From Pain Points to Profits: Addressing Sales Challenges in Boutique Fitness

Laura Munkholm and Walla Software provide insights on how to overcome sales management challenges and thrive in a competitive industry

Boutique fitness studios must operate as sales organizations – first and foremost. Without the acquisition of members, you have no business.

But managing the sales funnel is – put simply – quite complicated, especially for new or emerging studios and franchises.

Sales is one of a hundred things owners and operators must keep their eyes on daily, and as one of many, it can easily fall to the bottom.

Athletech News interviewed Laura Munkholm, an experienced studio manager, consultant, and current president and co-founder of Walla , to discuss the most crucial aspects of sales, how to steer clear of common pitfalls, and where to find solutions that help studio owners and operators overcome paralysis.

ATN: What is the current landscape of the boutique fitness industry when it comes to sales management?

LM : Studio owners live in a space where timing is critical. Reaction time to leads and member needs is paramount, yet they are handcuffed by technology and time.

The fitness landscape is fractionalized and segregated across several platforms. Scheduling and booking software almost without question needs CRM or an API connector to track leads or an external marketing platform. Jumping between these ancillary products slows things down and overall productivity wanes.

Meanwhile, keeping skilled staff in place to manage and foster leads and retain members is a struggle.

Another stubborn issue is the attribution of leads. Determining where each lead comes from can be nearly impossible when using multiple platforms and working with an ever-changing staff.

Given these combined challenges, many owners and operators find themselves paralyzed when it comes to managing the sales process.

ATN: What are the most critical things studio owners need to execute from a sales standpoint – especially emerging studios?

LM: The number one thing is timeliness. Leads must be responded to immediately. We live in an attention economy. If you don’t take action and communicate in the moment of intent, you can lose the attention of that potential client. Automation is necessary here to trigger an immediate text, email, or human response to fill the sales funnel.

Next, you need to know what attributes equal a ‘won client’ and exactly where your best leads are coming from within your marketing suite so you don’t waste money on ad spends that aren’t delivering. This tech has been lacking in the fitness industry and Walla recently addressed this with a new fully integrated sales tool within our CRM software. The Walla dashboard lets owners and operators know exactly where conversions are coming from – it’s front and center so there is no digging for information or running endless reports.

ATN: What are the main pain points for boutique studios when it comes to sales?

LM: The answer is different for small studios versus franchises. They have different pain points.

When it comes to independent studios, typically the owner or operator has to be the expert in everything, and that’s not realistic or sustainable. Ultimately the sales and marketing processes then fall to a low priority, when they should be the number one focus.

For larger franchise organizations, their pain points are around centralizing data, analyzing what’s working, and then customizing and executing that approach across multiple locations. An example of this is creating the appropriate text message response. This might differ across studios, but taking an individualized approach is incredibly time-consuming, so that presents a problem to many franchises.

ATN: How exactly can a management software platform assist here?

LM: One way we’ve addressed this at Walla is to create text and email messaging that allows for variables so that franchisees can deploy communication that is proven for success with their own variables layered in. The amount of time that can be saved here is unbelievable.

Also, it’s important to choose software that directly highlights the critical moments in a client’s journey. We’ve talked about converting leads and the need for immediate response. That’s a given. But also, technology can and should be used to track not just leads but members at all times, to identify members who might be ripe for upselling, or members who may be a churn risk, etc.

Walla gives these critical moments the spotlight on the studio dashboard so that operators and owners can respond, or use technology to respond, immediately.

ATN: How important is it – and why – to have one integrated platform?

LM: It goes back to that fractionalized approach. It’s inefficient. Working across multiple platforms leaves room for error, takes much longer to manage, and causes frustration. It’s antiquated.

At Walla, we took a holistic comprehensive, solution-oriented approach and built one native system that manages it all. It’s a streamlined method of marketing and a single source of truth for the sales process.

ATN: What features are the most important in a CRM for emerging franchises?

LM: We’ve spent a lot of time working with consultants to the top brands in the industry like F-45 or Xponential to get a clear picture of what features scaling franchises need.

For franchises, making marketing and business decisions based on a single source of truth – centralized data — is critical. I think this is another piece of tech that’s been missing in the industry.

For franchisees, the ability to step into a “business in a box” with a marketing suite that’s built for them and can be easily customized is incredibly enticing.

ATN: What are some features that are unique to the Walla software?

LM: First, we worked with behavioral psychologists regarding what motivates people to succeed and built personality types that are embedded into the platform. Studios can now curate specific member journeys by personality type.

Second, as I’ve mentioned, the software has been designed to support all aspects of the business so owners, operators, and staff don’t have to toggle between platforms. And is a single source of truth for sales.

Third, I think the dashboard acts like a studio’s information nexus. It’s intuitively designed to highlight the most important information daily.

It also arms instructors with information regarding who will be in class, so they can give a shout-out to a long-term member or put a first-time participant at ease.

ATN: What are the best words of advice you can give to studio owners?

LM: My best advice is to always remember you are a sales organization first and foremost. And you get to sell the best product in the world…wellness!

To succeed in the boutique fitness game you have to employ curated marketing strategy and sales processes.

The more you can refer back to a single source of truth the more confident you’ll be and the more success you will see in gaining and retaining clients.

Ultimately, we operate in a human-to-human business. By enhancing human interaction with powerful, intelligent technology, you can achieve greater precision, timeliness, and authenticity in your interactions and client relationships, setting yourself up for success.

The post From Pain Points to Profits: Addressing Sales Challenges in Boutique Fitness appeared first on Athletech News .