The Studio CEO: Business Coaching For Yoga & Pilates Teachers & Studio Owners

What’s Actually Worth Your Time This Summer (And What’s Not)

• Jackie Murphy

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Do students start saying they'll "come back after summer"? Are freeze requests piling up already? If so, it might be time to rethink your marketing.

Seasonal shifts don’t have to derail your business—they can actually guide your strategy. In this episode, we talk about how to work with seasonality instead of against it, using real client data, mindset-aware messaging, and smart summer promotions.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

  • Why summer slowdowns aren’t always a sign your studio is struggling
  • How to shift client mindsets with compassionate, flexible messaging
  • What to say (and what not to) when members consider stepping back
  • How to be consistent through the summer and set your business up for strong fall revenue.

You don’t have to fight the season—you can lean in and move with it.

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Speaker 1:

If your clients are saying I'll come back after the summer, or you're starting to see more freeze requests than you have or new students dropping off, then this episode is for you. We are diving into the exact marketing shifts that you need to make for this summer to keep your students engaged without pushing, without overposting or burning yourself out. Tune into this episode now to have an amazing summer in your business. Welcome to the Studio CEO, the only podcast that empowers yoga and Pilates teachers and studio owners to step confidently into their role as CEO. If you are ready to show up with passion, take your business seriously and scale to new heights without burning out, you are in the right place. I'm your host, jackie Murphy, an award-winning certified business coach with over 12 years of experience inside the yoga industry. I have seen firsthand what it takes to build a profitable and scalable business. Join me as we dive into strategies, insights and real-world advice that will help you grow your revenue, build a thriving team and create a business that serves you as much as you serve your students. It's time to embrace your inner CEO and make more money without working more. This is just the beginning. Hello, my friends, and welcome back to the Studio CEO Podcast. I am Jackie Murphy and let's just start with a few updates. Yeah, life updates, business updates. So business update. This episode will be released on the Grow Mastermind in-person retreat, which is going to be so amazing. We have a completely full house, no more room in the inn, and these business owners are coming to spend time in community, spend time transforming to the next level CEO and working on their business. It is always one of my favorite favorite aspects of the mastermind because there's just nothing like being in community, being able to hug each other and support each other, and I always see everyone there leave with such transformation and such shifts. And so that's happening when you're listening to this podcast, if you're listening to the week that it gets released. The other thing that just happened is that we had a guest teacher inside of the Studio CEO podcast, the Studio CEO program. Her name is Jamie and she came in to teach all about money, because let's be real for a second, sometimes in this industry we can have some hangups around money, and so we had Jamie come in and really speak to what it looks like to change a relationship with money, so that you can invite in abundance If you want to get that training. If you want to be a part of the studio CEO program, you can click the link below in the show notes and make sure that you hop in. You can watch the recording and I will tell you that, like if you are on the fence. If you've been thinking about it, you know, considering it, that time that you spend in indecision is costing you money, because if you've spent a month thinking about joining, about the program, you could have spent a month making money. And so every moment you continue to sit in indecision, it's not that you are saving yourself money, it's that you're costing yourself money from what you could make. So we'd love, love, love to have you inside the studio CEO program.

Speaker 1:

And then personal updates. It's summertime. Y'all went down in Charleston, it's getting hot. I was driving back from Pilates this morning and I just had the urge to be like I am not going to go record a podcast, I am going to go sit by the pool and sit in the sun. And I very may well do that right after I record this episode, because we do what we say we're going to do in this business, and this also prompted going to do in this business and this also prompted today's episode. So it's starting to get a little bit warmer if you're in the Northern hemisphere and I know there's people listening all over the world so if it's not summertime coming up, whatever season is rolling around, this is going to be applicable to you. But the sun shining that spurred on this episode just the change it's May now that spurred on this episode.

Speaker 1:

But also, I had a conversation with one of my private clients this week and this is a client who multiple five-figure months consistently has an incredibly successful studio, has an amazing team, like we've really done the work. Her business is running like a machine. And she came to our session this week and she was like Jackie, new students are down. We haven't had as many new students this month it was April than we did in March. And I said, okay, tell me the data. They had 165 new students in March, which like whoop, whoop, we love that, let's go. And they had 77 new students in April. And so if you were just looking at that, drop 165 to 77, I think anyone would be like, oh my God, something's incredibly wrong. So when you look at data, the data is going to tell you a story you just want to make sure you're looking at the full picture to get the accurate story and not just a snippet of your data. So I told this client. I said all right, well, let's pull your new student numbers from last year during April, during the same month, and let's see if those compare. Lo and behold, we pulled those numbers and we found that she had actually grown a little bit in new students compared to April of last year.

Speaker 1:

Why does this matter? Because seasonality matters in our business, whether we want it to or not. It plays a part of when people are wanting to rush into a studio and take class and when they're wanting to go be on a boat outside, and so we kept looking into her data. There's also some other things. We had this big push in March. We didn't do that in April. We are more focused on conversion. All of that plays a part. But I say that to say that if you are looking at your numbers and you see a drop in new students, I want you to avoid the freak out and imagine having the same conversation with me, like, let's look at the full picture, let's understand what the data is really telling us, not what our primitive brain or our freak out brain is trying to tell us that no new students are ever coming again and something is really wrong with the business because that is not going to happen. However, this does show you that from Q1 to Q3, from the wintertime, january to June, you are probably going to see some change in the amount of new students coming into your studio. Does that have to be a lot of change? No, and are there things that you can do about it? Absolutely, so I wanted to spend this episode really talking about what you can spend your time doing this summer in terms of marketing so that you can keep your new student numbers up over the summer.

Speaker 1:

Whenever I think about marketing, the first place that I think of is my client's brain. So I think about those students who are going to be coming into your studio or into your business. And what are they thinking about? They are thinking I'm just going to pause for the summer and I'll come back in the fall. They're thinking I'm just too busy right now. Gosh, may is crazy. I've heard people call it May-cember this year. I'd never heard that term before, but, like the same vibe of how busy December gets, it's May-cember. I'm just too busy right now with the kids and summer travel and I don't have school going on, so I have to pause for now, or I have to pull back for now.

Speaker 1:

Or you may be in an area where people are thinking I don't want to be stuck inside when I could be outside, like, why would I come inside to work out when I could go for a walk? And really good marketing shifts beliefs. Pause it, underline it, rewind it. If that is what your marketing is doing, it is going to get people into action, into your class. The job of your marketing isn't to shame them for what they're thinking. It's not to judge them for what they're thinking. It's not to tell them that they're wrong or to push harder. It's not to tell them that they're wrong or to push harder. It's to meet them where they are and say hey, as the expert, as the person who doesn't fall off in the summer, as the person who prioritizes my health and well-being regardless of the time of the year, here's what I think you could consider. Here's what you maybe want to start to think about instead.

Speaker 1:

So it is worth your time this summer to create marketing that normalizes consistency, even in busy seasons, meaning you have to be the leader, your message. Your actions, your team should all demonstrate hey, we are here, consistently, we are not going anywhere. You may be at the beach, but we are here. We are here when your schedule isn't predictable, when you can come in at a 7 am and used to be a 9.30, when kids are in school, we're here for you. Your messaging needs to communicate hey, don't make yourself start over in September. You want to stay consistent and stay connected, because starting over is way harder than keeping the momentum going.

Speaker 1:

You want your messaging to tell them like hey, listen, I know you want to go out and be at the pool with your kids, but if you give yourself one hour to feel better, to work out, to de-stress, to relax, you are going to be more present at the pool, happier at the pool, and like y'all, this literally just happened. I took my youngest he's two to the pool and so I'm like gosh on panic mom mode at the pool. I'm like watching them make sure they're safe, and I have two kids and it's all you know. It's a lot to consider for my mom brain. If I go work out ahead of that, I am much more grounded, much more calm, much more fun, and that is who I want to be all summer long, even if it means my husband and I are playing Tetris with our schedules to fit workouts in because we have kids around. That's okay and that's what you want to demonstrate in your messaging.

Speaker 1:

Your messaging should use language that meets them where they are, so it has a lot of compassion, reduces guilt and offers flexibility. Your messaging should essentially sell consistency as the thing that creates ease, not pulling back and stopping as the thing that is easier. Like we don't want to fight summer. We want to partner with summer and lead by example so you can reposition. Reposition summer as an opportunity, not a disruption. You can help them see what staying consistent gives them. It gives them more energy for their family time. We already talked about that. More energy on trips, a calm nervous system, a way to stay grounded. You name it like. Keep going with that.

Speaker 1:

But I want you to think about marketing that you can specifically use in the summertime to help your students have a better summertime and start to talk about them and that experience directly Help them realize how important it is to stay consistent during the summertime, protect their identity as someone who prioritizes themselves. Don't let them drop that off Now. I want you to think about what's maybe not worth your time this summer. I think if you go with like, oh my gosh, if you go with generic promotions with no specific messaging, if you're just saying things like come to class or summer membership three months for X amount of dollars, it most likely will fall flat for the majority of people. You'll always have your super hot people that will love you, no matter what you say. But if you're really trying to increase your new students and get more members over the summer, you want to make sure that you're being really specific with your messaging and you're being specific with your offers that you are putting out to people Now.

Speaker 1:

The other thing that's not going to work over the summer is you don't need like to offer a long warmup sequence for them to buy, or you don't need to necessarily have like a huge, like six-week series that you're leading right now, but you do want to have clear, warm, repeatable messages that are going to meet people where they are. So make it really easy for them to consume, to understand, to take your message in and then to take action, versus lengthening out the buyer's journey. Essentially, the last thing that you are not going to want to do is wait for fall. I cannot tell you how often I am in my group with my clients and I'm saying do not wait, do not stop selling, do not like, pull back, because what you do today will be in your bank account 90 days from now. So if we take the 90 days of the summer off marketing and off selling, then the fall hits. You're going to see that reflected in your bank account.

Speaker 1:

If you disappear now, you're also going to have to rebuild trust and momentum, and that is harder than staying consistent over the summer. Stay visible, stay valuable, even if you need to reschedule already used content or send an email that you already sent or say hey, you know, this is what's happening over the summer. You're going to get you know, four posts from me a week instead of seven. That's totally fine. Lead by example, but do not stop over time. So finally, your students. They don't want to be pressured into classes right now, but they do need permission to be flexible, to make it work in their schedule, to stay consistent. They need to see that the season isn't a reason to pause. It's a reason to make it work for them. Maybe they are taking fewer classes, but they're going deeper in those classes, help them win the summer by staying connected to themselves.

Speaker 1:

And if you know that summer is a time in your business where you typically fall off, where you say, oh, this is so hard, I don't like it. You know what's happening to my revenue. If that's you, or that has been you, or you think it may be you this summer, then I cannot say this and stress this more you need to be inside the Studio CEO program because you need to be around a group of people who are demonstrating and showing you that consistency, growth and loving your business in the summer is possible, and you cannot do it alone, right? The very worst thing for your business growth is isolation. You don't need to isolate yourself in order to grow. We would absolutely love to have you in that program. You can click the link below the show notes to join and I will talk to y'all in the next episode.