Category: Podcast

I used to be head over heels in love with automation. Using a website to sell for us while our sales team was sound asleep? I loved it… and I was taking full advantage of it.

But that love affair ended when I realized my clients were missing a vital milestone in their journey. Namely, my personal touch and an opportunity to get to know me.

See, I firmly believe the most valuable tasks in your business {and those sweet spots where you see the biggest return on your investment} is where you invest your time. You’ll see a client change their life, and by doing that, you’re changing the world, person by person.

More importantly, by sharing your time, you create a personal connection — nay, a relationship, with that other human, which is one of the most powerful tools in your selling toolkit. Which is exactly why I turned my back on automation and returned to an old-fashioned sales technique.

Listen in as I share why I fell out of love with automation, how I still kept it around, and incorporated it into my wildly successful selling strategy.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• What made me fall out of love with automation but still kept it around and mixed it with another sales ingredient for a new, special blend
• Why your clients buy from you vs the studio down the street
• The 3 top super-easy ways I love to deliver a personal touch to my clients {with a complete breakdown so you can swipe my strategies!}

With Grit & Gratitude,

Lisé

 

At first blush, it looks like Maura Vella had it easy when she started her first hot yoga studio 12 years ago.

Her studio didn’t even have a sign out front a la a speakeasy, yet clients still flooded through her front door. Because her 105F studio was one of the very few places in Chicago to catch a fantastic hot yoga class.

But before you get jealous and think, “it could never be that easy for me,” know this: things changed for Maura in the last 5 years.

Hot yoga studios cropped up on every corner.

Competition became fiercer.

She had to buy a sign for her studio!

Those hurdles didn’t sabotage her business growth.

Instead, she’s used them as fuel to grow. She’s amped up her studio “babies” from 1 to 3 while growing her young family (she has soon-to-be 3 kids under the age of 5). Now, let me tell you, that’s a lot of spinning plates to balance, which makes her the perfect person to share how systems revolutionized her business approach.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• What mindset shifts needed to happen for Maura when she leaped from 2 to 3 studios
• How she delivers a personal experience to the 50-100s of new clients flowing through her doors… without burning herself out
• Why she considers this is her secret weapon in building a strong team
• How she doubled her memberships in 6 months with a swipe-worthy strategy

With Grit & Gratitude,

Lisé

If you’ve been a listener of the podcast for even just an episode, you’ve heard me share the concept of what’s called “the hero’s journey” when it comes to communicating and building relationships with our clients.

But the truth is, you can swap out the word “hero” for “entrepreneur,” and you’ll have virtually the same story.

The entrepreneur faces conflict, meets a guide who offers a solution, the entrepreneur finds a new path and process that leads to the next evolution of themselves as an entrepreneur as well as the growth of their business.

It’s a story structure that repeats in all our favorites books and movies, but I have to say, my favorite stories are those of my clients and students, like today’s episode guest, Katy Katzmann. 

You may be familiar with Katy from her first episode here on Ready. Aim. Empire., which I highly encourage you to listen to not just from her takeaways then, but to hear how so much has changed personally and within her studio, Bikram Temecula, in just a year’s time.

Beyond a 25% revenue increase, which is fantastic as a stand-alone statistic, the piece of Katy’s story that truly moves me is how she has blossomed from the harried business owner to a true entrepreneur who has loosened the reins and realized “control” is just a figment of our frenzied imaginations.

Hers is a story of personal discovery, revelation, and revolution, and if you find yourself wondering how you can turn around your current situation, you can do it just like Katy did.

One small step and commitment at a time, and maybe with a life-changing trip across the globe to bring it full circle… you’ll see what I mean when you listen!

In this episode you’ll learn:

• How Katy’s studio has achieved incredible growth in the last year {and the fundamental processes she used to do it}
• What mindset shifts and realizations she needed to make to allow for this growth, and how they came at just the right time
• Why she believes in making changes through small steps rather than a massive all-at-once overhaul
• How introductory packages have transformed her client’s journey, business growth and retention

With Grit & Gratitude,

Lisé

Do you remember when SoulCycle first burst out on the boutique fitness studio scene?

It felt pandemic…

People who had never been to a class were gushing about their friend’s experience exclaiming how they couldn’t wait to try it.

Your studio members may have even been gleefully swapping sweat session stories in your lobby.

And you may have found that your clients, while still adoring of you, chose to visit your studio one less time a week so they could also get in on the SoulCycle fun.

Over the years this has caused more than just a few cycle studio owners (and studio owners of all paradigms, really) to ask, “What gives? What is making SoulCycle this revolutionary phenomenon.”

And even more importantly, “How can we create something like this for our studio, too?”

Well, to put it simply, they’ve got a few “frenzy-building” factors working for them, but don’t for a second think that SoulCycle is the overnight success it appeared to be.

They started their empire just like many others… small and filling one seat in their first cycle studio at a time.

In fact, SoulCyclers who have been with them since the beginning, which is now just over 12 years ago, said that those first classes often only had a 9 to 10 people on a bike, and to get to the studio, you had to walk down a creepy passageway toward the murmur of more cheerful voices.

In addition to starting small, the founders and original core team at SoulCycle had some other foundational components that have contributed to their wild success, and I’m breaking them down for you in today’s episode.

But before you begin listening, I want you to keep this in mind…

SoulCycle did what all strong brands and sustainable businesses do, they cared about their clients and their experience more than they cared about themselves.

Sometimes that adage of “the customer’s always right” really means “let’s always treat the customer right,” and that begins with these five strategies you can learn from SoulCycle.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• How SoulCycle built a brand, not a business, and how that has helped them to develop their collective movement that entrances their audience
• The ways SoulCycle leveraged their small start to build an incredibly deep community and their process for turning new students into brand evangelists
• How SoulCycle’s hiring process and teacher training has shaped the SoulCycle standard and led to their large-scale growth
• Why rehearsing your client experience pays off in creating life-changing moments for your members
• The importance and mechanisms behind nurturing the SoulCycle phenomenon and forming a core expectation that gets people hooked before they ever step foot in your studio

With Grit & Gratitude,

Lisé