Pilates Business Podcast

Your Studio Growth Plan for 2025: Setting Goals That Actually Stick

• Seran Glanfield • Season 20 • Episode 199

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Create a 2025 Growth Plan That Works for Your Studio


Welcome to 2025! Are you ready to set your Pilates or boutique fitness studio up for success this year? In this episode of The Pilates Business Podcast, host Seran Glanfield shares powerful strategies to help studio owners create a business growth plan that truly works. From setting SMART goals to tracking key metrics like retention rates and revenue, this episode is packed with actionable tips tailored for boutique fitness entrepreneurs.

Discover how to build a thriving Pilates studio, attract more clients, and streamline your operations—all while staying aligned with your personal goals. If you're ready to increase revenue, improve client retention, and work smarter (not harder), this episode is your roadmap to success in the year ahead. Tune in and start building a studio you love!


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Speaker 1:

2025 is here, and so it's time for me to ask you whether you have a real plan for growth for your studio Not just goals that sound good on paper, but actionable and achievable steps that will truly transform your business. Well, if you're not sure, in today episode, I'm going to be diving into the strategy behind setting goals that actually stick, because truly dreaming big is only half of the equation. I want you to create a plan that turns those dreams into reality, and I'm going to show you how. Well, hi there, I'm Sarah Glanfield. I'm a business and marketing strategist just for boutique fitness studio owners like you. If you're ready to be inspired and make a bigger impact, you're in the right place. All you need are a few key strategies, the right mindset and some support along the way. Join me as I share the real-life insights that will help you grow a sustainable and profitable studio.

Speaker 1:

This is the Pilates Business Podcast. Happy New Year, you guys. Oh, my goodness, I cannot believe it. We are in 2025, officially. Welcome back to this very first episode of the Pilates Business Podcast in 2025. I'm your host, saren Glanfield, and I'm so thrilled that you're here with me today and boy oh boy is 2025. Prepare yourselves, because I think it's just going to be one of the best years that we have experienced in this industry.

Speaker 1:

All of the numbers, the data and the energy here, oh my goodness, it's pointing in all the right directions, and that's why I really wanted to kick off this new year with perhaps a little bit of goal setting, and this is one of my favorite topics. You guys, every single month, my Thrive members share their goals with me, so I know what they're working on. Every year, we do a huge annual planning workshop we just completed it in December and everyone just is so excited for the goal that they have set through that process, and I wanted to sort of share with you a little bit about how I think about goals, because if you're anything like many of the studio owners that come to me and ask me how they can be more successful in their business, you might find yourself trying to set goals each year, only to perhaps find that they kind of slip through your fingers, that you lose track, you lose focus, that you change directions, you're not sure how to get there, or perhaps you, by the time you get to perhaps April or May, you've kind of even forgotten what those goals really were, and if that's familiar, you know that you are not alone, and it's not because you aren't capable of this or because you're not working hard enough. In fact, it's absolutely not either of those things. It's often because, when we go about setting goals, we often don't do it in the sort of full, comprehensive way that with a little bit of structure and a little bit of strategy that is needed to make them truly achievable. And so that's what I want to help you with today. That's what I want to fix today, because I want to take you through a process for creating a growth plan for your business that truly is actionable and that actually works, and I want it to be clear and aligned with what you really want for your studio in 2025, but not just for your business. Also for yourself. I want to make sure that you're building a business that supports you and that fulfills you and that helps you to live the life that you want.

Speaker 1:

So let's dive in. First of all, we have to start with a vision, and I know that this might be something that feels a bit big and vague, but, trust me, it truly is the foundation for everything else, because without a clear vision, truly, you're kind of like sailing a ship without a map, and that doesn't end well. So I want you to think about what it is that you want your studio to look like by the end of the year. Take a moment to think about and don't just think, but really imagine it, visualize it. How many clients are serving, who are those clients? What are they walking into the studio? What kind of energy do they have? And what does your schedule look like? What does your role in your business look like? And how do you really want to feel as you step into your business each and every day? And this vision that you have for how you want your business to be? This is your North Star. This gives you direction, keeps you focused when life gets busy and, let's be honest, life is always busy right, but your vision is just about a dream. Truly, it needs to be connected to why you do what you do as well and what you most enjoy about it, because I want you to be able to show up as your best self and that you are operating and growing a business that you truly love and enjoy, because that's how I know that you're going to be able to continue to do this amazing work that you do. So quick exercise for you Grab a notebook and write down the answers to these three questions.

Speaker 1:

Number one what do I want my studio to look and feel like by the end of 2025? How do I want my day-to-day experience as the business owner to change or be the same? What do I want it to be the change or be the same? And finally, what impact do I want my studio to have on the community and the people that I serve as my clients? And when? You can get really clear about these three questions, all of a sudden, you have a little bit of intention behind that dream, right? So I want you to dream big, but I want it to be grounded in what is achievable within the next 12 months. Okay, so it should excite you what you've written. It should be exciting to you, it should be inspiring to you, but it should also feel within reach. Okay, once we have that, we're ready to really move on to the next step, because once we have that, we know where we're heading. So next, we want to make that measurable. Okay, you cannot manage or grow what you aren't measuring. Okay, because you don't know whether or not you're growing or not, whether or not you're reaching the success you want.

Speaker 1:

Metrics are truly where the magic happens, because they tell you if you're on the right track or not. Now, inside of Thrive, I, literally at the end of last year, just had a call with some of my studio owners, gave them a bonus call actually to talk about how you can measure a success and how you can project your growth and what numbers you should be tracking in order to help you to understand what those numbers are, and so your metrics are critically important if you want to build and grow your business, and tracking those metrics and knowing what those metrics tell you is very important. I talk about this often on this podcast, but there are some very specific metrics that you will need to look at to know whether or not your vision is achievable and whether or not you're on track to reach that vision, and some of the key things that we want to look at are things like retention rates, class occupancy and, of course, obviously revenue is in there too. So you want to start by looking at your current performance how much revenue you're bringing in each month, what's your average retention rate, and perhaps are your classes, on a very regular basis, pretty full, or do you have to cancel class often because they just aren't filling at all? Either way, we're not looking at these numbers to judge. What we're looking at them for is about understanding where we want to focus attention and energy in your business. It's kind of like checking on Google Maps what's the best way to get to your destination right? Is there too much traffic one way? Is there toll roads the other way? You're checking in and saying, okay, what's happening right now and that will help you guide you as to which route to take to get to where you want to get to. So, action step for you. I want you to write down some of those numbers that you're targeting to reach by the end of 2025. Okay, and then I also want you to go back and look at what your 2024 numbers told you about what you need to be doing and focus on in your business to get to those numbers.

Speaker 1:

And sometimes it's not always where you think it is. Sometimes we're very focused on things that don't actually have a huge impact on our long-term goals or revenue growth, which is kind of fascinating once we dive into these details, and that's where the power of numbers really really comes into play. Okay, our vision is and we know what numbers are going to tell us that we're moving towards that vision and making progress, then we're going to want to get very specific about goals and not just any goals. I'm talking about SMART goals Now. You've probably heard of this before, but it is worth repeating. Smart goals and SMART as a part of that goal stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound, and the reason why this is so powerful is because we often are so quick in wanting to set our goals that we tend to set goals like I need more clients or I just want to make more money and I just want to add an extra X thousand dollars to my revenue.

Speaker 1:

And when we set these types of goals, they don't give you a clear path forward. They're not terribly actionable because you're not really setting exactly how you're going to get more clients or how many clients you want to get. So let's say, for example, your goal is to your revenue. Goal is, let's say that, that is, you want to increase that by about 20% in 2025, like, be a great goal, be very, very, very great goal. And a smart version of that goal might be a little bit more specific than that. It might look like increasing monthly revenue from X to Y by March and then from Y to Z by June, right, and you're perhaps even specifically acknowledging how you're going to increase that revenue perhaps through increasing your pricing and adding new clients. And then you might get specific as to how many new clients you might want or need in order to reach those revenue goals.

Speaker 1:

And for me, that is really where the magic lies and that's really where the difference comes. The studio owners and really any business owner that sets goals and can get this specific about what it is that you need to do to reach that bigger picture, then what we see is those are the folks who actually get there. Okay, and when you set goals within this framework, there's a lot of clarity that you're able to get and it becomes something that you can make real. It can become a reality because all of a sudden, we're not just talking about these big pie in the sky numbers that perhaps don't tie to anything in our business. You're actually able to think about okay, how many specifically, how many new clients do I need to bring in, or how many new clients do I need to convert in order to reach my goals? Okay, now I do want to give a quick kind of tip here, which is that I don't want you to overload yourself with your goals. I want you to pick two or three maximum four core goals for the year.

Speaker 1:

When it comes to growth, focus truly is your best friend. Things to their plate, different revenue models, different revenue streams, different projects, and all of them sound exciting. I know it can be actually really challenging to make all of them work well without additional support and resources and people. So focus is your best friend, all right. So now we have our vision, we have our key metrics, we're going to be tracking and we have some goals Right Now. Once we have those goals, then it's about breaking them down into actionable steps, all right, and this is where this is where I think just so much clarity but also clarity comes, but overwhelm disappears is when we take those goals. We break them down into a step-by-step plan.

Speaker 1:

So you kind of want to think about your goal as being the summit of a mountain, but the only way to get there is perhaps if you break it down into stages of more manageable climbs, right? So what that means is, instead of trying to shoot for getting up the mountain in one day. We want to break it down into stages, into milestones, and so perhaps start working backwards from that big goal and think about the whole year, because when we set the goal early on, we were talking about that goal becoming real by the end of the year, and some of the goals you set will probably have a deadline before that. But, for example, from a revenue perspective, if you had a revenue goal for 2025, then that means that you're aiming to reach that by the end of December. December 31st 2025 is when we stop measuring your revenue for 2025, which means that you have all year to get there right.

Speaker 1:

But it might mean that you want to break it down into milestones throughout the year to hit certain points, to know that you're on track, and knowing the seasonality of your business might mean that you might put certain measurements on milestones in place according to how your business sort of transitions between different seasons or you know, in terms of seasonality, what you've experienced in the past, and so every milestone kind of has a specific action attached to it and probably that milestone looks like a completion of a certain task or activity or, again, measuring a certain result. Okay, and when you plan this way, it just takes away so much overwhelm and instead it's just like you're following directions, like a recipe or directions to reach a destination. You're just following the steps, and all of the sort of procrastination and all of these other things that often come up, dissipate and it becomes so powerful. Okay, so you've got your goals, you've got your plan, you're inspired by your vision, you know your numbers. How do you make sure you actually stick to it?

Speaker 1:

And truly, the secret is a little bit of accountability and a lot of self-discipline. I'm sorry I had to say it, but accountability is important and self-accountability or if you have others that you can share those goals with it truly makes a big difference. So I encourage you to regularly check in on how you're doing relative to your goals. Maybe that's every month, every week or every quarter or whatever feels good to you. Personally, I have a review each week and each month and each quarter and every six months and each year, because the more that I can reflect on how things are going and what we've accomplished here at Spring 3, the more likely I am to be able to continue to make progress.

Speaker 1:

The goals that get missed are the goals that aren't getting reflected on or acknowledged on a regular basis, and so you want to review your progress, and it's always helpful to find someone else you can share your goals with. And, like I said, inside of Thrive, we share our goals at the end of each week and at the end of each month and at the end of each quarter, and I ask all my studio owners to share their goals with me so I know exactly what's happening in their business and I can make sure that I can continue to support them and keep them moving forward and making progress towards their goals in their business, no matter how big or small they might be. Now, I do that because not only does it help me to help them and to make sure that I deliver them the amazing, more amazing resources that we already have inside of Thrive, but specific trainings for them so that they are all it's all very, very relevant to where they are at in their business journey, but it also means that they have to share a goal with someone else, and that is truly powerful in and of itself. There's a lot of research that has been done around this and, time and time again, the research shows that when you write down a goal, it's more likely to come to fruition for you. But if you also share that goal, then you're even more likely to reach it, which is really incredible, right? So it's just as simple as sharing your goal with someone else and writing it down. It makes you multiple times more likely to reach that goal. So having someone to check in with can really make all the difference.

Speaker 1:

Now I do want to, just before I kind of wrap up this episode, I do want to talk quickly about adaptability. This is really important. You know, I have three children. We are constantly moving from one event to the next and a birthday and a thing, and a sporting event, and schoolwork and all the things. Life happens, and life is going to happen for you too. So having a plan doesn't mean that you cannot ever change the plan, but having a plan means that you have a plan to switch right, to change, and that is okay, because nothing will ever go as planned. And so, as you go into this and as you start planning your year ahead, be mindful that maybe, maybe, things will happen to plan, maybe 75% of the time, maybe not even that.

Speaker 1:

But the key is that, as these things come along, you adapt and evolve accordingly, and the key really is to stay flexible. If something isn't working, don't be afraid to pivot slightly. If other opportunities come along, don't be afraid to take them as well, and what that means is you can come back to the drawing board, come back to your plan and perhaps reprioritize your original goals and perhaps map things out in a little bit of a different timeline, according to whatever comes your way. Oh, and you guys, don't forget to celebrate your wins, big or small. I want you to measure your progress, because every milestone you hit is proof that you are moving forward. Okay, this isn't about perfection. It truly is about progress, one step at a time. You're truly building that studio that you really really want.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so let's recap really quickly today's episode. First, we talked about creating a clear vision for your studio in 2025. This is your North Star. Next, we break down the importance of defining key metrics so you know exactly what success looks like. Then we set smart goals that align with your vision and turn those into an actionable growth plan. And finally, we discuss the importance of accountability and adaptability as you move through the year. I cannot emphasize the importance of that enough. So here's my challenge for you as we move into this new year. Just take 30 minutes to map out your vision and perhaps a few baseline metrics that will show that you have reached that vision. And that's it. Just start small.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I hope this was helpful to you guys as you step into all of the abundance that 2025 has to offer, and I thank you so much for allowing me to be here with you. And if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe and share it with perhaps a fellow studio owner who also is ready to make 2025 their best year. Yet I'll be back next week. Did you love this episode and want more? Head to spring3.com and check out my free resources that will help you run a profitable and fulfilling studio business. And before you go, one last reminder there is no one way to do what you do, only your way. So whatever it is that you want to do, create or offer, you've got this. Thanks again for joining me today and have a wonderful rest of your day.