Pilates Business Podcast

Stop Surviving January: How Smart Studio Owners Turn the New Year Rush into Predictable Revenue

• Seran Glanfield • Season 25 • Episode 249

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In this episode of The Pilates Business Podcast, host Seran Glanfield breaks down the mindset shift that helps boutique fitness studio owners transform the chaotic January rush into calm, predictable, profitable growth.

Instead of hustling harder, discounting deeper, or adding more to your already full plate, Seran reveals the “January Machine Mindset” — the mental model high-performing studio owners use to conserve energy, lead with confidence, and turn new-year interest into long-term retention. 


If you’re tired of starting the year feeling overwhelmed, reactive, and burnt out, this conversation will show you how to simplify, streamline, and step into your CEO role with clarity and purpose.


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SPEAKER_00:

January can be your biggest month, or your busiest month with nothing to show for it. You know the drill, New Year rush, full classes, a flurry of interest, and then perhaps by February, things are a bit quieter, you're exhausted, and you're wondering what just happened. Well, what if the difference wasn't about that promotion or that discount or that social media post, but your mindset? Today I want to share with you the mental mode studio owners use to make January more predictable, more profitable, and perhaps a little less chaotic. I'm going to talk about how to get a return on investment on your energy, why more isn't a strategy, and the leadership identity shift that changes your revenue for the entire year. No hype, no hacks, just the way high-performing studio owners think when the calendar page turns to start that new year. Well, hi there, I'm Sarah and 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. This is the Pilates Business Podcast. Welcome back to the Pilates Business Podcast. I'm Saren Glamfield and I am a business coach to boutique fitness studio owners who want a business as strong as their teaching. I've spent years helping Pilates bar yoga spin studios to build systems that create consistent revenue, competent teams, and a schedule that doesn't wreck your life. And I think this is a really good time to talk about January. Because let's know, we all know that this is the one of the busiest, most sort of hyped, most intense moments of the 12-month calendar year for studio owners. There's a lot of high expectations from everybody, you, your clients. There's a lot of, you know, uh big energy, like new starts. And perhaps that already feels like a lot of pressure for you. And the reality is that many studio owners walk into it with perhaps that hustle, busy, hamster wheel mindset instead of perhaps an alternative that I like to call that January machine mindset. Um, because I think, you know, one of the things that we see often is that that hustle says, do everything, say yes, be everywhere, discount harder, post more, whatever they want, let's give it to them. It's super reactive, it's super intense, and it will burn through your energy and your team's energy faster than you can blink. And you find that you probably feel exhausted even thinking about it. But if you approach January in that way, you'll probably find that you end the month with more mess, uh, more exhaustion, tired voice. And perhaps your uh even that that concern about revenue and revenue growth may not have been alleviated. Now, if we flip it and we think about entering January with more of that more machine mindset, it's a little bit different. It's about direction, it's about believing your job is to design that experience that perhaps filters out people who are not the right fit, that focuses on people that are, and that is sustainable. So that you're not sort of pedaling faster to keep up, but you are creating a sort of quality control on your business as a whole, and you're able to really give it the attention that you need. And I think this is one of the biggest differences between a studio owner that very quickly feels burnt out and a studio owner that is excited and enthusiastic about walking into their studio every single day for years. It's the difference between a studio that peaks in week one and a studio that creates very sort of what we would say perhaps compounded results month over month over month. And this really matters. And I would, I really um I'm glad that we're able to have this conversation at this point because January isn't just a month. It's not just one month. And I want to see you be able to maximize all of the potential of that month, but I also don't want to see you burn out in that month because that month really sets the tone for your year. And if you start by overdoing it, over functioning, overgiving, you keep teaching too many classes for the rest of the year. You keep fixing every single problem yourself for the rest of the year. And you keep saying to yourself, you know what, I'm just gonna do it because it'll be faster. And that pattern in your mindset essentially is where it starts, is what will steal your power, will steal your leadership, will will drain your energy and eventually, likely your profit margins too. And instead, I want a January for you, where yes, you get new clients in the door. Yes, those uh client numbers build, but you're not white knuckling your marketing, right? That you get folks into your intro offer because your messaging is on point, because the experience is designed so well and is aligned with the way that you want your clients to work with you, not just because you super cut your prices, right? And that I wanted you to have a January where your schedule has space for growth. Space not just for growth in the classes that you have, but space for you to lead, for you to think, for you to strategize, for you to re-energize as you go instead of pushing through and waiting till you hit complete exhaustion before you perhaps build that in. But I also want a January where you feel proud of your numbers, not surprised by them, not surprised in a way that either feels like, oh, what happened? Or, oh my goodness, is this something I can keep staying stay contained continuing throughout the year? So I want to give you the best mindset for a great January. I want you to start the year strong. I don't, I'm not today not going to give you like a list of tactics, but I'm gonna give you perhaps some shifts that the way that you in the way that you might approach January. Because when you change that lens, that filter that you look through, you find that the actions, the right actions for you and your business will become obvious and a lot simpler. Okay, so let's dive in. And I think, you know, just before we do, that there is a few things that I share with my studio owners inside of Thrive that I want to touch on today. And, you know, when we inside of Thrive, we implement these. And I show you how to implement these um step by step inside of Thrive. And because that's where we build, that's where we implement these habits, we build these habits, we implement these strategies. And we work on this not just for one week of December, but actually throughout the whole year. Because when it comes to shifting your approaches, implementing strategies, there is not this sort of one-time big effort that works well. It's there's no hack to this. There is what it takes, which is consistent and focused attention on business development and strategic growth. And that includes, by the way, you as a leader, that includes investing in yourself as well. So we do this every single week, every single month, every single quarter inside of Thrive. And this is how I see studio owners make the shift from being in this perhaps sprint, but the sprint actually lasts forever, um, and being in a place where you are able to manage your energy, where you're able to pick the kids up from school, take a vacation, celebrate your team, think about beyond the four walls of your studio. And the it is this consistent approach that makes the biggest difference. And I think, you know, one of the biggest challenges that we see at this time of year is that we approach January like this sort of one-month sprint to sort of make the year, right? So you throw everything at the wall in January. Maybe there are super discounted intro offers, flash sales, you're jamming the schedule, you're adding challenges, maybe you're adding extra software in there, and there's a lot of noise anyway, right? With it being the new year in this industry. And perhaps, you know, you're creating a lot of early fatigue early in the month for you and your team and maybe even your clients. And what we see often, and and something that we are often get excited about, is these sort of this spike in interest, right? And this shifts our expectations of a lot of things very, very quickly. And so what we often see though is that this spike is short term for lots and lots of reasons. And so if you are someone who is constantly discounting or constantly offering promotions or looking for what promotion to offer next, you're training your community, your market, the audience to wait for those discounts, creating more noise for them and perhaps not necessarily creating an environment that is sustainable from a profit perspective and a growth perspective for your business. And when we see these sort of short-term spikes in interest, you know, it often creates this sort of push-pull of energy and it uncertainty, which generally is not super helpful for us as business owners. Um, and we often see that the team doesn't really know how to react to this. One minute there is a lot of flurry of energy in the studio, and the next minute classes are quiet again. And so they get this feeling of uncertainty as well. They may even feel a little bit burnt out by it. Maybe your operations can't expand and contract that quickly. And we often see that ultimately we don't really able, we're not really able to drive that long-term retention, right? And so January isn't about this huge, huge push, push, push, push, push, and then everything falls apart and some breaks come February 1st. January should be a calibration of your system, right? Not a scramble. So you want to think machine in January, right? A machine has inputs, right? You know what your inputs are, you know what you're doing to drive business in January, you know what needs to happen in the studio in order to deliver this amazing experience, and you know what the outputs are as well. And your job is to ensure those inputs are optimized for January because you know that you're gonna have a natural influx of interest. And that means that your messaging has to be clear, that you know exactly who you're talking to with your marketing. And you wanna make sure that the the you're stabilizing the operations of your machine so that that the that the mechanics work well, right? And that means that's about having a consistent experience in the studio. That's about making sure that your schedule is optimized for attendance, right? And then you want to measure the outputs. And the outputs for January and for most of the year are going to be conversion and retention. And so when you look to January, you and you think about your business as a machine, which I want it to be for you so badly, um, you will see it as a bit of a systems test, right? So instead of adding more noise, right, allow the system that you have to work and function at its best. And make sure that you have all of your inputs very, very clear to you that your the operations and the experience is nailed down and that you know exactly what outputs you're looking for. So instead of just throwing spaghetti at the wall, you're getting a lot of clarity. And this is why it works because human brains really want clarity and direction. The reality is that a sea of unlimited options are is actually really challenging for us to sort of work with. And the fewer, clearer paths that you have in your business, the higher the conversion will be. And truly, the calmer your operations, the more bells and whistles that you have added in over the years and continue to try to manage and oversee will probably lead you on the fast track to exhaustion. So when you move into this sort of machine mindset, um, it really forces you to get clear and to choose on the what you want that machine to do, what the output you want it to be, what the inputs need to be, right? And what the operations need, the mechanics need to be in order to make it all happen. And inside of Thrive, I show you exactly how to do this, how a even just a single signature pathway can become the backbone of your marketing, your sales, your team growth. And so we touch on it today, but the build-out really happens inside of Thrive. And we see the impact with revenue growth month after month and taking time off out of the studio for studio owners. So one of the other problems that we see when it comes to January, and maybe you're already feeling it, you know, here we are in December, and oh gosh, maybe you're already asking, you know, where do I find more time? I wish I had more time. Um, and the reality is that we only all have the same 24 hours in the day, and I cannot make more time for you. And even if I could, I'm not sure that would even be the solution. Because perhaps if we're thinking about time as being the problem, we're overlooking actually what we really need to be focused on. And that is your return on the investment of time. And so in order for you to get the most out of every minute, we want to think about where you're investing your time for growth, right? And if you're worried about you just want to add more time, it means that you're not getting enough of a sort of a bang for your buck in terms of where you're putting your time. And if you want a better return on energy for your time or a better return from on a financial perspective from your time, then that will be a really valuable uh uh you know idea to explore. Because when you overbook yourself, when you overinvolve yourself in every tiny little detail of everything, um you end up perhaps underleading your studio forward because everything is urgent, you're in super reactive mode and nothing is that important. And so instead of managing your time and adding more time and trying to work more hours, what if it becomes about measuring the impact of your energy, right? Which activities will maximize my effort and turn it into a better output, right? So instead of perhaps doing tasks that can be delegated, you're investing in training someone else to do those tasks, right? Because what we see over and over again is that, you know, no matter what business you're in, your business will grow on these compounded decisions, right? So the first del T task that you can delegate leads to the next task that you delegate and the next task. And that compounds, right? And over you get better at delegating, they get your team gets better at delivering on that. Um, and you're you're able to win back time that can be placed in perhaps other ways that can be more valuable to your business. But if your energy is trapped in tasks that reset to zero every morning, right? You're starting from scratch every single day, like manually managing, you know, you taking care of all of the messages in your inbox and you know, in your social media, for example, um, you can't build momentum if you are constantly in a road, a mode of reaction, right? So you want to direct your energy as the leader of your business. It's powerful energy. You want to put that to decisions and activities that can scale, like designing the experience and training your team on that, like figuring out and spending time deciphering exactly how you want to position your business from a marketing perspective. Perhaps team standards and teaching standards. These are things that you can then deliver to others or that can allow you to scale an experience in your studio in the way that you want and create that sort of ongoing momentum in your business that will pay you back, not just for January, but for February, March, April, May, and well beyond as well. And inside of Thrive, we do that in a lot of different ways. We support you in doing that in so many different ways. We um map out your specific growth plan for your studio, right? And we help make sure that you are focused on the tasks that only you can do. And we give you a ton of tools that help you to figure out which which tasks or which activities or which responsibilities you want to keep for yourself and you can delegate to others. Now, oh, January is one of those months where there's so much energy that it's probably very tempting to add, right? Tempting to add more promotions, add more classes, um, add more everything, right? And perhaps you feel like, yes, I'm gonna say yes to everything, and it's gonna be so fun and there's gonna be so much energy and we make so much revenue, right? Um, except that this complexity, um, although it might feel productive, may not actually be productive. Because the moment you start to um create too much complexity around what you do and your offers, and by adding more and more and more and more, more package types, more membership types, more signature programs, more, more, more, um, we create more choice. And over choice actually stalls decisions. Remember, earlier I said, you know, human brains really like clarity and direction. We are able to make faster decisions when we're we're when we're in that kind of uh environment. Well, it's the same thing when it comes to your your your promotions and your offers. And what we see is when we add more into the business when there isn't strategy behind it and it's not aligned with our long-term goals, then what we see is that uh our members and clients get confused. People leads don't know what to buy. And your team doesn't know what they're supposed to promote. And so that kind of tends to be flat. They may even deliver the experience rate inconsistently, they may not be able to deliver quality classes, they may not feel like they know what they're doing or what they're supposed to be talking about. And then we see ultimately retention drops, margins shrink. And the reality is that when you've got a complicated business with a lot of different offers and a lot of different modalities and a lot of different services, without the infrastructure behind it, it can be very expensive and challenging to run really well. So we want simplicity, but we want super, super smart simplicity. Simplicity doesn't mean dumb and low value at all. Simplicity actually is one of the smartest things you can do for your business. And if you can do fewer things better than everyone else, then you'll find that you find you're in a much stronger position from a profit perspective, from an experience perspective, and from a marketing perspective. Okay. So instead of thinking about sort of going broad, right, think about going, going deep. And this really helps to sort of lower that cognitive load. Simplicity is, I mean, like I said, clarity and simplicity is just what we are looking for, especially in this world we're in today with so much noise, right? Um, and when a client instantly understands what you're there to do, how you can help them, and what the next step is, there's a lot less friction in their decision-making process. And you'll find that conversion rates rise. And your team knows exactly what they should be talking about with clients. You're not, you know, flip-flopping, switching it every single week. They know exactly what they should be talking about and they can deliver on all of the things that you want them to deliver on because they're not, they're they're able to focus and really hone in on their language and their presence as well. And so what we find over and over again is that simplicity is actually what multiplies quality and multiplies profit. And when we layer that into the messaging framework that I share inside of Thrive, you know, I teach the way that I teach that is that it helps to really get super clear on your marketing focus, on um how to reduce that noise around your marketing and really hones in on your unique value proposition. And this sort of layered approach to messaging really just gets even more clarity for you as a studio owner around what you want to sell in your studio and what your studio is all about, how to position absolutely everything that you do in your business around that. So again, instead of going broad, you're going super, super deep. And when you do this, what happens is you immediately differentiate yourself from your competitors because you become the go-to expert. So instead of adding more and more and more and more to your plate, you're just getting better and better and better and better at what you do. So the final kind of issue that I see when we go into a new year, it's a common one. And it and I think it it is something that you will I sort of associate with a little bit. Um, and that is, and it's so common, honestly. You know, for studio owners that start out as teachers and then open their own studio space, um, what we find is that you're often the best instructor. Am I right? You're the one that everybody wants. Your schedule is full, you want your other teachers' schedules to be full also. And this is a challenge for you. You know it's not sustainable for your growth. But in order for you to maximize revenue, you keep teaching more and more and saying yes and more. And what happens is ultimately is that you become the bottleneck. There is a ceiling to the number of hours that you can teach in a week. And when you spend all of your time teaching and zero time managing your team and optimizing your software on your marketing messaging, your team members wait for you to approve everything, um, you are not able to step back and steer the business forward. And so those big projects that you've been dreaming about, perhaps on the drive home from the studio, never get started because there's no time, no space in your life for them to start. Now, instead of being the teacher, the lead teacher, the head teacher, what about if you stepped into that identity of CEO, which is what you are if you are a studio owner? So as a CEO, I design the outcomes, I design the standards, and I help my team to be able to own the results, to participate in the outputs, the outcomes. I help to create space and scale in the business through the people that I train and hire, through the processes that I create, so that I can help the people around me to deliver more of what we know is impactful. This is the role of a CEO. And honestly, this is the time of year to shift into that role because you want to start the year as a leader in your business. And if you're not identifying yourself as the leader, then no one else around you will. So when you shift your identity, then what we see is there is a knock-on effect amongst your team. When you step up into that role, your team actually wants you to do that. They want to see you as the leader. And what happens is they are happy to take your direction and they want you to succeed as a leader because they want the business to succeed and they want to work somewhere that is successful, right? And so when you shift your identity, when you're we see the calendar start to shift as well, we see your priorities start to shift as well, we see your culture in the studio shift as well. And this all helps to create that momentum that creates the revenue that you are seeking, the growth that you are seeking, and that sustainable approach that you are likely seeking as well. Inside Thrive, we help you to create a really simple leadership cadence. So the just stepping into that role and knowing exactly what to focus on with this one page that we give you that really helps you to sort of level up where you focus in your business. You know, it gives you those step-by-step and that checklist so that you are really guided into this role. And truly, it makes such a big difference. So a few intentional tactics for you as you go about thinking about January, right? And as you step into that role, perhaps if you're already there, you lean more into it. And so you want to make sure that you're filtering those decisions for where you're gonna focus in January, right? And make there be, make there be one focus for January. And if that one focus for January doesn't is not aligned with your long-term goals, then I would encourage you right now, right now, before we turn the calendar page, to take a minute to sit down and to rethink your approach, right? So quick recap. Uh, January isn't just a sprint. Honestly, it is a systems check. It is time for make allowing your machine to really, really run at its maximum. And now is the time to make sure that you've got your inputs all lined up, that you know exactly what levers you want to pull when, and exactly what outputs you're looking for. I really, really encourage you to protect your energy and make sure you're getting a return on your investment of your time. Put your best brain on decisions that only you can make and on decisions that come compound for the growth of your business. And make simplicity your strategy. Fewer, better, clearer wins over and over and over again. And finally, lead like the CEO you already are. Get focused on the outcomes that you want, protect the quality of your experience and the standards of your teaching, and help your team to step up and own it all as well. So if you felt the relief of that shift, perhaps, perhaps hearing that simplicity wins is felt good to you. If perhaps you felt it felt good to you to think about your time as an investment of your energy, then imagine it being backed by proven frameworks, done with you support and a community of studio owners building the same way. That's Thrive, my business coaching program for boutique fitness studio owners who want consistent revenue growth, who want a stronger team and a schedule that gives you your life back. Inside Thrive, we turn these mindset shifts into systems that uh that that that give you um that give you a strong leadership position, that give you strong marketing uh campaigns, and that give you the metrics that keep you on track without you living in that sort of day-to-day hustle or in the weeds. So your next step is to go to spring3.com forward slash thrive, check out the details, and let's make this your most profitable, sustainable year yet. And let's start it with a calm and powerful January. You can work less frantically and make more when you approach it with real purpose. I hope this episode was helpful to you as you go about thinking about this next year of growth. If it was, I would love for you to go to wherever you're listening to this and rate and read this podcast. I would love for you to share your feedback with us and to share this with another teacher or studio owner who is out there looking for guidance and support just like you. Have a great rest of your week. Did you love this episode and want more? Head to springfree.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.