Yes You Can

Whose job is it to promote classes? Studios vs. Instructors and other hard topics

• Hannah Pratt

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Ever said, "My studio doesn't promote me," or...

"My instructors don't promote my studio"?

In this episode, I share my experience with leadership, HR, managing expectations and marketing to address some of those icky but honest truths about whose responsibility it REALLY is to promote and fill classes, and how to do it well.

I also talk about the Fit Pro Pay Transparency Project results (as a teaser!), my new program for instructors who want to build their entrepreneurial/side hustle skills, and Instructor Magic.

Join the waitlist for the Leaders Lab here! 

Want to level up in 2025? My Black Friday sale is on now for ALL courses and programs with 25% off! Use code BLACKFRIDAY at checkout.


Speaker 1:

Welcome to the yes you Can podcast, a soft place to land for fit pros and aspiring entrepreneurs looking for a motivational cheerleader who's been through it all and believes your best life is about being brave and tapping into your magic. Hi, I'm Hannah Pratt, an online coach and vulnerability queen. I'm here ready to share my experiences through grief, life and finding my place on the podium to help you level up. So grab a latte and a notebook and get ready to be inspired through the yes you Can podcast. Hey friends, welcome to another episode of the yes you Can podcast. Okay, today I'm going to go off a little bit right, getting right into it. I am so excited to number one, reveal the results of the FitPro payment transparency project. So that's going to be coming out this week the comments, the survey results. There's almost 300 people who completed the survey, and that's absolutely huge from around the world who are sharing how much they get paid, how they get paid, what the payment structures are, incentives, various things, and then some really great feedback in the comments, too, that I'm going to address in sort of a Q&A. So that is number one. Let's talk about marketing and personal branding and being a fit pro. Now this is really going to be sharing my perspectives as a marketing instructor with three communications degrees and somebody who teaches public relations to students in a college level, along with being an award-winning communications professional. So I have a lot of experience in this area and I want to get that out right off the hop, because a lot of people know me from the spin instructor perspective and my spin account, which I've built using those marketing skills, spin account which I've built using those marketing skills. Now, this isn't directed towards anybody specifically, but it is a bit of a come to Jesus mindset shift that I think both fitness professionals and studio owners need.

Speaker 1:

Number one for fit pros, it is not your studio's job to fill your classes for you, okay. So sometimes I hear from people inside Instructor Magic, which is my six-week online course for fit pros who want to level up, fill classes and change lives. It's an online community. We've had three years of different rounds, and so I have a lot of people in the community who talk every single day different rounds, and so I have a lot of people in the community who talk every single day and sometimes the feedback not a ton anymore, but sometimes the feedback is my studios doesn't promote my classes. So it's not their job to fill your classes for you. It is absolutely their job to provide you with the professional development, the skills, the training to help you be successful.

Speaker 1:

Now, sometimes, when you are climbing the hierarchy of a roster, you're not going to get those prime time slots yet, because you sort of need to prove that you can fill a class before you get there. That's just going to be a business model, that's just a fact that they need to see that you can fill a room at least in what would be expected for that time slot. So maybe a 9.30 during the day isn't going to be like. They're not going to expect you to have a wait list right out of the gate, because daytime rides are just sometimes harder to fill. Right now we have a promotion going on with Wheelhouse, where it's called Wheel of Madness, and my 9.30s are full, and so it's possible. It's absolutely possible. But it's not your studio's job to fill that for you. And then, on the flip side, studios, it is not your instructor's job to market the studio.

Speaker 1:

And the most flack I've received in the last few months has been from studio owners who didn't like the FitPro Pay Transparency Project, which was kind of ironic because I'm like this is giving you the information you need to competitively attract, pay, compensate and retain instructors. So this is giving you free information. This is not saying you need to pay people more. It's saying here's the information about how much people are getting paid. Take it or leave it.

Speaker 1:

I had somebody on my comments who's like, respectfully and I'm not asking for a friend, I'm asking for myself what businesses do you own? And I was like well, I own several. I'm also a business coach. I also have a marketing degree, I also teach research methods, and so what gives me the right to do a survey like this is that I literally teach survey design. I'm not, again, not biasing the results, saying people need to get paid more. I'm just saying fit pros deserve to get paid, period. And if you pay competitively in your industry, amazing, keep on keeping on.

Speaker 1:

But if this feels like a personal attack, there's something there. Obviously there's something there. Either you don't know, you don't think it's fair, or there's something going on with your team where you feel like you're maybe compensating them and they're not doing the duties or performing at the level of your expectations. Now, when we talk about expectations, we're really getting into the HR part of owning a business, owning a studio, and so I see a lot of I've seen it happen many times where people who love spin decide they want to open up a spin studio. Or people who love yoga open up a yoga studio and they're not in love with being a business owner. They're not in love with the entrepreneurship business owner, they're not in love with the entrepreneurship they want to create community Amazing.

Speaker 1:

But if you open a brick and mortar studio or even an online business, you have to love business. You have to love the idea of learning more about marketing, about social media, about customer service, about exceptional customer service experiences, about how to make clients feel welcome from the moment they walk in through the door. You have to love the idea of creating a space like a physical space. You have to even love that so much that when you have stuff like permits and complaints and Google reviews that go awry, that that doesn't matter as much because you are so in love with the rest of the business doesn't matter as much because you are so in love with the rest of the business. That is the hard truth and that is what sometimes prevents studio owners from being successful is because they loved teaching something and then they realize once they've opened their business that they teach like they never. They're not teaching as much. They're not actually doing the thing they love. So if you're listening to this and you've been thinking about opening a studio, this may be your reality check a little bit about.

Speaker 1:

Do I want to do all those things Now like full stop? I have never owned a spin studio, but I have been a part of the leadership team, working full time as a director of marketing for a brand that had three studios. I've also worked full time for a big box gym where I was a membership sales coordinator. So I did all of the sales. I worked on the leadership team for managing sales folks who would do all the tours with the gym. We would get out and get leads. Now, if you can imagine the things I'm talking about, there we had a sales team for a gym. We had full-time people who worked on commission calling people every single day, booking tours, getting new leads. We had full-time people who worked on commission calling people every single day, booking tours, getting new leads. We were hustling harder than I honestly think people who sell cars hustle and that was because that's what was required to sustain a gym at that level. 25 new leads per day, 10 appointments booked, five tours that was our data that we had to hit in order to feed this sales funnel.

Speaker 1:

So if any of the things I'm talking about sound like exceptionally exciting, you should own a business. If this sounds like calculus math that you have literally no interest in, you should not own a business. Or you're like, maybe just have a reality check. Whether you own a business or not, this is just a bit of a reality check about marketing specifically. Now, marketing, I think, is being used as a term that is really general when we talk about social media content creation, when we talk about PR, when we talk about community events. Marketing is really the is communications that have a conversion goal. So you want to put something out there that actually converts somebody into a customer.

Speaker 1:

Now your marketing funnel you're going to move somebody from awareness to interest, desire to action. It's called the ADA funnel and you want to move somebody from as quickly as possible through that funnel. So, awareness they're aware of your brand. Interested they have an interest, maybe they follow. Desire they want whatever it is that you're selling. And action they take action. The final phase of this is loyalty, where they become those ambassadors for your brand. They bring other people in. That's definitely the highest phase, where we hope to fill more.

Speaker 1:

Now you're going to need, as I said, those 25 leads. You might need a certain amount of people to follow you on Instagram to then actually convert into people in your studio. And knowing those numbers are going to help you. Some studio owners out there totally get this, so stick with me if this is all basic stuff, but this is the reality of owning a business and needing to fill classes, knowing your utilization rates and what impacts them, coming up with challenges that support your instructors so your instructors aren't like, hey, I'm looking down at summer and knowing that numbers are going to be shit and I feel this sense of like burden on my shoulders to promote my classes. Now, don't get me wrong instructors, you should be promoting your classes.

Speaker 1:

As I said earlier, it's not up to the studio to fill your classes. For you. Coming up with interesting themes, making sure you're making everybody in that room feel so amazing and giving them the best possible experience so that they come back. That's your job Promoting your schedule, promoting the post-class selfies and Maybe even messaging people right after your class saying thank you so much for your energy, like really developing those personal relationships. That's going to be the stuff that helps you Studios. It's up to you to create a container of urgency around coming to the studio. So maybe that's a challenge Again. Right now we have Wheel of Madness happening. We have had challenges called the Beatdown. This is where we see utilization rates go up to like 85, 90% and that means that every class is waitlisted on the schedule. There's incentives for riders. There's things happening in the studio that I, as an instructor, am not driving. I am promoting, I am supporting, I am validating all that's happening, but it's not up to Hannah to come up with the reels Now.

Speaker 1:

It just so happens that we at Wheelhouse feel super inspired by each other and we honestly, are so flipping lucky to be on this team. We created this team, we've created this vibe, but we've had people the majority of the team who started in 2019 are still together, sorry, 2018. So we opened up Wheelhouse in 2018 and I've been with the studio since then. Casey's still there, allison's on the team, julia's on the team, taylor's on the team. There's so many Anna. There's so many of us who are still on this team because we have created this culture within our instructor group.

Speaker 1:

Now the things that work really well for us is we are incentivized, so we are absolutely paid on a commission basis, with a flat rate of course, and that's really helpful. It gives us this inherent incentive beyond just feeling like we want to fill the room for having a full room sake. But we are kind of these mini entrepreneurs and so for instructors, like when I say it's not up to your studio, I really want to empower you to come up with the fun things that are going to make your ride different. Now I have done so many different things to do this, like whether it's have little treats or something waiting on the bikes. Now there's lots of stuff that happened in studio that I don't need to worry about, like first-time riders got a card, all that sort of stuff. But sometimes we'll have different like giveaways we might contact like a juice company or a bar company and do some sort of promotion. Eric has been doing this like Friday night club theme, where he's gotten like Gatorade and different things, almost like a pregame type of thing for people who are riding at Friday evenings, because it's the one ride on the schedule on Fridays or on Friday evenings, rather. So, like, be creative and come up with these ideas, because this shows initiative to your studio owner and, ultimately, if you want to ascend into a leadership position, they want to see you taking that initiative. They want to see you, kind of like, taking the step to go above and beyond what's in your expectations.

Speaker 1:

Now back to the HR person. This is like total stream of consciousness. Back to the HR stuff Studio owners you need to have in a written document what it is that you expect your instructors to do within reason. Okay, as I said, they are not your marketing professionals. You need to have a marketing person on your team or teach yourself how to do it. Okay, you need to give them the digital assets of how to promote the rides, support them, maybe encourage them to participate, but you don't own all of their personal Instagram profiles and nor can you prescribe what they should be posting. You can ask, you can give them story graphics and things like that, but you can't rely on them using their personal brand or their personal profiles to promote your studio all the time. That is your studio's job In the expectations agreement and this is going to be changing because there's non-competes that are happening in the US.

Speaker 1:

Now, this was always really hard to enforce in Canada and I would love to have a lawyer on to discuss what this looks like, because it's really really challenging to have a non-compete in Canada. And I would love to have a lawyer on to discuss what this looks like, because it's really really challenging to have a non-compete in Canada. It's always been hard. Now, enforcing it and it being sort of an unspoken rule are two different things. But in the US now there's just introduced, there's going to be non-compete. You cannot have a non-compete so you can teach at multiple studios. I see this being a trend that happens in Europe all the time and sort of internationally, where studios just understand that instructors are going to be teaching at multiple studios, multiple modalities. I think in smaller markets like Winnipeg, where we are, it just wouldn't necessarily work very well and we are sort of synonymous with the Wheelhouse brand. But we do have instructors who teach different modalities, so like they teach boot camps and other things at different studios. That's all fine, it's just the same modality, but that's changing.

Speaker 1:

So what is in your agreement with your instructors and this might be from the studio owner's perspective? This might be something that you rework. I have a really great podcast episode that I've been on and I'm going to insert the link in the show notes with Krista Gurka. So I was on her podcast and she was on mine and we talked about a lot around leadership and it was almost like a masterclass. Honestly, she's owned like eight-figure studios in the States for I don't want to say 15 years Pilates studios, pilates in the Grove and she's a mentor and a coach for studio boutique fitness studio owners. Coach for studio boutique fitness studio owners. So we have her perspective around clear expectations, hiring practices, um, like disciplinary actions, how somebody can move into a different leadership position, what you get paid all of those sorts of things should be clear and transparent.

Speaker 1:

And when we talk about expectations of the instructors like it is up to you to promote your classes, we will provide you with marketing support and we expect that as a part of this agreement. So, but then within limits, you can't say like we expect you to do two posts a week, like no, then you have to pay them for that. So within reason, we expect you to show up 15 minutes before your shift or whatever. That is a part of our compensation. All of these things should be outlined and, again, within reason being reasonable, but this should be very, very clear For instructors. This gives you a clear understanding of whether you're meeting expectations or not, and that might come down to room numbers and quality of the ride. What's happening if you're not able to fill your rides or your classes? That should be something that, from a development perspective, your lead instructor or the studio owner notes. And if you were at below 50% utilization for across your classes, no matter what the time slot, then there should be some mentorship opportunities and different things like that, because of course, they're investing in you in the training and they want you to be successful, like no studio owner hires you and doesn't want you to be successful because that would be them wishing their business isn't successful. So lots of these things should be spoken about.

Speaker 1:

And studio owners again, I'm sort of speaking to the ones who might need this. This is going to be something that I'm offering from a marketing perspective in terms of one-on-one coaching. So if you need coaching around leadership and marketing of your studio, there is a link in the show notes and you can get more information to have a one-on-one with me. I bring sort of the unique perspective of being an instructor, having been on the leadership team and having worked full-time in these studios and knowing the back end, how to set up a funnel, how to get first-time riders in, how to convert them to second-time riders, like retention all of that sort of stuff is the thing that I would coach on, but also perhaps instructor issues, or if you have team stuff happening, and I'm hoping to bring on a secondary coach who's a business owner as well to help me with that. So if that's something you're interested in and need help with, please just go the show notes and you'll see the form right there.

Speaker 1:

Now for instructors, I am opening up doors to instructor magic, if you. If all of this sounds like exciting but also terrifying in terms of marketing and like, okay, great, but do I just post choreography reels all the time In parentheses, no, you don't. That's not going to get your classes full. This isn't the hill I'm absolutely willing to die on. I love choreography reels. I post them too, but that's not going to be the thing that helps people feel a part of your community. So if you're wondering A how to market yourself, how to promote your classes, how to fill them and confidently create themes and experiences and events that build those wait lists within six weeks. Instructor Magic is opening its doors next um, next week, I think. Oh my gosh, I need to check my schedule in May. Okay, so this is my six week online course for fitness professionals.

Speaker 1:

You can be any type of group fitness instructor, but we do talk about group fitness more than like personal training, because I'm talking about community building. I'm talking about coaching to a large room or a room where there's different levels of experience. So, from beginners to advanced folks, like, we cover a lot of those really in-depth subjects. We also talk about, like in the community, hard things, so toxicity within studios, how to navigate challenging situations, because there's live Q&As with me. So there's six weeks of curriculum, then live Q&As, and then we have masterclasses, too, from guest instructors who come in and deliver these like 60 to 90 minute classes on their various subjects of expertise. So we have Rowan Aida, who talks about authenticity and creating core values as an instructor and how that can lead into your playlist and how you coach and how you cue things all of that sort of stuff.

Speaker 1:

I have Ryan Jones, who's just a recently retired SoulCycle instructor, who was also a talent development specialist within SoulCycle and so he trained instructors and he also was an instructor for many years as a master level instructor. He talks about mindset and like how to get over comparison and some really like some really in-depth stuff. And Instructor Magic has developed over the last few years so it's really now more for the established fit pro. If you're an aspiring one, I have a mini course called Podium Prep which really preps you for the podium and sort of the first six months on the bike. Instructor Magic is more developing into like a deeper level of topics and theory plus practical application of things around being the subjects around being a group fitness instructor and really what it takes to be successful in this industry the subjects around being a group fitness instructor and really what it takes to be successful in this industry.

Speaker 1:

So and then finally, finally, I have a new offer coming out which I'm really excited about. This is for the fitness professional who wants to launch a side hustle or a business of their own, an offer of their own. Maybe you want to start creating workshops, just like I have with Instructor Magic, or online courses, like I have with Instructor Magic. Digital products, maybe wellness retreats, maybe even things like one-on-one coaching around meditation, mindset, breath work, any of those sorts of things that are like complementary subjects to what it is that you do on a one-to-one basis. Maybe you're a massage therapist and you want to offer, launch a course or something like that.

Speaker 1:

I'm taking everything that I've had in my group coaching program called Total Launch Formula, so it's a group coaching program I've created that's been sort of retired for the last like year as I figured out what I want to do with it, which was for entrepreneurs of any niche. So I've had writers in there. I've had like writers, like actual communicators in there. I've had fitness instructors. I've had people who want to launch strength-based programs, yoga instructors who want to launch courses, and I'm really now focusing on the group fitness professional who is currently teaching classes and wants to launch a side hustle business of their own, what it takes to market and sell it and then also create content around this subject so that you can launch whatever it is that you're hoping to really successfully. And that's gonna be a small group coaching program. It's gonna be live with me. It's going to be likely over 10 to 12 weeks and I'm really, really excited about it. It's gonna be launching in the spring, moving over the summertime, so it is in a lull period where you might have more time on your hands to invest into something like this, and then we'll probably run round two at the end of 2024. So if you are interested in that program group coaching program you can either DM me group coaching and I will give you the information, or you can sign up in the form in the show notes. So that is my little stream of consciousness around marketing, whose responsibility it is to fill classes, and how studio owners can support instructors, how instructors can take the initiative around promoting themselves and supporting studio owners. I really want to help bridge this gap that I see and the frustrations on both sides around unmet expectations.

Speaker 1:

If you have any questions about or feedback around this episode, please DM me. I'm really curious about your thoughts and what you thought and, of course, if you love the episode, I would really appreciate you sharing with your communities and leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. Thanks so much, friends. Have a wonderful day and remember yes you can. Thanks for listening all the way to the end of the yes you Can podcast. If you loved this one, I would so appreciate a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts that lets others know that, hey, this is a good podcast and it's worthwhile to listen to. If you really loved it, make sure to share with somebody you love who could benefit from a little magic and motivation in their lives. Thanks so much, friends, and have a great day.