The first step in ensuring your businesses long term growth and success is to take stock of where you are today. I call them Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). New businesses can take an opportunity to set goals based on capacity and efforts. Established businesses can take an opportunity to review where the potential for growth exists. We want to know where we begin so we know if and how any changes we make help or hurt. Check out the following resources to help you in this vein.

Be sure to review the past, think about the future, set projection goals, and schedule time to check in on these metrics periodically. Monthly is nice to start, quarterly and annually is enough for seasoned veterans.

The average year over year retention rate for a health and wellness business is 33%* (according to a data analysis done on 60k MINDBODY businesses in 2018). Retention is simply the biggest challenge we face and we must do everything possible to make it easy for our community to try us out, find connection, and stay inspired. The following are ways that we’ve seen the most success in helping the retention challenge.

Retention KPIs

We like to start our retention conversation by analyzing retention in all the ways it can happen: First Visitors, Intro Offers Purchased, Converted, and Converted to Membership. You can look at your reports in your business management software to see where you have the most opportunity to better connect with prospective customers.

Sales

The second step to having great retention is having a formal new customer communication process and plan. If a new customer finds their way to you, make it clear and easy for them to stay committed, at whatever level makes sense for them. Reach out to us if you’d like help creating and implementing a successful sales plan.

Additional Retention Strategies

After you’ve dialed in your Pricing plan and Sales process, it’s time to focus on everything else that ensures your clients are well served in your space. We suggest spend some time focusing on creating an excellent customer experience. We like to focus on formalizing customer reviews and analyzing class performance in addition to all the warm fuzzy best practices.

Website Resources

When it comes to websites, there are a few options I highly recommend based on your needs these days: Squarespace and Pixality Design. Squarespace, which is what this site is designed with, is my favorite content management system and is a great option for those who are brave enough and/or interested enough to try to design a website themselves. They have lots of pricing options, great images you can use, connect simply with so many 3rd parties, and it’s popular with web developers. Here are just some of the 3rd parties you can use with them: Google Domains for your URL; GSuite for your e-mail and online docs setup as an organization; MINDBODY’s Branded Web; Accuity scheduling for appointment based businesses; Square / Stripe payment processing. I prefer Squarespace over Wix after doing a 30 day trial with both. I have heard from several clients that MINDBODY Branded Web & Wix don’t love each other. If you aren’t interested in creating your own website, check out some of the other partners which offer more website design, creation, and support such as Pixality Design (which uses Squarespace), LiveEdit, SpaceCraft.

Business Brokers

I highly recommend working with a business broker if ever you are in a situation where you’re considering selling or buying your boutique studio and want to get a neutral opinion on the value of the business. Especially if you don’t have any prospective buyers and aren’t interested in finding a buyer and doing the paperwork to close the deal. I highly recommend Boutique Fitness Brokers and Mitch McGinley who has helped many studios make this transition with positive outcomes.

Fitgrid

FitGrid is all about helping improve retention and community with technology. FitGrid lets you view and manage instructor and customer communications and connections. Their tools make it easy for you to see which classes are working and which aren’t. It provides ways for you to easily see instructor performance. Their product will save you tons of time and make it easier for you to ensure the quality of your services.

Conscious Counsel

Working with a lawyer just got fun. Cory Sterling and Conscious Council provide a unique, fresh and mindful approach to legal advising, business development, and maximizing your potential through passionate living. I really enjoy their easy, down to earth approach to legal issues, and would recommend them for contract review, conflict advice, and more.

BOLD 2018 State Of The Industry

The State of the Wellness Industry is booming, and isn't expected to slow down any time soon. Watch as MINDBODY Consultant Roxy Borger and Amaya Weddle, Director of Research and Insights, shared current industry trends and exciting growth to come live from the 2018 BOLD conference in San Diego, California.

PUBLIC Speaking 101

Click the image to download a worksheet to get the best tips for being a great public speaker.

livestream best practices

Please enjoy these best practices surrounding hosting virtual class / sessions based on my personal experience as a group fitness and yoga instructor and also the experience of several contributors from the greater wellness world during the Covid crisis of 2020/21. If you prefer to work in Google Sheets, CLICK HERE and go to FILE > Save a Copy to save a copy to your own Google drive that you can edit, share, and update.