about the thing I was building.

And now? The first thing most owners ask me? How do I build a team like yours?

Today Sophie and I are teaching you the three steps to creating a team that cares about your business like it’s their own and giving you the tool that helps you to create your own vision.

In this episode you'll learn:

The question to ask before blaming your team for not caring enough

The three things a team needs before they'll ever buy in

How to build a Vision Book that people actually care about (and the template that writes it with you)

The 70% rule, why losing 30% of your team isn’t a bad thing

The leadership test every frustrated owner should take

The vision that will make your team excited to come to work every single day

Chapters:

00:00 Why Should Your Team Care?

03:29 The 3 Ingredients of Team Buy-In

04:34 The reason Sophie has stayed for 8+ years (and how to give your team something to stay for)

10:18 When a Job Becomes a Mission

14:54 Is Your Business Ready for a Vision Book?

18:20 The 70% Rule

19:44 How to Become a Leader Worth Following

22:12 How the Vision Guides Everyday Leadership

24:44 Why the Team Actually Care

30:05 The one thing that will change this from a Vision Book, to a future your team see themselves in

37:41 The 1% Pitch Every New Recruit Hears (it’s not what you think)

40:15 The first thing YOU need to do now

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Vision Book Template

See a copy of our actual Vision Books Empire28 & Aloha25

Listen to the Achievement Road Map episode: listen here

If you liked this episode, go and listen to The Hidden Reasons Your Culture Sucks and How to Build One Built to Win same world, different lens: Listen on Apple Podcasts or Watch on YouTube

Ready to stop guessing why your team isn't bought in? Book a Strategy Call and we'll map it out together.

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There are 5 parts to a conversation that turn a trial into a member. Grab your 5 Part Conversation Framework here: The Convertible Conversation

And if your trial-to-member conversion rate is currently sitting below 80% (our Academy benchmark) and you haven’t been able to figure out why, then book a call with my team and we can help you identify the leak and map out how to fix it.

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Every studio owner I talk to thinks they've got a lead gen problem. They don't. They've got an onboarding problem.

The first three days after someone starts their trial decides whether they convert into a long-term member or ghost you by the end of the week, and it's not just costing you the sale, it’s costing you an opportunity to create a lifelong member.

You can run every open week and ad campaign in the world, get someone through the door, hand them a key tag and a smile, and still lose them by day three. Nobody talks about this stage because it isn't sexy. It isn't a funnel. It isn't an ad. But it's the difference between a $9,500 lifetime value and a mate who ghosts you after the free trial. That gap is your real competitive advantage, and almost nobody is building it on purpose.

This one isn't a theory. Sophie built this system managing 80 newbies at a time on the studio floor, and took her own rollover from 30 percent (the so-called industry standard) to 80 percent, three times the average. We break down exactly what she did: how she tracked every newbie without losing one, the meeting that made her studio the most money in the business, and why "just having a chat" with a new member is quietly killing your conversions.

Grab the free 5-Part Convertible Conversation Framework we mention in the episode here: The Convertible Conversation

In this episode you'll hear:

Why the first three days decide whether a new member stays or leaves

How to lift trial-to-member rollover from 30% to 80%

The wave system for tracking newbies so no one falls through the cracks

The three B's that make a member stay

The most profitable party you’ll ever have (and you don’t even have to run it!)

The buying signals that tell you a member is ready to roll over

If this hit home, go back and listen to How to Turn Your 7 Day Trials Into LIFETIME Members we go even deeper on turning trial members into long-term ones:

And when you're ready to put this to work in your own studio, Sophie's rollover went from 30 percent to 80 percent using this exact system.

Book a free call with the team and let's build yours.

Chapters:

00:00:00 - The real problem isn't lead gen, it's the first three days

00:04:55 - The 3-part system behind an 80% rollover

00:05:43 - The wave system that tracks your newbies for you

08:00 - The four things every member who stayed had in common

09:29 - The three B's that will take your conversion to 80%

12:31 - The party you should host for every member

14:16 - The signals that tell you they’re ready to buy

16:44 - Stop having chats. Start having conversations that convert.

17:20 - If you think ‘it’s a tough economy’ right now, listen to this

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Instagram: The Geronimo Academy

If you're already busting your ass on retention and you're still getting blindsided every time someone cancels, grab the churn checklist workbook we mention in this episode and work through it against your own member base. And if you'd rather just get on the phone and figure out your churn with us directly, book a discovery call, no fluff.

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Sophie and I sit down to talk about churn, and specifically the mindset reframe that has to happen before any process will actually work.

More than half of the 1,400 gym members surveyed in a recent US study stopped showing up without ever cancelling their membership, and four out of five of them said something, anything, could have brought them back. For years I thought I ran one community. Turns out I run five, and so do you. We break down the exact segments hiding inside your member base, why the middle of the pack is where every cancel actually starts, and how some of our studios are holding churn under 3% at 300, 500 and 700 members while everyone else panics every time someone cancels.

In this episode you'll hear:

The real reason 80% of your churned members would have stayed, and why it's not about working harder

The five hidden segments inside every member base, and the one that's actually bleeding you dry

Why half of your churn is a sales problem you're mistaking for a retention problem

How Nadine took her studio's churn from 12.7% down to under 2% without hiring anyone new

The exact strategy shift you need to make at 150, 250 and 700+ members

If this one hit home, go listen to How to Bring a Member Back from the Brink of Cancellation next, it's the episode we reference directly in this conversation, and it walks through the exact protocol for saving members before they go quiet.

Chapters:

00:00 Cold open, the stat every studio owner gets wrong about churn

04:34 Why retention feels personal, and why that's the trap

05:07 The sales problem hiding inside your churn number

08:01 Proof, Refit's sub 1% churn over winter

09:14 Nadine's story, 12.7% to 1% churn with an AI assisted teammate

12:53 The one question that decides retention, are you essential

13:37 The mindset reframe, why fear keeps owners from fixing this

19:52 You don't have one community, you have five

24:37 The playbook, move every member up one segment

28:22 How the strategy changes at 150, 250 and 700+ members

33:08 Why more automation makes churn worse, not better

38:08 Good churn, bad churn and the mindset check for your managers

41:44 The close, what to do with this episode this week.

Everyone tells Sal her studio is killing it. Meanwhile she's barely paying herself and quietly wondering what she's actually good at if she can't even get this right. If that's you too, book your free discovery call and let's map out what's actually keeping you stuck.

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My coach Sophie sits down with Sal, who bought her yoga studio when it was little more than bare bones and has spent the last six months turning it into a real business.

Sal came into this with a marketing background, actual skills, an actual resume for the job. And she still felt like a fraud running her studio. Not a brilliant yoga teacher. Not a brilliant meditation teacher. So what am I actually good at, she kept asking herself, while running a business that looked like it was thriving from the outside and was barely staying open on the inside. Six months ago she was swinging between $35k and $50k months with no real plan, just quick dopamine hits from discount offers that got people through the door and never got them back.

Today she's sitting on $70k months, chasing an end of year finish line at $84k, and the thing that actually moved the needle wasn't a funnel or a hack. It was giving herself permission to stop hiding from being the owner. Sophie and Sal get into what changed in her sales calls, what changed with her team, and what changed at home with her kids once she stopped running the business from a place of fear.

In this episode you'll hear:

- Why "you're very convincing" was the compliment that was actually her rock bottom, and what it took to stop faking it and start actually running the place
- The discount trap that was quietly wrecking her conversion rate, and what she replaced it with to build a real pipeline
- What changed the day she stopped people pleasing on sales calls and started closing the way she actually talks
- The one accountability habit that made the difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it
- Why her own kids are the ones telling her the business is working now

If this one landed, go listen to Separation Sunday: The 20-Minute Ritual That Saved My Life (and My Business) next. Sal actually name-checks this exact ritual in this episode as the first thing that slips when she falls off the wagon, so if you want to know what it is and why it matters that much, that's the one.

Sal went from swinging $35 to 50k months with no plan to $70k months on her way to a million dollar studio, and the biggest shift wasn't a new funnel, it was finally owning that she's the boss. If you're ready to stop guessing and map out your own version of that, book your free discovery call and let's find out what's actually stalling your studio.

Chapters:

00:00:00 Six months ago: buying a rundown studio and running it alone

00:02:52 Stuck in the discount trap with no real plan

00:04:04 The confidence gap: marketing skills, but still stuck

00:05:25 From weekend side hustle to real business

00:08:47 Six months later: sticking to the process

00:09:30 The current numbers and the countdown to a million dollar studio

00:11:28 Ditching people pleasing to find her own voice in sales

00:14:21 The identity shift: from self doubt to leading a team

00:16:00 How the growth changed her at home

00:17:17 The accountability piece that made it stick

00:18:07 Advice for the studio owner who feels exactly like this

00:22:18 The three things that changed everything

00:24:00 Finally owning the role of leader

00:29:00 The one exercise to do this week.