If you’re not familiar with the Loud Rumor mission, let’s review. We give gym owners the opportunity to become highly successful in their business by enabling them to make a difference in more lives, which allows them to achieve financial freedom and win back time. This is the story of how one studio owner accomplished all three, in six months, by consistently generating fitness studio leads and converting them into paying members.
How It All Started
Sarena Montgomery bought her studio, barre3, in Knoxville, TN, while she still worked full-time. She had no idea how to run a studio, her educational and career background was in accounting.
In November of 2021, her studio had 90 members, a skeleton crew, and a big dream that was barely breaking even.
She was still running herself ragged nights and weekends at her corporate job after spending all day at the studio. Her gym was only bringing in a lowly $14-$15k in monthly recurring revenue. Sarena knew those numbers weren’t sustainable, and the lack of systems in place would make it impossible to maintain or scale.
Then she found Loud Rumor. “I didn’t know anything about sales or marketing or systems. Finding Loud Rumor helped me learn all of those things. It was the missing piece that I needed.” Sarena recalls.
She attributes much of her success to learning more about what she needed to do and how to implement it all at her location. To find out more about how you can learn and implement these systems into your fitness studio, click the button below!
The Sales and Marketing (Converting Fitness Studio Leads to Members)
First, Sarena had to learn that just because she had built a beautiful location and offered wonderful classes, that didn’t mean people would show up in droves to fill those classes. And they weren’t.
After her Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok ads were launched with the Loud Rumor agency team, she’s been able to generate fitness studio leads consistently at 150 per month. “Just having that constant flow of new people in the door was the first piece.” According to Sarena.
She was getting consistent leads into their studio, but that revealed a new problem. How could she and her staff convert them into paying members? Leveraging what she learned from the GSD 360 program, Sarena had to switch things up.
“My front desk staff shouldn’t be folding towels. They should be creating relationships… Now we have a whole process from the time the lead comes in via text and email, all the way through to how you greet them at the door, how you do the intake form, how you build the relationship, connect to their goals, and then how that person moves through our studio all the way through the first class and then ultimately to buy a membership.”
Fast forward to today, barre3 Knoxville has 206 members, and their monthly recurring revenue is up by 150%. Now that this barre3 studio has had its highest ever month at $35k, the business is stable enough that Sarena was able to leave her corporate job and focus on growing her business.
Team Development
The team development process took a lot of practice, tone-setting, and mindset shifting for Sarena. As a leader, she had to learn how to engage with her team and set clear expectations for how everything should work, from following up with fitness studio leads to closing sales.
She had to do the work, watch the results, and do it again. Sarena’s team responded with positivity and an eagerness to learn and execute. “I’ve even had my team come to me and be like ‘I’m so glad that you have this goal for us.’ and they get excited about hitting those goals.”
From Fitness Studio Leads to Referrals
Referrals are a big-ticket topic at Loud Rumor, but barre3 Knoxville had never requested them at all. Once the GSD 360 education started sinking in, Sarena dove in with both feet.
Now, they ask for a referral at multiple benchmarks along the prospect’s journey. From the booking phone call to the point of sale. And it’s paying off!
Education continues to develop as the sales team meets every week while a class is in session to role-play how to ask for referrals. As soon as the class lets out, Sarena’s team is ready to seal the deal.
Raising Gym Membership Pricing
Raising prices is another common concern most studio owners face when growing their revenue, and Sarena was no different, but she did it! It was one of her first major moves after joining Loud Rumor.
Barre3 Knoxville increased membership pricing for all existing and new members by $20. “When we did the price increase, I had a lot of apprehension around what if people respond poorly to this?… But really, it was no big deal.”
They had one cancellation of 90 members and an additional $2,700 per month in revenue. That’s a decent trade-off!
“My biggest takeaway from the last six months has been to implement. When you learn something, execute. Try it! Be afraid! Don’t waste time thinking about it… making it perfect. Just jump in and do it, and then you can adjust along the way.”
To watch the whole interview, go here!