What should a Pilates studio spend money on?
Eugen Esanu, Founder of TimiTomi4 min read
The short answer
Spend your money on three things: a good booking system, the right location and good instructors. The booking system sells your classes and sends the reminders for you. The location needs low rent or a busy street, and low rent leaves you money for quality. Your instructors represent you when you are not there, so pay them well.
A booking system that works without you
You need a booking system that does the work around your classes. It sells your packs and memberships, sends the reminders and sends the emails. Then you do not have to think about it.
Every message you send by hand takes time, and every message you forget can cost you a booking. A good system sends the right message at the right time, every day, also on the days you teach.
Hi Maria, see you tomorrow at 18:00 for Reformer Pilates.
Thank you, see you there!
You have 1 class left in your pack. Would you like to buy your next one?
Yes, just bought it
Pack bought, and nobody wrote a message by hand
Choose low rent or a busy street
A good location has one of two things: low rent, or a lot of people who pass it every day. Choose one of the two, and choose carefully.
We chose low rent. Our studio is on the 5th floor, away from the busy streets. The rent is much lower, and we made the height our advantage: our customers get beautiful sunsets.
Rents near us can be €5,000, €7,000 or even €10,000 a month. At that price, it is hard to focus on anything else.
High rent forces you to play a numbers game
Imagine your rent is €7,000 a month, and a member pays about €25 a class. You need 280 bookings a month only to pay the rent. With 8 spots in a class, that is 35 full classes, more than one every day, before you pay a single instructor.
When your rent is that high, you cannot pay your instructors well, and you cannot offer quality. You start to chase numbers. But with 6 to 8 spots in a class, a numbers game makes no sense.
Pay your instructors well
Your instructors are the front of your business. They represent you in front of your customers when you are not there.
At our studio, we pay our instructors a fixed fee every month, no matter how many classes they teach. Not every studio does this. Near us, many instructors teach at 4 or 5 studios to earn enough.
We earn much less because of it. But the quality has always been there. Our instructors focus on the customers and on great classes, because they see that we reward them for it. They keep your customers, and they bring you new ones.
Good instructors take time
We did not start like this. It took us at least a year before our revenue allowed it. Many instructors joined us and left. In the end, we kept the ones who were a good fit.
A studio is a slow and hard business, with low margins. Plan each step, and plan for the long term.
What is not worth paying for
Some costs feel necessary at the start. These three are not worth your money:
- An ads agency. You can run your own ads. With €10 to €15 a day and a short video of your offer, you can bring new customers yourself. You do not need special knowledge for it.
- Extra marketing tools. A good booking system already sends your reminders and emails. Start with that, and with your own ads.
- Cheap spots on ClassPass or Urban Sports Club. Each spot you sell cheap on these apps earns less than your own price. A small ad of your own brings customers who pay your prices.
When this is not right for you
- You have a big budget. If you have investors or savings, you can pay instructors a fixed fee from the first month. We did not have that, so we built it over a year.
- Your classes are big. With 30 to 50 spots in a class, you play a numbers game. A busy street with high rent can work for you, because you can fill the room.
Your booking system in TimiTomi
TimiTomi sells your packs and memberships online and sends your booking confirmations and class reminders for you. It also writes to customers with low credits, and to customers with no booking for the week.
