In this episode with a Red Sun Yoga studio owner Sarah Morgan discusses her experience with ClassPass and the challenges she faced in building a membership-based business with it.
She found that community-building events and adding value to her services were more effective strategies to attract customers.
When she encountered issues with ClassPass, such as not receiving contact information for clients and having clients cancel at the last minute, she decided to terminate her contract with them.
She also emphasizes the importance of customer service and shared her experience with MindBody's Messenger AI, which she uses for automated receptionist services.
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About Sarah:
Sarah Morgan is the owner of Red Sun Yoga. She has practiced yoga for nearly 20 years.
Sarah earned her RYT 200 in 2011 as part of Full Circle Yoga’s inaugural Yoga Teacher Training program. She began teaching at Red Sun Yoga in January of 2012. Her experience was so inspirational that she bought in as a partner in 2014. As she helped build the community over a few short years, she realized this was her calling. In October of 2021, Sarah became the sole owner of Red Sun Yoga. From that point on, her sole purpose has been to build a community for her teachers, students and all those who are seeking to learn more about how yoga can be a catalyst for healing body, mind and spirit.
Prior to swapping Louboutin for Lululemon, she spent almost a decade in the oil and gas industry, helping build critical infrastructure around the country. Feeling the need to build her own outlet, she co-founded KDMG and spent nearly a decade working with some of the most important business in Central Florida, including multiple Fortune 500 companies, helping with their marketing strategies and campaigns.
Sarah is an E-RYT 500, having studied with many international teachers such as Bryan Kest, David Williams, David Swenson, Max Strom, Tiffany Cruikshank, David Regelin, Joe Barnett, Robin Rothenberg and Judith Lasater.
Red Sun Yoga: https://redsunyoga.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/redsunyoga/
Tools Mentioned:
Mindbody Online
ClassPass
Messenger.AI
Peerfit
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Michael Jay - Yoga Biz Champ
Michael Jay, the Yoga Biz Champ, stands as the go-to Yoga Business Consultant, embarked on a mission to elevate yoga studios from mere survival to genuine thriving.
With a rich background as a yoga teacher, former studio owner, marketing expert, and yoga studio business coach, he possesses the insider knowledge necessary to elevate your yoga venture to new heights.
His passion for yoga, combined with a sharp business acumen and a sincere desire to see studio owners excel, encapsulates his professional ethos. Michael is not one to offer one-size-fits-all advice; instead, he's dedicated to providing tailored guidance, tangible outcomes, and supporting your studio to emerge as the next Yoga Biz Champ in your community.
FREE RESOURCES AND BOOK A CHAT LINK
https://yogabizchamp.link/podlink
FREE RESOURCES AND BOOK A CHAT LINK
https://yogabizchamp.link/podlink
In this episode with a Red Sun Yoga studio owner Sarah Morgan discusses her experience with ClassPass and the challenges she faced in building a membership-based business with it.
She found that community-building events and adding value to her services were more effective strategies to attract customers.
When she encountered issues with ClassPass, such as not receiving contact information for clients and having clients cancel at the last minute, she decided to terminate her contract with them.
She also emphasizes the importance of customer service and shared her experience with MindBody's Messenger AI, which she uses for automated receptionist services.
_______________________________________________
About Sarah:
Sarah Morgan is the owner of Red Sun Yoga. She has practiced yoga for nearly 20 years.
Sarah earned her RYT 200 in 2011 as part of Full Circle Yoga’s inaugural Yoga Teacher Training program. She began teaching at Red Sun Yoga in January of 2012. Her experience was so inspirational that she bought in as a partner in 2014. As she helped build the community over a few short years, she realized this was her calling. In October of 2021, Sarah became the sole owner of Red Sun Yoga. From that point on, her sole purpose has been to build a community for her teachers, students and all those who are seeking to learn more about how yoga can be a catalyst for healing body, mind and spirit.
Prior to swapping Louboutin for Lululemon, she spent almost a decade in the oil and gas industry, helping build critical infrastructure around the country. Feeling the need to build her own outlet, she co-founded KDMG and spent nearly a decade working with some of the most important business in Central Florida, including multiple Fortune 500 companies, helping with their marketing strategies and campaigns.
Sarah is an E-RYT 500, having studied with many international teachers such as Bryan Kest, David Williams, David Swenson, Max Strom, Tiffany Cruikshank, David Regelin, Joe Barnett, Robin Rothenberg and Judith Lasater.
Red Sun Yoga: https://redsunyoga.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/redsunyoga/
Tools Mentioned:
Mindbody Online
ClassPass
Messenger.AI
Peerfit
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Michael Jay - Yoga Biz Champ
Michael Jay, the Yoga Biz Champ, stands as the go-to Yoga Business Consultant, embarked on a mission to elevate yoga studios from mere survival to genuine thriving.
With a rich background as a yoga teacher, former studio owner, marketing expert, and yoga studio business coach, he possesses the insider knowledge necessary to elevate your yoga venture to new heights.
His passion for yoga, combined with a sharp business acumen and a sincere desire to see studio owners excel, encapsulates his professional ethos. Michael is not one to offer one-size-fits-all advice; instead, he's dedicated to providing tailored guidance, tangible outcomes, and supporting your studio to emerge as the next Yoga Biz Champ in your community.
FREE RESOURCES AND BOOK A CHAT LINK
https://yogabizchamp.link/podlink
FREE RESOURCES AND BOOK A CHAT LINK
https://yogabizchamp.link/podlink
[00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of Yoga Biz Camp, and I'm super excited. I have got a incredible studio owner, and that is Sarah Morgan from Red Sun Yoga in Florida. Welcome, Sarah. Hi, Michael. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to have you here. We met about a year ago at the Bold Conference, and I just really liked your energy right away, and it was such a great event for us to come out of pandemic and have human connection with each other in the industry again.
And then you were also in my WhatsApp. Pod group and you're in my little pod. That's how we know each other. Yeah. Thank you for saying yes to this. I'm really thrilled to have you. I am gonna read your bio here. So Sarah Hogan is the owner of Red Sun Yoga. She has practiced yoga for nearly 20 years.
Sarah earned her r t 200 in 2011 as part of the full Circle Yoga's [00:01:00] inaugural yoga teacher training program. She began teaching at Red Sun Yoga in January, 2012. Her experience was so inspirational that she bought in as a partner in 2014. As she helped build the community over a few short years, she realized that this was her calling.
In October of 2021, Sarah became the sole owner of Red Sun Yoga. From that point on, her sole purpose has been to build a community for her teachers, students, and all those who are seeking to learn more about how yoga be a catalyst for healing body, mind, spirit. Prior to swapping Louie Batan for Lululemon, she spent almost a decade in the oil and gas industry helping build critical infrastructure around the country, feeling the need to build her own outlet.
She co-founded K D mg and spent nearly a decade working with some of the most important businesses in central Florida. Included multiple Fortune 500 companies helping with their marketing strategies and. Sarah is EYRT 500. Having [00:02:00] studied for many of the international teachers such as Brian Cast, David Williams, David Swenson, Max Strong, Tiffany Cruikshank, David Reglan, Joe Barnett, Roben Rothenberg, and Judith Lasseter.
That's a great roster of people to be inspired by. I studied with myself with David Williams, David Swenson and Judith Laster. Judith was scary. She was, oh, my. And we, and the one that I did was, it was on it was an online one, and I was like, oh, I was in person. She walks around like a tough cookie around the room.
You don't look at me, don't look at. But she knows her stuff. Yeah. So I'm taking, I'm just guessing. Do you come from a similar background to me? And that is a little bit on the Ashtanga side of things. Is that the door you came in? Yes, that's the door that I came in through. I had been I was a runner not professional or, I just ran for help, for fit for fitness.
And I didn't know anything about training, [00:03:00] didn't stretch and got injured. I had a stubborn IT band problem and I, I couldn't run anymore. So I was looking for another way, another place where I could find that. That space that you get in when you run, I don't know if you've ever run, they call it the, it's the same place that you get when you're in yoga.
You find it's just being present. You're not thinking about anything in the past. You're not thinking about anything in the future. You're just thinking about one foot in front of the other. And so I looked at, and was Ashtanga was not a sustain, I practiced Ashtanga for about three years but it was not a sustainable practice for me.
The repetitive movement the same sequence, the setback. There was a lot, there was a lot of si injuries from the jump backs back in the day before. A lot of anatomy knowledge came into yoga. Yeah. So mine was shoulder stuff. And cuz I wasn't doing Chatarunga properly. And then the studio where I was practicing changed hands.
And the the woman who bought it full circle yoga, she was a Vinyasa teacher. And [00:04:00] when I started practicing Vinyas, that was when my practice really expanded. I got my flexibility increased, my strength increased, my balance increase. It was a more balanced, more more balanced practice for me.
And that was when I was able to start, getting into my handstand and doing, was that the Shiva Rae days when she exploded? No. Like I said, it was, Brian Kess was my first introduction and so he's really, he would probably have a heart attack if he heard me say that he would be my guru.
Cause he's the guru is dead. But but he's probably the, my, my biggest inspiration because he's yoga is. You gotta be gentle with your body, the harder you're on it, the bastard, it's gonna wear out. And that's something that really resonates with me. Plus he's got a real potty mouth and that also resonates with me.
So your love of yoga, how did, can you tell me a brief journey of how you went from that to. Studio ownership really well. I was at full [00:05:00] circle. She had her first teacher training and I was, I really wanted to start learning about the philosophy and as I explained to people, I'm like, yoga has a very insidious.
It's very insidious. Like you come off into it for the physical. And then the more that you practice, the more you find yourself changing. You find a little bit more compassion for yourself, you find a little bit more patience. And I was interested in learning more about the philosophy.
I didn't get that in that training. I. Did a lot of yoga. She did the woman who owned the studio, she was a heavy duty vinyasa teacher. So she taught me how to teach a really great Vinyasa class. Yeah. But it wasn't until I became a studio owner that I really got more into the philosophy.
It's still not my strength. I'm an anatomy person. Between that I really resonated also with the yin practice because it is such an anatomy, it can be so anatomy focused. And I really like the fasha.
I call myself faa.[00:06:00] Listen, yin can be just as challenging as a flow pose in a very different way, right? But it. Absolutely. To be able to settle into a bit of discomfort for yeah. A while for the tissue to release, that can be mentally challenging as Yeah. As well it is. And as, as for a teacher, I always find that it's yin is harder to teach then a Vinayasa class because Vinyasa you just keep talking keep going in a yin, you've gotta get yourself out the way and shut up a little bit.
Yes. Give space. Yes. And it's been that's been really good for me because I actually. Two yin classes in a restorative class now and only teach one vinyasa. Yeah. I'm not the, I'm not the hard Vinyasa teacher anymore, and I really enjoy those teaching, those quiet classes. They're, they become restorative for me too, because I have to sit and I have to be quiet.
Yeah. Yeah. So I like that. I like that. Yeah. And I like taking care of my students too. It's a very it's a, they're very [00:07:00] nurturing classes, so I like that. How'd you get to studio owner? I had just left my left the graphic design business. Cuz I was going through my, I was towards the end of teacher training and I was like, this design business sucks.
I, this is not my dream. I had a business partner, he was the designer, and I did the handled the business side of things and I was like, this is not what, this is not my dream. This is your dream. And we got in a big fight. And I walked out. I walked out and I never went back.
And then I was teaching here at the studio and One of my former partners, she approached me and she wanted to sell me the whole thing.
Yeah. Because she'd had this studio for a year and didn't want it. Like she wasn't interested in being, she didn't like teaching, she wasn't interested in being, really being a, an owner. And I was like I just wasn't ready to go back into. Business ownership yet. I waited and then I think maybe, so maybe a year later, I was like, okay, I'm ready.
And so I approached her again and by that [00:08:00] point she had taken on a second partner, so there were three of us. And Just bought into, I bought out her my, the first partners I bought out her husband cause there were three of them. So I bought him out and it became the three of us. And it worked, it was, it worked really well.
The first year Lisa and I went to Mind Body University. Yeah. And that. Really, that was a really big shift for us because that was when we made the switch to the membership model. Yeah. And it was scary. It was really scary because the studio was not doing well and just, we had too many class options, just.
All of the things that yeah, that studios do wrong. And we simplified it and went to, you got a membership, you got a five class and 10 class to drop in and that's it. And it made a big difference. It took a little while, but then it got to the point where, Our, the memberships were our, at that residual income over and over again was [00:09:00] really what was sustaining the studio and everything over and above that was gravy.
Yeah. That's after, let's see, that was 2014 and our lease was getting ready to come up. One of my partner Lisa, she lives in Atlanta and my other partner was, And it was like, they didn't wanna continue.
And that was I feel like that was important. For community, for building the community. Yeah. And that's something that is, our, of the two core values that I have developed since I've been the studio owner are community and connection and integrity too. But those are my two.
Main things with the studio since it's been mine, is our community and connection. Yeah. And what I was gonna say you're out there in the, I see you active. I see you active. In mind buddy one and community things and online. And do you feel that connection out to the other studio owners and everybody in the same situation during COVID really helped.
I didn't, I was, did not have [00:10:00] any of those tools. My my two previous partners were, it's very hard to run a studio by committee. Yeah. Yeah. And there were a lot of things that I've done since I've taken over that were not, that we just didn't do, like I said, When I went to Bold, that's something that we never would've done before.
We never would've spent the money to send one of us to bold. They didn't see the, they didn't see the value in it. Whereas I'm like, I'm gonna take advantage. This is my business. This is my, this is my dharma, this is my path and I'm doing everything that I can. Taking advantage of everything that's available to all those three webinars during Covid that came out.
Training. Yeah. And everything that I can do to gain as much knowledge as I can from people who have been doing this. I don't have all the answers, so that's why you see me help. I'm happy to help, happy to help anybody has questions because I'm like, this is what I've experienced.
So that's completely so [00:11:00] how did you get to solo studio ownership?
How did that come? Our lease was coming to the was coming up due and we had the option to find sign another five year lease. And my two partners were like, we're done. And I'm like I'm not. So I took the, I took it over and Interestingly enough, red Sun Yoga Incorporated the, that corporation name was available because before the three of us, we were an L C.
And so I was able to secure Red Sun Yoga Incorporated and start an S corporation. Cause I've started a business before. Yeah. And so I really knew, I knew what to. And I had, when I could see the writing on the wall, I went and I had a contacted no graphic design friend and had my did my lo redid the logo, got a branding guideline set up.
I had everything ready to go. So when I took over on October 1st, it was day one changed the sign on the door, changed the logo, changed everything, and it was like, boom. Yeah. Bye. Think your, do you think your your experience [00:12:00] before in the in the marketing side of things, in the business world?
I know my background is marketing and design. So that's my field and I know that was my superpower in my business as well as building community. But yeah, marketing was easy for me. It was natural. Did did your, did you feel like you got some of your superpowers in your business from that background?
My superpower is customer service. Okay. That's my, that's mine. Yeah. And somebody will come in and I will meet them once and I will remember their name. Yeah. And then that's my superpower and that's what I say. My other , I'm super organized and, working in the oil and gas industry for almost a decade was, A lot.
I was in my twenties and I worked with a, worked with mostly men from Louisiana and from Mississippi and South, and Texas. And so it was like, Hey there, little lady. And I'm like, no. Usually with string of expletives coming out of my [00:13:00] mouth, I'm like, no. This is what, cause I was a project manager, I was building power plants and, they didn't, a lot of times they didn't feel like they.
Like they were, like, they needed to take what I was telling them, from, they're like in their forties and fifties and I'm, twenty five. And I had to unlearn some of that behavior. Cause I was like, yeah, no, you can't be like that. But when I had the graphic design business, that was again my cu customer service and just making sure that my clients felt taken care of.
And so that's really, One of the things that I bring into my studio is making sure that everybody feels welcome and they come into the studio and they're like, ah, so yeah, that's what I've imparted into my team. So buying a studio, an existing studio. So I think I always say that idea with three buckets of clients.
There's the opening a brand new studio client, there is the. The rebooting an existing business or putting systems into place in an [00:14:00] existing then there's buying a business, which I feel, in my experience, that's the most complicated version of owning a studio because What I see is somebody new coming into the studio is also taking on all the history of that studio.
The maybe not, no systems in place, no structure or, bit of a free for all where people are selling their Marla beads at the front end kind of thing. So with a little cash box. I've seen it all. I call that the knickknack patty Whack. Yeah. Knick patty whack shit.
But you're the human part of that. I find it quite often is complicated because a lot of teachers may not have had a structure and then somebody comes in and they're like, okay we're redoing things in a new way. I'm really curious about that people part for you. The most of my teachers have been here for a long time.
The studio was opened in [00:15:00] 2006, so that's a long time for a studio. It was actually opened in 2005. There's long history for another time, but it's been, we've been open for a long time. We're one of the oldest studios in this central Florida area. When I took over as the sole owner, I had some very specific ideas about what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go.
And I wanted to build this as a business. And it's, the challenge is running a heart center business. Yeah. And knowing that it still is a business, totally. Totally. I. I used to have volunteers that would run the front desk. And we, I got rid of those at Covid. The other thing I had was a volunteer coordinator and I let her go because I said, I'm gonna be here.
And I was here that first year I was here all, all day, every day. Hands on learning everything. Yes, absolutely. And I already had a really good handle on the business because I had been an owner, so I knew where I wanted to go. Yeah. And then when I went to Mind Body University again.
And just to [00:16:00] see if there was anything that had changed, met some people and then went to Bold and that was really continued to get the ball rolling. That's where I learned of all the things that were available. So I just continued to try to learn as much as I could and say, okay, where does this want?
Where am I gonna go with this? So I had a really good idea of what I wanted to do. I really wanted. Continue to build the community, build my memberships and make sure that, my teachers were, that we were all on the same page. Yes. I lost half my teaching staff within six months and like I lost five of them within like in one month and I was like, oh my God, it's, yeah.
What is happening? But it was a good thing, yeah. You don't know what you don't know. And there it was stagnant. And there was some some toxic stuff that was going on behind the scenes that I didn't realize. And those teachers are no longer here, and that's a good thing, yeah. [00:17:00] And they opened the door for new fresh energy to come in. Yeah. I'm suggesting to people that are buying studios now, is that because you're a new business, you're a brand new, you're a new corporation,
that you rehire almost re-onboard into the new ways, right? So then you're finding out whether they're gonna be a fit for where you wanna go yeah. And if they're in alignment with your mission, vision, values, really correct. Yeah. So I. My husband is in the oil, still in the oil and gas industry.
He's a business owner as well, so I take a, I actually take a lot of tips from him. Yep. He travels internationally and he always goes to the real shit holes. Cuz he says, he's I can't ask. My people to do anything that I won't do myself. Yeah. So I took I, I took that to hard, I take that to hard and, I do everything here.
I clean the toilets, I fold the blankets, I do laundry. And I use myself as an example and these teachers who left, they didn't even wanna [00:18:00] put their props away after their, Yeah. And I was like, yeah, no, we're not doing that. They just would, they wouldn't, they didn't wanna play, they didn't wanna play nicely, didn't wanna follow the rules.
And I had one teacher who was showing up five minutes before class, and I'm like yeah. No, yeah. That wouldn't fly with me either. No, I want you there earlier. I want you learning everybody's names and welcoming everybody. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And she this one teacher, she was actually the only teacher that I, cuz we're 10 90 nines down here in Florida where they not employees.
And She was the only one who I actually had to say, I'm not bringing in your contract. Yeah. And then everybody else was like, yeah, we're failing. I'm like, ok, bye. So what is your, what's your people structure? Do you have any, do you have people in place for things or are you all in?
I have. I have just this, just since the beginning of the year. I have a studio assistant. Yeah, she's she's my right hand gal. She's one of my teachers and she's [00:19:00] amazing. She helps me with a lot of things. So I have her, and then I have another gal who helps me with my social media.
And then I have one other gal who does handling just my newsletter because there were things like, I, like I said, I had. I knew what I wanted to do. Yep. And I just didn't have the time totally to do everything. The one thing that I did that I feel like really made a difference was I came up with a milestone a milestone reward Yeah.
System. And so I went back to 2008 and I found all of the members who had been 2 50, 500, a thousand and then I, and did gifts for all of them, for all of the various different levels. So my, my studio assistant has taken over that project. Yeah, which is. I'm like, okay, here you go. Yeah. And so that's been huge.
And then the social media stuff again, I knew what I wanted to do with it. I didn't have, I don't have the skills, I don't have the [00:20:00] tools, and I don't have the time. And I'm like we met and I said, this is what I wanna do. So one of the things that we do is. I call them posture enhancements because I really big on not, I don't wanna, I don't want anybody to think that the way that they're doing something is wrong, because I don't feel like there really is a wrong way to do a yoga posture.
As long as you're not hurting yourself. Yeah, because everybody's skeletal anatomy is different. So what I wanted to do is take what we all as teachers see, and the cu the things that we say over. Over again with the most common postures, half lift, like forward folds, and the things that we see.
And so we, what we did was or what we have done and are continued to do is work on a series of posts and, stories that are, and we call them posture enhancements. Yeah. That way it's not saying this is wrong, this is right. I see a lot of that and I'm like, okay, that's cool. That's you. But that's not what I wanna promote, [00:21:00] because my community.
My community is older. Probably, yeah. Tell me about your community. Who, what's your audience? Yes, I would love to I have I have the most amazing community. They're probably, they're from probably 40 to 75 best audience ever. First of all they're not flipped in and outta things. They know what they like, they can afford what they like, and they're consistent in their practice.
Yes. And they're, they're a lot of older ladies. A lot of them are retired. I have one outlier, Marty, who's 86, and she comes every, she comes like almost every day. Awesome. Sometimes she takes two classes in a row. And so they're just a really wonderful community.
And when I took over as the sole owner, I think they were a little, they weren't quite sure what to expect, but after seeing me here all day, every day, and, knowing that I knew their names and stuff like that, now they're funny. They're pretty funny. They're just a, they.
Funny group [00:22:00] of ladies, and we have a few, we do have a couple of men. We are actively trying to recruit more men because we know what yoga does for us. But, it's hard. It's hard because, This is always been such a female dominated studio. So I can give you some tips on that one because I've done yoga for men for years.
But yeah, I'll tell you what. Oh, really? Yeah. A dedicated class for men with a male teacher that understands the feeling of tight hips and hamstrings and you convey that. Okay. Cause so that worked for me as a male teacher, I found, and I also ran Registered course is yoga for men.
So like a really safe, okay, safe, contained beginner type of course that makes them feel comfortable and addresses men's needs, which are everybody's needs. But specifically if you're talking, if you talk to hips, hamstrings, low backs and building court, your set. [00:23:00] Yeah. We do, we did actually.
We ha we did have started a men's. Okay. The first, we started it once a month to see how that goes, because, there's, we did it once and there were a few, pardon mean? We had a couple, we did have a couple. We thought felt like every week was a little adventurous. And so we're gonna do once the first Wednesday of the month and continue to promote it and see how it goes.
Yeah. We'll I'm gonna try pretty much anything. Of course. See what sticks. Yeah, exactly. You tell me a little bit about your software stack and kind of your kinda of how you know, I know you're mind body, but Yeah, I really curious about your kind of stack of what you, so I have mind, body and then I use brand bot and I switched to Marketing Suite for a little while and the graphics for the the drip campaigns were really clunky.
And I went back to [00:24:00] Broadly and Brand. I said I went back to the other two. Broadly, I'm not familiar with broadly. Broadly. It's broadly engaged and they are they would go out and get your reviews for. Oh, okay. So they asked, they re they request reviews. Yeah. And we used them for a number of years and like we went, I don't know if you look on Google, I think we've got like 400 reviews.
Yeah. Which, and that, that helps you with your seo and that helps. Yeah, it helps with all of that stuff. They were really good with that. It's a solid it's actually a solid platform. And the same thing with brand bot. Brand bot. The, I've used them for the drip campaigns as well as for newsletters and their their graphic interface is super easy to use.
Yeah, it's drag and drop and it's very I just wanna stop there for the listeners. Bra Bar is a marketing suite that connects to booking platforms like mi, such as Mind body, and Email and text. Correct. They do email. I can't confirm about text though. Mostly on the email.
[00:25:00] Yeah. Yeah. That's be definitely email. So great for doing funnels like an intro offer funnel and triggering off Yeah. People haven't been attending and yeah, you can do all of that stuff. And the reason why I ended up, cause I tried Marketing Suite cause I really wanted to. I liked the idea of having everything in one under one umbrella.
Yeah. But the, there was some segmenting with the marketing stuff with the drip campaigns that was that, that I couldn't do in mind body, which I knew I could do in brand bot. So I was like, I gotta go back to this one. And I called them and they were really nice and gave me back my old pricing.
So I was like, thank you. Can you address this one for some of my owners that are hesitant to invest in an automated marketing suite? Cuz there's an expense to it. Yeah. But for you is, do you make money from the investment? Do [00:26:00] you see the. I can't tell you that. I'll tell you one of the best things that I did was get Messenger ai.
Oh, ok. That was one of, ok. That was one of the best things. Ai messenger AI is a mind body product that basically is I, it's like your receptionist right? On your website? Yeah. Yeah. Can you talk about Yeah. What that Absolutely, what that allowed me to do is allow me to get rid of my physical studio phone.
Again, before, before I had one of these, it was clunky, so I had the phones forwarded to my cell phone. Yeah. And then I have to have a spam filter on it, and it was like, yeah. So I don't have any of that anymore. And now it's got the messenger. Messenger AI has two-way texting and I, it's, Amazing because it has made my life so much easier.
If somebody calls and they don't, and they either leave a message, which I get, or they, if they hang up, then message, I AI sends them a text message immediately, how can I help you? So [00:27:00] it really is keeping really keeps your, that helps you keep the, your finger on the pulse. Oh, that's really good to know.
Yeah. It's an imp impressive product, but to hear somebody say it actually frees you. Yeah, it does. And like I have it set up for, with some automatic responses. So if somebody asks me about pricing, I can just do quick click, I have some save replies. And again, it's a good, it's a really good product.
So I'm happy with that. It's been it's been a big time saver for me. Perfect. All right. Let's get to a controversial one, Sarah. Whoa.
One of your tech Stacks was Class Pass. Yeah, we started with Class Pass a number of years ago. How many years ago did you, were you Oh, pre Covid. Oh, okay. Pre Covid. So yeah, pre Covid. And at the time it was just like free money, it was, we were, we didn't have.
Yeah and we didn't have a whole lot. Every [00:28:00] once in a while we'd get somebody and it was, like I said, it was free money, a couple hundred bucks a month, which was nice. But what I learned when I went to find Body University in May in Chicago was that the Class Pass has grown 300% in my.
And I was starting and I was like, huh, that makes sense. Cuz I was really starting to see a lot of a lot more people. It's a little bit of history. Like my, I used to have a, my intro offer was 30 days for $30. And what I noticed was that the, I wasn't having the conversion rate cause my the conversion rate, if they went straight from the intro No.
Into just the straight up intro. Oh, okay. My regular. The class Pass p the clients that were coming through in class Pass were roughly the same age as the people who were coming in for the 30 days. For $30. Yeah. They weren't converting because there was too big of a differential between my intro offer and what my [00:29:00] membership special was.
I was just, was noticing the trend and. What was happening. So I was like wait, hold on, I wanna stop there. So you're talking about a big difference between a cheap intro and your membership, right? It's a big Correct. As Oppos, for example a $19 a month intro converting to $149 is, it's too big.
But if you were $149 and let's say sold it at 70, $80, it's Yeah. Yeah. What I noticed was that the demographic of the people who were taking advantage of the 30 days for $30 was very similar to the ClassPass people. So I did some consulting and she was like, you need to change your, you need to change your intro offer.
So I upped that, which, which improved the. The caliber of people who were coming. Yeah. The quality of potential. The quality of, yeah. Correct. But I still [00:30:00] have the ClassPass people and then I also turned, I did again cuz I'm trying to maximize everything I can. I turned on all the dynamic stuff and all the, all these things to try to maximize, the people coming in and I was getting more class pass people.
Sometimes as many as five in a class, which is a lot of spaces cuz I only have 27, I only take 27 people. And they start, they would cancel. They were just, they wouldn't show up. They would cancel at the last minute. And it just became very problematic. My, the number of people was going up and my payouts were going.
And I was like, what's happening here? So I Ray I increased my 10 class pass price as of the 1st of January. And then I contacted Class Pass and I said, I wanna renegotiate. Cause I think it was getting like $6 a class for a Class Pass person. And I was like, yeah, no. And so I wanted [00:31:00] to renegotiate my rate with them and they're like, oh your rate would actually be.
And like, how is that my, I mean my class, the price has gone up. How is it less? So that kind of was the beginning of me having a little bit of a bad taste in my mouth and they were like, oh you might have some people who are getting their first month free. And so I guess I wasn't getting paid for those.
And it just, I was like, this is just not the way that I wanna work, not the way that I want to be treated, as a partner. Yeah. And Go ahead with you. I'm just curious with your ClassPass people, when you looked at visits after, what were you seeing? I haven't had it. I've been able to convert one person.
I'm only asking that one because I have a client that is very much in ClassPass and what I see from the data is ClassPass people are ClassPass people. And they are not going to really convert. Into being a member. [00:32:00] So I see when you look at the visits after first visit, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0.
Yeah. Zero. Zero. Or there's the opposite where you've got somebody coming to the top level class at the prime slot. If you've got, if you've chosen to keep it that open and coming multiple times a week to that. Yeah. Prime slot multiple times a month. Sorry. That Prime law. Yeah. I had a num, I had probably 10 people who were coming on a regular basis and I reached out to all, when I knew I was going to cancel Class Pass, I reached out to all of them because there were, like I said, there were a number of things that started to happen, like first of all, class Pass doesn't share their phone number with you.
They don't sign the liability waiver. And then it was get like, and then it got to the point where they didn't even share the address of the person with. And I was like I'm like, I got no information on this person. They're coming into my studio. They haven't even signed a liability waiver and they're gonna come and take class.[00:33:00]
I'm like, no. No. So there were just all these things that just. It was like death by a thousand cuts. It just kept coming and coming, and I'm like, I'm not playing that game anymore. So I had a list I looked at, I went on my ClassPass dashboard and I looked at the people who were coming and I reached out to them because when they would come in and I would see that they had, the 1 0 0, I'm like, Hey, and I would get their phone numbers and make sure that I get, I got their information and would have them sign a liability waiver.
inate
But I reached out to all of them and I said, I'm gonna terminate my contract with Class Pass. And I said, I wanna offer you the membership special. So I, I didn't discount it anymore than what I would do if they were going straight from the intro into the membership special, and I was able to convert one.
Yeah. So it's a, it's yeah, it's a, it's. I know I have to be careful here a little bit, right? Cuz [00:34:00] I, I'm a mind body certified and I love mind body as a product, but I am struggling a little bit on the ClassPass side of things because Yeah. What I'm seeing is on a membership basis, it's very hard to build.
A community of members where people are not committed, they're flitting in and out of things. The other thing I'm seeing is if you get really embroiled and embedded into the ClassPass world, it's difficult to get out of it because some of the studios, are making maybe $9,000 off of.
Filling slots, but the amount. Wow. Yeah. But the difficulty is with that is that they're not repeat people and so Yeah, they're not going to be, they're not. It's very hard to build a membership business when you've got another entity chipping away at that model. Yeah. It's like you're always trying to get, it's like you're trying to constantly sell, drop.[00:35:00]
Yeah. And when I asked, so with this particular studio, we got ClassPass involved to have a meeting, like, how can we make this work a little bit better? And so when I looked at, let's say a serial offender of coming, of ClassPass, coming to the, coming to that top level class at the top level time, multiple times a month, I said, if we turn that class, we turn that class off.
What's gonna happen to that client? And they said, They'll probably go to another studio and I'm like, ah, yeah, that, that's it. So I actually signed up for class pass myself to, to test it out. And it's funny, I've got it. I'm paying for it and I haven't been to How much do they charge?
How much do they charge you? I think it's, see, because that's, I think it's, that's something, I don't even know think it's 69 for a regular, for the base. Yeah. And then other thing that I found out was that, It depends on what membership they're paying for. So if they're have paying for a higher amount of credits a month, they have more [00:36:00] access to the studios.
Yeah. Okay. So let's, yeah. This is the bit that, the I feel like your business model is either, All in on Class Pass and you embrace that and you build a business around drop-ins or Yeah. Or you have to figure out how to build your community Yeah. Of people. Sarah, you broke up with Class Pass?
I did. I did. And it didn't really, it didn't have any effect. I don't, I wasn't making night taking in $9,000 in Class Pass. Yeah. Not, it was not that much. But I just, I focused on, like I said, I focused on the community. I have, we have a lot of events. I think I have 27 events between now and the end of the year.
So there's always something happening at the studio, whether it's like this weekend we've got something on Friday night, like a little Meditation thing. And then on Sunday we've got a kirton, we've got full moon caca ceremonies, sound healings, meditation classes. And that, I feel [00:37:00] like that has helped to really cement the community again.
Yeah. So you put more your energy into those community building things, right? That, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because as I've mentioned, because of the, because of my demographic. This is a lot of times this is their community. They come here, we have a really, I have a nice little reception area with a comfortable day bed, and they probably go for lunches together after class.
Yeah. So that's what I, that's what I'm focusing on. When I called Class Pass I said, I wanna terminate my contract. And I didn't, I knew it wasn't gonna be an issue because I had been with them for And she was like you have to, you'll have 90 days to phase out. And I went, no.
I said, no, I wanna, but is that the contract of 90 days? Is that what is in the contract? Yeah, they have 90 days to 90 days to phase out. And I said, no. I said, I wanna be done in seven. And I said, you can, I probably shouldn't say this. I said, you can. I said, you can keep me on there for 90 days. I said, Deleted [00:38:00] the API out of my mind body, and I said, and I've disabled all the classes so you can do what you want.
I said, but I'm done. And she was like, okay. Okay, let's recap here. Instead of going through the mandatory 30 days, Sarah went into her account and deleted all class pass access to. Yeah, I just switched 'em all off because the other thing that they would do is if I added a workshop, the workshop would show up in Class Pass, and I'd have people show up for and it was like, they didn't tell, they don't tell you that.
And so it was just like, that's, I don't wanna be, I don't wanna work with somebody who's gonna treat me like, like that. So one of the things I find interesting when I go into my client's accounts with ClassPass, it's, so there's the ClassPass separate dashboard, which is really not integrated. The main product is a very separate entity, and I find that the data on that.
It presents very positively. Your studio has made all this [00:39:00] money, we filled this many spots. It's like all this positive stuff. But then you go into the mind body side of things and you look through the data and it's oh, I've got no retention. The that is a, that's just a one hit class over and over again.
And so it's. Looking at those and as consultants we track, convergence of new students. That's a big thing of what we look at, right? Yeah. So it doesn't convert. But I do think if you are mind, body, class pass, I think you probably need to just go all in on class pass and be okay with.
Yeah. But I think if you are building a membership based business, personally I don't see it. No I don't. I agree. And I did recently sign up for Peer Fit. Okay. Which I'll, check back with me. The when I met with the with the young lady who was wanted to be, they were relentless in trying to get me to join, but they they based the membership off of my one.[00:40:00]
My one month unlimited. Yeah. It's a better payout. It's a much healthy payout. So it's even if they just time during their month, you get paid for the membership. So that's worth it for them marketing it. Yeah. And there were they do it, it's with a couple of businesses.
I think Aetna is in pretty big in my area. And Aetna uses peer fit. So I was like, all I'm like, I'll try it and see what happens. Yeah. But the thing for me was that it was a decent payout, and it's I'm not I don't wanna discount my service.
Because, we have a hard enough time as yoga teachers getting people to value yoga anyway. Yeah. You, yeah. And you don't wanna come across as group ownerish, right? It's no. Always been in, and I definitely have some studios that it's a constant sale. It's oh, I gotta pay the next month rent.
So it's like we're constantly on sale and I think you need to stand behind the value of the service. Absolutely. Of your expertise, your teacher's expertise, and you know that you're creating an [00:41:00] amazing experience for them. And just, you just have to stand behind that and find the clients that are looking for that.
Yeah, I did, I did experiment with one with Black Friday. I did one and I did it like 24 hours, midnight to midnight and that was it. And it was like, creating that scarcity. So I did a 10 class, I did a 12 four. I did a 12 class pass for the price of 10. Yeah. I love, I think one of the thing is a great one cause you're not discounting your adding.
And that's, I think that's something I may have learned from in one of the web, one of the webinars with you is adding value as opposed to discounting. Yeah. And then just for that one day, I offer, I did do a 50% off the first month for my two memberships, cuz I have two memberships and, I sold a couple of the class packages.
I think I got one new member. So it was worth it, but I don't, I'm not a big, I'm not big on the whole sale thing because, yeah. I wanna add value. I don't wanna discount what we do. [00:42:00] Yeah. I have my clients not put a sale on for the sake of a sale, but to actually look at your flow of your year and you can, bits of habits of sales and habits of people and we only put a value added. Plug it into those low sale months, right? Yeah. And and the same with, doing a bingo or something that gets you on people on the mat. You only put those on a low attendance month. So really looking ahead strategically.
Hey Sarah, we've been talking forever here. I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask you a few questions. Oh, Siri talking to me right now. Something about you that most people wouldn't know? I was a classically trained pianist from the age of eight to 18. Oh, that's amazing. So I can still play. Still play though.
Play in yoga classes. That would've been incredible. Oh, all what's your favorite, what's your favorite business tool? Website, or? [00:43:00] Business. Probably the Messenger AI is probably the best one. I really, like I said, I really use that a lot and it gives me some freedom to not have to be here in the studio. And keeps me in touch with the clients. If they need anything, I can reach out to them directly. It's very helpful.
Awesome. So what's your favorite. Personal fun website or app? Ah, I'm an IG girl. You're Instagram This. Ah, I love me. The Gram. Yeah, I like the Instagram too. I have to admit, I do a little of the TikTok as well. I love a little TikTok. The I, I'm, I have to be careful with TikTok.
I tend to like, A couple of weeks without going on there. And then I binge, and it's also not enough people are using it for research, but if you go on to take a look and you write down, you type a, type in latest marketing ideas or anything like that, you get these [00:44:00] little fast segments that can make a massive difference.
Yeah, from really good tips. Yeah, I know. And I like it. I like it. My husband calls it the ticky talk. It's super entertaining though, right? It's like I found that during Covid. That was my little pleasure of, that was my happy place where you could just ignore the world and laugh your head off for a little while.
Yeah. Yeah. I got stuck. I got stuck down a rabbit hole for the raccoon drive through last night.
I've been in the rabbit hole of Chat, G p t and artificial intelligence lately. And yeah, different prompts and yeah, that's been, anyway, Sarah, I'm gonna thank you for your time. Thank you for sharing. Thank you so much, your story. And I I hope that, your story inspires other people to, start a yoga studio.
Buy a yoga studio and yeah, Des despite all the challenges that. Been through, staff covid and all of those things. You've really found a way to make your studio your own. Where do people find your studio? [00:45:00] Www.redsunyoga.com. That's our website. And anybody wants to, wants my help.
You can always reach out. I'm happy to offer any assistance that I. Thank you. Better together. Better together. Thank you so much for your time, Sarah. A pleasure spending some our mornings together. Yeah. Thank you very much. All right. Thanks Michael. Take care. Thanks Sarah.