What You Can Learn from Club Pilates as a Pilates Studio Owner

Imagine having 1 million students. 

How would that change your Pilates business? This isn’t a pipe dream. According to Statista, Club Pilates is the largest Pilates brand globally. 

They have more than 1,650 studios globally, operating on four continents. Approximately 13 million people practice Pilates worldwide, a number that continues to grow year after year. Club Pilates serves over 1 million members annually. 

What makes them so special?

More importantly, what can we learn from Club Pilates that we can use in our own Pilates studio? Today, we’ll answer that question with specific steps you can use in your Pilates studio right away. 

What Pilates Studio Owners Can Learn from Club Pilates Success Stories

Club Pilates is the most recognizable Pilates brand in the world.

Their founder, Allison Beardsley, isn’t directly connected to Joseph Pilates, the founder of Pilates. She wasn’t a student of the Pilates Elders. Each of these elders brought unique and notable contributions to the method. Some of these Elders focused their attention on refining the method. Others adapted the method to serve those who were injured or elderly. Others focused on therapeutics, focusing on children and special needs individuals. 

No one achieved what Beardsley did with Club Pilates.

How did they do it? More importantly, how were they about to help others achieve success? 

Lesson #01. A Strong Brand Reputation is the Key to Scalable Growth

Club Pilates has a consistent brand image, and they’ve fixed their attention on building a strong brand identity and reputation.  

Why does this matter? 

Customers have expectations—if they visit Club Pilates in Durham, NC, will their experience be the same as a Club Pilates in Staten Island, NY? Absolutely! Club Pilates has a uniform look, extending from its brand image to its signage, class structure, and retail storefronts.

What’s the lesson for your business?

According to Marty Neumeier, author of The Brand Gap, your brand isn’t what you say it is. It’s what your customers/students say it is.  While your logo is important, it’s not your brand. It’s not a promise, corporate identity system, product, or service. It’s the gut feeling people have about your product, service, or company. 

Your brand is your reputation. 

Your brand exists in the heads and hearts of your audience, of the marketplace. The tangible details your customers can see—brand image, signage, class structure, retail storefronts, etc. they tell your customers about the things they can’t see (e.g., quality of instruction, results, standards, and values). 

Create a uniform experience for customers, and you’ll find it’s easier to attract, convert, and retain students. 

Lesson #02. Lower Buyer Resistance with a Scalable and Structured Class Model 

This is Club Pilates’ Intro Class

According to their website, “Club Pilates offers 9 class formats at 4 different levels.” Take a look at how they describe their Intro Pilates class.

“The Club Pilates Intro Class is the perfect way to experience Pilates and our studio! Enjoy a 30-minute, full-body session with one of our talented Instructors, each of whom has completed more than 500 hours of comprehensive Pilates training. This session is a great intro to our state-of-the-art equipment, studio, workout, and our amazing staff. Find your local studio to book your complimentary Reformer session today!”

There’s definitely some sales messaging in there, but there’s a whole lot more going on. If we take a closer look at their class model, we see: 

• The intro class is 30 min. 
• It’s a full-body workout.
• Instructors have more than 500 hrs of training 
• Fitness sessions have new machines and Reformers
• Students receive instructions on how to use all of the items
• Support staff are available to assist you

Take a look at their CP CONTROL class: 

Here’s their class description on their website. 

“CP CONTROL (Level 1.5 & 2.0)

Stand Up & Get Toned

Inspired by Joseph Pilates’ work with dancers, Control sculpts your legs and glutes as you experience a whole new way of incorporating Pilates principles while standing up at the Springboard! The Reformer, gliding discs, fitness ball, mats, and free weights are used to keep your body guessing and getting stronger with every class. Integrating functional, standing movement into your Pilates practice increases strength, balance, stability, and control in ways that will enhance your everyday life. This class puts the “fun” into functional training!”

What does this tell us?

• The goal of this class is to build functional core strength, balance, stability, and control
• This class works the muscles in your lower body (legs and glutes)
• Uses a variety of equipment, including the Springboard, Reformer, gliding discs and mat, fitness ball, and free weights
• Students receive instructions on how to use each item mentioned 
• It’s built on the principles created by founder, Joseph Pilates

See what I mean?

When students register for a session, they know what to expect. There’s no confusion, stress, or anxiety. 

Lesson #03. Relationships and Community Building are the Keys to MRR

Community building is about four specific criteria.

1. Culture: Culture is living values. Values are written down and codified. Club Pilates has a welcoming culture that meets people where they are. Are you a beginner who’s lived a sedentary lifestyle for the last decade? Super athlete training for your next triathlon? Club Pilates fosters a culture that’s both welcoming and challenging. 
2. Group practice: Relationships can’t be built in isolation. Relationships need strong interpersonal connections. Club Pilates offers group practice that facilitates student-to-student and student-to-instructor relationships. One-on-one sessions are great ways to build a relationship with your coach, but you also need interconnected relationships among students, employees, and instructors to create the right environment. 
3. Personalization: Many Pilates programs force students into pre-defined programs that aren’t a good fit for everyone. Club Pilates builds a system and structure that provides students with predictability and consistency. Club Pilates instructors can tailor specific exercises to each student. They make an effort to structure sessions based on student ability,  
4. Engagement: Club Pilates instructors consistently engage with students. They greet them by name when they walk through the doors, check in on student goals and performance, and cheer students on when they achieve success. Students respond and reciprocate, building relationships that are based on mutual respect, care, guidance, and protection. 

Their approach is simple. 

Club Pilates takes care of their employees; they teach them how to do the same for their students. Those students give what they receive, creating strong relationships and camaraderie in the process. 

If you want to boost your monthly recurring revenue (MRR), this is how you do it. Create an environment that offers your clients the care, guidance, connection, and protection they need.  Your churn rate will go down as your MRR goes up. 

How do you apply this in your business? 

• Ask staff members about the values they’d like to see in your studio. (e.g., get to know students personally, be your students’ biggest cheerleader, show students you care every day, etc.).
• Build values from the bottom up. 
• Write your values down. 
• Live out your values to create culture.
• Use your values and culture to personalize the student experience. 

These are simple steps you can take to build strong relationships. 

Lesson #04. Use Procedures and Policies to Find A-Player People

Hiring the wrong person is enormously expensive. 

Dr. Bradford Smart, creator of the hiring methodology Topgrading and the mishire calculator, found that a mishire costs you 5 to 27 times their salary. What does this mean? Finding the right employees is essential if you want your Pilates studio to grow. 

That’s a problem because 88% of employers found that applicants are lying on their resumes. Club Pilates follows its hiring procedures. Sure, everyone looks for quality employees, but how many people take the time to verify an applicant’s resume?

Not many.

Club Pilates verifies the data on an applicant’s resume, then takes it a step further. They train them, ensuring that their studios are filled with competent, highly knowledgeable instructors. 

“Club Pilates instructors are certified through a proprietary, 500-hour Comprehensive Pilates education program. This combines in-person training, online coursework, and independent study. Club Pilates is recognized as a continuing education provider by NASM and AFAA.” 

Club Pilates uses its policies and procedures as guardrails, keeping A-player candidates on track and performing beautifully. 

How do you apply this in your own Pilates studio?

1. Begin with the end in mind. Add the right procedures to manage the day-to-day operations of your business. 
2. Create the workflows and structures you need to find, manage, and support your team. 
3. Then look for A-player candidates with a verifiable and proven track record. Use a hiring methodology like Topgrading to screen applicants. 
4. Hire instructors who have extensive experience, a proven track record, and can show they’re competent. 
5. Onboard and train your instructors and employees well; give your instructors lots of hands-on training and support. Make yourself or a manager available to them and be ready to help them when they need it. 
6. Take great care of your employees and show them how to take care of the students in your Pilates studio. 
7. Use your values, culture, polices, and procedures to guide, correct, inform, and support your team. 

Once you’ve done this, set up an employee advocacy program.

What’s that?

Employee advocacy is a form of recruitment. An employee advocate is an employee or someone on your team who:

• Recruits other A-player employees to your organization
• Promotes your organization’s products and services to people in their social circle
• Consistently acts in your organization’s best interests
• Boosts company-wide employee engagement
• Becomes a thought leader, product, service, or subject-matter expert

If you’re looking for employee advocates, start by sorting your team into one of two buckets. 

1. Believers: These employees are aligned with their organization and its goals. They identify with their organization. 
2. Mercenaries: These employees are self-absorbed; they’re all about personal outcomes – what’s in it for me?

Your employees attract who they are, so it goes without saying that it’s a good idea to reach out to believers in your organization. If they’ve bought-in to the idea of advocacy, train them. Show them how to recruit the employees you’re looking for.

What if you’re not ready to hire?

Easy, you create a virtual bench. Your virtual bench is simply a pool of A-player candidates, employees-in-waiting. A-players spend time with A-players; you’re basically asking them to recruit their friends. So, how do you do that? How do you motivate your existing employees to pitch their A-player friends?

Here are several great options for your studio. 

• Use financial incentives. For example, if a referred employee is still an employee after six months, you reward both your employee advocate and their new recruit with $1,000. Sounds expensive? Well, the average cost to hire a new employee is $4,129.
• Hire for potential, not current competence. Fill your virtual bench with A-player potentials who are a value and culture-fit. You can train new employees and instructors; it’s much harder to address a culture mismatch.
• Acqui-hire. Hire A-players who already have A-players in their contact list. This means you have to confirm that you’re hiring an A-player.

It’s so important that it bears repeating. Find your A-player employees; take care of them, and they’ll take care of your students. Let your students take care of your revenue.

Lesson #05. Create Positive Client Experiences to Boost ARR

We haven’t clarified what we mean by a “positive client experience,” so let’s take a minute to define that right now. When we discuss positive client experiences, we mean customers: 

• Are part of a welcoming, nonjudgmental, and supportive environment
• Receive friendly and personalized attention from instructors
• Have access to private sessions with instructors
• Accommodate various class levels—beginner, intermediate, advanced
• Have confidence in the mechanics of movement and alignment
• Are challenged by safe workouts that require growth
• Notice an increase in flexibility and mobility
• See a notable improvement in their core strength and posture
• Have the support they need to maintain health and recover from or rehab injuries
• Have smaller class sizes with good student/instructor ratios
• Are happy with the class formats and feel they’re having fun
• Enjoy a studio environment that’s clean, tidy, and calming
• Feel they can rely on staff who are friendly, supportive, and professional
• See that the equipment and props are well-maintained and updated periodically

How do these client experiences drive your annualized recurring revenue (ARR)?

Your MRR is your total monthly revenue, while your ARR is the annualized version of MRR. It’s the total revenue expected from monthly memberships over the course of the year. 

How do positive experiences boost your ARR? 

Positive client experiences put more cash money in your pocket by producing:  

1. High(er) retention rates: Satisfied students are much less likely to stray. If their experience with you is consistently positive, they will have higher levels of trust, loyalty, satisfaction, and engagement. All of this reduces churn and boosts your revenue over time. 
2. More upselling opportunities: It’s easier to sell to existing customers than it is to acquire new ones. When clients are satisfied and happy, they want you to solve more of their problems. This means they’re spending more money with you because, no surprise, they trust you to get results. 
3. Customer advocacy and expansion revenue: With happy students, your revenue increases over time. They refer their friends, bring in family members, spend more on merchandise, and work to evangelize your Pilates studio. It’s a natural byproduct of the relationship.  
4. More pricing power: Happy clients are more willing to spend more. A higher perceived value (via positive five-star reviews) means you can justify premium pricing. If clients feel that you’re providing them with a premium option, they’re less price-sensitive. You can increase your prices without increasing churn. 

This doesn’t have to be complicated.

Treating the students in your Pilates studio well leads to increased revenue in both the short and long term. You’ll see a sharp decrease in churn rates and an increase in MRR and ARR over time. More revenue with less work and in less time.  

Lesson #06. Using Effective Marketing Strategies for Your Pilates Studio

Club Pilates uses a variety of marketing channels to promote its organization. They use a mix of official and unofficial channels to (a.) attract new customers who are curious about life changing training. (b.) attract franchisees who want to start their own Pilates studio, and (c.) build their brand image and reputation. Club Pilates used: 

1. Paid advertising: This generates an immediate flow of traffic to your business. It’s immediate, and you have complete control over the quality and level of traffic you can generate. The downside? The traffic stops the instant you stop spending.  
2. Content development: Educational and informative content that addresses specific problems your clients are facing. This marketing comes in a variety of formats, including landing pages, lead magnets, video sales letters, etc.
3. Local search: Optimizing your local search presence in Google. This includes link building, reviews, Google Business profiles, citations, social media signals, and other relevant factors.
4. Introductory and referral offers: They provide clients with benefits and incentives to promote the business.    
5. Social media marketing: Digital relationship building via platforms like X, Facebook, YouTube, Telegram, and more. 
6. Email marketing: Direct-to-customer messaging that’s used to educate, direct, and sell to clients. No direct pay-to-play mechanisms in place (e.g., Google ads).   

You’ll need to market across a variety of channels. You’ll want to test each of these channels, working to identify what works best for you. The marketing channels include: 

1. Traffic: A steady supply of leads from the marketing channels we discussed above.  
2. Customers: These students, primarily women, who are interested in Pilates.
3. Cash flow: The revenue coming into (and going out of) your business.  
4. Profit: The cash left after expenses, taxes, insurance, etc. 
5. Growth: An increase in top-line or bottom-line growth over a set period (e.g., year-over-year).   

You can pursue each of these goals, but you’ll need to determine which content pieces are responsible for what. Generally speaking, it’s a smart idea for content pieces to focus on a single goal. 

What sort of marketing content can you use?

• Introducing the instructors at specific locations.
• Reels or shorts with demos of various sessions and levels.
• A daily post mentioning whether there are open spots available.
• Photos and videos of your facility.
• Sessions at alternate locations (e.g., breweries).
• Fun posts, contests, and sweepstakes.
• Company updates (e.g., new classes, updates, schedule changes, etc.).
• Merchandise and products for sale.
• Member success story spotlights and feel good content that include photos, video, and data.
• Instructions, techniques, and movement walkthroughs. 

Test the marketing channels and campaigns that work best for you. Use promotions, discounts, and incentives to draw new clients in. Create partnerships with local businesses to expand your reach. Go above and beyond, creating positive client experiences with your students. Ask them to share their experiences via reviews. Use those reviews to build a strong brand identity, establish credibility, and attract new clients.

Lesson #07. Measuring Success and Growth to Improve Performance

Club Pilates is a data-driven company. 

They use their data to make important decisions about how they build, maintain, promote, and structure their business. Instead of relying on intuition or guesswork, they rely on performance and results. 

Why does that matter? 

According to McKinsey, data-driven organizations are 23 times more likely to win new customers, six times more likely to retain these customers, and 19 times more likely to be profitable as a result. What exactly is Club Pilates doing?

Well, they opened 400 locations in less than two years. That’s a lot to track; if they want to improve their business and the performance of each location, they have to look at the data. 

Okay, how are they doing it? 

They’re using Yext to track their marketing campaigns and growth. Club Pilates uses Yext to monitor their franchise locations across Google and other platforms. They focus their attention on a variety of metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs), including: 

• Impressions/visibility 
• Views on search/views on maps
• Local search keyword rankings
• Clickthrough rates
• Clicks 
• Conversions/Conversion rates
• Revenue growth
• Client retention
• Click to call, request directions, and visit your website
• Growth rate
• Aggregate reviews/average star rating
• Direct/discovery/unbranded search queries
• Citation (e.g., name, address, phone) accuracy
• Audience size/follower growth rate
• Reply time
• Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)
• Comments
• Awareness/reach
• Social media referral traffic
• Share of voice

How do you apply this in your own business?

These metrics and KPIs are crucial components of your marketing strategy. If you want sustainable growth for your business, you need to be able to accomplish a few things: 

1. Identify the metrics and KPIs that are important to you.
2. Set up tracking for each of these metrics and KPIs.
3. Run surveys and request feedback consistently.
4. Use data and analytics tools to inform your decision-making.
5. Use your data to set measurable goals and objectives.

Measuring performance is a crucial aspect of growing your studio. Your data is a valuable tool that can help you make informed decisions. Instead of relying on intuition or guesswork, use your data to build, maintain, promote, and structure your business.

Use the Lessons from Club Pilates to Build Your Pilates Studio

Your brand exists in the hearts and minds of your audience. The tangible details your customers can reveal more about things they can’t see. 

Allison Beardsley wasn’t connected to Joseph Pilates, the founder of Pilates. She wasn’t a student of the Pilates Elders. No one achieved what Beardsley did with Club Pilates. How did she do it? More importantly, how did she help others achieve success with Pilates? 

She created a system around Club Pilates and then shared it with franchisees. That system and structure provide everyone—students, franchisees, and partners with the predictability and consistency they need to be successful. Use these lessons to build your Pilates studio, one client at a time. Create a uniform experience for customers, and you’ll find it’s easier to attract, convert, and retain students.