Episode 321: Stop Throwing Spaghetti at the Wall: How to Build a Real Client Acquisition System

If you feel stuck in a constant cycle of flash sales, discounts, and last-minute promotions just to fill classes, this episode is for you. In this episode of the Female emPOWERED Podcast, host Christa Gurka breaks down why reactive “panic marketing” doesn’t work—and what boutique fitness and wellness studio owners should build instead.

You’ll learn how to move away from feast-and-famine revenue and create a simple, repeatable client acquisition system that runs consistently—without burning you out. Christa walks you through intro offers that convert, the 5 stages of a marketing funnel, and how to build sustainable foundations before chasing ads, collaborations, or referral promos.

Whether you own a Pilates studio, yoga studio, CrossFit gym, or private practice, this episode will help you stop throwing spaghetti at the wall and start growing with intention.

📌 What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why discounts, flash sales, and referral promos fail without a system
• How “panic marketing” creates feast-and-famine revenue cycles
• The difference between a marketing problem and a systems problem
• What a clear, compelling intro offer should actually look like
• How to price intro offers so they convert into memberships
• The 5 pillars of a sustainable marketing funnel:
  1. Awareness
  2. Consideration / Know–Like–Trust
  3. Purchase & Onboarding
  4. Retention & Loyalty
  5. Re-engagement
• Why retention matters just as much as new client acquisition
• How to create simple funnels from:
  • Your website
  • Google & SEO
  • Paid ads
  • Social media DMs
• The exact backend systems every studio needs after someone buys an intro offer
• Why foundations must come before ads, agencies, or big collaborations

🧠 Key Takeaway

You don’t need more ideas.
 You need better execution inside a system.

Marketing works best when it’s intentional, repeatable, and built to support long-term client success—not when it’s driven by fear or urgency.

🚀 Ready to Build the Foundation?

If you want help building a predictable, sustainable marketing system:

🔹 Join the Fit Biz Community

• $99/month, month-to-month
• Two live coaching calls every month
• Marketing systems, intro offers, funnels, and messaging support
• Perfect for studio owners who want clarity and consistency

🔹 Apply for the FBS Accelerator

• A hands-on program to map and optimize your entire client journey
• Enrollment closing January 16, 2026
• Reopens July 2026

👉 Learn more at www.christagurka.com

📲 Let’s Connect

DM me on Instagram @christagurka if you have questions or want help applying what you learned in this episode.

🎧 Coming Up Next

Next week’s episode:
 How to Reclaim 3–5 Hours a Week as a Studio CEO (and Stop Being the Bottleneck)

Until then, friend—bye for now 💜

Transcript

Christa Gurka | Fit Biz Strategies: 0:51

Hey there everyone. Welcome back to another episode of The Female Empowered Podcast. I am your host, Christa Gurka, and happy 2026. I know it's the second episode of the year. I mean, it's exciting. We're in 2026, January. I'm excited for this is the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. This is the sixth season of the Female Empowered Podcast Witches. Absolutely insane to me that it's been six years since I started this podcast. It's crazy. but what we're gonna talk about today is a, is a topic that really comes up constantly in a lot of our community coaching calls with owners trying to just piecemeal their business together. And what do I mean by that? What I mean is, What I mean is they are like, well, I need more clients now, so what can I do to get more clients in the next 30 days? And then I need to hire, so what do I do to hire somebody? Oh, and I did hire somebody. So what kind of contracts do I have? So instead of building foundations for their business, they just piecemeal everything together. And this particular episode topic is inspired by a recent conversation we had. In the Fit BS community where there was a business owner asking how to run a referral program, or does she give discount codes to people that can refer to her? Or does she offer physical therapists or chiropractor, chiropractors, free classes and stuff if they send people to their studio. And the thing about that is that's not a strategy. and so when we run our business that, we will constantly be disappointed, mostly because it doesn't, the whole system is not created properly. So if you do a referral program, but you don't have a good backup system, or you don't have a retention system, or you don't have an onboarding system, you're gonna be like, well, nothing works for me. Well, no, it's just because you don't have a whole marketing system or referral system. You have more of a panic cycle. This feast and famine type life, which happens a lot in this industry. So. What we're gonna talk about is why you shouldn't just create this marketing platform every time revenue dips or offer a discount, one-off discounts or offer one-off, referral promo because. What you want is something that will run on autopilot, This kind of panic marketing or this kind of feast and famine cycle is exhausting. It's completely unpredictable, and it's 1000% not sustainable. So today what we're gonna do is I'm gonna break down what it actually looks like to build. A replicable, reliable client acquisition system that brings people in consistently, Not just when you're freaking out and need some more bodies on reformer. So how do you know if you are building your business in this reactive mode? All right, so how do you know if this is what you're doing? So let's start. One, you feel you're just throwing spaghetti against the wall. are you just throwing spaghetti against the wall and trying to figure out if something sticks? So if every time you recognize that you have a dip in your revenue or in client base, okay, I'm gonna launch a, a flash sale. Or you see another studio run a promotion, okay, maybe I'll do that too. Or you're constantly trying new things. Let's try a referral promotion this month. Let's try, bring a friend to class day this month. But there's no real backend system. You're just trying to do the front end of it, but there's no backend. That's when you start to really feel behind. You feel anxious. You feel you're always starting from zero, and that's where you get this FEMA feast and famine. So. When you are running these promotions, you get the feast'cause you're getting new clients in, but then you, because you have no backend systems, you then go in a famine mode because you're not constantly trying to garner and trying to get new clients and new acquisitions. So it's not really a marketing problem. It's a systems problem. It's a strategy problem. It's a sustainability problem, and the reason that it really feels so stressful is because everything feels urgent at the time and nothing is really intentional. Nothing is really thought through and developed and designed in a way that's built for success. And so why do these things not work without a system? Why discounts and referrals and those kind of promotions. Why don't they work if you don't have a system? So I don't want you to get me wrong, referrals are great. Promotions are great, but they have to come with. Again, building this entire ecosystem so you know where they're, what they're doing, each and every phase of this system, where they fall off and what you can improve. All right, so they only really work when you plug them into this much more larger acquisition. System. So here's what happens if you don't have that system, okay? You tell Jane, Jane, every time you bring in a referral, I'm gonna give you$50 or something So Jane maybe brings in two or three people and one of them, so she gets What,$150. If she brings in two or three people, maybe one of them converts. Then, so you're getting a few little bit of people, but then you don't have any way to keep those people in the door. Maybe they. Didn't come in with an intro offer, they just bought a one-off. And how do you sell to them to get them to stay? What kind of automations and emails and texts go out to them to make them feel really welcome? What do you do to make sure that Jane then keeps sending more people? How does she feel Important? Okay, so there's, is there follow-up, is there a clear path for what. What they can expect becoming members of your studio without this type of foundation. Discounts really just attract bargain hunters, not the type of loyal returning clients that you actually want. And then again, this does create this feeling of oh my gosh, I hate the marketing. I hate the type of clients I'm getting. All they do is bring in bad clients. It's not, it's your offer brings in bad clients. Okay. So one of the things that I think is really, really important is you want to make sure you have a new client funnel, and how do you create a new client funnel? A new client offer that funnels people into one that actually converts. So let's talk about the better way to bring people in your studio. Alright. Every studio should have a clear. Compelling new client offer clear and compelling, not 16 different offers, right? sometimes I see studios and it's you can have one week unlimited. You can buy five classes for this prime. You can do two privates and three group classes. You can do three privates and four group classes. No, let's have, for Pilates, what I, one of the things I love is a group class offer and a private offer. Alright. You want them priced efficiently and effectively enough that they are somewhat close to what an entry level package would be. So for example, if you are, the lowest membership someone can buy is$129. Let's have something be 97 to$99 for the intro offer. So that it's close enough when you have a$49 offer, and then the next thing they can buy is$350. That is a huge jump for people. So let's price Your intro offers closer to the price of an actual membership. So if you do, let's say for Pilates in the Grove, our intro offer was$99 for three group classes. Okay? And then we also had two private sessions for$99. Oh no, our, maybe it was our pro, our three group classes was$79, and then$99 was two private sessions. And then our four class a month membership was 1 29. So it was close enough that it's just a little bit of a bump. Okay. And they should have an expiration date, so they should be 14 to 21 days. You don't want them. The whole idea of an intro offer is that they use them regularly and frequently so they get the sense of what it's like to be in your studio, and that creates more buy-in from the start. Okay? When you have too many intro offers, it's just confusing to people. And when people are confusing, they actually don't make a decision. So once again, have. if you're, I'm talking to Pilates, but also yoga. Yoga have one, one offer two weeks, unlimited,$89. Give them enough time to get to know your studio and, and then for Pilates, maybe do a group class offer and a private offer, and then have it at for a limited period of time. The next thing you need to do is how are you interacting with these people that are in your new client offer? How are you inter interacting with them? when they schedule their session, are they getting an email or a text? When they come to their SEC session, are they getting some sort of touchpoint? How are you trying to convert them from intro offer to long-term package or membership? These are all things that must happen along the customer journey. when we talk about mapping out your customer journey, there are five different pillars of a marketing strategy. One is awareness. This is the first pillar they have to know about you. They can't buy from you if they don't know that you exist. Then the second one, some people call it consideration. Some people call it the know, and trust. Some people call it the nurture phase. basically they're deciding if they want to do business with you, if you're the right fit. They're browsing your website, they're reading your reviews. They're absorbing and engaging with your social media content, and they're deciding if they know, and trust you enough, and if you're the right fit for them. Then phase three is. Buying. this is when they purchase, and this is when you onboard them as a client. They buy the intro offer. now what are they getting? Are they getting what's next? Where do you park? How do you arrive? Should you bring a water bottle? Are you a sock studio? Do they need to bring a yoga mat? All of these things, what they can expect. those are the top three. Then the bottom two is loyalty and retention. how are you keeping the people. That come. How are you keeping them? How are you plugging the bottom of the funnel?'cause if you're always getting new people, but the same, the people that are currently there are always falling out, then you're always having to pay and work hard for new people. And that's a lot. It's expensive and it's exhausting. So how are you building a loyalty and a retention program? And then the fifth one is actually reengaging. How are you re reaching out to people that may have fallen off and reengaging them and inviting them back in? Okay, so how do you create these simple, sustainable funnels for smaller studios, for one, two location studios? Because if you're thinking Krista, this feels super overwhelming to me. I don't even know where to start. No problem. I got you girls. This is, we're gonna simplify it for you. Okay, so funnel number one. Option number one is the website. Funnel website machine. Okay, so someone goes to your website, whether that be,'cause they found you on Google,'cause you have some really great SEO on your website that's, or you're running some ads Okay? So they get to your website, they see front and center, new clients start here, and then they buy an intro offer. Okay? When they purchase that intro offer, they should receive a welcome email. In the welcome email, it should tell them everything they need to know about arriving for their first class, where to park, what to wear, what to bring, what they can expect. Once they attend that first session, there should be some personalized touchpoint when they arrive at the studio, whether that be from the front desk people, whether that be from the instructor. There should be a follow-up email after that first session and it right away from that follow-up email should be talking about whether the next steps to convert them into a membership or package. So they're on your website. They purchase the intro offer, they get a welcome email, they attend the class, they get a follow up email, then they get converted into a membership. Okay. What about if they've come from an ad or they're on Google search, or maybe they click on something on meta, so they click on your. They get to a landing page. That landing page should tell them exactly what to do next. Here are the intro offers. Here's the intro offer that's best. If this, here's the intro offer that's best if that they purchase it, then they continue with. The website machine funnel, they get sent the welcome email they get when they arrive. Then they get a follow-up email, then they get the membership conversion emails. So that is how they come in from Google. What if they, there's also some ads that you can run because me, six Sip of Water. There's also some ads that you can run if. To DM you on social. They're pretty successful, so if you like them, then you can also learn how to run DM ads. So you have some educational posts on social media. The post says to DM them prompts a dm. You have a simple script that you reply to all these dms with, with a booking link. Once they book that intro offer, then they go through the rest of the funnel. They book the intro offer, they get a welcome email. They come to class, then they get the follow up email, and then they get the membership conversion. Okay. These are all ways that all of the funnels, it's just how they get to that intro offer. But once they purchase the intro offer, the rest of it should be the same. They get the welcome email, they come to class, they get a follow up email, they get talked to on how they convert from the intro offer to a membership. Okay? So the way that I want you to think about, the, the pushback we get from a lot of people is, I don't have time to do all that. I need people today. And while that's all fun and good, and I can understand and empathize, think of it if someone were to come into your yoga studio or your Pilate studio or your CrossFit gym. And they'd never done Pilates before, and they said to you, alright, I saw this on social media. I wanna learn how to do a headstand today. Or in Pilates. They're I wanna learn how to do overhead or tendon stretch today, or in CrossFit. They're I, I, I need to, I need to try to deadlift 200 pounds today. You as an instructor would be absolutely not. We need to build up your foundation in order to, we can't just jump right into the advanced stuff. Well, it's very similar. marketing is no different than teaching that you would never put someone who had never been on a reformer before and have them do TSR during their very first five minutes of a session. You would never load someone into their hips or ankles before they've mastered the foundations of movement and mobility. But that's exactly what a lot of studio owners do with their marketing. They jump right immediately to. Big collaborations, fancy events, ads, marketing agencies, without having a foundation underneath, without saying, here are the type of people we're trying to attract. Here is our journey for them and what they're gonna do each and every step of the way so that we can ensure their success in getting from. Knowing about us to becoming members, right? Without the foundations, you are just throwing spaghetti against the wall. You need the foundations of clear messaging, who exactly you're trying to target one specific offer, a very simple F funnel that includes a welcome and a follow up. System, a consistent content strategy. That doesn't mean a lot, it just means consistent. And then you can move on to the advanced stuff, which is ads and which is collaborations, and which is all of this stuff. Okay? So it really is important to build the foundations first. Figure out who you are trying to attract. How you are going to attract them, how you are going to get them to know, and trust you. What you are going to offer them and how you are going to convert them into long-term loyal clients. So if you're really tired of just throwing spaghetti against the wall, if you're tired of wondering where are all the new clients? If you're done with being reactive about your marketing strategy and are ready for predictable growth, then here's what I would do next. I would. Pull back the curtain on your own business and make sure that your foundations are strong with a strong intro offer, a follow-up sequence, a strong marketing plan and messaging, and if you're interested in getting help with that. You can consider joining our Fit Biz Community membership, which is a month to month, no-brainer me. membership for$99 a month,$99 a month. You can't, this is your intro offer, but for us, it's not an intro offer. It's$99 a month, and you can stay that forever. You get video trainings. We do two live coaching calls each and every month where we talk about these kind of things. We talk about marketing plans, we talk about intro offers that convert this. The community membership is where you build your foundations if you want the entire journey optimized and mapped out for you and help you implement it in real time. Then the FIP is Accelerator, which started in January. Now 2026. So we're one weekend, but we're still taking enrollments and applications for a week or so. And then we're gonna close enrollment until July of 2026. But if you're interested in that check out, go visit my website, www.kristagca.com. You can see the community. The f bs monthly membership community, and you can also see the application for the accelerator. All right, we are closing enrollment for the accelerator at the end of this week. So today is the 13th. at the time this is airing and we are gonna be closing it on the 16th. if not, we will reopen again in July. All right, so. In conclusion, people, I want you to remember, you don't really need more ideas. What you need is to execute on the ideas that you already have and to execute on the ideas you need in the system. All right. I would love to support you on this journey. If you have any questions, you again can DM me over on Instagram. I'm@christagurka and stay tuned for next week's episode. What are we talking about next week? Next week we are gonna be talking about. How to reclaim three to five hours a week as a CEO of your studio and how to go from CEO, how to go from operator to more of a CEO. Alright, so that's what we're gonna be talking about next week. And until then, my friends, bye for now.