31: Can You Guarantee Results? How To Fulfill On The Promise You Made And Deliver Even More Value For Your Students

What Is This Episode About…

In this episode, John and Chris will continue the conversation that they’ve been having about the five core functions of a business, and they’re going to talk about the final two, which are delivery or fulfillment and retention/resale/upsell. Delivery basically refers to the way a yoga studio generates leads (the marketing techniques it employs) and nurtures them up to the point where they sign up as new students. Direct response marketing techniques are highly advised so that one can measure the results of their efforts, and make them as economical as possible to save money and even make more money while getting people through the door.

Fulfillment, on the other hand, is like the sale that happens after the sale. It all starts right after a studio has signed up new students. The studio owner has to know exactly how the yoga training classes are delivered so they can ensure that the students are getting results. The unfortunate truth in the industry about this is that most yoga studio owners are not conscious of this. They just hire anybody as a teacher, do a 1099 independent contractor deal with them, and let them roll however they deem fit. This is one core reason why a lot of yoga studios don’t succeed in getting where they desire to be.

When a new student comes into a studio, they sign up for a package because they believe that that package can deliver a solution to a problem that they have, and the only way that the studio can fulfill that is by ensuring consistency in the way yoga is taught and the experience that the student gets. John and Chris will dive further into that and more on the last two core functions of a business, and in the end, you will have learned all you need to go and thrive as a yoga entrepreneur, so stay tuned.

Key Points Discussed:

• With direct response, you can measure everything (01:58)
• The importance of having control over the product/service (03:49)
• Being a leader and dictating what is being taught (05:45)
• Elevating and helping teachers facilitate a better experience (09:33)
• What can you offer them that they’ll pay more for, and that you’ll give them bigger results within your studio (14:31)
• A framework of looking at your business and seeing where you can do better (18:28)
• Doing little things that show a lot of value that won’t cost a lot of money, but that is really appreciated by the students (20:48)

Learn More About The Content Discussed…

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When Was It Released…

This episode was released January 22, 2020

Episode Transcript…

Disclaimer:‌ ‌The‌ ‌Transcript‌ ‌Is‌ ‌Auto-Generated‌ ‌And‌ ‌May‌ ‌Contain‌ ‌Spelling‌ ‌And‌ ‌Grammar‌ ‌Errors‌ ‌

00:00          Alright. So, today we are going to continue the conversation that we’ve been having about the five core functions of a business, and we’re going to talk about the final two, which is delivery or fulfillment, and/or fulfillment. And, the final one is retention/resale/upsell.

00:17          What’s up everyone? You are listening to Yoga Entrepreneur Secrets. I am Chris Yax, and I’m John Yax. We are part of a small group of yoga entrepreneurs who are committed to making a living, doing what we love, without feeling guilty about making money, or ashamed of being successful, because we know the real value of yoga and how the world needs it now more than ever. This podcast is here to teach the strategies and tactics so we can thrive financially as yoga entrepreneurs. We are the Yax brothers and welcome to Yoga Entrepreneur Secrets.

00:48          Alright. So, we’re talking about delivery. What is Chris… what is delivery? Well, let’s recap just in case someone didn’t listen to the last episode. And that is, so… or we’ll do a recap. Recap, yes. And that is… So, you have someone who kind of knew about you, but didn’t know about you maybe, and then you throw a message out and they became a lead and you nurture them. You either emailed them, or they… you retargeted them as the online world is concerned. And, then they bought your introductory package. Or, if you’re old school, you sat at the front desk and waited for someone to walk through the door, and they bought your introductory package. And there it was. Put a bunch of signs out. Old school guerrilla marketing. Flyers out, you know, like a juice bar and all that stuff. Definitely a form of that, for sure, but then you waited and they came in. And so, there it is. Right in the… They walked through the door. You have your lead gen, you nurture them with a conversation for five minutes, 10 minutes, maybe a little tour of your studio, and they bought. You converted them into an introductory package. However that process went for you, we hope it’s more direct response, you’re very specific, you can like measure results of your efforts, and that you can make it more economical and save money, and maybe even make money getting people in the door.

01:58          That’s really the key guys. So like, the difference between the two styles of the old school, the new school, the general market versus direct response marketing, is that you can measure everything. You know exactly what you’re paying for, exactly what you’re getting, and you can tweak and tweak and tweak, and get it so it just. It… you get the formula. Right? Right? So, the direct response package is so cool because you can tweak it to the point that it can start to work on its own and you don’t ha… you can eventually stop tweaking to some degree. Now, there’s a ad for taking things like that, where you have to shift a little bit, but once you have your process down, and it takes a little bit to get the process, but once you have your process down, you don’t have to tweak it all the time. And what we experienced was, the old school way, the general marketing, you have to tweak it constantly. We were constantly putting stuff out, and putting stuff out, and putting stuff out, and we weren’t sure how successful we were with it, really. And so, we were constantly changing it. Anyway. You get that… that whole process done. You get lead generation, you get lead nurture, you nurture those people you think they’d convert into a package, and the next phase is, fulfillment delivery. And really, so it’s like the sale that happens after the sale.

03:00          It’s really when it starts because now they’ve said yes, they’re in your studio. And so the question becomes can you guarantee that they’ll get results? And really what that means is do you know what’s going on in the yoga room with the teachers that you have? The unfortunate truth is that most studios don’t, they do a 10 99 independent contractor deal with their teachers. They hire anybody. Most of them may or may not even give an audition class and then they just let them roll and they don’t know what’s going on. They don’t know how they’re teaching. They don’t know what they’re saying. They don’t know do they own or do they not own? There was a post in this Facebook group and there was like, people are like, do we own? We’re not home. And some like studio owners were like, I don’t know, some do, some don’t.

03:49          And I’m like, are you kidding? How can you not know what’s going on as far as the product that you’re delivering to your students? And this is the problem with the delivery. The fulfillment aspect is if you don’t know what’s going on, you don’t know what they’re being fed inside the studio. How can you guarantee results? Because this is what happened. Like the granular level of what just happened when they said yes to the introductory package is that you’ve made a promise to them that something is going to happen for them concerning a problem that they have, that they want to solve and the way they’re going to solve it is by practicing in these classes. And if you can’t guarantee that what they’re looking for is going to happen in that, that room, then no wonder you’re not as successful as you want to be because you don’t have control over the product, which is the very thing that’s delivering the solution to the problem that they have. Yeah,

04:39          that’s really, it’s really the, one of the most important things is the consistency within the room. And so some styles and some studios do the exact same thing every single time, right? That is a form of consistency and they’re successful, right? It works for them. Other styles and systems, uh, have variability, but they’re still within the variability. There is still consistency where when somebody comes into your studio, they walk into that room, they, they are getting a similar experience and those experiences as they become consistent and practice, create consistent results, whatever we say those results are, right. Whether it’s losing weight for some people and getting more in shape and feeling better in their bodies, whether it’s less stress and feeling, feeling the effects of that, whether it’s more energy in their life, whether it’s a better connection with their, with their significant others. There is a result that we can get people in. It’s important as studio owners also to understand that result so that we can express that to people as they’re coming in. We know that that’s going to happen when they’re consistent with it enough and we know what’s gonna happen if what’s being taught in the room is consistent as well.

05:45          Yeah, and that is so a part of it is as understanding what’s being taught. But the other part of it is being the leader and dictating this is what we’re doing, this is what we’re teaching, this is what we’re not teaching. And if you have a studio that’s like the Jack of all trades or like what they call the Institute of yoga, where you offer seven different styles, 13 different styles, you have like a salsa class in the middle of your schedule and then you have a hot class before and then an ion guard class afterward. How can anyone get any traction with that? If I’m not interested in salsa, that class is out. If I take an Iyengar class, that class is and I don’t like it. That class is out and now if you have that four or five times on the schedule, you’ve just eliminated my possibility of coming back to your studio and made it even more difficult for me to gain traction and to be consistent with your studio, which means it’s going to minimize my ability to get the results I’m looking for, which is then going to increase the likelihood that I’m not going to stick around.

06:42          That’s it. You gotta be consistent with it. That’s one of the hallmarks of success, not just in yoga, but in any business, right. If they think about this, we’ve talked about this before. If you go into a restaurant and it was an, it was an Italian restaurant that you normally go to and you really love the food there, but then you went into the Italian restaurant and you order the meat the same meal and it was totally different, right? The same when you get all the time, the one you really love and it was totally different, you would start to lose confidence in going back to that restaurant. Or we use the same analogy that a lot of yoga studios are, don’t. You went into this to your Italian restaurant and all of a sudden half the menus, Mexican food, right, or, and then the another portion is Thai food. Like all of a sudden you’re like, well, they’re starting to, to try to be a Jack of all trades in the restaurant and food. I’ve lost confidence in their ability to do really good Italian food. Or even if they set it out in the,

07:33          even if they didn’t change it in between, like in the middle of it all, even if they said, you know what? We’re going to offer all these styles of food in, you know, like you know, Oh, they’re not going to do any of it really. Well, they’re not. Because you know that man, you go to that like authentic Italian restaurant man, they do it the best because that’s what they do and if you go to one that’s like, yeah, we’d have this like lasagna dish and then we have this Mexican dish and we have this Thai dish. You know the consistency of that, it’s not going to be the best food because they’re trying to do too much. It’s no different. The perception of what your students are experiencing is, man, if you’re trying to do it all, you’re not going to do all of it really well. And not to mention the problem was like, okay, now the teacher that doesn’t happen to teach that class really well, what if they have to get a sub or that they move or they leave or they decide to go open up their own studio?

08:18          So all of a sudden your chef that does Mexican food is now trying to do the Italian menu, cook the Italian food, right? Your teacher that teaches [inaudible] really well is now trying to teach an Ashtanga class and not doing it well. Right guys as we’d like. So we have to have consistency in our studios. That is, that is it. So if you’re on teach Ashtanga and, and hold to that, if you’re an Iyengar teacher, teach Iyengar. If you’re doing Jeevan, look dude, you even moved, like niching down is show. So, so important in our work, right? You become a master in that craft, right? And so it’s, and what’s going to start to draw

08:56          people to you? Yeah, so for us the answer has always been, we train our own teachers. Anyone who teaches at our studios, the only people who teach at our studios were students who took our teacher training because we know that what they’re teaching is the methodology that we use. It’s in the spirit of that we use, now don’t get me wrong, like we have, there’s always cycles and studios where like you have people that are with you for a long time and then they end up life change. They have a life change, they have a life event or you know, they just move and all of a sudden you have newer teachers and so you’ve got to like nurture them more and help them out and they’re, you know, they’re just like trying to sow their oats of teaching and get their, you know, their feet wet and get like the flight time in.

09:33          And so there’s always these like peaks and valleys of consistency. Even within a studio, like even with ours where we know like, man, we’re like in a stride where we have all seasoned teachers and they’ve been with us for a long time and they’re like just rocking and rolling. And then we go through a period where there are newer teachers and like we get some complaints like, Hey, this teacher seems newer and we’re like, don’t worry that they’re going to get better. And we appreciate the feedback. And then what that does, we go to that teacher and then we help them. We give them a coaching session and we get our coaches like to their classes more often so we can elevate and help them facilitate a better experience, not just for the teaching but for our students because this is the delivery, this is the fulfillment, this is us delivering on the promise that we’ve made in the beginning that, Hey, if you come here and you practice, this is what you can expect to experience and these are the results that you can get.

10:21          And then when they go in, I know they’re getting them. I know they’re getting them and that means what happens next, this next level is we get to retain them because they’ve experienced it and they get the results we’re looking for. They have the experience after class, they’re not leaving, they’re not going anywhere else. And if we’ve done that after the conversion, after they bought the intro package, if we’ve nurtured them well enough in that process, then not only are they retained, but they’re not going anywhere else. They’re not looking anywhere else because now they are like, they’re not just getting results. They’re fans. They love what you do. They’re your loyal members who are now guessing what? Telling other people about it. We have this, we’ve been at it for 15 years and we’ve been so consistent over the years. We have got crazy word of mouth and it’s just simply because we’ve committed to consistency and we’ve like, we’ve designed the entire process, our entire studio around us teaching our teachers it, putting them in the studio to teach the students, and then there’s students who fall in love with it, end up [inaudible] in the process and escalating up this what we call a value ladder, which is really like kind of a value stairs because if you looked at it, it’s not a ladder at all.

11:27          It’s stairs, but it’s like I come in as a student, so this is the next I’m pivoting into from now. How do you fulfill to, okay, now they’re in, they’re a member. They have signed up, they are coming in. They’re excited. They’re like, they’re a fan, they’re loyal, they love it, and you’re given results. And so like they’re your favorite people. Before you jump in there, I’m going to pause just for a second cause this, Chris talked about this and I just want to pull it out because it’s so, so important. The of coaching.

11:54          So if you are a studio owner, you’re running your studio and doing your thing, you have to coach your teachers or mentor them, mentor them. You have to have, or you have one of your senior teachers be a coach or mentor. The other teachers. You have to get your eyes and your body into their classes and see exactly what they’re teaching and, and help them get better in the process that you choose for your studio, right? So that everybody has this consistency. So you’re as a team of teachers and a studio moving in a direction together, right? Everybody understands what the bigger picture is and how we want to help people break through, right? How we want to help heal people in this process, right? So regular team meetings, that coaching and then the other piece that we’re going to talk about, we’ll probably hold another episode on this is is develop your own teacher training. So you are developing your teachers and you’re creating exactly what you want for your studio. And then we jump into the next piece which is, which is how do you retain them,

12:54          how do you get them to stay with you over the longterm and then how do you then like ascend them up? What the value item meaning they pay more for a bigger experience with you, a more transformative experience with you. Whether it’s personal development, oftentimes for most studios, and it’s been for us this way, we’re right now playing this year with a different model of that of what I’m about to say, which is the next level is teacher training. Right now people have like there’s the good and the bad with that. The good for us is that we create our own teachers, which goes back to the fulfillment piece. Cause now I know that the people that are coming in, the results that they’re getting, the experience they’re getting is consistent across the board. What it also does for us is it becomes a source of revenue and a really profitable one at that because we now have students who fall in love with the practice and it’s just, and I swear it’s, it’s woven into the fabric of our DNA.

13:48          Once we fall in love with something, we intuitively want to share it with others. And when people have gotten results of like, man, this has changed my life. It’s taking me through some of the hardest times of my life. Some of the biggest struggles, the biggest hardships and losses and divorce and death and just life changes and moving and all this stuff, job changes like the, the practice has been the foundation that has helped them get through that. They want to then share that with others. They want it to help facilitate that experience for others. And so the next logical step for them as men is maybe for me it’s like I want to share this. I want to teach it. I want to teach like I want to teach, I want to teach other people to do yoga or it’s I fallen in love with it and I just want to learn more.

14:31          Why do I feel so good? Like what is really happening on the mat? Why do I feel so stress like stress-free afterward and how, what does that mental clarity about and how does it really help me with my body because my cholesterol levels have plummeted and I’m like done all these physiological things that don’t make like a one-to-one relationship with peers. Inhale up dog, exhale down dog and all that stuff. They just want to deepen. So the next level in the Ascension of the, in the value ladder idea is basically what can you offer them that they’ll pay more for

15:02          that you’ll give them bigger results within your studio. And a lot of it comes down to, obviously teacher training is one of those, but it’s a way of them understanding the deeper aspects of the practice. And so they’re coming into your studio and doing Austin right there on their mats and moving. But can we provide them with that next level? A teacher training is a wonderful next level because obviously in teacher training they’re going to deep dive into the practice itself and the poses and what they, what we do on our math. But also we get to teach them meditation and understand how to actually sit still. And the benefits of that along with components of personal development, which is yoga is the oldest personal development system ever. And so if we can teach them how to develop a life, design their life on purpose, have a purpose-driven life, you’ll blow them away.

15:47          And then so the other aspect of this is like is that some people don’t want to do teacher training, but they do like, so maybe I’ve practiced at your studio for a while and I love what you’re doing, but I don’t really want to be a teacher. I’m not interested in getting up and teaching in front of people. Is there a way of, for me to deepen my practice without actually taking a teacher training? Right? There’s a market for that, right? There’s a market for that. People want to jump in and do something more, but they’re not really ready for teacher training. And so in a young studio owner’s mind is like, well then workshops. Workshops are great, but they’re just little one-offs. Yeah. If you can put together a bigger package for them, a bigger experience for them, uh, something that’s that you can teach, like the deeper aspects that you, maybe you would, that you would probably teach in teacher training or the personal development side, that is a bigger thing that they’ll pay more money for that be involved in this in a challenge or a mastermind or something that’s bigger. You have the opportunity to not only radically change their life, give them crazy value, but to help you on the, on the financial end as well.

16:52          Yeah. So the question for us that we’re looking at this year is what type of program can we create that isn’t a teacher training? Because it’s, you get a very specific type of person who wants to do that. But in some people are like, well then you’re like, you’re creating your own competition. They’re going to open up a yoga studio down the way, and I don’t really ever have a fear of that quite honestly, because I just hold true that if I’m doing what I’m doing well and I’m continuing to ask the question of how can I do more for the students that are coming in and make the experience even better, then it’s not really a competition thing that I have to worry about. It’s me being better within my own organization that I have to worry about anyway. But that aside, there’s another Avenue like John was just talking about like, so the question I’m asking you and the question that if you’re a yoga studio you should ask yourself is, is there a program that I can create that costs more, that I can charge more for that maybe longer term that I can get very specific results that’s kind of in that personal development realm, but getting a very specific result.

17:48          Maybe it’s like a meditation program. That’s kind of been my thought lately. Or if it’s like a nutrition program or something that like that I can say like, Hey, this is the result you’re going to get over the six-eight 10 12 week period and it’s going to cost more because you’re going to get coaching and then you get online resources and you’re going to get like live classes, like private classes and that. We’re going to talk about it and we’re going to like, if you have to set up the offer, we’ve talked a lot about offers in this podcast, so you do it right, but then it’s a way of adding more value, getting people bigger results, tying them deeper into your culture and also increasing your revenue ELA at the same time. So that’d be great ideas and great examples of upselling.

18:28          But let’s talk a little bit about potential. Could we talk about retention as far as like the product and develop and making sure that in the delivery side of it, it’s incredible, right? So you’re adding just amazing value but like, but if somebody is on your best membership, your premium membership and you want them to continue on their premium membership, what kind of things would you do as far as like value at that stage where you retain them, they consistently come back, they consistently keep their membership. Talk about that a little bit. Like what are some ideas as far as retention? Well, what happened last year was we realized because what we’re really saying is man, these five core functions of the business, our way, a framework of looking at your business and seeing where can you do better? Like where can, where are the gaps and how can you fill those gaps and what can you do to make each segment of that better?

19:16          What we’re incorporating right now is lead generation, nurture, and conversion, right? But now we just did an analysis yesterday at the time we’re recording this and what we looked at was, Oh, the retention aspect of it is where our next gap is. We do well on the fulfillment of it. And there’s obviously, like I said, little ups and downs with that. So where is it? So the brainstorming that we’re talking about is how can we do, like for the members, for the premium members, we have three tiers of membership, but maybe for all the members are premium members. So this is kind of brainstorming on the fly on the podcast is how like events that we can bring them to that are free for them, but that just say, Hey, thank you for being who you are and we’re gonna throw this event together. Private classes that are just for them seems so simple, but it’s powerful.

20:03          Just cards, snail mail cards. You know, here’s the difference when like you can send an email, but you know that the amount of effort it took to send an email was low. When you get a card and you realize that means someone had to buy that card, they had to take the time to handwrite it. They had to like lick the pillow and I’m joking, but I’m not joking. And they put a stamp on it and they had to take it to the mailbox and they put it in the mailbox and lifted up the handle to say, there’s a mail in here, you’ve got to take it. No man, male person like you get that and you know it’s more valuable because of the effort that they put into it and so little things like that. It doesn’t have to be like, I’m throwing this like $5,000 event and I’m bringing everyone in and we’re having a big old party, whatever that is. You can do little things. This is what we’re brainstorming

20:48          is how can we do little things that show a lot of value that won’t cost a lot of money but that are really appreciated. Yeah. One of our teachers are his actual mentor. He’s not one of our teachers directly, but he has a business where all of his premium members, every once in a while he’ll send them cookies or send them a Starbucks card, a gift card for Starbucks like he does. He’s a little like, and it’s random, right? These little things throughout the year. You’ll just send off the people that have been with the longest, some special little gift in the mail. And it’s like Chris said, it’s actually going in the mail to them. And it’s one of those cool things that people really appreciate that, that say, okay, you, you didn’t just do, give me a discount on something or just and just send a mass email to everybody.

21:26          You actually took a little bit of time. So people appreciate the time spent more so than the money, right? Because time is one of those resources that we do not, we have limited supply. Money can be replenished, right? We can get money back and it can leave. We can get it back. Time’s not like that. Right? It’s a, it’s a valuable resource. So if people realize that you spent the time to actually do something, to, to go to that next level, uh, they really appreciate it and they will stay with you. Yeah. So if you’re listening to this and you’re a member at hot house yoga, know that we’re thinking about you and we’re trying to make your experience way better. And if not, if you’re a yoga studio and you’re hearing this, start implementing little things, it can be something as simple as like, just like if someone has to suspend because they have surgery to make sure that you ask them how it went afterward when they come back or to send them a get well soon card. Like it’s so simple sometimes and so little. But for me, I know I overthink it and I think it’s gotta be this big grandiose thing that we do and oftentimes it’s just little things that show that you care that take a little extra time but don’t actually really cost a lot of money. Yeah. So hopefully you got some value out of that. There are some gold golden nuggets in there. Chris, take us out. Do work. Honor the struggle. Make the world

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