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

Planning for Fall? 3 CEO Moves to Make Now

• Jackie Murphy

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Fall is right around the corner—but before you dive into scheduling, back-to-school promotions, or new offers, let’s hit pause and do it differently. In this episode, I’ll walk you through the 3 CEO-level moves that make all the difference when planning your next season.

You’ll learn:

  • Why skipping a summer celebration leaves you in scarcity
  • The mistake of chasing attendance instead of real revenue
  • How to reverse-engineer your fall launch and align your team

Whether your summer felt slow or steady, this is your chance to plan fall from a place of clarity, confidence, and control.

📣 Ready to build a profitable fall season that’s fully aligned with your goals? DM me “FALL” and I’ll send the next step to work with me inside the Studio CEO Program.

Work with Jackie Murphy


Speaker 1:

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. This is just the beginning. Hello and welcome back to the Studio CEO Podcast. I am Jackie Murphy and I'm just now realizing I haven't done an About Me episode in five years on this podcast, and quite a lot has shifted in the last five years. But if you're brand new to the podcast, hi, it's so lovely that you're here. I really appreciate it. I'm glad that we've landed in your earbuds. However, it's so lovely that you're here. I really appreciate it. I'm glad that we've landed in your earbuds. However, we've landed there.

Speaker 1:

I was certified to teach yoga while I was an undergrad at UNC Chapel Hill, and I love teaching yoga. I had been working with a company called Lululemon, and then eventually their other company, aviva, but I really just wanted to teach yoga, and so I eventually quit and I went out on my own to teach yoga full time, and in that first year I made $15,000, which, if you're in your first year of business, that's not a small feat. However, it wasn't going to be the career that I could live off of for the long run, and so I spent the next decade learning, mostly the hard way, the business skills that I didn't have from teacher training, so that I could create thriving businesses in the yoga and Pilates industry. I had the opportunity to be new market opening manager for the number one yoga brand in the US, and eventually we worked to open different studios in different markets, but the last studio that I helped open we opened with over 1000 members opening day, and so I know there's so many of you right now that are like I'm about to open my studio.

Speaker 1:

I get DMS like this all the time. Is your program going to help me do that? I will tell you that, absolutely yes. The program includes a lot of the foundational skills that you need to have in order to market and sell an offer like membership, pre-opening Plus. I have all of that experience that I pour into there since then, you guys. So eventually I left the in-person brick and mortar studio life and I created this coaching business, and that was around six years ago, coming up this December, which is kind of wild and from the last six years, I have worked with thousands of yoga and Pilates business owners people who are just starting out and just wanting to build their business all the way up to people who are scaling to 100k months and growing their brand across multiple different studios.

Speaker 1:

And so if you fall in there somewhere, then this is the right podcast from you. I'm really happy that you're here, and it's just such a gift and an honor to be able to look back at my story and see how all the dots connected. Right, it's that Steve Jobs quote you can't see the dots looking forward, but you can see how they all connect. Looking backwards, that was probably butchered, but something along the lines of that, and looking back, I can see now how my story connects perfectly to be in this role, serving you, even back to in high school, like I didn't like getting jobs. I had businesses. In high school I had a cleaning service that I offered and I had dance classes for like three-year-olds that I offered, and then forward into UNC, chapel Hill. My degree is in education, so one of the things that really helps me create success for my clients is knowing how people learn from that education degree. It just all connects, isn't that cool how the world works. So I'm really happy that you are here today.

Speaker 1:

We're diving into three CEO moves to make now to prep for the fall, and I want to give a little shout out to my client, tabby. We were on office hours which are offered as a part of the Grow Mastermind program. We're on office hours which are offered as a part of the Grow Mastermind program where my clients can bring their questions. This last office hours we were screen sharing, google ads, what keywords to spend more money on, meta ads, and strategy for the fall and I asked them. I said you know, is there anything that you'd like to hear on the podcast next week? And Tabby said you know, I would love to hear like what to be thinking of as we head into the fall, and so, if you like this podcast, give Tabby a little thank you, because it was all her idea. I love it, all right. So let's talk about, like why the fall matters and what this podcast really is meant to do.

Speaker 1:

This is something that I really learned working with that number one yoga brand in the US, and we would call it the yoga year, and you've probably heard me talk about it before if you were a listener of this podcast but essentially in our industry, this is not just the yoga year, but this is like the wellness business year, the yoga and Pilates industry year. Most of your revenue in your business is going to be made between October and March, meaning that when we head into the fall, you are essentially gearing up for the time where you are going to be the busiest in your studio or in your business, and so you want to know that that is coming. Why does this matter? I think a lot of people understand that there is a summer slowdown, and that is something that we don't really want to fight too much against because we can't change reality. It just is the nature of the industry. However, knowing that that happens and, knowing that things start to get a little bit busier at the very end of September into October, you can be prepared and really make the most out of these quote unquote busy months in your studio. So I want you to think about this podcast as, like, you are gearing up for what you know is going to be a really fun, exciting time, and the best way to have a really fun, exciting time is to be ready and prepared and have everything good to go before you hop into it.

Speaker 1:

So the first thing that I want you to do before you go into fall is celebrate summer, and I know some of you just groaned at me and you're like, but Jackie, it was so slow. I just did a poll on Instagram last week and I was like, how are you feeling after we're kind of wrapping up the summer and things are coming into fall? And half of you were super excited and half of you were super excited and half of you were like, oh, that hit me so hard that summer was really slow. And so, no matter where you are, whether it was an awesome summer and you crushed it, or it was the slowest summer you've had I want you to celebrate that summer and, even if it feels hard, it's so, so important because you cannot skip over the proof or the data of what has just happened in your business. And so, before you go into planning fall, you want to look back and look at what did happen over summer.

Speaker 1:

What worked right? What in our studio was really successful? What in the business really worked well? What in our marketing worked really well? Did we have members consistently coming two to three times a week? Did we see new students grow year over year? Did we see an increase in our email list from our pop-ups we did around town during the summer? I'm giving you examples, but you would look at what worked and what were the wins that we had over the summer. And I want to say this in here the win that you maybe had over the summer was that you maintained your current membership base or you didn't lose more than 10% of your membership base. Those are wins in the summer, because we again know it's going to be a little bit slower. So I'm not looking for 50% month over month growth in the summer. If that happened to you and it does that's amazing. But if you're one of those studios, that was like we made it through.

Speaker 1:

That is a celebration. If you maintain your business during the summer months, that is a celebration. If you maintain your business during the summer months, that is a celebration and you want to dive deep into what worked to maintain that business Typically over summer. You are going to find out what your core members, like your ideal client really, really cares about and actually wants. It will kind of tell you like who's in it, who's a loyal paying member and what do they care about, what are they engaging with, what they love, and it will give you insight into who you should be attracting for your new students come this fall and what to talk about and what they might care about as well, so you can use that data to your advantage to plan for the fall.

Speaker 1:

Then you're also going to think about what didn't work right, like we've looked at what we learned about our clients this summer, what we are excited about, what we are celebrating. But it is very important that you sit down and you're like, okay, what didn't work? Did our new student numbers drop off too significantly? We saw in one of the studios up in Virginia this summer that they had an incredible amount of pauses this year, and so we've actually reworked their cancellation and pause policy to help their retention over those months. So it might be like, oh my gosh, our pauses were insane and we want to change that.

Speaker 1:

That could be what didn't work, and you could also look at what didn't work personally for you. I had one of my clients. She came to our coaching session and she was like Jackie next February. I want you to remind me that I want to be away and off most of the summer and not do any big pushes, and so that can also be something that you can mentally note like what didn't work is I spent too much time working, hustling and in the future I want to either hire or prep or plan so that my summer can be spent outside of the pool with my kids, whatever it may be.

Speaker 1:

So you're looking at what worked, you're looking at what didn't work, what you may keep for next year and then what you want to do differently going into the fall, what you really want to specifically try and tweak going into the fall, and as much as you can be clear, that will be really, really helpful. So try to be really specific in what you'll do differently. So, for example, it's not like, okay, we want to market more, we want to post more. Really, we want to get to the place where you're like I'm going to speak to my ideal client in this one specific way that I really heard a lot of my members talking about over the summer, and that's what we're going to do differently in our marketing this fall. And so, once you have really sat down and you've thought about who was in front of you during the summer, what they deeply cared about, what really didn't work, and then what you're going to do going into the fall, you are leaving this little brainstorm session the CEO session, we'll call it with a very good idea of what your future ideal member or ideal client wants, what they will respond to in the marketing and then how you can deliver really well for them, why this matters.

Speaker 1:

It's going to take you from a place of scarcity or even lack or even loss and into a place of celebration, to create a completely different energy in the fall, like if you go into the fall being like, oh, that sucked, we need to make money right now, it's going to be so much harder for you to make money. But if you're like, oh my gosh, we made it through. Here's what our clients loved. Here's what I loved about our clients. Here's our ideal client. I'm so happy these people were here. They were with us through the summer. Here's our ideal client. I'm so happy these people were here. They were with us through the summer. That was amazing. We're celebrating them so much. We know exactly what they're tuned into, what they care about.

Speaker 1:

It's going to be a lot easier for you to go out into your marketing and your sales in the fall with the energy of gratitude and celebration, and that energy is something that your people want to be around. They want to know that they're not just a number in the studio. They want to know that you deeply do care about their presence. They want to know that you know them and you see them and you can empathize with them, and your studio, your business, is meant specifically for them. And that can't happen unless you're like relishing in who's in front of you and you actually are filled up with gratitude for the people that are there and you actually are celebrating the business wins that you've had over the summer, and I can't I just have to say it again like it is a win to maintain. That is a win. That is a win that you want to celebrate from the summer. Okay.

Speaker 1:

So the next thing that I think you should be thinking about in terms of the fall and the yoga year and what's coming up, is that your attendance in your business doesn't have to match your revenue. Okay, stick with me on this one. When we go into the fall, you most likely if you you're in the US and this is, you know, northern Hemisphere you probably are going to see an increase in your attendance, like the last few weeks of September up through October, through November, into the holidays, you might see a little bit of a drop. People get pretty busy come Thanksgiving, come Christmas. No-transcript that your revenue has to drop with it. If you are building monthly recurring revenue strategically and you're planning for it Now, it does matter how often your people are coming. So if you have members that slowly start to drop off and not use their membership, they are at risk for canceling, and we care about that, and that's like a whole other podcast we could do.

Speaker 1:

But what I want to tell you is that if your members get busy during the holidays, it doesn't necessarily mean that your revenue has to take a hit. If you've planned for that, all right Now. If you have been only selling drop-ins and class packs and you don't have a clear MVO which is what I teach in the studio CEO program you probably will take a hit on your revenue when your attendance does drop, like that probably will happen because they're correlated. Instead, I really want you to think how can I plan to maintain my revenue, or even grow my revenue, during the really busy holiday season that's going to come Now. Attendance will spike way high in January. We all know that that is when you're going to see your highest number of new students January, february, march so you can know that it's going to come back.

Speaker 1:

But you can ask yourself what can I do during this busy season, when my clients get busy, when my members get busy to one over, deliver to those people, but also to keep my revenue high. And this doesn't mean that you just need to plan more events or offer more to your members, but you need to plan offers that increase your monthly recurring revenue, or plan offers that increase your monthly recurring revenue, or plan offers that increase your revenue in those specific months like December. Does that make sense? I'm sure it does. So I really want you to think about like what can I do come November, come December, to strategically increase the revenue that we're bringing in that month, even if our normal membership base, our normal attendance, drops right? Like members go from taking three classes a week to taking one because they have holiday parties and gosh my toddlers, they have like a holiday program here and there, and then we have a this and a that and this and that gets super, super busy. Now, if you want specific strategy for this, this is something that we do inside of the Grow Mastermind, where we really get clear on what plays to run in November, what to sell in December, what your premium value offer should be. Okay, so that's offered inside the Grow Mastermind. We're actually opening the Grow Mastermind for enrollment. It's been sold out for six months and we are opening it for enrollment come September.

Speaker 1:

So if you are a business that's ready to add paid ads into your marketing and really focus on leadership so this comes to like hiring, running a team leading your business then the mastermind is the perfect spot for you. You can check out the link in the show notes if you want more information about that, all right. So this actually perfectly brings me into the third thing to be thinking about for the fall Map everything out. So one of my clients, sean, she has a business that is both online and in person up in Canada and she was telling me like here's everything we're launching in the next six weeks, or like the next little bit, and she has each thing mapped out right. She's in the mastermind and she's used our launch planning template and she has everything mapped out and even delegated to who's doing what, which is incredible. Right, like that is a huge first step. But if you have, like all this, different game plans and different places, you also need a place to have this calendar where you know exactly what's coming and when, so that you don't get overwhelmed.

Speaker 1:

One of the most common things that I hear from people in this industry is that they feel like they always need to be selling four different things. They have a workshop coming up, they're running teacher training in November, they have membership they need to talk about and they have a singing bowl workshop that's coming up right, like they feel like their marketing has to be spread really thin and if you are there, it probably is because we have not clearly mapped everything out, prioritized by what is most important for the business monthly recurring revenue or your MVO, and then really delegated what our calls to actions are going to be when. So I really want you to think about having some sort of master calendar project management software whether it is we like ClickUp, we like Basecamp, you could use Google Calendar if you really didn't want to buy a project management software where everyone on your team can be really clear about what is coming up and when. The last thing that I want you to do is like spend your time and your energy and your effort coming up with this amazing promo that you're going to run this October, but you're working in your office by yourself and you forget to tell your teachers that it's happening until the week before. And so then you tell them, but they're confused because there's other stuff is happening and what is the price, and how do I talk about this? And so the team that you have doesn't end up supporting and marketing what you've planned in a way that they could have.

Speaker 1:

If everyone had had the information ahead of time, it was clearly delivered, you could answer any questions and everyone knew what was happening then this does require you to be organized, and if you're not organized, then you can find the person on the team that is the most organized and have them do this for you so that you can really know when are we selling which thing, when does our promotion start for that thing?

Speaker 1:

How far back do we need to start prepping our team for that? When does in-studio marketing go out? When does our paid advertising go out, so that everyone on your team front desk, teachers, assistants, managers, virtual assistants they all know what's coming and they all know how to support it. We actually just did this last week with my team for the coaching business. We sat down and I said here's our plan for the rest of the year, here's what we're doing. So everyone's on the same page and we can kind of know okay, these are going to be our heavy on weeks, this is what we need to prep for this, and we can all operate together.

Speaker 1:

So if that is something that you're like whoa, I definitely don't have that, or I'm not doing that I would highly recommend the mastermind for you to really start learning how to get organized and clearly delegate and communicate to your team what's coming, so that you can have everyone work together, because if it's just you knowing what's happening and trying to put it all together, you will probably be burnt out by the end of the fall, so I really don't want you to be there. I want you to feel organized, really clear, streamlined, fully capable of raising your revenue for the rest of the year and having people support you behind it. That's what I want your fall to be like. If you want help with this again, the mastermind is probably the best place for you to join us. You can click the link in the show notes and we will be opening that mastermind in September so you can get ready for that and I will talk to you guys in the next episode. Bye, my friends.