From the first franchises in 2018 to 160 studios open (Q4 2022) and more than 550 territories sold today, YogaSix has grown to become the largest franchised yoga brand worldwide. That growth didn’t happen by accident.

It takes a continued concerted effort, dedication to processes, and the flexibility to adjust as necessary. “Our business is very simple,” says Michael Leonard, Vice President of Sales, YogaSix. “It is not easy, but our business is very simple. Get leads, have them come in and experience the studio, have them have a great experience, and sell them something.”

To ensure that they have an accurate understanding of what’s happening at each stage in the process they use iKizmet for their data analytics. Speed is important both to scale and to ensure that everyone is focused on the right issues and what will make the most difference in their results tomorrow. We caught up with Mr. Leonard to learn more about how YogaSix uses iKizmet to drive strategic initiatives at the corporate level and quick snapshots at the individual level to improve studio performance.

Leonard: What you’re looking at is stuff that’s already happened. So you need to be able to go in there, get what you need, and get out and figure out ‘what am I going do differently today to get a different result?’ For our people on the ground at the studio level, I just need them to get into the laser funnel, figure out which part of the business they need to work on to improve, and then do it.

Leonard: The biggest thing for me with them is really just the time, right? They’re already busy enough doing everything else in the studio on a daily basis just to run the business. To get them bogged down in two hours, two and a half hours of dissecting data just wasn’t scalable. If they’re really understanding how to use iKizmet, it’s 10-15 minutes a day really is all they need to do.

Leonard: I look at the holistic view every single day, probably multiple times per day, depending on what I’m doing strategically to plan. Then I’ll go into individual studios that aren’t performing and say, Hey, here’s where we are. Here’s what we need to do differently to get a different result.

Our business is very simple. It is not easy, but our business is very simple. Get leads, have them come in and experience the studio, have them have a great experience, and sell them something. I mean, that’s what we do. For sure, it saves me time too at the corporate level when it comes to understanding metrics at the corporate level. So when I’m at a meeting with individual studios, I’m able to have conversations with them, Hey, here’s the benchmark for the rest of the system. And either A, you’re pulling it up, or B, you’re pulling it down. And so what can I do to help?

Leonard: The simplicity of looking at the data, I think to me is the biggest piece and having it be a one-stop shop. I don’t have to go into multiple platforms and pull multiple reports and stick ’em into pivot tables and Excel spreadsheets in order to understand what’s going on. It’s all right there.

Get more insights into how YogaSix is leveraging the power of iKizmet in this customer success story.

Learn more about how iKizmet and see how leading fitness businesses and studios are using ClubReady to drive growth and scale their business.

For fitness businesses, retention is the key to success. Luckily, tracking it is easier with iKizmet.

When you break it down, the cost to acquire a new client is three times more than the cost to keep an existing client. This is why retention is so important for fitness studio owners.

After all, returning clients and members bring recurring revenue to your studio—and recurring revenue creates a reliable baseline. For example, if you have 200 members each spending $120 per month, you can count on $24,000 per month to cover salaries, bills, maintenance, marketing, and other studio expenses.

On the other hand, if you have roughly 200 people purchasing drop-in class passes at their leisure, it becomes difficult to track your baseline revenue and ensure you have enough to cover basic monthly expenses.

Ultimately, retention and recurring revenue go hand in hand. When you focus on building a community of engaged members, you naturally increase your recurring revenue and financial security. And that’s the goal of every fitness business, right?

Here are 4 tips to turn occasional drop-in visitors into loyal members.

An intro offer is a special promotion for first-time clients. With the right strategy, an intro offer is one of the best ways to entice and retain new clients.

The most effective intro offers typically employ a sense of urgency—without compromising value. For example, you might offer an irresistible 30 days of unlimited classes for $30 to get new clients through the door. To create urgency and convert these new clients to members, you could waive any enrollment fees or even offer a slightly discounted membership when they sign up during the intro offer period. For example, “Sign up for a membership before your intro offer expires and get $15/month off an annual membership.”

Other intro offer ideas include:

• 2 weeks of unlimited classes for $20
• Bring a friend: 2 for 1 enrollment
• 2 months unlimited for the price of 1 month

Putting a time frame on your intro offers encourages new clients to show up and give your studio a fair shot. Adding an extra discount or incentive, such as the discounted membership when someone signs up during their intro offer, cranks up the urgency—and increases the likelihood that a new client will stay at your studio (before bouncing off to try someone else’s intro offer).

To maintain control of your value, avoid offering free classes or regularly advertising deeply discounted classes through third-party platforms. If deeply discounted drop-in classes are always a tap away, you risk losing members (and devaluing your classes).

Use the iKizmet New Client Retention funnel and Client Profiles to see which of your introductory offers are most effective and to keep tabs on new clients. Track and encourage conversations—in-person, via email, over the phone—between your staff and new clients to ensure they have an outstanding experience and feel welcome back. Monitoring and tracking your new client’s experience can help to convert them to long-term clients.

View: New client retention funnel for measuring new client intro offers

View: A fitness studio client profile for managing client buying behavior.

The bottom line: Always design intro offers with the #1 priority of converting intro offers to memberships.

Speaking of value, your pricing plays a big part in retention. Strategic pricing can attract, encourage, and reward the loyal, high-quality clients you want for your studio.

The key is to determine the frequency of client visits at your studio. For example, if you offer group fitness classes, your average attendance will likely be higher compared to a studio that offers private or semi-private training.

To determine how often your clients visit, check out the Average Number of Visits Per Client chart in iKizmet. Once you determine your average attendance frequency, you can optimize your pricing for retention and recurring revenue. For example, if your clients visit on average twice per week, price your memberships so that the per-visit rate is significantly lower than if those clients were to buy single drop-ins.

You can also reward members with exclusive perks and discounts. For example, “members get a 15% discount on all clothing and merchandise” or “free weekend workshops for members.”

View: Average number of visits per client in fitness studios

The bottom line: Strategically price your offers so that the annual and auto-pay memberships are perceived as the best value.

This might seem like a no-brainer—but client engagement is not something that happens by accident. Always cater to your members because they are the heart, soul, and recurring revenue of your business. One way to ensure your clients and members are eager to return is to keep their go-to classes on the schedule. With iKizmet, you can easily track attendance per class through the Class Utilization Heat Map. You’ll know which classes are working for clients’ schedules and which classes are not producing high results.

View: Class utilization heat map showing average fill rate for fitness class and average revenue per class

The bottom line: Use data to track your members’ behavior and keep them happy.

To maintain and increase retention, it is important that you encourage client feedback-even rewarding feedback if appropriate. Providing a forum for clients to express their likes, dislikes, and opinions is essential. Staff can play a crucial role in gathering client opinions and ideas. While a tried and true option is always client surveys, another option a studio might opt for is using social media for feedback. If a studio has a large or engaged Instagram following, polls and questions posed in stories could provide valuable insight as to what clients love, like, and dislike.

The bottom line: If you’re unsure about your clients likes or dislikes, just ask.

iKizmet offers a powerful suite of analytics features that help you fill classes, retain clients, and maximize revenue. New workouts, new technology, and more studio options than ever have changed the game for businesses in the fitness industry. To stand out in an increasingly competitive market, you need to know your numbers. That is, the data behind your business.

Think of it this way—looking at your data is like looking under the hood of your business. It allows you to identify what’s running smoothly, what needs a tune-up, and what’s just plain broken. But wading through spreadsheets of data for answers can feel like navigating a foreign city without a map. Luckily, iKizmet makes it easy to keep tabs on all aspects of your business—easily, visually, and in one place.

With iKizmet, you can see trends year-over-year and month-over-month, set and track data-based goals, monitor your class attendance, and know which clients you’re at risk of losing.

Your fitness business exists to help people achieve their goals. Likewise, you probably have goals for your business: to bring in new clients, keep them coming back, convert them to members, and increase your recurring revenue. When your business succeeds in reaching its goals, you gain more opportunities to serve more people. See the cycle?

Good news: setting and tracking your goals has never been easier. The all-new goal-setting feature in iKizmet allows you to establish month-over-month goals for the metrics that matter most to your business. Once you set your goals, iKizmet automatically tracks your progress in your online dashboard, as well as sending weekly emails to help you stay on track.

The benefit of goal setting is twofold. When you align your organization around shared goals, you’ll see an uptick in productivity because each team member will know where to focus their effort. For example, if your goal is to increase intros retained by 10%, your team can go the extra mile to nurture new clients who purchase an intro offer.

Goal setting also allows you to track your progress and proactively address problems before they become detrimental. In this case, imagine you set a goal to increase new clients by 5%. Throughout the month, iKizmet will tell you exactly how many more clients you need to hit your goal. Halfway through the month, you’ve only acquired 25% of the new clients needed. Given this insight, you have the opportunity to ramp up your marketing and sales efforts.

Your fitness business relies on class attendance for revenue, right? If your answer is “yes”—you know how important it is to optimize your class schedule for maximum attendance. To do this, you need to know what class types, days, times, and instructors your clients love. There are a few ways you can gain this insight:

Client surveys. Although sending out a client survey may seem straightforward, it’s difficult to calculate the accuracy of your results. Surveys depend on people to actually participate—and provide honest feedback. Because of this, surveys leave a lot of room for bias and error.

Export the data. Depending on your fitness class scheduling software, you might have the option to download a CSV report of class data. The problem here is that most scheduling softwares specialize in … well, scheduling. This leaves you to sort and navigate the data on your own.

Visualize the data. The quickest and most accurate way to optimize your class schedule is to look at comprehensive data using a visual chart, such as the class utilization heatmap in iKizmet. When displayed visually, historical data tells the full story behind attendance so you can evolve your schedule based on demand.

The iKizmet class utilization heatmap gives you an overview of your entire week of classes, making it easy to see the percentage of attendance across the board. To drill down into the details, simply hover over any given class to see month-over-month attendance, revenue, and the all-time total number of classes and clients.

With the class utilization heatmap, you can quickly identify popular and unpopular classes. Say, for example, you offer a 7:30 AM vinyasa class Monday through Friday. Attendance averages 80% every day except Wednesday, when attendance drops to 35%. Knowing this allows you to explore the cause and find a solution to increase attendance and revenue, whether it means putting a different instructor on the schedule, removing overlapping class times, or canceling the class altogether.

This insight also provides real-time feedback for your instructors, making it easy to celebrate outstanding attendance and coach issues with low attendance before they become problematic. The result of tracking attendance rates? You increase client engagement, support the attendance goals of your instructors, and boost morale all around.

As a fitness studio owner, you and your team work hard to bring in new clients. But how do you make sure those clients keep coming back? New client acquisition is often time-consuming and expensive, which makes retention indispensable.

Client ‘quick facts’ makes it easier to keep in touch with your clients, know who needs a little extra TLC, and reach out with just one click. This iKizmet feature aggregates vital data for each of your clients in one place, including:

• Contact info
• First visit date
• Most recent visit
• Next scheduled visit
• Lifetime spend per visit
• Total lifetime spend
• Total visits
• Membership status
• Referral source
• Favorite instructor
• Birthday

If it’s been a few weeks since one of your regular members came in for a class, for example, you might reach out and encourage them to check out their favorite instructor’s new class on Wednesday.

Or, if you have an inactive member, you can send a re-engagement email letting them know about exciting new happenings at the studio. Hey, maybe even offer them a free week to come back and try out the new schedule.

To keep your loyal members happy, send them a special discount or gift on their birthday and personalize your promotions based on their activity. All of these actions show you care and foster great relationships while promoting client retention. Win-win.

In Part 3, we’re looking at Class Capacity and Class Utilization. A great class schedule is a key to ensuring your clients stay engaged with your classes and your brand!

Your class schedule is an important component to your business and ensuring that your clients can attend your classes is key. Creating a profitable and engaging class schedule takes forethought, effort, and some knowledge of what works for your clients. There are a few things to consider when building a profitable (or as profitable as possible) class schedule during COVID:

• Increased staff time used for cleaning;
• Increased staff time used for check-in and set-up;
• Increased costs for cleaning products and safety protocols; and
• The costs of paying your teachers are the same.

Depending on your region, you may still be subject to studio closure mandates or to regulation on the capacity of your classes due to COVID. While you want your clients to be safe and healthy, it is still difficult to plan a class schedule that is profitable when you’re only able to have 10% of your capacity in your studio. Let’s face it, you’re likely running at a lower capacity than you were pre-COVID and your hourly staff costs and overhead expenses may be the same. Some studios have opted to continue to offer virtual and/or outdoor classes while they wait for a higher capacity. Others are ready to have their clients back inside their studio and will opt to have lower capacity in the meantime.

There is no “right” answer, however you will want to take into consideration how long you can run at a reduced capacity. We don’t know when things will return to normal, so preserving cash might be in your studio’s best interest. Whatever you decide for your business, make sure it is a thoughtful and data-driven decision. Use your iKizmet data to help guide you!

What is class utilization? We define Class Utilization simply as the percentage of spots filled for any given class slot. For example, a class that has a capacity of 20 clients with 15 clients who attend has a utilization rate of 75%. The higher the utilization rate, the more successful your class is viewed. However even with a reduced capacity, you can still ensure that your utilization percentage is high.

Don’t have iKizmet? To get this number manually, you’ll need to pull Attendance reports from your CRM. To get your utilization rate, you’ll need to divide the spots filled for each class by the total available spots for that class. Yes, this can be time-consuming.  However once done, you’ll have a good idea as to which classes and class time slots are popular.

iKizmet’s Utilization Heat Map is the way to visualize your class schedule, celebrate high performing classes, and easily see problematic class slots. iKizmet clients can get a breakdown of the Class Utilization page in this help article. Here, you can see an overview of your entire week of classes, making it easy to see the percentage of attendance across the board.

Let’s face it, the world has changed quite a bit in the past six months. Your business has too. When building your class schedule, there are some constants that still work, such as:

• Using data to help you decide how to stagger your classes and ensure they are as profitable as possible (or as close to profitable as possible).
• Using client feedback -surveys, email questionnaires, social media polls (e.g. Instagram polls), etc.
• Trial and error -while making sure you are keeping a close eye on your results!

What was your utilization rate in the months before COVID? Go through your iKizmet data and see where you stood prior to COVID. This data might provide you with a reasonable framework for which classes and times were popular. However, it’s important to keep in mind that your client’s schedules may have changed due to working from home (WFH) and distance learning.

Will increasing class times (at reduced capacity) be profitable? If you want to offer more classes so that you can offer time to all your clients, you might need to take a step back. Increasing classes to make up for the slots you are missing due to reduced capacity may not be profitable! Does your staff cost justify offering certain class times & days? You may have to pay the same overhead rates and increased staff costs for cleaning. You’ll need to find a healthy balance of offering enough classes safely and efficiently to ensure that your business’ health.

After all, you want to preserve cash and keep your business running lean and mean so you can get through this tough season and continue to offer your clients fitness classes that boost their health and wellness. Your ability to survive through these hard times depends on smart decision-making and back those decisions with the data from your business.

February 2, 2021 | Today, ClubReady, the leading provider of full-suite studio fitness and wellness club management software and services, announced the acquisition of iKizmet, the leading data analytics provider in the fitness industry.

Through this acquisition, fitness studios can bring a predictive approach to fitness studio growth, leverage improved analytics tools allowing them to unlock earning potential, capitalize on utilization trends, and optimize member acquisition and retention.

Fitness studios collect data from hundreds of members and prospective members, across multiple channels, over several years, representing thousands of transactions. Studio owners work to derive insights from that data and then draw on those insights to shape business decisions and, ultimately, improve business performance. But many owners struggle to consolidate all of this information into a report that actually means something and that can be used going forward.

With iKizmet, studios can now easily develop dashboards that visually demonstrate performance against revenue, recruitment, and member acquisition KPIs.  Additionally, owners can easily analyze member utilization and spend behavior, accurately goal-set and forecast their business performance, evaluate their revenue, and also factor in conversion and churn metrics in order to establish the KPIs needed throughout the entire member relationship lifecycle.

“The Sales and Marketing funnel in iKizmet has been a game changer for our YogaSix franchisees” said Mike Leonard, National Sales Director at YogaSix. “The ability to understand and see where new potential customers are getting stuck in our sales process is fundamental in creating success.”

With the data easily accessible on a mobile device, and reporting pushed via email sends, studios, regardless of the studio management platform, can begin to pivot their business in real-time by adjusting marketing strategy, staffing, and class scheduling. Studio owners can own their data, access performance KPIs from anywhere, and respond to their business at all times.

“This acquisition is meaningful to iKizmet customers because it provides us with the resources to accelerate our product vision and company mission which is core to building a network of successfully run studios” said Stephanie Moran, CRO of iKizmet. “Data and information are the bedrock to any successful studio operation and joining forces with ClubReady will allow ClubReady customers the ability to transform their data into insights that make you future ready” added iKizmet CEO, Andres Moran.

Along with the integration of technology, the iKizmet team will also be integrated into the ClubReady organization. iKizmet CEO and Founder, Andres Moran, will join ClubReady as the General Manager and Senior Vice President of the iKizmet division. Stephanie Moran, CRO and Co-Founder will take on the role of Senior Vice President of Business Development.

“ClubReady is committed to developing technology designed to deliver a member experience that offers peace of mind to both the members and the studio, while also running the studio with ease and precision” said ClubReady President, Darol Lain. “The acquisition of iKizmet and the addition of Andres, Stephanie, and the entire iKizmet team, allows us to continue our mission of building fitness businesses for the future.” Learn more about the iKizmet analytics solution here.

Media Contact
Marilyn Cox, VP of Marketing,
Clubessential Holdings LLC
Email: mcox@clubessential.com

iKizmet is an analytics software enabling fitness and wellness businesses to track towards their goals with a comprehensive and customizable view of their day-to-day operations. Founded in 2014 by former MINDBODY founding member Andres Moran, iKizmet modernizes data reporting by providing a highly-intuitive and visual reporting solution for fitness business owners. Learn more at ikizmet.com.

ClubReady is the leading provider of full-suite studio fitness and wellness club management software and services. Founded in 2009, ClubReady has been committed to building the studio fitness business of the future.  The ClubReady Fitness Management Platform provides clients a full membership management and engagement experience to attract, retain and better serve their members. ClubReady’s Performance IQ enhances this platform with fitness tracking software that delivers high quality, real-time, individual and group fitness results leading to higher member engagement, retention, and loyalty. ClubReady’s iKizmet analytics solution brings a predictive approach to fitness studio growth, leverages improved analytics tools allowing studios to unlock earning potential, capitalize on utilization trends, and optimize member acquisition and retention.

Clubessential Holdings is a Battery Ventures company, fulfilling their global mission of investing in and creating cutting-edge, category-defining businesses by providing a full suite of membership and club management Software as a Service solutions to private clubs, health & fitness clubs, military organizations, municipalities, and college athletic programs. Across four brands – Clubessential, ClubReady, PrestoSports, and Vermont Systems – the company offers a variety of forward-thinking technology and services which help more than 8,000 customers attract, engage, and retain club and community members and fans for life. For more information, visit the Clubessential Holdings website.

ClubReady and iKizmet are excited to announce a new partnership to bring a predictive approach to fitness studio growth.

Fitness studios collect data from hundreds of members and prospective members, across multiple channels, over several years, representing thousands of transactions. Studio owners work to derive insights from that data and then draw on those insights to shape business decisions and, ultimately, improve business performance. But many owners struggle to consolidate all of this information into a report that actually means something and that can be used going forward.

Partnering with iKizmet, ClubReady customers can now easily develop dashboards that visually demonstrate performance against revenue, recruitment, and member acquisition KPIs.  Additionally, owners can easily analyze member utilization and spend behavior.

“We love ClubReady and iKizmet integration” says Joe Demarco, owner of several CycleBar studios in New York. “It’s great to have visibility into our studios and we are really seeing the impact it has on our areas of focus.”

With the data easily accessible on a mobile device, and reporting pushed via email sends, ClubReady customers can begin to pivot their business in real time by adjusting marketing strategy, staffing, and class scheduling. Studio owners can own their data, access performance KPIs from anywhere, and respond to their business at all times.

“iKizmet is the equivalent of a FitBit for your business” explains Founder, Andres Moran.  “Setting goals, tracking your progress, and making your business healthier has never been so easy.”

The ClubReady and iKizmet partnership is allowing studios to more accurately goal-set and forecast their business performance. ClubReady customers can analyze their revenue but they can now also factor in conversion and churn metrics in order to establish the KPIs needed throughout the entire member relationship lifecycle.

“Simply put, iKizmet connects you to your data. iKizmet is a data visualization and analytics platform, which connects your ClubReady data to provide real-time, actionable, synced information” says ClubReady’s Vice President of Business Development, Fred Elias. “Their numerous dashboards provided the insight necessary for your studio to improve member acquisition and retention, revenue growth and marketing ROI.”

On December 19th, ClubReady will host a webinar with iKizmet to discuss the changing landscape in fitness studio analytics. Additional details and registration can be found here.

iKizmet

iKizmet is an analytics software enabling fitness and wellness businesses to track towards their goals with a comprehensive and customizable view of their day-to-day operations. Founded in 2014 by former MINDBODY founding member Andres Moran, iKizmet modernizes data reporting by providing a highly-intuitive and visual reporting solution for fitness business owners. Learn more at ikizmet.com.

ClubReady

ClubReady is the leading provider of full-suite studio fitness and wellness club management software and services. Founded in 2009, ClubReady has been committed to building the studio fitness business of the future.  The ClubReady Fitness Management Platform provides clients a full membership management and engagement experience to attract, retain and better serve their members. ClubReady’s Performance IQ enhances this platform with fitness tracking software that delivers high quality, real-time, individual and group fitness results leading to higher member engagement, retention, and loyalty. ClubReady’s GYM HQ supports the mission by providing bundled club services, like customer service agents, payroll, accounting, and operations support.

Clubessential Holdings LLC

Clubessential Holdings is a Battery Ventures company, fulfilling their global mission of investing in and creating cutting-edge, category-defining businesses by providing a full suite of membership and club management Software as a Service solutions to private clubs, health & fitness clubs, and college athletic programs. Across three brands – Clubessential, ClubReady, and PrestoSports – the company offers a variety of forward-thinking technology and services which help more than 6,000 customers attract, engage, and retain members and fans for life. For more information, visit the following websites: Clubessential http://www.clubessential.com; ClubReady http://www.clubready.com; PrestoSports http://www.prestosports.com; and Battery Ventures https://www.battery.com/