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

How to Build a Leadership Team That Runs Your Studio Without You (While Scaling to Multiple Locations)

• Jackie Murphy

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In this episode of the Studio CEO podcast, host Jackie Murphy sits down with Alona Orofino, founder of Orofino Wellness, a thriving Pilates and nutrition studio in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Discover how Alana went from managing a restaurant to building a sold-out Pilates studio across two locations while integrating nutritional coaching and intuitive eating principles.

Discover how Alona built a loyal community in a town of 30,000 and scaled to two studio locations with a strong leadership team. After generating $13,000 in her first three days of launching a campaign within 30 days of coaching, Alona focused on sustainable growth through systems and team building. This episode is packed with actionable insights on hiring full-time staff, building leaders who can run your business without you, paying your team well while maintaining profit margins, and successfully integrating nutrition services into your studio offerings.


What You'll Learn:

  • How to know when it's the right time to open a studio (even in a smaller market)
  • Why recruiting instructors should be treated like recruiting clients
  • How to hire full-time staff and pay them well without sacrificing profit
  • Strategies for building a team that can run your business without you
  • The power of starting with free classes to build value and community
  • Why integrating nutrition with movement is the future of wellness studios
  • How to create a sales culture where team members feel empowered, not pushy


About Alona:

Alona Orofino is the founder of Orofino Wellness, a Pilates and nutrition studio operating out of two locations in Fredericksburg, Virginia. As both a certified Pilates instructor and registered nutritionist with a master's degree in nutrition, Alona specializes in intuitive eating counseling and helping women build healthy relationships with food, movement, and their bodies. A mother of three, she has successfully scaled her business while maintaining work-life balance through private coaching with Jackie Murphy and by having her leadership team participate in the Grow Mastermind. This dual approach has enabled her to build a strong, mission-driven team that can operate the business without her daily involvement.

Connect with Alona & The Orofino Wellness Team:

Work with Jackie Murphy


SPEAKER_01:

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 strategy, 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 in today's episode, I get to introduce another client to you. I love these episodes, and I know when I hear from y'all that you also love these episodes because I think it's so helpful to hear from as many people as possible what their experience is like within this industry. So today I get to introduce you to Alana from Orofino Wellness. She is the owner of Orofino Wellness, which is a Pilates studio in Fredericksburg, but it's really a haven for building a healthy relationship with food, movement, and your body. Alana has done an incredible job of providing sold-out, often Pilates classes at two different locations, nutritional coaching, retreats, and instructor training for her community. And what's so cool about working with Alana is that I work with her privately, but I've also been able to help her hire and create job descriptions and find the right people so that she has a really strong leadership team. And that leadership team I've been able to work with inside of the Grow Mastermind. So I really love every aspect about orophenol wellness, especially the people that are working inside of Oral Phenol Wellness. And I know that you are going to love hearing her story as well. I was just scrolling back, Alana and I have been working together for about a year now. And within our first month of working together, we set some bigger monthly recurring revenue goals and we created a campaign to hit those goals. And she sent me a message way back when she says, I already hit the 13K goal we had for the three days. 13K in three days. It's already time to write a glowing review of coaching with Jackie after less than a month. And while I am going to always be a really, really strong advocate for building business in a sustainable way, I think that if you have a business that you cannot sustain for more than a few years, you are looking at burnout. You're looking at the end of your business. So I love and I will talk and I will preach and I will practice building a sustainable business, one that is life first driven. At the same time, so many of my clients come to me and because we're making some really quick strategy tweaks in the first 30 days, a lot of the times they see some huge wins very quickly. Obviously, that's not a promise. I'm not guaranteed that you're gonna come in and see some big wins. However, it happens so often that I have to tell you that it is possible for you to go make 13K in three days. You are probably sitting on money right now somewhere in your business, and knowing how to market and sell and collect that money is so key. In today's episode, Alana shares her story. We talk about building her two studios and kind of the vision for what she's creating. And we really go into the nutrition side of her business, which I think is so key. And I know a lot of studio owners want to add this element in. So if you are thinking about adding nutrition in, then you are going to love this podcast. My friends, enjoy, and I will talk to you in the next episode. All right, my friends. Welcome back to the Studio CEO podcast. I have another guest interview for you today. Alana is here from Orofeno Wellness. Welcome to the podcast. Why don't you give a quick introduction, who you are, what you do, and then we'll go from there.

SPEAKER_00:

Sure, Jackie. Thanks for having me on. I'm so happy you're here. It's always fun to talk to you, so we might as well record it, right? Right. Um, I am Alana Orefino. I live in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where I have a studio, two studios. We'll call it a studio. It's it's operating out of two small rooms right now. Um and I'm a Pilates instructor as well as a nutritionist and an intuitive eating counselor. And at the studio, our big mission is helping women find food freedom and um body confidence and a joyful movement routine. So not just let's work hard and work harder and eat less and move more, but how do we find the joy through all of that? So beautiful. And a mom of three.

SPEAKER_01:

I am. I have a five-year-old, a three-year-old, and a five-week old. Which we could touch on. I mean, just the conversation of motherhood and business is so important for so many people. So maybe we'll touch on that a little bit, but let's start at like the beginning. I don't think I even know how did you find Pilates? Hmm.

SPEAKER_00:

So back way back when I was taking this class at a gym called Patayo. And this was when we first moved to Virginia from New York. So I was in New York, moved actually, I did take some Matt Pilates in New York, but moved down to Virginia. I was working on a health coaching certification at the time and started taking this class, chatted up the instructor who was actually the creator of this workout. So it was a fusion, a Pilates, Tai Chi, and yoga. And she said, You're doing this health coaching certification, it would really blend nicely with you being an instructor for this. So she had her own instructor training. So I started that journey, which was really cool. And through that training with learning a good amount about Pilates, Tai Chi, and yoga. Pilates was always my favorite. Yeah. And I got a mat certification shortly after so that I could teach at her studio. She um started her own studio out of the gym. Um, and yeah, I started teaching some matte pilates from there as well as the fusion method and loved it and was there three years and basically there full-time doing coaching and and then we opened a restaurant, yeah, which sounds like out of left field, but my husband was in the industry and has always been, and um, I had actually met him in a restaurant. Oh. And so we started that in 2016, and around the same time she closed the studio that I was working at. Huh. And that was about the time that I needed to make a full-time shift into the restaurant for the time being, anyway. So I worked at the restaurant and didn't that grind, uh, which was very beneficial because now I know a lot more about business than I did before. And did probably arguably the hardest kind of business model, which is the restaurant. Yep. And did that for three and a half years until we got pregnant with our first child. And then I was pregnant with him, realized that I didn't want to be in the day-to-day of the restaurant once I had him. So worked through that pregnancy, and then I was at home and I didn't like it. Loved him, and then and then COVID hit. So he was born at the end of 2019, 2020. So he was really little when COVID hit, and I was already feeling like just out of sorts with just being at home. And I'm very much a people person, very extroverted. So knew that this wasn't the thing I wanted to do long term was just stay at home. And so I something I left out too while I was at the Patayo studio teaching. I started pursuing my master's in nutrition, but did the health coaching certification, started my master's, did my master's while I was still working at the studio. And then I was starting my clinical hours when we opened the restaurant, and then understood that I had to put that on pause. So fast forward to 2020. It's um a great time to do some clinical hours online. So I started pursuing that again, finishing my clinical hours and doing my board exam in December of 2020 while having the baby at home and just did made the most of 2020 as some of us did. And honestly, no shame no matter what you did in 2020 because it's hard time. Uh-huh. So my my way of dealing with it was just to stay super busy. Yeah. And did that around that time, my sister had taken a class at a Pilates studio nearby. I was probably an hour away from here. And she finished this the class, it was a reformer class, and she was like, You have got to do this. Like, you've got to teach this. I'd also taken some private Pilates with uh an instructor in Virginia, in my town, and she had moved, so she moved in 2021, uh, moved away. And before she left, she also planted the seed of it. Yeah, I mean, she knew my background of teaching and such. And also in 2021, I went back to teaching fitness and doing teaching bar at a local studio. This was fun. I've always liked teaching um fitness classes, and so here I was with my master's, finished up my certification in that, and I was like, okay, it's time to open a studio. Yeah. Which sounds like I don't know, crazy, but it all led to that point. Yeah. Yeah. And so I looked up the studio that my sister had taken a class at. It was down in Richmond, which is an hour away from here. So signed up for training and started that in early 2022. Or no, early 2023, actually, and started the studio then. I'd been doing my online nutrition stuff all the while. And um then opened a studio. The instructor trainer or in the studio owner happened to have four machines that she was selling. So I bought off of her, put them in my basement, started teaching all my hours out of my basement. Wow. Then found a studio space, and that year I opened a studio.

SPEAKER_01:

There's so much that we I could like dive into from all of that. What I think is really cool is the thread throughout of like nutrition to Pilates, to nutrition, to Pilates, and knowing your mission of your business, like it makes so much sense. And specifically now, what we're working towards of really getting people to see the big overall mission and not just hop on a class of reformers to take a class. So let me ask you this: like, there are people listening who are like, the way that you said it, so I opened a studio. So like I did that. So, like, how one of the questions I get all the time is how do you know when it's time to open a studio? And how did you know you were ready? Like, what was the moment you were like, this is the thing that's telling me? Was it the building? Was it the machines? Like, what was it? The go moment.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think it was a combination of everything. I did a nutrition group for intuitive eating at the end of right before I decided to do this. And it was online. It was like, I think my second cohort of the group. And that's by the end of that group, I was like, I cannot stay online anymore.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I was just done with Zoom and done with like the whole transaction between people, and I felt as if the people in the group weren't getting all that they could have out of it because the community feel while there wasn't as strong as I wanted it to be for them. Yep. And I also sensed that people were like burnt out from this virtual group thing that we had going on, which really worked for a time, right? Super beneficial for a time.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So when I started thinking about that, and I just started bringing it up to my husband, hey, like I would love to have an in-person space. And then my sister mentioned the Reformer Pilates studio, and then I was like, we don't have anything like that here. It'd be so nice. And the studio that I've been taking at with the teacher who left or moved, um, she had two reformers, and it was private or semi-private, and it was wonderful, but I've always really enjoyed the group fitness setting, like really enjoyed that energy in the room and like really teaching multiple people at once and that community feel. And Pataya really had that. It was a really unique space that way, and so I wanted to recreate some of those things and take all the best of everything that I had learned so far and put it into a space. And so I just brought it up to my husband. There's this training coming up. I think I want to do a physical location, and I think adding Pilates to my nutrition is the way to go. It was so smart, like an instinct, so smart. And I saw it becoming like more of a trend. Yeah. It was on the beginning side of the trend. Right now it's like blowing up. But this was before like Club Pilates opened a little bit after me. Like there wasn't any real, there's a couple home studios, and that's it in this area. So I knew that I wanted something like that and to really make a difference in women's lives around like the relationship with this stuff. Yeah. But still was my story, is like having disordered eating, eating disorder stuff, fixing that, not no longer looking at movement as a means to shrink my body or make up for what I had eaten the night before. Yeah. And shifting all of that was so freeing and and transformational to me that I knew I wanted to give that to other people. So I had already done all this training and I knew the skill, I had the skill to give people the tools to do that. I just didn't have a place. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's where it all came about. I didn't have any like reservations about opening a studio because again, we had opened a restaurant, and that's literally the hardest thing we could do. So I knew that we could do it. And it was just about finding the right spot. I knew where I wanted it, I knew I wanted it to be downtown historic, downtown Fredericksburg. And so we started looking for a space. Yeah. And then I did find the space. And it was maybe smaller than I thought because I wanted to do a little bit more integrated work and have more office spaces and things like that, and have other people come in, but it was a great way to start and it was doable. And I started by myself, only instructor, all that good stuff. And then started recruiting instructors to go through training and all that. So yeah, again, it was like all of these steps that every the doors keep kept opening. Yeah. Right. Sometimes it was a window and sometimes it was a door, but the doors kept opening in that direction. And then it was a literal door to a studio. Yeah, a literal door. And then we painted it yellow.

SPEAKER_01:

And it's it's so cute. Okay. As you were talking, I Google searched the population of Fredericksburg because a lot of times people come to me and they're like, My town is so small, like my studio can't grow. My town is so small. And granted, like it says 30,000 people, like that's not very small, in my opinion. But how did you know like Frederick Vir Fredericksburg was ready?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, it's a good point because the studio that I was at before, I don't think it was ready for that. Like I think she was ahead of her time for here. Yeah. Yeah. Um was it just gut? Like you knew? I think it was gut, but I also like have taken so many classes at different places and know that their mission is not the same. Not any shade on any other business, but I knew that my mission was unique. So I knew that even if it wasn't like about if it people didn't end up coming in for Pilates and they're just coming in for a new way to look at all this stuff. Like I knew that was enough.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But I also knew that Pilates was trending.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

People were looking for it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I think it was just like a combination of opening a business in this town, seeing how people, it's not a small town, but it acts kind of like a small town. Like people are very loyal once they once you find your people, like you have your people. And I knew that from the restaurant. And so I knew that if I found the right people, and also my operating expenses weren't that high because it was just me. Right. I was like signing people on at first to have full jobs with me. Yeah. I knew that I could grow as slowly as I needed to. It did not grow slowly, just like the restaurant did not, um, which is uh its own like curse and blessing all at once, right? But but yeah, just it really just worked out, and yeah, I think some of it was intuition. I really did. How did you go about finding your people?

SPEAKER_01:

Because I feel like you are you do have your loyal members, your first loyal members. Like, what was the grassroots startup?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, some people knew me from teaching classes years ago, um, and some people knew me from the restaurant, some and just around town, like we're just word of mouth, kind of known, yeah. Um, a known family. And my husband likes to talk too.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So I think, oh, I mean, the first thing I did when I had to do all those practice teaching hours, because most Plotties instructor trainings are like 90 practice teaching hours or more, depending on what kind of training you're doing. Um, and I was like, that's a lot of hours, but I'm gonna do it because I have these reformers in my basement and I can just do as many as I want each day. And so I did. And all I did was post on Facebook to my personal page, hey, guinea pigs, and then people started just messaging me, and then people talked to those people. So I had mostly people that I knew or that people like once removed from somebody I knew coming to my house, but then also at some point you're like, I probably shouldn't have this out of my house anymore. Yeah, you know. Um, and that's when the studio opened. It was that same like six months later.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, that's that's so interesting. And just I want to highlight for anyone listening people will come to me and they'll be like, I'm gonna start this and I'm gonna create another business Instagram page and start posting there. And I'm like, no, like use your resources and your network that you have. So it's very cool that you're like, I'm just gonna post and invite people in. And at first is that simple.

SPEAKER_00:

I really did use that method of just free first, have them understand the value, and then start charging and then raise the price, and then we're surprised again. So that's what I did. Even in my basement, I did most of my practice hours. Then I was like, okay, it's time to start charging. People were paying me in the basement, and then the studio opened, and obviously I had to raise prices because that makes sense. Yep. And yeah, raised them again. And so it just you build that value from people knowing the value of what you're offering.

SPEAKER_01:

What I feel like I have to ask this because we've mentioned it, but what do you think the biggest difference is between um running a restaurant and running a studio? And then I'm gonna take you down a totally different path. I'm really gonna like put a pin in that.

SPEAKER_00:

Um you definitely don't have to live in fight or flight, like you do in the restaurant. There's like there's just this, it's kind of fun actually. I miss it in some ways, like the rush of just being high on cortisol all the time. Yeah. Um and I don't have to live in that, like like you've famously said, like there are no Pilates emergencies. Yeah. But there kind of are emergencies in a restaurant. Yeah. Not in that like somebody's gonna die, but like things that have to happen so fast, yeah. So fast. Yeah. And so there is a there's a difference in pace. There's also a difference in there's a whole nother layer to restaurants because you have customers, staff, and vendors. So like I don't really have vendors to worry about. Um, and then from a staff perspective, I would say it's a a lot easier, a lot easier.

SPEAKER_01:

So much. I mean, I only I never even worked high up in a restaurant, I just was like a hostess, and I'm like, this is hard. The lifestyle is hard, the hours are hard, the the type of staff you need. Like it's all very, very hard. Yes. Um, okay, so tell me, like, we met. Oh, one more thing.

SPEAKER_00:

The margin are vast. Very different.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Wait, I'm so glad you're saying that. I just saw, and I will talk about this a lot in my marketing, but I just saw someone say, like, the best profit that you can hope for in a Pilates studio is 10%. And I was like, what?

SPEAKER_00:

What are they doing? Like, that's your profit margin.

SPEAKER_01:

That's what we're going for. Oh my gosh, what are you what are you charging? So I'm glad you're saying that because I do think you can have a much higher profit margin with a Pilates studio or or any sort of service space in that way. Yeah. Yeah, you should. You should, right? Yeah. So we met each other. I'm trying to think of like years of 2023. Yeah, sounds right. Right? Joined a mastermind and met each other, and we just kind of knew of each other for a year, I would say. Is that right? Yeah, I think so. So talk to me about like where was the studio before we started working together, and then we'll go more in depth from there.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, so I was already about to open the second studio when we started working together. Like that was all already in the works. Yep. The space, all the things. Yep. Um, so growing. I mean, I've grown since day one. I would say that there's a distinction in my hesitation in growing, like versus before you. Yeah. Very hesitant to grow the Pilates side of things, I think, before I started working with you, because of the staffing issue.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And we've talked about this a lot. But when you open a studio in an area that doesn't have lots of certified instructors, then you have to figure that out. And so if you have more customers than staff, then like you're running into like the opposite problem of what people commonly think of as like, you know, business issue, right? So I figured out pretty quickly in the mastermind that we were in that part of my mission was recruiting for instructors. Like having a having a funnel or like leads list for instructors was just as, if not more important than trying to build out a client list constantly.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But there's no way that the client list could grow without the other growing.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And you were maxed, like your classes are oh yeah, full. I mean, even now. Even now, we're pretty much maxed out. Yeah. You were teaching a lot of the classes, and you needed people. I remember like you came to me, the studio was is has always been successful in my mind. Yeah. And really it was this moment of like, hey, I still want to grow, but I I can't grow without the right people. So I know I need to focus on people. And I feel like that was like the first few months of us working together was yes job descriptions, contracts, people, hiring.

SPEAKER_00:

And I did hire, I hired my first full-time person in like month three of us working together. And I mean, we were talking about it a few months prior, but so really starting working with you was the start of like my full-time staff.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So hired one in January, one in February, and then have been trying to get people through instructor training. Yes, since well.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah. And when you were hiring, I want to highlight this. Like, you very clearly were like, I'm gonna pay well. You're like, I'm gonna hire and I'm gonna pay well. And I'm like, okay, I'm gonna support you to do that. So so many people in this industry, you pay well, you make money, and you still have profit. So, like, what is it, what's working for you in terms of like paying your people well and then making sure that you're not overpaying.

SPEAKER_00:

Um I think having the revenue goals be like very, very clear. Yeah. Because if we didn't have the revenue goal and I wasn't giving them that goal and keeping them updated with that, then that could easily fall behind and also just fall on me, even though they are employees of the company. So the joint responsibility of that has really helped with making sure because if I don't meet the revenue goal or somewhere around it, then the projections for what I was paying them were too high. Yes, right? Yes, it's a little bit of a do or die. It's kind of like my coffee habit, right? Like I could stop going to Starbucks, but I'd rather just make more money and doing Starbucks. Yeah, yeah, truly. I'd like rather figure it out than like downplay it or pay somebody less than they're worth or not get really great talent. Yep. Right. Because I'm I'm essentially asking people to leave in this area. This area is like a lot of government contractors and people that have been working from home. I know it's changing now for a lot of people, but people have been working from home and making decent money and also getting benefits, and then I'm asking them to come work for a fitness studio. Yeah. Where I can't offer them the same salary or the benefits the way they've expect because I'm not the government or a government contractor. Right. And I'm offering them the kind of hope that we will get there, and we will, yeah, but they don't know and take in a chance. So I at least have to start them off with a livable wage plus some for them to feel motivated to move to that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and it works specifically for your studio, kind of going back to the finding teachers, like part of bringing them on that level includes a certain number of classes, and like those two roles aren't two separate things, it's yes, really smart so that you have support across the board.

SPEAKER_00:

And that was my goal too was I'll get people to do the certification and then the right people who also have skills that I I see valuable for this company and also maybe are not my strengths. I want people that are better than me at various skill sets. And I can bring them in, they'll teach because they love teaching and they've love Pilates and they already love what we're doing because I'm pulling from my client pool for people to be employees. And then they can use their skills that they already have, plus teach. And it's like this really lovely job description that's suits them and keeps them moving. And yeah, it's like they're putting like effort into this mission and working with clients because everybody that's working for me like loves our clients and loves our mission. Yeah. And then we're also creating systems and doing all these things so we can continue to grow. And then we've just got this whole infrastructure. It's pretty pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01:

It's very cracking. It's so cool. And I want to give an example just for people listening. Like, I know that your team has a monthly membership goal that you guys are working together to sign each month. And so everyone knows how close you are, what you need to do to hit it, who does what. And so it's not like no one on your team is working in a silo, but they're all working in their areas of expertise, but you have a common goal for that. And I think one of the big things I remember from working with you this past year is like the strengths finders when you guys sat down and did your different strengths as a team and really saw like, what is my area of expertise? Yeah. And what are theirs? And like, where do we need to reorganize to make that work? What would you say to the person that's like never managed anyone, doesn't have a full-time person, but like knows that their business needs to hire in order to grow. Where would you have them start with hiring?

SPEAKER_00:

Look at the finances first. Yeah. So smart and see what you would need to make in the studio to make it work. Yep. That's what we started with. Yep. How much money do we need to do? I wanted to hire two or three people. I want to hire a marketing person, I want to hire somebody for operations, I want to hire somebody for teacher development. Okay, so how much do we have to make to give them like a decent salary, like something that's like really, you know, then they can work with. Uh so I would start with that. Yeah. But then how do you get to that number? Yeah. And how do you have them help you get to that number? Because you don't have to do it by yourself when you have to do it.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And if you're very clear, I mean, I'm probably guilty of sharing too much of the my business with my staff because I just I don't see there's any reason to keep stuff from people. Yeah. And the more they understand your numbers and your goals and all that stuff, like they can be on your team. Yep. And so yeah, if you if you know the number that you have to reach, can create that salary based on that number and then hire them on, then you you can work together towards that revenue goal that's gonna support their salary, and you don't feel alone anymore. Which is yeah, and you're not, you have the support, really crucial.

SPEAKER_01:

And I think that was really evident. Like you run a very successful new student challenge once a quarter, once a quarter, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh well, it's three times a year. So January, three times a year, January, May, like beginning of spring, beginning of fall.

SPEAKER_01:

Which is like wonderful. And the challenge, because you've run it so many times, is repeatable. You have systems and processes around it. And this last challenge, your team was able to execute it without you.

SPEAKER_00:

It was really cool.

SPEAKER_01:

Fully. Because you were having a baby, which is very important.

SPEAKER_00:

I was, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So, like, imagine not having that and still trying to grow, just how limited you are with what you can dream up is possible and what you can do next, versus like, I have the support system that's running the operations, the sales, the marketing, so I can turn and look at having a baby or what's coming next in my business and giving you this the space, time to do that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

What would you say is like the biggest? So that's like team. What would you say has been the biggest shift in like the marketing sales structure of the business? The changes that we've made in the last year together. I know. I'm like, I should have prepped and oh much. Like this was the change.

SPEAKER_00:

But this is also the way. I mean, obviously, you've been a great help to this and have added to this whole process, but like this is also how I move. Like I move fast and I make decisions really quickly, and we go. Um, so while we implemented ads, we had never I've never done ads before. I've never done ads for the restaurant either. And so there's a learning curve there, and that's really helped open some things up for sure. Um the marketing piece, having a marketing person is new to me as well. I've had social media managers, but I've never had like a marketing director or someone who's looking at the whole picture.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, so using your expertise in that side of things to like have some strategies and consistency around that, I think has been super beneficial for sales. And then sales-wise, too, like part of our mastermind was in sales that we had together, and then like feeling empowered to like be the leader of a staff who maybe isn't used to being in sales, but like how to but them to like persuade for good, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, yeah, and and then having your support along the way as like every week we just go back over all the things that happened in the week, which usually a lot of things happen in one week around here. So, but yeah, it's just like that combination of everything that has catapulted us.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I specifically remember, and this was early on too, like I think we sat down, we looked at all of your offers and trimmed out some offers and kind of restructured pricing and how we were talking about the the offers. And I think like that foundation is so key to then having a marketing person or even having them do sales. Because if they your team isn't clear on what is the goal to be sold and how to talk about it, there's absolutely no way that they can help you hit a team membership goal. So it's been like this here's the team goal, getting that key piece, but also here are the support pieces that you need in order to be able to hit that goal has been really cool.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And it's kind of created this strong team of salespeople that a lot of studios like are create, they're like, Why aren't my people wanting to sell? And I'm like, Well, do you do they have the tip the tools? Do they have the skills? Can they? Yes. So and your answer is always like, Yeah, yes, they can, yes, they can, yes, they can, and they clearly can.

SPEAKER_00:

And building relationships, like just encouraging them to build the relationships with the clients or the new students or whomever. Because if you do that and for like nurture that and foster that, then the cell doesn't seem to be challenging.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, like that is so important because I think if that relationship is not there, the sales conversation conversation feels so pushy and weird, and that's what people are afraid of. And for good reason, that's a weird thing to do. But if you're having the relationship be built over time, then the sales conversation, you can't see when I'm doing air quotes, is like, okay, what's your decision? Okay, can I help you? It's so it's a simple little conversation, not a sales pitch. Yes. But like that's what people think.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and that goes back to also having full-time or part-time, like people that are doing other jobs for the studio besides teaching, because they see both sides of it. Like they can have the interaction and relationship with the clients, but they can also see the strategy in the bigger picture and then help the other staff who who do just teach, not that it's a just kind of thing. I mean, an awesome job. They can give them the tools and like encourage them. And so it's just like this trickle-down effect. But yeah, in in like these bigger scenarios where it's like franchises and stuff, you have people that are on the corporate side, right? And then you just have people that teach, and that those are they're so separate. On the other hand, you have these like mom and pops where it's like there's the one instructor or the however many instructors, and they're just like drowning, yep, just the day-to-day teaching because there's no other bandwidth to do anything else. So there's like this beautiful happy medium, yeah, that can be achieved. Yeah. Where you use people for their skills on both sides of that. Yep. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

But but it has to like be intentional and you have to find the right people too, which is yeah, that's a it is what I hear from you is like you're creating leaders who then are leading your teachers. And it's not just like we're we want people to staff the studio, like that was never the goal. It was like we have this mission, we need your help. Yeah, do you want to help us lead it?

SPEAKER_00:

You know, that also is a reason that oh I wanted to open a physical location and open a studio and do all the things too. Like, I don't want to work by myself, yeah. Like I don't want to be a sole practitioner, yeah. Doesn't really appeal to me that much. Yeah, I can't wait till we have this like big spot that's the center where I can just like be with the people that I work with all the time.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Okay, that was gonna be my next question. Where is the studio going? Where is orophenal wellness going in the future?

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, I don't know what you can say. Future future? No, no, no, no, no, no, I can say so. Okay, I don't know the future future in that, like I think there it's gonna change a lot in the coming years, but I know the next step is a bigger space, one where I can do nutrition and have a kitchen and talk about food in this like more integrated way, one where we can have our two little studios in the same space, yeah. And we have a small, we have small studios for a reason. Pilates is very much about precision and and keeping people safe and all that good stuff. And you can't really do that in a room where you have 20 machines. So it's really important to me that we keep the studio spaces small, but how cool would it be that we have this time where in between classes and the community starts building that way? Because right now we're functioning out of like six reformers at one studio, eight reformers at the other, and people come in and they talk to the other seven people in class, but past that we're not seeing the bigger community, which is happening. Yeah, it's just when you only see eight people at a time versus the I don't know, we have like probably 160 right now. So that kind of thing, like where we can really build community. Um, and then yeah, I can see my other staff members. We can we can actually interact, you know, not the same, like individual instructors teaching our single classes, yeah. And um, yeah, fold laundry together, make the dream.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, I think your your business and your brand is really on the like leading edge of where wellness and Pilates and yoga is going. Like it is going to be, I think, vital in the next couple of years to integrate nutrition, to get people results, like to really have a mission that you stand behind. You have all of these things. Like we're different for this reason. It's not just Pilates, it's nutrition added, and it's this overall community center where people are achieving their best self. And that is very cool.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and not feeling alone, I think too. I mean, yeah, community part is great, and a lot of people have a lot of communities that they connect to, but specifically around like health and not in an obsessive kind of health culture, yeah, which those exist too, or aesthetic driven, right? Like we're going in to get our face done and stuff. I mean, whatever, like more power to everybody that does that kind of stuff. But like, what we're about at Orifina Wellness is about making you feel confident without changing the outside, yeah, right? Like stronger, more capable, just like better in your body, walking into a room with better posture because and really being able to hold your shoulders back because you feel like you can take up space.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, so good.

SPEAKER_00:

Like so that's the feel, yeah, right. And you need to know that other people want that, like health without obsession and to pursue like eating better, but not because you want to be a size, whatever it is, right? That you're really eating because you want your cholesterol numbers to be good, right? That kind of thing, like the like actual health and longevity, not the momentary I need to fit into the stress.

SPEAKER_01:

Like that's much less important than it's interesting because it's how you build your business too. Like, I've never thought about this before, but you're not obsessed with like vanity metrics in business of like let's hit this goal and do this thing.

SPEAKER_00:

It's really like I'm not I'm not at all. And it's so funny because you were like, We hit the highest month, what was it? Like um month, I I don't know. It was somewhere in the last few months. It was in the summer, it was it was in the summer, yeah. And you were like, How does that feel? And I was like, Great, like let's just keep going. I mean, like, I just didn't next one. It wasn't the thing that it's just not the thing that yeah, like money's cool and we need it to keep the lights on. Let's be cool, and we need to make profit in order to grow and reinvest, which is my goal. It's always been my goal with our our businesses. Um, but at the same time, like that's not why I'm here. So I'm doing no, but other businesses where you can just like put money in and make money, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

But I think that is a really cool, I don't know, intrinsic motivation that you have. That it's not, it's not none of this is fake, which like the I don't know how else to say it, it's so much deeper than that, but like you really deeply care about the mission and what I literally just wrote a newsletter about intrinsic motivation, so funny. Okay, well, I'm looking at the time, I could keep asking you so many questions, but I know that you have a busy life, so let's tell people where they can find you, how they can connect with you. You have an intuitive eating group coming up. Point people wherever you want to point them.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Well, then there will probably still be time to join the group. The group starts next week. Um, it's an eight-week intuitive eating group teaching you how to listen to your body, trust your body, find food freedom, find somebody confidence by the holidays before Thanksgiving, before you have to get around people who are talking about earning their food or how they how they do or don't deserve their pumpkin pie. Yeah, it's really nice to know that you're not in that same place once you get to the scenarios. So that's happening, that's um virtual or live. So we're giving two options for that program. And you can find out all the information on orfinawellness.com. And we have a studio in Fredericksburg. If you're somewhat close and you want to come visit, we'd love to have you. We're on Instagram and Orefino underscore wellness. And those are probably the best little connections. Amazing.

SPEAKER_01:

Perfect. We'll link all of that in the show notes. And thank you so much for your time, your knowledge. I know people are gonna love this episode, so I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for all that you do. Ah, thank you. It's literally my pleasure.

SPEAKER_00:

Just on that growth trajectory with Jackie Murphy.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh-huh. All right. Uh, everyone, I will talk to y'all in the next episode and definitely go check out or phenomena. Bye, y'all.