Pilates Business Podcast

Mastering the Art of Upselling: Increasing Revenue Without Being Pushy

• Seran Glanfield • Season 22 • Episode 215

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 In this episode of The Pilates Business Podcast, host Seran Glanfield pulls back the curtain on one of the most misunderstood parts of running a boutique fitness business — sales. If the very idea of “selling” makes you cringe or feel like you're turning into a pushy salesperson, you're not alone. But what if sales didn’t have to feel slimy or awkward at all?

Seran breaks down how to confidently guide prospective clients toward a yes — without pressure, scripts, or sleazy tactics. With insights from her Thrive coaching program and years of experience helping Pilates studio owners grow thriving businesses, she shares how to reframe sales as a process of connection, clarity, and impact.

Whether you're a Pilates studio owner or run another type of boutique fitness business, this episode will help you transform how you think about your sales process and finally make it feel aligned, authentic, and yes — even enjoyable.


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Speaker 1:

Do you ever feel like selling your sessions or your classes makes you sound perhaps a little pushy, like maybe you're forcing people into something even when you know it might change their life? Well, in today's episode, I'm going to flip fear on its head when it comes to selling, because sales does not have to be slimy or uncomfortable. In fact, when you do it right, it actually won't feel like selling at all. I'm diving into how you can enroll more clients with confidence, but without the cringe. So if you want to fill your classes and your bank account without turning into a used car salesperson, keep listening.

Speaker 2:

Well, hi there, I'm Saren Glanfield. I'm a business and marketing strategist just for boutique fitness studio owners like you. If you're ready to be inspired and make a bigger impact, you're in the right place. All you need are a few key strategies, the right mindset and some support along the way. Join me as I share the real life insights that will help you grow a sustainable and profitable studio. This is the Pilates Business Podcast.

Speaker 1:

Well, hey there and welcome back to the Pilates Business Podcast. I'm so glad you're here listening in this week and if you're new here, welcome Around here. This is the place where we talk about growing your studio in a way that actually feels aligned with you and why you started in the first place. Usually, that has something to do with helping people move better, feel better and live better. I've been coaching studio owners for over a decade now, and in that time, I've seen all the ups, all the downs, all the good and all the bad. Trust me, I really do feel like I've seen it all, and there are many things that come along very often that we need to address when it comes to being a business owner, and one of those things is the thing that we're talking about today and this is one of the most uncomfortable topics, I think, for so many studio owners and that is sales. Often, just hearing that word probably makes some of you want to run back into the comfort zone of queuing the spine, stretch forward or thinking about your next continuing education workshop. But let me say this loud and clear and truly I want you to really hear this, because if you're running a business, you are already in sales and if you're avoiding sales, then the chances are you're also missing out on revenue, you're also missing out on retention and you're likely missing out on long-term growth. The reality sales isn't about being pushy. It's not about forcing people. It's not about coercion or manipulating them. It's actually about guiding them to a decision that's good for them. It's not about pressure. It's actually about clarity and confidence and connection. So maybe it's time to rewire your brain around sales, because when we finally get this truly, it changes so much in your business, and most of what we talk about inside of my Marketing Intensive and Thrive program is essentially designed to support your sales process these conversations that you have before the sale, after the sale, during the sale, to help make sure that you are maximizing revenue in your business. You're optimizing your business for revenue growth.

Speaker 1:

So I want to share with you some of the things that I often see folks struggle with when it comes to sales. So, number one the real problem I see often is that you think of selling like a transaction and you think of the sales as this one single point, the most stressful moment. A sales conversation or a sales consult, maybe, even perhaps, you're trying to perhaps make it this perfect scripted scenario. And there's all this pressure, perhaps to say the perfect thing, to have the perfect pricing, and so no wonder it feels really, really awkward, because I think often we think of this sales period of time I would like to call it a period of time, like a moment, but actually it is a process, Because selling doesn't start at the end of that intro offer or at the beginning of the intro offer. It actually starts when the second they find out about you, they hear about you, they learn about you. Every Instagram post, every front desk conversation, even the way your website is written, is all part of your sales process. And this is one of the first things that we dive into inside of Thrive, because if your marketing and your messaging and your client journey are not aligned, it will 100% feel really hard to make a strong sale. So if your sales weren't a moment, if your selling point wasn't a moment, this intense moment of a win or a lose or a pass or a fail, but perhaps an ongoing relationship that you're building, like maybe when you start to see your clients begin to get stronger right, like you start to see the full, full breadth of the entire experience that your clients have selling actually becomes way more natural because you remove that pressure and it's not about that one transaction. So you're guiding folks forward instead of simply convincing them.

Speaker 1:

Okay, the next challenge I see many studio owners making is that they are focused on convincing instead of on connecting, and I think this is one of the biggest mistakes I see throughout the marketing efforts of studio owners, and that is trying to sell the class instead of the impact, the change, the results, the outcomes, the transformation. So I see it all the time Studios promoting, say, small group classes or expert instructors and don't get me wrong, these absolutely matter but clients don't stay because of you're a former brand. They stay because of how they feel after a month of working with you, so that knee pain they didn't think could ever go away is gone. Or their confidence to do a big trip that they never thought they could do, where there's hiking and traveling and movement, they can do that again and that's really what they're buying from you and that's what we talk about a lot inside of my marketing intensive. It's where I help you to identify exactly what it is that you do for your clients, that transformation, that impact that you make, and we speak to that in our marketing efforts because once you learn how to truly articulate the value of what you have to offer, you stop sounding like just another studio, like you're offering just another Pilates class, and you start sounding like the answer to all of their problems, like the thing that they exactly need right now. So I want you to shift from trying to be impressive with the features of what you have to offer and instead think about how you can be relevant, connecting to what your ideal clients already want. And if you can do that, then you're not selling at all, you're just simply informing them of what is possible.

Speaker 1:

Now the next one is a big one, especially if you're someone who perhaps shies away from even having a conversation at all around pricing or packaging or memberships on next steps. So if you're someone who sort of avoids that or finds that super uncomfortable, then this might be a bit of a game changer for you. Now the problem is often, yes, we do not want to be pushy, so we often simply say nothing. We hand them maybe that pricing sheet, that little brochure with all of the options in there, all the many options that you're offering because you want to be available to everybody, right? We smile and we say, hey, here you go, here's what it looks like, and maybe then you turn and you walk to your next client or they leave the studio with that brochure in hand. That then gets shoved into the bottom of their purse and then they drive out of the parking lot and they go to the grocery store and then they get a call from their kid's school and they're gone, they're out. They may not ever reach back out again, and even when they find that crumpled brochure with your pricing list on it at the bottom of their purse and you're left hoping that they will because you've given them that beautiful brochure that you carefully designed with and poured so much time into thinking about the pricing.

Speaker 1:

But when we don't hear from them again, we start to question a lot in our business and we don't know why they haven't come back. We don't know whether it was the pricing, or they lost that bit of paper, or the kids' school called them or whatever it is. But probably in your mind you're making up some story around that Probably you're thinking, hmm, I wonder if it was too expensive for them. I wonder if they didn't like the classes. I wonder if I gave them perhaps the class that was too long or too short for them, or maybe I should change my schedule. Now all of that angst can disappear if, perhaps, you just ask permission to tell them about what's next, so you can simply ask them do you want to hear about how we can help you to get stronger? That's it. You're asking them for permission to share more about what you do. You're not invading their space, but you're inviting them into something. Would you like to learn more about how our class is? Would you like to find out which teacher would be a great teacher for you to get started with?

Speaker 1:

And this is something that can really shift the way that you even think about sales, but also shift the conversation that comes afterwards. So it goes from being this sort of awkward exchange to being a conversation and an opportunity for you to talk about the thing you love to do most with the people you love to do it with, and so, instead of building that sort of sense of tension and pressure, we're actually opening up the door for a values-based, permission-led conversation that builds trust instead of tension Inside. Thrive, I give you a ton of different ways to do this, and the more opportunity and practice you get, the easier it gets, and clients love it, not because you're trying to push them over the finish line, right? It's because they're making an empowered decision and you're sharing, like I said earlier, that information with them. That's going to help them to make the right decision for them, which is exactly what we want, right?

Speaker 1:

Okay, the next thing I wanted to share with you is and it's a deep breath, deep breath for this one because it is something that we are perhaps very unaware of in ourselves, and I think even those who feel like they're good at selling and have a really strong revenue number in their business and their business is thriving and growing, they can find this kind of stumbles too, and that is your energy and your confidence. When you're in that conversation about next steps, and your energy might say something like I know, this is expensive and I hope you say yes, and if that's what your energy says, they will pick up on it. So this comes down to confidence, and when you're able to stand firmly in your you know where you're at with sharing what you're about you and that comes from something deep inside of you, you will find that that is contagious and people really pick up on confidence, and so confidence is often a big factor when it comes to whether or not a client will buy from you. And it's important to have confidence in what you do even when you're not at that point of sale. And so confidence doesn't start as soon as you switch the you know, turn the gear on to being in your sales role. It actually starts from the moment that you actually connect and interact with your clients. So we want to shift from saying I hope, I hope you like this or I hope you enjoyed yourself today, to saying this was a great session, you did great, here's what's next. And that confidence will get picked up on by your client, and that means truly that you can't fake it. Actually, you can't pretend. I do not believe that you can really long-term or even at all. What really needs to happen before you?

Speaker 1:

If you're finding that you're perhaps not as confident as you'd like to be, it often comes down to being rooted in the value of what you're offering, and if you've never done the deep work to really articulate that and to get clear on that for yourself, then you might find that you always struggle in this area and because it really starts with you believing in it.

Speaker 1:

Inside of the Marketing Intensive, one of the things I do is to help you to reconnect with the impact that you have on your clients' lives, and so when you come to having these conversations, you are able to truly articulate the impact that you're having.

Speaker 1:

And so having these conversations simply becomes sort of an educational experience for your clients so you can share with them what it is that you do. Sometimes, I find actually often I find many studio owners come to me in a place where they haven't done this work or haven't done it for a really long time, and if you're ever been close to a point of burnout or overwhelmed in your business, then you may have lost the spark for what you do. And this, the work that we do, oh my goodness, it just lights people back up again. And so the next time that you're sharing your pricing or your packages, just be mindful of whether you're sounding hesitant or whether you're sounding confident and grounded, if you're hoping that they say yes, or you're calmly guiding them towards something you know will help them. That confidence you have, it's contagious, and when you have it, people want in Okay.

Speaker 1:

Final tip here is that selling doesn't end with a yes. Now, this one is often, you know, really overlooked I don't really hear anyone talking about this at all and that is that sales doesn't end when someone signs up. In fact, that's honestly when the real sales process begins, because now you're proving that their investment was worth it. And a lot of studio owners drop the ball here. A new client signs up and then business as usual, normal sessions, just like everyone else, no special onboarding, no excitement, no check-ins, no fanfare, nothing. And then we wonder why they disappear after five classes. In Thrive we call this retention-based selling. We talk about marketing as a retention tool as well as a lead generation tool, and I show you how to design that new client experience and that customer journey that not just creates a new client but actually creates clients that stay for a long time but also share their friends with you and bring referrals to you and facilitate you to grow beyond just your own marketing efforts. And the mindset shift here is that truly the easiest sale that you will ever make is to someone who's already said yes. And so, instead of just hunting for new leads each month and hoping they'll show up, or scrambling for those new clients. If you optimize your post sale experience as well, that's how you can really build that long term revenue, that consistent revenue growth, in fact, without constantly being in that scrambling for clients mode. So there you have it.

Speaker 1:

I gave you a lot of insight in this session today and I wanted to give you a quick recap before I close out. So I have to say selling isn't about pressure, right, it's about opening up the door of possibility. It's not a one-time conversation, it's actually about ongoing connection and when you shift from convincing people right or thinking it's about convincing people actually, it's the mindset shift, that's the big deal to connecting and thinking about it as an opportunity to connect. So much changes. Because I think the biggest takeaway here for you is that your studio exists to solve problems for your clients and selling is just that thing that happens between you actually being able to make that a reality. It's how you guide people into being able to access the solutions that you offer.

Speaker 1:

So if this episode perhaps a little bit of a fire underneath you for perhaps thinking about your very own sales process and perhaps you're thinking, okay, maybe I need to rethink how I'm doing this, then I'd like to encourage you to consider joining my Thrive group coaching program. I'm going to share all the details in the link in the show notes, but this is truly the program that is going to help you to build a sales system that is going to feel completely aligned with how you want to build your business, how you want to work with your clients, and that actually works. You do not need to feel salesy at all, I promise so. If you're thinking about growing your business and you want to grow your business and you're not seeing the growth in your business, then Thrive truly is your next step. So I hope this is helpful to you. A quick, quick episode this week on sales, something that I don't want to see you overlook. Don't avoid it.

Speaker 2:

Don't avoid it and if you enjoyed this conversation.

Speaker 1:

I would really be so appreciative if you could take a quick minute, go to wherever you're listening and rate and review the podcast. It would mean so much to me and would help to get this out there into our community and to more studio owners and friends of yours who can also feel just as encouraged and supported on their journey in our industry.

Speaker 2:

Did you love this episode and want more? Head to spring3.com and check out my free resources that will help you run a profitable and fulfilling studio business. And before you go, one last reminder there is no one way to do what you do, only your way. So whatever it is that you want to do, create or offer, you've got this. Thanks again for joining me today and have a wonderful rest of your day.