This podcast episode featuring John Homyk, founder of Loopspark, provides valuable insights and advice for our yoga studio owners. The conversation covers various topics including how to automate processes and track staff duties, the importance of customer outreach, and the benefits of using a comprehensive CRM platform like Loopspark.
John explains how automations can help staff focus on building communities and growing attendance and sales, by freeing up time and resources. The podcast also touches on his personal journey to becoming an entrepreneur and developing multiple SaaS companies as well has how Loopspark was created as a love story to his studio owner wife.
Towards the end of the podcast John and Michael discuss the different types of introductory offers that work best for different modalities.
Overall, this podcast is a must-listen for yoga studio owners looking to streamline their processes, improve their businesses, and build a strong community of loyal customers.
Links:
Tools Mentioned:
• Fitdegree
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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
________________________________
Subscribe, Rate, and Review:
Don't forget to subscribe to Yoga Biz Champ. Follow us on social media @yogabizchamp, rate, and review the podcast. Your feedback helps us grow our community and reach more yoga enthusiasts like you.
FREE RESOURCES AND BOOK A CHAT LINK
https://yogabizchamp.link/podlink
This podcast episode featuring John Homyk, founder of Loopspark, provides valuable insights and advice for our yoga studio owners. The conversation covers various topics including how to automate processes and track staff duties, the importance of customer outreach, and the benefits of using a comprehensive CRM platform like Loopspark.
John explains how automations can help staff focus on building communities and growing attendance and sales, by freeing up time and resources. The podcast also touches on his personal journey to becoming an entrepreneur and developing multiple SaaS companies as well has how Loopspark was created as a love story to his studio owner wife.
Towards the end of the podcast John and Michael discuss the different types of introductory offers that work best for different modalities.
Overall, this podcast is a must-listen for yoga studio owners looking to streamline their processes, improve their businesses, and build a strong community of loyal customers.
Links:
Tools Mentioned:
• Fitdegree
_______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
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
________________________________
Subscribe, Rate, and Review:
Don't forget to subscribe to Yoga Biz Champ. Follow us on social media @yogabizchamp, rate, and review the podcast. Your feedback helps us grow our community and reach more yoga enthusiasts like you.
FREE RESOURCES AND BOOK A CHAT LINK
https://yogabizchamp.link/podlink
Michael Jay: welcome to another episode of Yoga Biz Camp. I am thrilled to have a great colleague who I respect and have a great time with John Hammick from Loop Spark.
Welcome John. Thank you so much,
John: Michael. Excited to be here.
Michael Jay: Now John, you are not my norm. I don't have software companies on very often, but I just am such a fan of your product and I'm such a fan of you that you just have so much knowledge in this industry that I'm just really thrilled to have you here.
So I'm just gonna read your bio first. John is a customer focused entrepreneur with a passion for helping businesses thrive and deliver positive change in their communities. He has 10 years experience developing multiple SaaS companies and a former boutique fitness studio owner. In 2015, John's family opened Pure Bar Studio in.
Carlsbad, California. His wife Katie, adopted various [00:01:00] marketing and reporting tools to enhance the customer experience, but couldn't find a comprehensive C R M platform to suit their needs. In 2017, John founded Loops Bart with his business partner, Luca, to help Katie and fellow studio owners scale their businesses, track staff duties and free up time to spend on their passion and personal lives.
John: Hey, John, that's exactly what's brought me to today. Hey, John, to be here.
Michael Jay: So I have to tell you, John, you are my first. Podcast guest live from my bathroom.
John: Interesting and honored. And I wanna dive into that story a little bit more.
Michael Jay: I just, I got everything all set up this morning, green screen up the whole works, checking out the microphones and then the gardeners arrived.
The, every week the condo people come, but they seem to change days. And they're extremely loud. Then it [00:02:00] was like scurrying to get my laptop all set up. So right now my laptop is on a stand and my microphone on the toilet as I am sitting on a big cushion. In an area that's a little bit quieter.
And then I got all set up in here and my neighbors downstairs started playing really loud music that was coming through the bathroom. So I'm like, oh no. So I had to go downstairs and ask them to just turn it down a little bit. So anyway, we're here. Life of my bathroom for the first time.
John: That's awesome.
I'm not the only John in this call apparently, and some of the best music has been recorded in bathrooms, so I'm honored that maybe this is gonna be a, that we weren't expecting. Oh,
Michael Jay: John, I'm so thrilled to have you here. I feel every time we get together, I could like, talk to you for three hours.
Like you just you just really know the industry, your product loop spark. The reason I'm a big fan of it is because it just, it helps studio owners massively. It's a so it does [00:03:00] marketing through text. Email, but also you have to do functions and things like that. So it's just, it just helps studio owners so much take a load off of them.
And I just wanna say I really appreciate your product. It's just, I think it's top of class out there.
John: Thank you, Michael. I appreciate the feedback and we do talk for a lot of time every time we get together. Yeah. And we geek out and talk about our customers and what's going on in the industry.
And I really like to, take some of the knowledge that you've been passing on to me and see how I can bring that to life through our product and really share that. That knowledge that is evolving from consultants like you that I speak with. Yeah. And how can I use my tool to really, push that knowledge and to those learnings into successful campaigns for our shared clients.
So yeah, it's been great. Great working with you so
Michael Jay: far. You too, John. You too. So how did I know there's a love story behind the product but prior to that, you must have been a
John: geek. I have always been a geek. [00:04:00] One of the things that I think a lot of people don't know about me is my, my entire journey to where I am today has been quite circuitous in circumstance.
And I studied forestry in college. Okay. And took that degree and moved to Manhattan, where that was not really an applicable degree for me to have. And I think it was just a matter of, Falling in love with different pieces of where I was in life and finding out how to thrive in those that got me to where I am today.
Started out with me, getting a typical desk job, figuring out what I loved about the advertising industry, breaking away from the desk job and trying to start my own agency, which I did, and had success. And this is where I started to get into developing tools so that I could thrive even more.
And after a while I realized that there was a lot more, benefits in not only creating these tools for myself, but packaging 'em up, selling them off to competitors. And instead of, chasing the typical gold, I started selling the shovels. [00:05:00] And that was a much more scalable and predictable model.
So over the years we've packaged up a number of SaaS products. Anything that was really helping me where I was at that point in life could also be shared with other people and, help them thrive in a similar industry. And that's exactly what we're doing here with Loops Spark. One thing that led to another that was not related, Forestry in Manhattan to meeting my beautiful wife who is funny enough, my first roommate in New York.
We'll touch on that a little bit later. And, diving into her passions and what I could do to really facilitate her. So we found ourselves, leaving beautiful New York after we just bought our dream home there, thinking it was a temporary move to California. Experiencing what we loved and what we didn't love about Southern California, and then taking a kind of turn in life to both leave our desk jobs.
My wife wanted to stay in the dance industry, so we opened up a pure bar down here in a city that, quite honestly, we'd never heard about before Carlsbad, California. And it was through this [00:06:00] navigating, my wife struggled and our little baby boy that was on the way. Then I found a little bit of space in my partner and myself development roadmap where we could start focusing on our next tool.
And quite honestly, it was not intended to be an enterprise level software. It was a love letter that we created for my wife so that she didn't give up on her business. And so what were the struggles
Michael Jay: that she, what was the struggles that she was having that you saw that you needed to help with?
John: I think my wife found herself in the shoes and in a place that a lot of studio owners find themselves in, where we dive into this, large financial investment and large time investment out of a drive that stems from passion, not from entrepreneurial experience or knowledge. And she opened the studio because she's comfortable behind a bar.
She really likes working with other women. She likes building communities. She likes [00:07:00] seeing the confidence in her friends grow, and none of this really aligns with a successful studio. It align aligns with an incredible experience for her customers. Yeah, the way I like to look at it is an analogy to building a house.
We had no clue what we were doing. When we opened this studio. We just started throwing down a foundation and putting up, some of the walls. And then we found ourselves in a place where we had to think quick. We had to pivot quickly. And all of this became even more complicated when we got pregnant and we were struggling to figure out what life would look like.
When we were no longer behind the front desk every day greeting our customers when they came in, holding over the, the handing over the sales and the customer support ranges to our staff and trusting that they were doing that in the way that we wanted to. Yeah. And long before we even created loops Spark, we adopted as many different automated tools and reporting tools and team management tools as we possibly could.
And I think that was a really good [00:08:00] first step in us just learning the importance of. Taking some of this workload off of our own plate and automating what we could and trying to analyze our data with the tools that we had available. So it was a great experience, but what we learned during that experience was none of these tools did exactly what we wanted them to do.
They weren't customizable. They had limitations, they didn't talk to each other. They didn't allow us to really operate as a full team. And This is where we put our first development waters of Loop, spark just to build out that primary automation tool that then we expanded into reporting to team collaboration, to staff assignments and over about the first year of beta testing.
We handed it off to a couple other franchisees through word of mouth. It grew extremely fast. We realized that this was more than just a love letter. It was actually a product that could help a lot of other studio owners. And that's when this became my full-time project, [00:09:00] so to speak. And it's. Not really that we're curing cancer here, we're a much smaller component of a much bigger community that's out there doing excellent things in their own geos.
So yeah, really nice to get those wins from our studios. So just to
Michael Jay: clarify, for the people listening, your product connects into other booking systems, so like mind, body fit, degree
John: 13 Maria Tech.
Michael Jay: Yeah. Yeah. And so what's great about your product is it's triggered off by data points in those booking systems.
But what I think is really powerful about your product is I. You recognize that it's not all about automations. The automations really help, but you have these to-dos in there that can be assigned to front desk to different people or to everybody which. For my studio owners solves the big problem of there's probably a different [00:10:00] person on the front desk for different shifts, right?
And so it's like, how do we, they were spreadsheeting that before, but your product literally, they can l that person can log in and see what their to-dos are for that day. But then the stuff that needs automating gets automated for, and for example, like a text, but then the reply is human.
John: Exactly, and the way that I look at automations, it's not a complete replacement for the human being. Right? And even AI is not gonna be a complete. Replacement for the human being, especially in a market where studio owners, operators, staff members are very intimate with their clientele. This isn't a big box gym where we don't know each individual and their situation.
Automations really just help save. The time that we might be spending manually sending emails, evaluating what message might push that client a little bit further to the path of commitment. The text messaging obviously starts that conversation at the opportune time, but it's really the individual [00:11:00] that's responding that keeps that conversation human when it comes to dos.
I think a lot of these are related to customer outreach. We need to call this person with this kind of message, or we need to be prepared to have this conversation with them when they walk through the doors today. But there are a lot of other operational components that around the studio to dos can be helpful for and for.
Studio owners like ourselves that became more distant from the physical location and allows, allowed us to rest comfortably knowing that what we needed to be done every day was assigned. There was accountability. We could track that it was being completed. These prompts for phone calls or follow ups, great.
But also these little touchpoints of this individual is coming up on this massive celebration at our studio. Whether it's an anniversary of their first visit or a major milestone celebration for their class counts, we wanted our front desk to always be prepared so they, we didn't miss that opportunity to really celebrate our members.
And we started setting up other to-dos that were just more [00:12:00] operational in nature, right? What needs to be done in our front lobby on what days and how are we assigning that and how are we tracking that and how is that really affecting how people are engaging with our merchandise in our lobby?
So there are a lot of different ways that we use Yeah that to-do system.
Michael Jay: But the other thing that you have in there is you've got scripts, or suggested scripts like for the front desk, right? Yes. Did you write those,
John: John? I wrote a lot of them, and I'll tell you a really selfish story that we had once we honed in on our call process, our to-do process, and the scripts and the follow up text messages that were in there.
We hired somebody on a Thursday, we trained her for about an hour. And then we just walked away for the weekend and went on our first vacation in a long time. And it was amazing that the staff member was able to, walk through the flows and our suggested scripts and feel empowered to pick up a phone and make those calls, which I think is a really hard task to ask an hourly employees pick up that phone, make that call be salesy.[00:13:00]
But she was able to do it, and she was not only able to read those scripts, she was able to understand what we wanted. And then make that conversation her own. Yeah. So with minimal training, it was just amazing to see somebody take it to the next level, over three day period. What I see.
Michael Jay: So I've been last week you gave me a private training on your product.
Yesterday I joined in with one of your clients and and watched you know, you problem solve for them and. Y John, you get off on helping people solve their problems like it is so your jam. And I introduced a client to you a few weeks ago and what cracked me up was I. While she was ask, she was explaining her need for the front desk, the whole thing while she was talking about it, you literally did it on the screen while she was talking live, and I think you finished the process before she [00:14:00] finished explaining what she needed.
Like you just, your brain just goes, okay boom. But like you have a very unique brain when it comes to your product and solving. Your client's problems, but I just had to say like yesterday, watching you do that with people again, like you just are like so excited to be able to put something in place for them that literally helps them so much.
Data
John: excites me as much as helping people excites me. And I think, the issue we had with prior solutions before Loops Spark is they didn't leverage the full data set that was coming from our booking software. So while they could automate little pieces of what we needed, they didn't allow us to have that creativity to either pull reports that could help us communicate better with our customers when they were in our studio, or automate to the nuanced level that really sparks that.
That interest to, to even cross sell a member, right? Not just to keep them going on a linear [00:15:00] path toward membership or retain them as a member, but to really try out different types of classes that we're offering to try out different instructors, to try out different times of the day to really explore our full offering more than.
Attend this many times on our intro offer and buy this specific membership. It was more of a get further ingrained in our community and how were we able to do that through automation. It was leveraging that full data set in mind body at the time. So I really do get off on that. And as you saw yesterday on our call, I really like to role play, which is an exercise I did with my staff all the time.
It's just, put your shoes, put on the shoes of a customer. And think about how hesitant you might be to just take that next step, right? To come in for the first time, to come in for the second time to commit to a membership. How does that feel as a customer that's struggling with, temptations in life or distractions in life?
And what type of messaging and when [00:16:00] would you touch base with yourself? To help yourself overcome that struggle. So I love getting in there and role-playing with my clients, and first off, asking them really prodding questions, which I think every business consultant does. It's just what are your KPIs?
Do you personally know? Yeah. Where your members are falling off? And if you don't, let's start there before we start talking about processes and then automating those processes.
Michael Jay: I also found that you're very respectful as far as not jumping in giving advice like you are. You are very good at showing, demonstrating the project product, solving the problem, but not giving advice cuz you must be seeing.
Every scope of the industry from behind the scenes, right? And so you see what works, what doesn't work. And I remember I was sitting there yesterday wanting to jump in with does that intro offer work? And like all the just busting to jump in. So I just really respected that you sat back and didn't give business advice, but you just helped them with [00:17:00] where they were at.
But that must be hard sometimes.
John: It is. It is hard. I like to speak from experience when I do jump into those conversations. Yeah. I, we've tested everything from the one day, the one week, the two week, the second class, free the one month. And we do have a lot of data on what worked personally for us.
Yeah. But that might, that would be the same in every market for every modality, for every, just cultural culture in that specific studio. If I'm asked, I do give my personal experience, but as you said I don't like to prescribe what is best because there is no, once you fits all.
Yeah.
Michael Jay: All right. So let, can we talk about what you are seeing right now? Because you deal with franchises, you deal with individual studios, you deal with some with multiple locations. So you are in the data. And with the, hands on with those people helping them. And so what are you seeing what are you seeing working right now [00:18:00]
John: as far as introductory offers?
Michael Jay: Sure. Let's go with introductory. Yeah, because there's been a lot of, there's been a lot of changes I think lately in the industry. We've three weeks, one week, sometimes two weeks. And And then there's also now a lot of people going, di more the gym model of going direct to membership with a discount.
John: I see that quite a bit as well. I err on the side of less real estate in that introductory offer. Less time is better, less time. However, that's different for every single modality. Yeah. Cause you know, there are some modalities where you jump on a bike, you already know how to pedal. After that class is if this is for you.
Yeah. You're not trying to figure out the technique so much where something like bar after your first class you usually walk out like, what was I doing? I couldn't even follow the instructor. I couldn't get my body in the right position. I couldn't figure it out. So I think the one class, first class free or whatever [00:19:00] it might be, discounted first class for bar doesn't really do any justice.
It's really after your second or third class where you feel confident. Yeah. Where you're following the instructor, where you're taking the cues. However, a full month of that, You might see some drop off. A member in their own head might already feel committed after a week, and now we're waiting three more weeks just to have that membership conversation with them.
So I think a week is a pretty good amount of time to have, if you can get them in, if you can get them in right. If you can get them in two or three times and you can prove two things first, whatever you set out the reason. For you giving me your information and signing up. You're seeing those results, whether it's strengthening your core, strengthening your confidence, losing weight, feeling more energized.
You'll feel that after a few classes in a condensed amount of time, like a week. But you're also able to prove to yourself that your schedule permits for maybe [00:20:00] two or three hours to myself, aside from my family or my other responsibilities. And I think that's enough data to help align that member with the correct membership type.
One of the things that we stopped doing was throwing that 12 month platinum membership as the first thing to our people that were expiring their trials, but we really took their own data and prescribed them what we thought would be a best first step. So if you were able to come in, Two times during that first week, three times during that first week, we might start you off with that 12 month commitment.
We might also expose you to an eight class or four class per month commitment. If you only came in one time, we might extend that one week a little bit further, or, yeah, we might. Tell you about a 10 class pack and then try to convert you after you've come in a couple more times. So in just looking at our data, what's working best, in my opinion, shorter length of time.
It's that one week
Michael Jay: shorter length, but [00:21:00] the, yes, the, so here's where your product kind of helps a little bit, right? So if the problem is if somebody is. Purchasing, let's say a one week pass is usually not a big investment, right? And so quite often, if it's 20 bucks if they're 20 bucks, they're kinda like, oh, I, I didn't, oh, okay, I lost $20.
It's not a big deal. So the thing is, we need to get them in there two or three times in a week. That's why on my all of my clients on their schedule page, Because we also have, there's always the live embedded a p I schedule that people don't think that way when they're looking at their life they think Monday through Sunday.
And so I always have my clients put a like a graphic schedule above that with their, so that people can go, Can I get in here one or two, two or three times a week? Because then that membership is value to me if I can. And so I think helping that process of them being able to visualize where it [00:22:00] fits in their life.
But your product will also, I. If they've purchased, you can trigger it off. So they've purchased and haven't come. They can get a message or a phone call or a text, or if they've purchased come not come back. You can trigger something off on that. So what are those things that you're looking for in that first week?
If you're doing a week that, those are the main one I really look at.
John: So we're focusing on the automation, but I think there's a lot to say about just preparing your staff for that in-studio conversation. Email is gonna be informative, it's gonna be pretty, it's maybe lengthy to read a text message is a great way to spark a conversation and keep that conversation alive, but it's that engagement with your front desk, with your instructors.
That personalized knowledge about each client that's coming in that I think really drives those sales One of the things that my wife and I did, and this was time consuming back in the day, is we would pull myriad reports from Mind body with the [00:23:00] attempt of creating this daily digest each day, and our staff was trained to open that up every morning and it boiled down to here are the conversations you should be prepared to have today.
When these people walk in, give 'em a high five, tell 'em happy birthday, happy anniversary of your first visit. These simple ways just to make people feel seen and known and loved, but also these are the members that are coming in for their first class today that don't have a second class booked already, and that is a much easier conversation for the instructor while they're already giving them those endorphins, pumping through 'em to say.
Hey Michael, I hope you enjoyed your first class today. I noticed that you're not booked. How would next Thursday work for you? How would tomorrow at the same time, work for you? And it's much harder to ignore. That conversation when you're face to face, right? It's much harder for someone to say, ah, I'll think about it.
I'm gonna walk out the door. It's more of a, tomorrow at nine 30 doesn't work, but maybe 11 would work. Can you go ahead and get me booked right now? Yes. So I think these in-person conversations really push the dial and being able to push our, prepare [00:24:00] our staff in real time, which is the whole purpose of our dashboard, really drives that home.
Michael Jay: Yeah. And let's take it a little bit further. The whole staff, if they're trained well, all towards the goal of getting more bums on mats is is even from the staff, the teachers, right? Hey, next week we're gonna be working on this part of the body. Make sure you book before you leave or see the front desk or book it in your app or something like having it come from there and from the front desk and from the text and the ottoman.
But it is about getting those bookings.
John: I listened to one of your podcasts last week and you were talking about the true superpower of a yoga studio is usually the talent of the operator if it's a single operator or other teachers, and that's very true. I think one of the tools that we don't leverage enough is the relationship between our instructors and the clients.
Yeah. Because you can have, the same franchise at two different locations and it's a uniquely different experience based off of. You know how [00:25:00] well those instructors are running the class, but also the way that they're engaging with their members. Yeah. And that's, something that we really wanted to harness that we really wanted to invest in.
So yeah, our instructors were the most integral part of operating our tool behind the scenes, but also leveraging it for those real time insights and taking action on them when the members were right there face to face with them. Yeah,
Michael Jay: I'm talking to my studio owners now and the front desk people about really making it a concierge v i p kind of experience.
And I had an evening training with one of my studio front desks the other evening, and I met with the owner yesterday and she just said what a different, just having them have a new perspective on building the relationships and just what a difference that has made for the experience of the clients coming in and them also involving their students, their, their mega fans, getting them to show them around and yeah, so I love that the people part is [00:26:00] so important.
We, I love the fact that you really recognize that your product is about automations mostly, but you never lose sight of the people part and the community part.
John: Do you ever instruct the clients that you work with? For a member coming in for the first time, obviously gets that little handholding before their class starts and gets a tour and meets the instructor, do you ever coach them to take that same new client and just introduce them to a few more people in the audience?
People that live near them? People that were in their shoes for the first time as a hesitant first visit, holy.
Michael Jay: More, more passing them on to a super fan, right? I think exactly. Yeah. So literally, usually when you're on the front desk, you're quite busy, and if it's just you as a solo person, but if you have someone there that knows everything about the studio and is someone that talks to everybody and you say, Hey, Julie, can you show this is.
This is such and such's first time, can you show them around and have them do it already? They've made a connection [00:27:00] in there. That person probably knows other people in there and is gonna say, Hey, this is such and such that's just joined and showing them where the bathroom is. That's that builts community.
Absolutely.
John: Yeah. And that was one of the most rewarding parts of. I think, opening the studio in a city that we'd never heard of before. It was unique. And we didn't have any friends. We didn't have any family. We did not know anybody. All of our friends starting out for the first few years here were clients of ours.
Yeah. And seeing that little group of people that were all strangers at one point in time, starting to get on group text messages and have bonfires at the beach and have happy hours and. Still to this day, those relationships are fruitful. Was really rewarding for us to jump into a place where there was no community of our own and build it and foster it.
Michael Jay: Yeah. Speaking of community building I just got an email this morning from one of our partners fit [00:28:00] degree that they now have in their app. They have cuz they have a community feature in their app and now they have it so that they can have conversations between teachers and students.
And the whole staff can be in there too. So
John: I am always impressed with that team, with that product. Yeah. They're a fantastic partner of ours and I think the social aspect that they're touching on and they have for a while Yeah. Is unique and it's what drives that kind of longer term commitment for that member.
It's a lot harder to walk away from. Business A and try out shiny new business. B, if one of the things you're attracted to is the community to the people that are in class with you every morning. So them really putting more time into that social aspect is a smart move. Yeah, it's a unique offering.
It's something that I always promote to people that are looking for different booking platforms, check off fit degree. They're doing some interesting things for your members. Yeah. And,
Michael Jay: I'll say this [00:29:00] because one of my favorite tech stacks is fit degree and loops Spark because for a little bit more than $300, you've got a you've got a booking system and a marketing machine.
Like it is, I think your price of your product is extremely fair for what it does. And But yeah, and for about $450, you can also have an app and so you are all in with fit degree. I, I work with a lot of different software companies, but it is, if someone is looking for the full capabilities and a decent price point it's a great, it's a great stack.
John: Thank you so much. Yeah, and shout out to Nick and the fifth degree team over there. Yeah. They've been incredible to work with over the past few years. And just a unique angle from the typical calendar scheduling, embedding, booking software. It's more of a, how do we help our studio owners keep that community alive?
[00:30:00] And yeah, a lot of what we do is how do we keep that community tethered to us, the business, the staff, the studio owner. So we
Michael Jay: work really well. So thinking of that, John, I'm gonna say I have spoken to many studios that will change software, but they will not change their marketing platform. And so I know and right, so literally it's like I have everything built out in loops.
Spark is what I hear. And I the, I will switch software booking platforms, but I'm not losing my loop spark.
John: It's something that we were not expecting when we developed the tool, knowing that we are not the foundation of how this studio's getting paid, right? We're not collecting those credit cards.
We're not booking clients into class. We are not the main point that is necessary to operate a studio. We're ancillary on that side, but we're a very sticky product because I think we, we show [00:31:00] immediately how much value can come. From these types of really nuanced communications and these really personalized touchpoints, and once you get used to that, you start to think company B over here can also process credit cards, and maybe they have a more seamless experience for my customers to book or to view their data in their app.
But I still wanna keep loops, Bart here and I've invested in it and I've found out what works and I've optimized it. So I'm only gonna move if loops Bart integrates. And quite honestly, that's been a great conversation starter between us and other booking softwares. It's, this person would be moving to you if we were integrated.
Get that integration off the ground today. Shout
Michael Jay: out to all the software out there, open up to Loops, spark, because it's just a great partner product. Thank you so much. You're welcome so much. What are you seeing problematic out there, people? What's going wrong out there? Are you seeing anything where.
Commonly across the board kind of needs [00:32:00] fixing in the industry.
John: I think in a, this day and age kind of thing, No, I think it's more of a seasonal issue that has not been carefully addressed, which is this large amount of attrition that we're about to see in the next month during the summer months when things are down.
Yeah. Yeah. And how are studios keeping people engaged when they might be traveling or they might be distracted or they want to suspend their membership or cancel it. And we always see these seasonal peaks and troughs. And it's been an issue that I don't think has been addressed in a standardized fashion, and maybe it cannot be.
I'm dealing with a lot of those questions right now with our customers. What can I do to fend off everybody canceling their memberships and trying to re-sign up for something in September? And I think it comes down to keep your audience warm at all times. If people are not able to make it to your studio, Will have something in the back burner where they can [00:33:00] either on demand stream or they can engage with your community in some form or fashion, or you're still able to keep them on your product lines if you're selling retail.
But keep this time, the next three months as a time where you're continuously communicating. You can't let your community fall out. No. Even if they're not able to come into your physical doors.
Michael Jay: Yeah, and people can look through their data I always say to my clients, the cycles of the year, they don't change too much. , the summer goes down, people start after they've got kids back to school. Labor day, there's the, these kind of cycles, but But yeah, I have people try to look at the data and project out, really forward thinking, projecting out your year and then planning those things where attendance is low. That's where you throw your bingo on or your challenge.
But I find that people always put those on at January when you don't really need to in January. It's like there people are really there, [00:34:00] but if you're strategic about those and put those. Bums on mat things at lower attendance times that you're gonna have a better job there.
And same with sales. I see a lot of people doing reaction type of sales. It's ah, I've gotta pay the rent next month, let's do a sale. And so it's a constant sale. So that's a problem I see. But when you can project forward and go, okay, this is usually a lower income.
Then let's work before that to, put a promotion on in that time and be really strategic about it. Could you use your product to do that for
John: you can. Yeah, you absolutely can. And our product in the end runs off of data, so yeah, we can analyze. We're a glorified. Database with a very niche application you are able to predict who's gonna be falling off at that point in time and make that careful decision on what do I need to do to keep them engaged.
Like you said, I think a lot of reactions from studio owners come out of almost [00:35:00] desperation. How am I gonna pay month rent rent next month is. At the forefront, and that's where they're making the decisions versus how is this gonna affect me in three months from now? Yeah. And I talk to my clients a lot.
The people that are just these chronic 10 20 class pack half off discounts, like that's gonna help you pay your rent next month. But what is your revenue gonna look like in September? Yeah, it's not long term. It's not long term at all. So I think it's keep your community engaged. Focus on that.
Don't ever discount your product. Your product is not less valuable. The experience you're providing in summer is not less valuable than it is any other month. It's just how do you make it more interesting, more enticing for somebody to make those sacrifices to at least come a couple times a week instead of fall off the face of the earth for a couple months.
Michael Jay: One of the things I saw you, I've seen you do in your demos with clients is you are really good at. [00:36:00] Problem solving a class situation. So talk me through your thought process of your product here. I want to, I have a slow flow class, let's say Thursday night, 7:30 PM and I've got an attendance problem.
What would you do to try and the process that you would go through to try and map out that client to. Market to for
John: that. There are a lot of different ways, I think it's who are we gonna be marketing to? First and foremost, we don't need to market to the people that are coming to. We don't need to deafen them with our message because it's something that's no longer relevant to them, but it's, there are a lot of different ways you can slice and dice your audience.
Michael Jay: I want, I want in John's head here
John: who, who is coming regularly. So there's that piece of friction that is no longer there, who's coming regularly right now to my studio at any given time so I don't have to break that. Come back, have that conversation, but for some reason it's not a win.
It's not a win [00:37:00] back.
Michael Jay: We're just
John: trying to, it's not a win back, it's a cross-sell. How do I get them to engage in this class time, this class type, this instructor? There's so many different ways to do that. And we've addressed this with automations through a number of similar conversations, like, how do I get.
This person that has been coming two, three times a week over the course of a couple months to actually try this instructor the first time. Or if they only come for the morning, poke 'em with the text message and ask if maybe there's an afternoon time that would work for them if we were to add it to the schedule.
Or if they're coming to two out of our three class offerings, but they're not trying the third for some reason, how can we automatically start that conversation so that our staff. Can take it from there and really ease that person into that class type, that new instructor, that down class time. I think there are so many unique ways that our data can paint that picture for us if we know how to use the data.
[00:38:00] And again, I think that is the unique offering of loops Spark is we're not just looking at simple trigger points or. A small subset of the data from your book and platform. We're looking at it all and we're giving our studio owners access to it all access, to really play with it all and leverage it all to either have these reports, have these insights, or more importantly, automate that conversation with their guests.
So with
Michael Jay: that client let's say that client, Thursday night, slow flow, we're gonna try and fill that spot. Would you send them a text or would you send 'em them an email?
John: I probably sent 'em a text. I think there's something to say about the email as being a little bit more informative, which is cool.
You might do both. You might introduce them to this powerful story about that class type, and that's easier done through an email. Here are people that come, here's what they're saying about it. Here's why we have it. Here's why we think it's unique from the other classes that you're engaging and loving at our studio.
That's an email. That's [00:39:00] good and maybe that exact same day. It's nice to have an instructor that you recently worked with reach out from a personal text message, which is why a lot of our texts leverage these merge tags like either the instructor that taught the most recent class or the studio manager, or the person that first ever taught your class, or someone that you built a relationship with at that studio.
Really signing off on that text message, even though it's automated, really makes that customer think. Michael's actually taking time out of his day because he thinks I'm interested. All
Michael Jay: right, let me, I gotta process this one. So you would set that up so that it wasn't coming from the studio, it was coming from the teacher.
Always.
John: How many follow up text messages have you gotten over the years from Yoga studio, bar, studio, whatever it might be, that's Hey, business name here. What did you think about? Yeah. Yeah. And it's, I'm not really building a relationship with your brand so much as I am the [00:40:00] people inside of it.
So I think it's much more poignant to come from, Hey, Michael, here with, yoga Biz Camp. What did you think about your first class today? I thought you were excellent. Can I get you booked for my class tomorrow?
Michael Jay: Okay, so then the person responding to that is not the teacher. It might not be. Yeah.
John: And it's very easy to say, Hey John, it's Jessica picking up the conversation here.
Michael told me all about your first class and it's still
Michael Jay: you what I do love about products like yours and other ones that start a conversation, it, that's the power. So I have one studio In Arizona, it is killing it in conversations like, I call it sales by chat. And It is very powerful when someone does respond to, Hey, this is such and such from this studio. I just want to check in on how your first class was and the pe they come back and say, it was wonderful. [00:41:00] The thing that breaks sometimes there is, if there's 24 hours between responding, I see so many studios neglecting that part of getting back quickly.
But the ones that are using that to keep the conversation and then guide that person to the right classes to support their goals, there's so much power in that conversation.
John: And, I'm gonna touch on two things here. One of them is, Texting is not new, right? Studios have had some kind of tool, whether it's their personal cell phone a lot of the times, or a Google Voice number where they're texting back and forth.
It's a little bit more manual, but they're usually limited to one device, one human being shielding those text messages. And if that individual or that device is not available, that customer's not gonna get responded to immediately, that's gonna be, a big reason why we encourage everybody to make their staff.
A part of the loops spark process to create those unique accounts, to have [00:42:00] those push notifications come to everybody's phone immediately so that somebody can respond and keep the conversation going despite when that, conversation was left off by the client. That's a big part of it. But also have these conversations come into the loops Spark platform inside of the client profile that has so much rich data around it and rich data that is.
Presented in a way that's digestible and it's accessible on the fly, so that if you were to text back and my goal were to see what next class would be best for you. I have it there. I know what you've tried. I know what you haven't tried. I know when you can come into class. I know what types of packages you like to purchase or what types of teachers you like, I know all of that right there.
I don't have to data mine in another platform. I can literally do it from my phone or from the computer. Inside that unified profile.
Michael Jay: I do love your your chat feature with the app because because the owner or whoever's logged in actually gets the notification [00:43:00] can get notifications when there's a reply on the app.
So it does make it l lot simpler for getting back to people
John: quickly. Yeah. You don't have to be married to a computer and a lot of the times studio owners are not, and we're bouncing around all the time. We're in and out of our own studio. We're picking up our kids from school, we're dropping 'em off at summer camp, and that should not, hinder the ability for you to keep working, to keep talking to your community, right?
Or to have one of your staff members rest assure that your staff members are doing the same thing and have the same ability to respond to your customers there. Yeah.
Michael Jay: John, we're gonna take this to a close here. So I'm gonna ask you a few questions. Something about you that most people don't know about you.
Wow.
John: Can it be embarrassing,
Michael Jay: please?
John: Okay. Can it be the best thing I've ever gotten on Craigslist? Oh, okay. [00:44:00] Yeah, we're down the embarrassing road. Yeah, my wife. How about that? Craigslist found. Found my wife on Craigslist as my first roommate when I had just graduated college. She moved up to New York City, took a chance with an N Y U senior that had two available rooms and my best friend and I moved in with her.
And very early on in that relationship, I broke the Cardinal role and. I don't know how to say it, but kinda a little bit more friendly with my roommate and our relationship started out where I think most people hope theirs will end up, which is under one roof. So I've lived with my wife for 16 years now and it's been in Incre.
Incredible. And when people ask how we met, it's always an embarrassing conversation to say Craigslist.
Michael Jay: That's great. I love it. I love it. And I love that you're on. I believe it's on you. I believe your love story is on your website, I think under the a About us or something like that. I think there's something on there.
It is. This is it's a big reason [00:45:00] why you created the product for so many reasons. Yeah. I love that. I love that. All right. What's your favorite business tool? Website or app other than Loops Spa. Interesting.
John: This has changed over time, but quite honestly, I think chat G P T is now, or any AI tool that can really serve the purposes like a, another human being that's in the room.
Bouncing ideas off me. I love it. And that's one thing that I truly miss about being in the office setting, is when I get stuck and I can't figure out what direction to go in, you can ask somebody a question and even if it's not the right answer, it just sparks your mind and it allows you to Yeah.
Fill the color from there. And. Chat. C p T does that for me. It is not the thing that I use to just write a full script. It's the thing that, yeah, puts me in the right direction. It's my compass so that I can say, oh man, I wouldn't have thought about that, but I'm really inspired by, the thought that he gave me, and I'm gonna take the conversation from there.
So I use it for everything right now. [00:46:00] Me too. Everything. Yeah.
Michael Jay: I use it. It's such a handy tool. I have it open the whole time now, and I was with a client the other day that was doing a teacher training and had a, they had a Facebook ad all ready for teacher training, and it looked good. It sounded good, but the headline was shit.
And so I'm just like, I. Wrote a description of it into chat, gp come up with a headline, and it came up with one. We went, eh, regenerate, eh, regenerate, eh, oh, bingo. And it just, it was just so quick. It's so easy. I've had it do so many things for me. It's just crazy, write a seven email funnel sequence to lead people to listen to my podcast.
And I'm using it with my clients live. Like they're talking about, oh, I'm stuck cause I can't get this done. And they're talking about all these bottlenecks that they can't get around to. And for example, writing a s o p for a front desk. I'm like, hold on, write a [00:47:00] front desk. S o p for a yoga studio.
There you go. Go modify it. It's yeah. And like
John: you said, oftentimes I'm regenerating, regenerating, regenerating frankensteining. What it gives me taking little bits from here and here, and sometimes it's just a word that I wouldn't, yeah. I've
been
Michael Jay: using it to, I believe I will describe, I've been using it to write something and then I'll say, okay, cut it down by 50% and change the tone too.
And even for social media posts, write a social media post on this and include include all relevant, fun emojis and hashtags. It's boom, it's fantastic.
I need to do a workshop soon just for studio owners how to utilize it in their business, because I'm using it with my clients all the time.
Now.
John: I will be the first person to sign up for that workshop. I love that.
Michael Jay: I think you're geeky, geekier than me, John. Although I am a self confessed geek and fun. [00:48:00] Personal fun app, website
John: tool. Another embarrassing one is Words With Friends. Oh, okay. Is probably my favorite. I'm not big on scrolling through Instagram.
I, don't go through those scroll holes at all. My family, my grandmother, before she passed my aunt, my mother. Have been playing every single day for years, and there's a stranger that I met just through, creating a game with somebody of your ear, like skill, who's 88 years old, she lives in Ireland.
If she does not return a play to me, I. I get worried about her health and I told her this about a year ago. You ghosted me for a week. How's everything going? Are you okay? Please touch base. And she was like, I've been on vacation. I'm so sorry. I didn't think about it. And since then, we have played every single day consecutively without missing a day for 270 days as of today.[00:49:00]
And it's just my stress. I'm not focused on anything other than trying to call people out for. Thinking of words that I didn't even know existed. I'm learning a lot of new things. I'm touching base with my family, which is awesome. I'll play my mom at 3:00 AM if I wake up and she'll immediately text message me like, is everything okay?
Why are you up so late? So it's just fun. It's my, it is from the app space. I'm not just going into a zone and going into social media. I really don't check Instagram or Facebook that much, but it's just a fun way for me to communicate back and forth with
Michael Jay: friends.
Yeah, I do. That's my world. How's a trade on that? My, my audience? I, you do Media is on Instagram. Yeah. This morning this morning they got a little video of me setting up my podcast in the bathroom.
It's on my stories already
John: behind the scenes. My royal desk chair. That's awesome.
Michael Jay: Hold on. I need to take I wish you would take, I take a photograph of you on my toilet, John.
John: Oh man. [00:50:00] John, how do people
Michael Jay: find you?
John: How do people find me? Not on Instagram, John john@loopspark.com. South Ponto Beach at Carlsbad.
I'm always here. If you're in the San Diego area, I'm the guy that's there with a crazy five year old who likes to boogie board already, and we have bonfires all the time. You can find me on Instagram. I will message you back. I will like your posts, and the handle is John Egyptian, j o h n y g y p t i a n.
You can find me on LinkedIn. You can find me in a lot of different places.
Michael Jay: The main one is loops spark.com for your product and spark.com.
John: And if you wanna geek out with me for an hour
Michael Jay: with me. Yeah. So I do encourage people, if you're intrigued, if you have a platform that you know works with John's product book a demo just try the product out.
Again[00:51:00] I'm not usually on, on this platform to promote software, but. I'm a big fan of this particular software and a big fan of you, John, and so thank you Michael. I wanna thank you for coming on here and if anybody books a demo, make sure that you tell John where you came from Yoga Bears Camp Podcast
John: , And letting me know that you're working with Michael, that you found our product through this podcast is it'll allow me to really shape the conversation and what our goals will be and how I'll help you navigate, your journey, your learnings from Michael, and how we can help you bring that to life through our platform.
Thank you, John. Thank you, Michael. Enjoy the rest of your time in your bathroom. Thank you. Bye bye. I'll let you go. Take care. Bye.