💌value discounting, no more Stages Cycling? & a future time to meet IRL💌
Wednesday April 24, 2024
One of our indoor cycling trainees here in Mumbai, is, (like every other trainee!) a dancer as well as a dance instructor. She shared with me that during the beginning of the pandemic lockdown when everyone “had pivoted to online," she felt it was a good time to sharpen her technical skills while unable to work in-person performing or teaching. She decided to ‘shoot her shot’ & reached out via Instagram to an esteemed LA-based modern dance instructor & mentor to see if she'd be open to a private lesson on Zoom & what is her rate.
USD $250. For 30 minutes, 1:1.
As you can imagine, given strength of US dollars vs India rupees + average income levels, this dancer needed to really think could she afford to spend a decent chunk of her hard-earned savings on this lesson. Our trainee came back to this dance instructor (who runs academies, has a studio in the LA area, has former students dancing professionally in every kind of media & is legitimately worth the fee) & said very simply, “I'd love to learn from you & I know I'll grow…but with the currency conversion, it is a lot of money for me…do you have any flexibility?”
And instead of discounting her private lesson cost, she was given the option of a 45 minute 1:1 lesson for the price of a 30 minute 1:1 lesson. An add-on of time, gifted to a young dancer in a less economically blessed situation from a leader who was still being properly compensated for her time & extraordinary feedback.
Was it worth it? She says yes; this dance leader was able to unlock better technique for a specific type of movement & her performance of that specific move has never been better. A tangible result.
This is the strategy I would love to see boutique studios of all modalities worldwide employ rather than a % discount; an additional value given to the client for the price you've set (you're the one who knows your break-even) rather than a discount.
e.g. Buy 10 classes at the regular price + receive 11 classes + a pass to bring a first-time friend for free, instead of buying 10 classes for a % discount.
The shift is that clients plainly see the price you've set as a small business they're supporting and are gifted something more. In the case of the dancer with the expensive 1:1 lesson, she knew the value of the high cost & that she would come away from the lesson with something great she could use, immediately.
As my friend & marketing coach Alexa Cawley says often; if we condition clients to wait for the “deal” to buy, it is incredibly tough to re-train them to buy at full price. (An analogy of feeding your dog scraps from your dinner table comes to mind; unless you want that to be your dog's normal expectation, never do it!!!)
Two other newsworthy bits of information I wanted to share with you:
Stages Cycling has ceased operations & apparently laid-off their entire staff. WOWZA. Do I know, specifically, what this will mean for your studio, should you use an SC1, SC2 or SC3 bike? I do not…but I will absolutely share any news I receive, should you want to chat privately or wait for an update here. Finding parts may prove problematic depending on your region, so do revert to your local distributor as needed. I heard a bit of gossip while at IHRSA…but will wait until more is revealed as Stages has not yet formally announced if they have been acquired or not and by whom or if it is truly game over with no version 2.0. If you are considering replacing bikes you've had several years or have an expansion plan in place, I highly suggest taking a beat before moving forward on a new purchase. Do click reply if you want to chat through anything.
I've spoken with several of you over the past months who are wanting another Boutique Fitness Talks event…and I do, too! The plan was to meet together in Saigon, Vietnam in June & collaborate with a wonderful studio & studio owner I know you will sincerely enjoy meeting…but I simply could not appropriately time an event with you all due to this new studio project I'm consulting in India! We WILL do another in Asia in the coming quarters…and I am narrowing-down a collaborator for Europe…stay tuned.
Until next week!
xx Noël