Four commercial leases in 17 years. Technically five, but the first one was a disaster in the making and ended before it began. Still, four is more negotiating than I ever expected to experience, and the subsequent period of dealing with the terms we agreed on has provided a steep education in this essential element of business ownership. Here’s some of what I’ve learned:

Landlords are not villains.

Most of them are small business owners, too. They have mortgages, tax bills and a giant building that needs a new roof. Not to mention all of the liability that comes with it. I have had two incredibly dear landlords who I still keep up with today. But a lease is written by their attorney to their benefit, and your job is to make it work for you, too. The good news is that nearly everything is negotiable. The bad news is it takes either guidance or practice to get it right.

Start with the LOI.

The letter of intent is where the real negotiating happens. It’s only a page or two and isn’t binding, but it covers the big terms, including rent rates, allowances and major repair responsibilities. This makes up the nuts and bolts of your lease agreement, ideally providing terms that are neutral-to-favorable for you.

Once you’re into the lease itself, you’re sifting through forty pages of confusing legalese where every edit costs you expensive attorney time and goodwill with the landlord. If you can get the big picture settled in the LOI phase, the lease is much, much easier.

Hire a broker. It probably won’t cost you a dime.

Many business owners skip hiring a tenant’s broker because they assume it’s expensive. But it’s the landlord who usually pays the commission. And you simply cannot beat the market knowledge a broker brings to the negotiation. They often know the landlord and building of interest and have negotiated on it previously, providing you with immeasurable insight on terms. Plus, they’re a buffer for you so you can stay pleasant with the person you’ll be paying rent to for the next five or ten years.

A good attorney will cost way more than a dime, but it’s worth it.

Like the broker, your attorney has likely redlined a lease for this landlord or building. They know the quirks and terms already written into the lease and the negotiations the landlord is likely to agree to. And there is still plenty to negotiate in this phase. For example, if you’re planning a potential sale of your business, your attorney can help negotiate terms for a reassignment of your lease. This is just one of many examples of what’s possible with an attorney working on your behalf. To be sure, your landlord will have their own attorney redlining the lease in their favor.

HVAC: ask for the world.

Heating and air is among the most expensive repair a business owner can have. If you’re already a homeowner, you know what I’m talking about. It’s somewhere in the low five figures to replace a unit, not to mention the hundreds of dollars worth of repairs before realizing it just needs to be replaced.

Your LOI is the phase for this negotiation, and the details of it will be refined in the lease. Open by asking the landlord to cover all repairs and replacement for the full term, along with any lease extensions. They will almost never agree, but ask anyway. On my current lease, I ended up with the landlord covering the system for year one and me covering it after that. Prior to that, I negotiated a super favorable situation where the landlord covered everything over $350. And that was the unit that failed and needed replacement! Starting high is how you get to the middle.

Tenant improvement allowance: the fun (albeit expensive) part.

Always ask for TIA. This is an allowance that funds your studio vision. Fresh paint, new floors and lighting, a fancy sign. Whatever they cover, they’ll own at lease-end, but you’ll enjoy the hell out of it in the meantime. I’ve negotiated upwards of $10 per square foot, and that’s a reasonable place to start. Longer terms and spaces that need a change-of-use or major demo will justify more. Just note that it’s usually paid out after all construction is complete, so you’re on the hook for the build-out expenses until then. Reimbursement is released once all lien waivers are signed by the contractors. So plan your cash flow accordingly.

Rent abatement: 90 days, separate from TIA.

Typically, we’re still paying rent and running our business in space A while negotiating for space B. So rent expenses are ongoing. Plus, if you have a refresh or build-out planned, your contractors will need to start work weeks or months before you move in. This is where rent abatement is a dream necessity. Ask for 90 days before rent starts, regardless of how much TIA you get. These are two separate asks. No business owner wants to pay double rent while you paint, install lights and argue with the city over permits. It’s a standard ask and essential for cash flow.

Negotiate base rent and NNN rates.

Most major cities have base + triple-net lease structures. This means you’ll pay a base rent cost per square foot in addition to a NNN cost per square foot. Triple net is your share of the building’s taxes, insurance and common area maintenance (CAM). Building class, neighborhood and visibility are variables in your cost per square foot for base rent. But there’s usually some wiggle room here. Always negotiate a lower number on base. Triple-net is different. This rate is passed down by the landlord based on estimates from the previous year. So it’s often not as negotiable. But you can influence this, too…

Cap annual increases on base rent and NNN.

Each year, your base rent and NNN costs go up, but you can negotiate the percentage increase. For base rent, I’ve signed at 2.5% and negotiated as low as 2%. Triple-net requires a bit more effort:

• Confirm your pro rata share. Get the building’s total square footage and your square footage, and do the math yourself. One of my coaching clients made this simple calculation and found her share was written into the lease incorrectly. So she brought the revision to the landlord, he agreed and the lease was updated prior to execution.

• Negotiate a cap on annual increases. Ask for a non-cumulative cap of around 3%. Then read what the cap actually covers. Landlords often exclude taxes and insurance, capping only the costs they control. But every penny matters here.

Parking: get it in writing.

Make sure the parking set aside for your customers stays that way. Buildings change hands, and a new owner can see your studio’s parking lot as a revenue stream. I learned this the hard way. Since then, my LOIs include a line item around parking. Negotiate reserved parking specific to your business in addition to unrestricted access to common area parking. You may not get the reserved spots but unrestricted access is essential.

Don’t forget about the extras including use, security deposits and personal guaranty.

• Exclusive use restricts the landlord from leasing the unit next door to a comparable business. In my case, I ask for exclusivity for Pilates, the Gyrotonic method, dance conditioning and strength training. This has saved me twice. You don’t want a competitor moving in next door. Of course, they’ll just move in across the street (true story), but control what you can control.

• Define permitted use by describing everything you do, including workshops and professional education courses. Have the landlord confirm zoning allows it and agree to cooperate if the city requires a change of use. All to say, it’s wise to do your own homework as the city will have the final word on whether or not you can operate, and your landlord will require his rent either way.

• A personal guaranty is very common. This means you’re personally liable for the rent if your business closes or defaults. (If there’s any question you can afford the lease, take a beat before signing as this is as binding as it gets.) Even still, try to limit it by negotiating an expiration of the personal guaranty after two or three years of on-time rent. I’ve had it go it every which way, and some landlords simply won’t budge on a full-term guaranty.

• Negotiate renewal options with caps on base and NNN. A renewal based on your existing increases is pure gold. You don’t have to exercise it, but it’s worth outlining now as it’s a major factor should you ever wish to sell your business. A renewal at “fair market value” is a coin toss, and if you’re in a city like Austin where FMV is nearly double what it was 5 years ago, you’ll be looking and negotiating all over again at lease-end.

• More on selling your business: if you have grand designs to do so, alert your attorney to adjust the assignment and subletting language. Your buyer has to be able to take over the lease, ideally without your personal guaranty still attached. If your lease doesn’t allow it, your exit plan just got very complicated. Ask me how I know.

The bottom line: you have more leverage than you think.

Landlords are just like us. They’re seeking drama-free stability and goodwill. They want quiet tenants who pay on time for years, and that’s exactly what a well-run studio does. When negotiating your lease, ask for more than you expect. Let your broker carry the hard conversations. Read every line before you sign. If you don’t understand the legalese, ask your attorney (keep it brief, s/he’s expensive!) Empower yourself with generous terms that set you up for success.

-Amanda

The prevailing advice for an entrepreneur is to “open with the end in mind.”

As a business owner, this means eventually removing yourself from the day-to-day as much as possible. Documenting everything and hiring adequate support so the business can run without you.

In a studio environment, this also means reducing teaching hours significantly. Like nil to none.

The litmus being: if you took a month off and were unreachable, would your studio sink? If a buyer inquires, can you prove that your studio will run smoothly with detailed documentation and long-tenured employees, therefore justifying its sales price?

I’ve witnessed as colleagues and friends sell or buy other studios, and those steps are real indicators of a business’s value. So the advice shakes out. And besides, a business that doesn’t own you is a better business, right? Whether or not you’re planning to sell.

So I did my version of all that. Minus the client instruction piece. I just couldn’t step away from that.

Faced with a new lease decision in late 2021, I opted for the bigger, more sellable space. I then set to work, documenting every process in the studio down to the last detail, even hiring the holy grail of owner-support roles: a salaried front desk that professionalized client-facing operations.

Over a period of two years, I removed myself from most elements of the business because I was told this would “maximize my multiple,” broker-speak for garnering the highest possible price for your business.

But I never had both feet in the deal. I complicated it at every turn by continuing to teach and angling to sell only the Pilates portion of the studio. My frustrated brokers supported me as I went through the lengthy process of pulling my business apart on a spreadsheet, recasting my P&Ls to exclude clients I planned to “keep,” along with all of the Gyrotonic equipment and revenue. I ended up whittling the business down by half. It looked okay to me, but it would take a rare buyer and an even rarer bank to fund the deal.

It eventually became clear I wasn’t ready to sell. Still, we forged on fielding prospects who were looking for a business, any business, to buy. One was looking to acquire a business for his daughter who was still finishing her undergrad in marketing. She had recently “found” hot Pilates and loved it!

But, yeah, no.

Fact is, being half-in on selling a studio is not a recipe for success. Despite my disillusionment with the Pilates world, I was also protective of the integrity I had built around being a Classical studio, a niche I nurtured and protected to near exhaustion as the hot-Pilates-barre-boxing concepts popped up all over Austin.

Because behind the prospect interviews and phone calls were buyers with no local ties and not the slightest grasp of what my studio stood for. They just had money and the urge to buy something.

I was woefully underprepared for the emotional bond I had for a business grown out of a $5,000 investment. Did I really want to let it go, or was I just disenchanted with a fickle industry?

In my heart, the soul of the studio was alive and well. All the parts were thriving. But seeing it on paper, pared down to EBITDA and SDE, it was lifeless. A commodity made up of numbers I had to justify and defend. That part gave me the ick.

Getting to the truth behind wanting to sell was the real matter at hand. And through some soul searching I realized, I was just tired. Tired of hustling, always being “on,” managing people who care until they don’t, team and clients included. Having always worked two or three jobs at a time, I was too proud to call it burnout (textbook Type-A Gen-X here), but that’s what it was.

That, and perimenopause was kicking my ass.

In any case, it brought up real questions about our next chapter as a studio. So I’ve been sitting with them. And in the 18 months since I pulled the listing, I’ve figured a few things out.

Where I’ve landed today is this: the business I built to sell is not the business I actually want to run.

Yup. It was that simple.

I want it to run efficiently, yes. And of course I’m always looking at numbers because I want to pay my bills and provide jobs for others. But I also want to teach a full day and handle client accounts. I want to open the studio, organize the props and keep the toilet paper stocked.

But none of that requires a storefront studio, a salaried manager or an org chart designed to be handed off. It requires something that is infinitely harder to build and harder still to value on a spreadsheet: an environment where the work stays serious and the people doing it are cared for.

It also requires a bit more estrogen, it turns out.

So after a building in the other direction, then sitting in limbo for nearly two years, I’m trying to understand:

• How do you walk back scale without it looking like failure?

• How do you pivot a business without giving up your credibility?

• How do you make peace with letting enough be enough, when entrepreneurial culture insists that enough is a low-end goal?

It’s all a work in progress for me, and I don’t have answers yet. But the direction is clear. And for the first time in a while, it feels like mine.

-Amanda

I was recently accepted into the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program. It is a rigorous business education initiative, and the onboarding process requires answering specific questions about where my studio stands today.

Simple enough. Except I keep finding myself comparing every answer to where I was four or five years ago. The contrast is giving me pause. So today, I’m writing from the heart.

Five years ago, I had more clients than I knew what to do with. My problem was finding quality teachers, paying them something between what I could afford and what they asked for. And investing in their development because better teachers meant clients would stay.

We were absolutely thriving, but I was constantly scrambling to keep up with demand. The primary constraint back then was on the people side of the business. This is where that expensive lesson around payroll ceilings came into play.

The journey between then and now has been filled with additions and adjustments to the business. Most notably, an apprenticeship program intended to create a pipeline of well-trained teachers. And it did. But many of them graduated, worked with us for a while then returned to corporate life, left Austin or opened their own studios.

Today, the newer teachers on my team have standing openings. This is partially the nature of our work: unless you’re hired into a departing teacher’s schedule, it takes time to build from scratch. But there are some underlying issues, and the business is feeling it.

In short, and in comparison to five years ago, the constraint has shifted from a people issue to an experience issue. And sitting with a Goldman Sachs questionnaire asking me to describe my current challenges forced a realization about mature businesses in general.

Earlier this summer I wrote about deciding not to replace my studio manager when she gave notice. What looked like a staffing decision was actually a gut-check: was the business model I hired her into still the right model? For me, right now, it’s not. So what does the right model look like? That’s the quest I’m on.

I also shared my Q2 findings, which inspired some soul-searching about the way many of us run our studios. Consumer confidence had hit a historic low and boutique fitness was getting squeezed from both ends. It began to feel like a pivot was in order.

This is the part of mature business ownership that does not get discussed enough.

A studio that has been running for many years has real advantages: a client base, a reputation, systems that mostly work and a reliable team. Those things take time to build and are worth protecting. It also provides some cushion when I need to take a moment and reassess what the hell is going on in our industry.

On the other hand, stability can create a kind of inertia. The instincts that built my studio were sharpened against the challenges of a different decade and a different season of business. I can be doing everything right by the standards of five years ago, but it may not be enough to take me into a new chapter.

So here I go, taking my minimal spare time and investing it into an intense business program. I’m still a week away from my first class and it’s already doing the work. Just one prompt surfaced a comparison I’d been too busy to make on my own: five years ago, my constraint was staffing. Today, it's experience. Same studio, different season.

-Amanda

Just this month, a coaching client shared she was on track to achieve her annual revenue target. For the first time ever. After many years of studio ownership.

She knew because we have spent the better part of this year organizing her numbers. Tracking revenue, transitioning clients to auto-pay, untangling overhead costs and coming to terms with the gap between what she was earning and what she needed to earn.

None of this came naturally to her. Like the rest of us, she got into studio ownership the old-fashioned way: as a popular teacher with entrepreneurial dreams, it was a natural next step.

Our work together began earlier this year. The studio was clearly busy, but behind the scenes, it was disorganized and confusing. Bookkeeping was successfully outsourced but reports were done manually and didn’t link to a shared software (like Quickbooks or Xero) for easy access. She also had more than a few of those clients who hold more sessions than they actually attend. And a recent software migration compounded her financial mystification.

Eight months later, her numbers are clear. She can see her successes with stable, recurring revenue, knows where she stands year-to-date, and is able to see other aspects that need attention, outlined in a way she could act on.

This is what I want for every studio owner.

But before I continue to the math, I want to call attention to the notion that numbers get in the way of the mission.

A teacher I love and respect once told me (with the kind of certainty that can only come from believing you’re entirely right) that my consulting practice was evidence I had stopped taking the teaching seriously. She meant it as a criticism. Her logic, as far as I could follow it, was that a dedicated teacher couldn’t also be this adept in the business side of things.

It’s an unreasonable logic. But I hear whispers like this all the time in our industry.

It goes something like this: focusing too intently on the financial side of the business is somehow at odds with the reason we opened a studio in the first place. The refrain being: The service is what matters most. The numbers are icky, greedy, the wrong approach.

That couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s a hill I’ll die on. Of course, if I die on that hill, it’ll be with a cushy savings account because I am worth it. But I digress.

What I have learned after 24 years of teaching and 17 years of studio ownership is this: being an exceptional teacher is how you take care of clients and how you model your vocation to apprentices. That much is true. But getting comfortable with the numbers is how you protect that service, your ability to take care of those clients and grow the next generation of teachers.

You can have it both ways.

A studio that doesn’t know where it stands financially cannot make good decisions about its future. Full stop. Math isn’t the enemy here. It’s what makes your mission sustainable over the long term. So you can still be here in another ten years, doing the work you love with the clients who need it.

Now back to the numbers.

Start with your annual revenue target. If you set one in January, use that. If you didn’t, take last year’s gross revenue and apply a growth rate percentage (see below) that fits your your situation.

Scenarios at mid-year

Here is a working example for a studio with an annual revenue target of $300,000:

• Annual target: $300,000

• Monthly target: $25,000

• First-half target (January–June): $150,000

Scenario A — On track:

• First-half actual revenue: $152,000

• Revenue needed July–December: $148,000

• Monthly average needed: $24,667

If fall is one of your busy seasons, your schedule should handle this comfortably.

Scenario B — Behind (a common pattern in late summer):

• First-half actual revenue: $135,000

• Gap at mid-year: -$15,000

• Revenue needed July–December: $165,000

• Monthly average needed: $27,500 (+2,500 above original target)

In Scenario B, the studio needs to earn an additional $2,500 to realize the annual target.

Achieving that monthly premium looks different for every studio. For most of us, it’s some combination of package-to-monthly-membership conversion, a modest rate adjustment and welcoming back 2-3 clients who traveled over the summer. The difference accumulates quickly across a full schedule over four months.

About rate adjustments, memberships and win-backs.

• Rate increases are easier in September than they are in June: In the early fall, many clients are setting their routines and are least resistant to change. October is harder. November, forget about it. Patterns are usually solidified and there’s more friction with looming holidays and such.

• Look at package clients with standing weekly reservations: Introduce a 2-3% increase on packages but calculate a similar or slightly reduced per-session rate for a committed membership. A membership almost always bumps up monthly revenue. If they are booked out through end of year, it’s worth the conversation. Factor in suspensions for the holidays, and most clients are game to switch.

• Romance those new intro clients: Greet them warmly, book them with your superstar instructor and follow up. Most of these warm clients know if they’ll continue long-term after the first session. Make it an exceptional experience. Offer a standing time through year-end and present the most compatible pricing option.

• Reach out to lapsed clients worth engaging: The ones who summer in Tahoe are likely back home now. Offer their existing schedule with a pricing option to match. Then look further back for clients who haven’t returned since last holiday season. Life gets in the way! Invite them back to a routine.

All this to say, the goal here isn’t to spend September staring blindly at spreadsheets and hustling for business. Give yourself an hour of dedicated attention to this year’s numbers. Doing so will protect you from four months of guessing and stressing.

And my client, the one who is organized and on target for 2026? She didn’t spend hours every month on this. She organized it so she could run a single monthly report and adjust a thing or two based on what she found.

That alone will be enough. And stay tuned for next month where I’ll share some of my tried-and-true approaches to finishing the year strong.

In the meantime, if you need a second set of eyes on your numbers, I’m here to help. I have a complimentary 20-minute call standing by for you with no obligation to meet beyond that. Talking numbers is a form of therapy. Let’s support each other.

Paid subscribers, see below. I have a handy calculator for you to crunch these numbers to your heart’s content.

And thank you for reading.

-Amanda

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Many of us set intentions at the start of the year. Lofty ideals around work-life balance, a specialized course or some update to your studio. Mine run the gamut. I’m always looking toward refinement. Making it easier, steadier; investing more in my team, digging deeper into my own studies. All to keep the inspiration alive for our clients.

I also look at my numbers.

Never in a trillion years did I see myself as a spreadsheet person. Putting numbers in, googling formulas and making calculations happen. Then to be able to read it, understand it and make decisions from it!

All that from someone who arrived college with a Smith-Corona typewriter.

My grade school years were filled with dance training and competitive tennis, both of which I loved but it wasn’t going to be my career. I was an average student, but I absolutely stunk at math.

I always loved writing and literature. A reluctant introvert, I knew a career in Journalism was for me. I then spent nearly 15 years as a professional writer, moonlighting as a Yoga and Pilates teacher to stave off the sedentary nature of my work. Which meant I arrived at studio ownership knowing how to do exactly three things: write, move and teach.

Numbers were not on my radar at all.

I mention all of this because it proves that you don’t have to be innately skilled at math to make it work for you. All you need is to make a bunch of financial mistakes with a young business that you have to climb out of. That’s how I learned.

Everything was very basic for me in the beginning. I modified an Excel template for budgeting. It had three columns: expected income, bills that were due and what was left over. I did this weekly to keep my anxiety at bay.

Today, my spreadsheets are very different. Out of sheer necessity, I have become quite proficient. Nerdy even. I simply love data because it’s not emotional. It doesn’t lie to me. I can wordsmith my way around just about anything. But math? Nope.

Which brings me to September, my favorite month of the year as a business owner. It's when I take what Q1 and Q2 told me and put it to work. With four months remaining in the year, it’s usually enough time to make adjustments.

All to say, I know how easy it is to get lost in the shuffle of a business year and forget to measure against the thing you set out to accomplish. So whether you have a goal that’s drifted or never set one at all, September is the perfect moment to reset for a strong finish.

In the next issue, I’ll take you through how to build a second-half target from scratch, and how to course-correct if what you find is not what you were hoping for.

-Amanda

You feel it months before you act. Something shifts in the studio: the energy changes, the air feels charged. A dynamic that was not there six months ago has settled, and nobody is naming it. Certainly not you. Your instinct is solid, but you decide to wait, manage around it and hope it resolves.

Instincts are funny things. You know something is up, but you can’t name it explicitly. Or maybe you can, but you won’t. But it’s there. And avoiding it is usually expensive.

Early on, I had a teacher who was exceptional on the floor. She lit up a room and clients adored her. Although she was early in her career, she became the star of my studio, booked out and waitlisted.

She also gradually became a management problem. Not all at once, but incrementally. The kind of behavior that is easy to rationalize in isolation, until one day you are staring down another conflict together and wondering how it evolved here.

I’ll tell you how it got there. It was because of me. Small moments were ignored and instincts were suppressed because she was that good with clients. And at the time, I believed that mattered most.

Eventually, we arrived at a conflict I couldn’t ignore. So I brought it up. I meant it to be casual, but it landed as an admonishment. She resigned four days later. I was heartbroken, embarrassed and terrified of the fallout. And then I was angry. Sitting with it, I knew it was all on me. I allowed the dynamic to fester because of what I tolerated.

And of course my team saw it, too. There was a quiet but mounting toll that my team absorbed as I tolerated something I shouldn’t. The standards I held everyone else to were revealed as negotiable. It turned my leadership into a question mark.

As a learn-by-failure kind of person, I usually have to suffer a bit before something actually sticks. Most situations shouldn’t require that. But if you catch the pattern early enough and do something about it, the suffering is optional.

It’s been many years, and I’ve since nurtured a small but tight team. I’ve gotten better at listening to those early instincts and getting ahead of certain behaviors.

The telltale for leaders is avoidance. Something off-putting happens at the studio and we look the other way, thinking it’s a singular event or something taken out of context. For one of my coaching clients, it was bracing for staff meetings because one person reliably made it harder than it needed to be. And for another client, it was adjusting her own schedule at the studio to avoid another’s behavior.

Of course, it impacts business. Astute clients might notice a changing dynamic in its early stages. And like you, they aren’t saying anything. But they are communicating in other ways. They cancel. They switch teachers. Some just leave altogether.

All the while, our best team members are watching how we handle it. They’re recalibrating their sense of what the standards are based on what we tolerate.

Naturally, the mental energy a studio owner spends managing around this person is exhausting. The low-level vigilance carried into the studio every day is not free. It’s just not visible on the P&L. Every month you wait, the cost compounds.

Most of us eventually act at some point, and when we do, the sequence is straightforward: a compassionate conversation, email follow-up, perhaps a performance improvement plan (PIP) with specific targets and clear consequences if they are not met.

But when someone does leave, I often recommend letting the vacancy sit for a moment. The empty seat often has something to say about what the business needs. Have a listen. Let it resurrect the instincts you initially intuited. What might work better? What standards need refining?

Every element of your business has a season, and that goes for your team, too. So next time something feels off, listen and observe. Look for patterns. Let your instinct guide you toward the conversation you have been avoiding.

-Amanda

For years, I took draws to pay myself. In good months, I paid myself well. Slow months, not so much. This approach felt responsible at the time because I believed I was building something. “Reinvesting,” as it were.

What I was actually doing was treating my own compensation as optional.

I ran my studio as a sole proprietor for way longer than I should have. When I eventually applied for S-corp status with the IRS, the structure required me to pay myself a reasonable W-2 salary. Essentially, paying myself what I would pay someone else to do my job.

I started small, maybe 40k. It was a big step for me as a studio owner to have a regular paycheck on direct deposit. It wasn’t quite enough for my expenses, but I supplemented with draws whenever the studio had a good month.

Still, for the first time, my salary was a line item on the bookkeeping report. And it changed everything for me, including how I priced our services.

So when a coaching client tells me she’s fully booked but financially unstable, I have a specific sequence that we walk through to secure her spot on payroll.

Here’s the breakdown:

• Expenses: not all are fixed. Some are habits, like the subscription that made sense two years ago, or a vendor relationship that hasn’t been renegotiated. Soft costs can accumulate slowly but add up significantly. This is a good place to start because it is the one place you have immediate control.

• Payroll: covered in Issues 3 and 5. For a boutique studio with a teaching team, payroll and instructor costs should max out at 40% of gross revenue. If you’re above that range, a painful but necessary shift needs to happen.

• Rent: this is where it gets hard. Industry benchmarks for boutique fitness put rent at under 15% to 20% of gross revenue. When your lease runs above that threshold, it can hamstring you for years. Unfortunately, I’ve been there.

In this case, the only real lever is revenue.

• Pricing: many studio owners set rates by what the studio down the street charges. But competitors are increasingly made up of private equity and well-funded franchise networks. Austin is filled with them. Those studios offer rates that reflect their overhead, not mine. Benchmarking against them is a trap. An independent studio simply cannot compete with pricing that reflects a regional or national budget.

So I recommend a different exercise: pricing based on your overhead and owner pay. This is a completely different exercise than benchmarking against competitors. And for most studio owners, the number it produces can lead to sticker shock.

But there is a way to get there. I’ve done it myself many, many times, and I’ve stepped others through dramatic changes as well. So if you’re struggling to get yourself onto payroll consistently, take heart.

This summer, I reworked Somaspace’s pricing from a new perspective. I let our expenses get very lean, took a hard look at occupancy costs and built in a payroll budget to accommodate a teacher’s well-earned pay raise. Maybe I’ll get one, too.

I’ll share my methodology next week, including the revenue target I arrived at and the research behind it.

-Amanda

The year was 1992, and one of my responsibilities was counting every pickle in a five-gallon jar at the start and end of each shift. The glass jar sat atop the concessions counter at our dated, small-town movie theater, and it was my job to know exactly how many pickles were in it.

I was 16 and made $4.25 an hour. And like every other teenager in the world, I didn’t see the point.

My responsibilities were simple. At the start of every shift, I counted everything and wrote it down. The cups and popcorn buckets. The hotdog buns. The Jolly Ranchers. And of course those pickles.

At the end of every shift, I counted again. The difference between the two numbers ideally matched what we sold. I then reconciled the inventory against the cash in the drawer. If they didn’t match, I counted again or found out why.

Unofficially, I became the person responsible for closing out the register and signing off on inventory at the end of my shift. Training was informal, and I had no title for it. But I took it seriously.

What strikes me now, more than 30 years later, is how directly that work translates to what I do in my boutique studio every day. We provide a service, and that service is paid for by a client. The teacher is then paid. Overhead is covered. Every hour sold has to be accounted for.

This is where some studios struggle. In my experience, it’s rarely the teaching that’s the problem. It’s the counting. Who bought what, when, whether any of it is still owed.

Like concessions at any movie theater, a boutique studio has its own inventory. Ours just looks different, made up of packages, contracts and payroll obligations. And like my pen-and-paper inventory at the theatre, the bank account has to line up at the end of the month. The math may be more complex, but the discipline is exactly the same.

For those in the early days of studio ownership, if you are feeling underprepared when rent comes due each month, think back to the job that seems unrelated to your studio work. The one where you counted things, tracked things, handled money, kept a space running, served someone who was hard to please or showed up when you didn’t feel like it. The fundamentals from that job are the same ones this work requires.

At 16, my concessions job didn’t feel useful at all. What’s the lesson in counting pickles? But as it turns out, I was learning the basic math of running a business.

-Amanda

Our studio manager gave notice on a Monday. By Wednesday, I had decided not to replace the role.

Of course I’m disappointed. I adore her, and over the past two years, she became an essential part of my day-to-day, assisting me with documenting every operational detail of my studio.

Still, the prevailing reaction when a right-hand team member leaves is usually panic. But not me, not this time. Rather than anxiety, I feel opportunity.

This is partly due to having been around this block a few times. Resignations are a normal and natural part of the business lifecycle. In the past, I took them personally and left the meeting deeply gutted. But it’s different these days.

All of this happened nearly three weeks ago, and we have just two more days together.

In the time since her notice, we built an abbreviated, instructor-specific SOP from a longer one, created QR codes for opening and closing duties, shift-end tasks and late cancellations, held a team meeting that went better than expected and coached our instructors on using the app for client management.

The transition is well underway. It turns out to be a smaller effort than anticipated because everyone is leaning in together.

That result is not nothing. It is the result of teamwork: an old-fashioned notion in this era of AI-generated employees and volume-happy private equity studios.

It is also the thing that makes a studio like mine different from many of the new ones cropping up around Austin.

Things are changing in our local economy. Our quarterly analysis told part of the story. The other part is this: my studio is in a deliberate evolution. I’ve taken a long hard look at my studio, our industry and the local climate Somaspace was built for.

The boutique fitness market is being reshaped by private equity at a scale most independent studio owners are starting to feel. At least those of us operating in central business districts. Studios that have been lean for years are being outspent on marketing, facilities and the appearance of scale.

The instinct is to compete on those terms. But I’m choosing not to.

The decisions I’m making require patience and a willingness to move differently than the local market. Alongside with my independent studio colleagues, we’ve always been the outlier. A minor course correction and we’ll continue serving and succeeding in the ways that make us unique.

Some of these decisions revolve around operations. Before our studio manager resigned, we had already started moving the desk off the desk and into the studio, particularly for our intro clients.

The idea being: an instructor converting an intro client to a long-term pricing option is different than it coming from the front desk. Moving this conversation back to the instructor is a natural next step, as that’s where the relationship begins.

This is not a new idea. Many studios still operate this way, and it’s how Somaspace ran things from 2015-2022.

So why did we make a shift in 2022? The desk role grew largely from my desire for more support and a brief effort toward acquisition. It gave me much-needed space to host more GYROTONIC® coursework and build a studio coaching business. It also provided the simple luxury of help. Help with all the things: process documentation, team coverage, client management and just being my eyes-and-ears when I’m off-site.

But it also created a distance between the instructor and client. It detracted from our high-touch approach. And our instructors became increasingly oblivious of the actions needed to ensure their paycheck.

Redistributing those responsibilities is allowing us to course-correct. And with the admin payroll burden removed, it’ll help our margins considerably, too.

If you’re in the early days of studio ownership with no front desk, I understand exactly what your days look like. You are doing everything: teaching, following up, scheduling, checking clients out, answering texts.

Most people treat this as a phase to outgrow as quickly as possible. But after 17 years of trial and error, I say stay the course. It might just be the best model for financial sustainability.

That’s all for this week. We’ll see what the next one brings.

If you found this content valuable, please consider following me on Substack, liking my article, sharing it on social media or forwarding to a friend.

-Amanda

At the end of each quarter, I look at my numbers and reflect.

Q2 had a lot to say.

Memberships were up. Going into April, we sought to convert five package clients to 12-month contracts before June 30. And so we did. But we lost five package clients as well. Three stepped away for summer, one moved and another one who ghosted.

Package clients pay as they go and are casually committed. But contract clients, they pay every month and attend more regularly. So those five clients moving from one model to the other is an overall improvement to our financial structure. Big win for us there, despite the attrition.

Leads held steady from Q1. But our intros dropped off a bit.

Before making assumptions, I had some questions. We had a couple of days where 12+ leads came in. All with suspect emails and no phone numbers. Were they spam? Our automations hadn’t been updated for over a year. Was it stale?

And the biggest question: how easy is it to purchase an intro on our website?

A lead who doesn’t convert is not a lost client (yet.) She’s still a lead, ideally one conversation away from coming onboard. So there was some work to do, but nothing major.

Intro-to-long-term pricing option was also down. Upon seeing it, I leaned into a specific refinement I’d been considering for a while.

In late 2023, we moved all sales and client management to the front desk. Since that time, the desk has followed up on leads, presented packages and scheduled new clients in.

But our front desk doesn’t teach and isn’t present on the floor where the actual experience happens. So those initial sales conversations are coming from someone other than the teacher. That experience could land as abrupt no matter how well-scripted.

I wanted to shift those intro-period sales back to the teachers. Connection before commerce. A teacher who spends an hour with a new client is more authentic than a post-session sales pitch from the desk. So that’s a refinement we’re working on.

Gross revenue was down a smidge compared to the same quarter last year.

Despite the immediate anxiety it produced, recent calls with my mentor and co-working buddies confirmed everyone was feeling it. We researched this:

• Consumer sentiment in the United States fell to its lowest point on record in April 2026, according to the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index. That’s below the levels recorded during the 2008 financial crisis.

• Boutique fitness is being squeezed: budget gyms are picking up price-sensitive clients while high-end clubs are capturing clients who want to spend. The middle, where most independent studios operate, is feeling it.

• According to Bain and Company’s spring 2026 luxury market study, bookings for dining, leisure and entertainment are up over 30% this year. People aren’t spending less. They are spending differently, and this quarter they spent it on vacation rather than their standing Tuesday session.

Any drop in leads, intros or revenue is painful. But it’s not the same as losing long-term clients. Our active roster is intact. The metrics reflect a combination of factors: slower new client conversion, seasonal attrition and a genuinely difficult spending environment for premium service businesses.

I’m choosing to not panic. I’m looking at the data, comparing it across previous quarters and asking what’s mine to solve.

All this to say, quarterly analyses is always instructive. The numbers confirmed things I’ve been observing about our industry and what it means for studios like mine. That is a longer conversation, though. More on that later.

-Amanda

Most of us know the studio’s schedule and have a general idea of utilization. But active clients? That’s a nebulous, changeable number depending on how you define it.

Attendance is the easiest number to pull from most scheduling software: unique clients who showed up in a given period. Unfiltered, this will include the gamut: intro clients, drop-ins over ACL weekend and a client’s sister visiting from Vermont. Interesting, but not immediately useful for noting trends.

Subscriber reports are also common. These generally list clients on autopay, which is great for cash flow projection. But it misses a whole category of clients who are better suited to packages.

But there’s another group of clients that most scheduling software miss completely.

We have a couple of drop-in class clients at Somaspace who hold standing reservations and have been with us for more than a decade. They don’t have a contract or package, so they don’t show up in our subscriber report. Instead, they appear as drop-in clients, which sounds transient.

They are anything but.

When I calculate our active client count, I include them. That means a bit of manual work, knowing their attendance patterns and how they interact with the studio. It’s not complicated, but I have to look past every report to include them.

All to say, what most reports miss is the behavioral dimension. A steady, weekly-attending package client is as embedded in your business as any contract holder. A drop-in client with a decade of consistent attendance is more stable than a new member who signed a 12-month contract last month.

The question is not which pricing option they prefer. It’s whether this client has a genuine, recurring relationship with your studio. And this requires knowing your clients well enough to answer it.

This week, I recommend running your active client report, however your software defines it. Then ask whether that report captures how those clients actually interact with your business.

Would love to hear what you find.

-Amanda

It’s July. If you’re a studio owner, you know what that means.

Your schedule likely has gaps that were not there in April. The same clients who waitlisted in January are in Italy, on the coast, at the lake, or wherever people go for the month when they have that option. The studio is quieter. The energy is different. And somewhere in the back of your mind, anxiety is building.

Over the years, I have experimented with closures, rate adjustments and scheduling changes to minimize the impact of a slow season. Since COVID, summers in my studio have become increasingly quiet. In Texas, it’s hot as blazes, and many of our clients have second homes or family in cooler parts of the country. So they leave for a month or two, returning in mid- to late-August.

Last year, we experimented with closing for a week over our two slowest periods: once around Christmas and again for July 4th. In both instances, payroll was significantly reduced, but hard costs like rent, software and insurance remained. The July closure in particular was confusing for clients. So we nixed that this year.

Approximately 65% of our revenue comes from 12-month contracts. In the months leading up to mid-summer, this source of recurring revenue is the very definition of financial stability. But come July, it falters. Steady clients clear their schedules to leave town and ask to freeze.

Our 12-month contracts include the option to freeze because I know what to expect. Asking a client to pay through a monthlong vacation will resent it. But a client who can pause while traveling and return to their usual schedule has always come back.

But the right call does not make July’s numbers look better. The freeze stops the client’s payment. But it doesn’t stop those hard costs. My teachers are on flat hourly rates, and my front desk is salaried. Payroll lightens slightly when sessions thin out, but not enough to offset what the fixed costs keep taking.

So this July, we did it differently. We didn’t close. Our teachers thoughtfully staggered their vacations, and I booked a couple of teacher training courses. Clients are out in the world enjoying their families. We’re just rolling with it.

July is slow, but it’s just a seasonal slump. So if you have some extra time, enjoy a few personal days, then do some planning. The efforts we make in the next three weeks can help determine how September feels.

Amanda

You signed a lease. Bought equipment. Sold your first package. Made a few rent payments.

Somewhere in that sequence, you stopped being just a teacher and became a business owner. Congratulations!

But now what?

It’s time to embrace the role of business ownership.

Most teachers-turned-owners run their studios from the wrong seat for years. I know I did. Not because we are careless, but because we come to this role through a deep passion for teaching.

In my earliest years, charging what I needed felt dirty and incongruent with being “of service.” That mindset eventually came back to bite me, and I know it’s a common experience among my peers.

Yet, I still see a resistance to the business side of teaching. Even in my own studio.

A teacher who worked for me once told me that my studio had become too “well-oiled.” It wasn’t intended as a compliment. And even though I knew better, it stung.

But I was doing the right thing, running it that way. To serve a community of clients over the long term, the systems have to provide structure and boundaries. The math has to math. What would really sting is closing a failing business.

Most of us come to studio ownership after a few years of teaching. We’re good at it and well trained. And over time, we build a loyal clientele. Opening a studio is a natural next step.

Once we open our own space, our secondary role becomes everything else. Pricing, scheduling and financial decisions that require you to step back from the part your passionate about. Systems and processes that allow the studio to run while you’re teaching or living your life. And ideally reports and metrics that tell you whether it’s all working so you can keep the bills paid and stay employed.

Most new studio owners do the teaching part very well and avoid the business part as long as possible.

And often, from the outside, the business part looks easy. Just sell a 10-pack and keep clients scheduled. Rent gets paid. Income is protected. No well-oiled systems needed here.

If only.

As teachers, we often make decisions based on gut instinct. What seems fair, or what the client can afford. We might also avoid difficult conversations around old rates, keep certain low-performing classes, or pay a new hire more than you can afford because you’re grateful for the help.

I’ve learned that when you make owner decisions from the teacher seat, the math suffers quietly. Until it doesn’t. But these decisions aren’t failures. They are what happens when a skilled practitioner opens a business without switching seats.

So where to start when you’re a seasoned teacher but new studio owner. Certainly, keep teaching. Working with clients keeps you credible and connected to what you are selling. But carve out protected time to work on the business rather than in it.

Even one hour a week spent in the owner seat changes the decisions you make. Start with a report from your scheduling software. Look at attendance. Utilization. Unearned revenue. Retention. Sit with it and let it tell you something. If you don’t know what to look for, ask a colleague or message me.

All to say, there’s never a better time to reframe your studio as an actual business. Because well-oiled is not a corporate thing. It’s a solvency thing.

-Amanda

My studio’s payroll ceiling is 40% of gross revenue. Too much beyond that and I feel the squeeze every pay period. Too far below it, and my team is most certainly undervalued. So there’s a sweet spot for each of us. Mine is 40%.

I outlined my basic approach to calculating this percentage in a previous issue:

But of course the devil is in the details. So here are the specific steps I take to calculating my payroll ratio.

Gather the following using an average across a period of time, like a quarter or previous year.

• Gross revenue: Total monthly income from all services before any expenses. Use an average across three or more recent months for a more stable read.

• Payroll: Total payroll for teachers, front desk and yourself, whether W-2 or 1099. Include fees and taxes.

• Operating expenses: Add up monthly lease plus utilities, insurance, software, supplies, merchant fees and anything else that runs the business month to month.

To find your payroll ratio, divide your total payroll by your gross revenue.

When looking at payroll ratios, I measure against four thresholds.

• Under 30%: A ratio this low may mean you are undervaluing your staff, not paying yourself or both.

• 30% to 40%: Ideal city. The business has margin and the payroll is not driving the decisions.

• 40% to 50%: This is a dangerous range as revenue growth alone isn’t likely to fix it.

• Above 50%: This is red flag territory and usually requires a combination of structural changes across the business.

These are just guides. No one studio is perfect. But if you’re way upside down and teetering toward the 50% mark, there is some work to do.

In my coaching practice, I have assisted studio owners with restructuring payroll. So it’s possible! Yes it’s a terrifying notion, but when it’s needed, it’s needed.

One of the most effective structural moves I have used with studios in the 40%+ arena involves how teachers are classified and compensated. Reclassifying instructors is more nuanced than a pay reduction and more durable in practice. It is also the most complex piece of this conversation.

I’ll cover that in an upcoming article.

Until then, take a peek at your payroll ratio and let me know what you find.

-Amanda

Read more

A new client quit on us last month.

Her curt email included a list of reasons and a refund request for her unused sessions. Her complaints were specific, so I read them, sat with them and called her.

Not emailed. Called.

When I receive an email complaint, I almost always follow up by phone. My experience is some people like to hide behind their words and feel they can be more honest (ergo critical) if they can write it and walk away. But I don’t take those emails at face value. There’s usually more to it.

So I called her. She was polite but direct. I listened, and some of what she had to say was fair. Not a fan of Gratz equipment. Didn’t want to share her hour with a group class. All noted. But none of it was personal. And by the end, I understood unequivocally: she is not the right client for our studio. Not every client is.

Calculating a refund is simple. She had a 10-pack and used 4 sessions of it. I multiplied those 4 sessions by our single drop-in rate and subtracted it from our 10-pack price. The balance was refunded.

The logic: the per-session discount in a 10-pack is the reward for committing to a full 10 sessions. If a client quits before finishing it, the sessions already used revert to drop-in pricing. She paid a fair rate for what she received and got the rest back.

But the math wasn’t the hard part. What was difficult was resisting the urge to hold on to her business.

A client who’s not a good fit could cost cost you much more than the refund. If she leaves quietly, well, that happens and a quiet quitter is better than a loud one. Because if she leaves upset, she could write a negative review or share her displeasure publicly.

But this client costs you in other ways, too. She takes a time that a more promising client needs. Someone who would loves your equipment and the busyness of a studio’s Monday morning.

Letting her go gracefully, with money back and a warm good-bye, costs less than keeping her.

This understanding does not come easily in the beginning of studio ownership. The revenue feels too important to give back, and the complaints feel too personal. But the math is not on your side here.

The day after our call, I followed up by replying to her original email. I expressed my gratitude for giving us a try, and I recommended two nearby studios with a quieter schedule and equipment better suited to her preferences. Her reply was immediate, warm and gracious.

And this week, her spot was filled by a promising new client.

Amanda

There’s one ratio that says more about your studio’s financial health than almost anything else on your books: total payroll as a percentage of gross revenue.

This number has a ceiling. For an appointment-based studio like mine, that ceiling is around 35%. Below it, the business has room to breathe. But above it, you’ll feel the squeeze every time you run payroll. I have certainly been there.

Most of us miscalculate our payroll expense because we only count what we pay our instructors. But there’s also front desk (if you have it) and your pay as the owner. All three belong in the calculation.

Back to owner pay. I’m as guilty as the next person for leaving it out. I mean, for many years, it was an arbitrary number paid sporadically, if at all. So you leave it out because it’s inconsistent. Or because you can’t afford to pay yourself once all of the other bills are paid. Or, rarely, it’s because you don’t need the money. Either way, it makes the ratio look manageable when it is not.

I have a secondary benchmark for payroll health: each instructor on your roster ideally generates at least 3x their own compensation in revenue.

For example: if an instructor earns $3,000 a month, the sessions they teach should produce at least $9,000 in monthly revenue.

This is true for hourly teachers and especially for those on salary. Most of us have at least one teacher who is not hitting that threshold. Sometimes it’s because her schedule is filled with clients who are on “old rates.” Or perhaps she demanded higher pay. Or both. So it’s not that she is necessarily underperforming in the room. But the economics are out of alignment, and it compounds over time.

Admin or front desk pay is different. These are non-revenue earning roles, so the same benchmark doesn’t apply. Instead, this is an operating expense you ideally build into your business before making the hire.

Why studios end up over the ceiling

The payroll problem rarely starts with a bad decision. It usually starts with a desperate one.

Here’s a common scenario: new clients are rolling in but you’re short-staffed. A good teacher became available, so you paid what she asked. She’s a dream with your clients, and her schedule is now waitlisted. She asks for a raise. But it’s financially out of reach for you, so she leaves. You attempt to absorb the vacancy among your existing team but end up rehiring at the same (or higher) rate. And the ratio climbs a little higher.

I’ve done it myself a half-dozen times. It feels good to reward someone who thrives in your studio. But it’s not a happy ending. There is a ceiling on what you can pay, no matter how talented and popular that teacher is.

Getting the ratio back under the ceiling is one of the most complex problems I have worked through in my studio. It’s also the most grueling-yet-necessary work I provide for my coaching clients. There is no single lever. But there are specific ways to bring the number back to range without gutting your team.

What’s coming

I’m writing a short series on payroll, and in two weeks, my paid subscribers will receive free access to a diagnostic calculator (About that Payroll Ratio). With it, you’ll see specifically where the pressure is coming from. Coming on June 12.

Amanda

Here’s a scenario I walk through with nearly every studio owner I work with.

Client A holds three sessions per week. In a 50-week year (accounting for holidays) that’s 150 sessions she’s reserved. But by the end of the year, the client’s actual attendance averages 1.25 sessions per week, or 62 total sessions.

The gap in this case is 88 sessions. At $100 per session, that’s $8,800 in lost revenue. All that from one client. In one year.

Multiply that across your roster.

Looking at your schedule, it appears this way: waitlisted on Monday but several vacancies by Friday. Our industry loves to describe this as a utilization problem, and in reports, that exactly what it looks like. Low utilization. But it was held by a standing client before being early cancelled, again and again. So let’s call it what it is: a cash flow nightmare. And for most of us, this problem hides in plain sight.

Our most popular pricing option makes it worse. 10-packs, I’m looking at you. Because when a client buys one, two things happen that feel good in the moment:

1. You get cash up front

2. The client books out, filling the schedule

It looks and smells like revenue, but it’s not. Not exactly, anyway. Most of that money is unearned, and until the sessions are taught, and the payroll and overhead subtracted, it’s a liability.

Back to Client A: despite her 3x week commitment, she cancels to for a last-minute trip, then a personal appointment she “booked months ago,” and oh, a sick kid. Before long, her 3x week reservation dwindles to a much lower average, meaning her 10-pack is drawn down over two months rather than one. So you have a financially lumpy month and spots that are near impossible to fill with a prospective client because she’s still holding them through next month.

Adding to the issue, most studios treat that upfront cash as available income and pay expenses from it. This is where ideal accounting conflicts with the realities of a small business. Because rather than putting that 10-pack money into a drip account and releasing it as sessions are earned, we spend it. The difference shows up at payroll or when rent is due, and that’s where it can get painful.

But there’s a model that solves some of this issue. Let’s look at Client B.

She’s on a fixed monthly auto-pay and holds the same 3x week appointments. Life still happens and she misses some sessions, but with her, it’s different. She’s on auto-pay, which means the studio’s cash flow is tied to the schedule she committed to rather than her actual attendance. And as a result, she usually reschedules rather than canceling outright.

Utilization is steady.

Cash flow, even steadier.

It works because you get paid on the same day each month, whether the client keeps their weekly sessions or not. They pay to hold the reservation on a recurring basis. So her commitment becomes revenue you can plan around. The package renewal conversation disappears entirely.

Offering autopay (aka contracts aka memberships) is not about making your studio harder to leave. It is about protecting your income and decoupling it from attendance variance. Your client’s weekly attendance will always vary. Life happens. The client who came three times a week in January might come once in March. In a package model, her spring break vacation hits your cash flow directly. With a recurring model, it often doesn’t.

So, where to start? Pull your active client list. For each recurring client, find two numbers: how many sessions they are holding each week, then how many they actually attended. Use a standardized period of time, such as three months, for all clients. The ratio of booked-to-attended is your utilization rate for that client. You can then use that ratio to calculate lost revenue.

The gap for some clients may be significant. You likely already know who they are. But you can only fix what you measure. So begin with this calculation.

And then what? Well, that’s another story for another time!

Thanks for reading!

-Amanda

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Once upon a time, I was a professional writer. Ad copy, news writing, articles for a health and fitness magazine, business proposals and technical writing paid the bills for nearly 15 years. The journey from there to studio ownership is the foundation of what I’m writing about.

Becoming a service-based business owner has been challenging and rewarding in all the ways you’d expect, and I want to share my experience for those of you who, like me, who are doing it without an MBA, business program or mentor to guide you through it. This goes for personal trainers, physical therapists, acupuncturists and concierge physicians. If your business runs on your hours, this is for you.

I write about the operational and financial problems that show up in businesses like ours. The problems we didn’t train for or know to expect.

I opened my Pilates and Gyrotonic studio in Austin in 2009, and I’m still running it today. So my musings and advice come from someone who is still on the floor teaching clients, leading a team of instructors, buying the toilet paper and keeping the lights on.

I also coach other studio owners. Time is short and my roster is small, but it’s a gift to help others who are embracing their entrepreneurial dreams. Most of these studio owners come to me when things are just okay. Their schedules are full and clients are happy. But money is tight. Their team isn’t bought in, and it’s starting to show. Somewhere between a busy studio, the break room and the bank account, something’s off.

It is almost always one of three things:

• a cash flow model that depends on clients showing up at the rate they committed to,

• a team that gets the job done so long as it’s on their terms, or

• a payroll ratio that has quietly climbed past the point where the numbers work.

Often it’s a bit of all three.

None of these are motivation problems. They are structural. And structural problems have specific causes and specific fixes. Mindset may matter, but that’s after the leaks are fixed.

That is what I am writing about. I aim to be here every week. And if you have a specific problem that needs addressing, just send me a message. Let’s support one another.

Amanda

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