My Client Made More Money Last July Than in January. Here's How.

Every summer, studio owners brace for the same thing: attendance drops, members travel, energy shifts. So you white-knuckle through it and wait for September.

Here's the problem—summer isn't your slow season. It's your setup quarter. What you do in your yoga or Pilates studio in June determines whether your fall is full of momentum or a slow climb back from a standstill.

In this solo episode, Jackie Murphy breaks down the misconception costing studio owners money: that when attendance drops, revenue has to drop too. It doesn't. She explains how a premium value offer can make summer one of your highest-revenue months, the schedule analysis every owner should run before the season, and the pause policy that keeps members coming back. If you've been treating summer as something to survive, this will change how you run your studio this quarter—and set up your strongest January yet.

TIMESTAMPED OUTLINE

• [00:00] Why we're talking about summer now
• [03:00] Summer is your setup quarter: June 2026 decides January 2027
• [05:00] The misconception: attendance drops, so revenue must too
• [07:00] The Premium Value Offer (PVO) and why summer is the time to sell it
• [09:30] Divorcing attendance from revenue in your head
• [11:00] Move #1: Run a schedule analysis on your real data
• [13:30] Knowing your break-even number for every class
• [16:00] Move #2: Tighten your pause policy
• [17:30] Pick one move and actually implement it

KEY TAKEAWAYS

✓ Summer is your setup quarter—June 2026 determines January 2027.
✓ Attendance and revenue are not the same thing. Attendance can drop while revenue grows.
✓ A premium value offer (four figures+) grows summer revenue even when class numbers dip.
✓ Don't wait for attendance to drop and react—run a schedule analysis on your own data now.
✓ Booking software isn't always accurate. You usually have to collect the data yourself.
✓ A leaner, fuller schedule beats a robust, half-empty one—for your bottom line and your students.
✓ Lock in every pause with a start, end, and restart date from day one so members come right back.
✓ Pick one move and implement it. If you listen and don't take action, what's the point?

QUOTES

"Summer is actually your setup quarter." 
"What you're doing in June of 2026 determines what your January of 2027 looks like." 
"Attendance and revenue are not the same thing. Summer is when that distinction matters most." 
"Just because attendance drops doesn't mean your revenue has to." 
"It can be your highest month of the whole year, and attendance could be the lowest." 
"If you just listen to this and don't take action, what's the point, my friend?"

FAQ

Can my studio revenue grow even if summer attendance drops? Yes. Attendance and revenue are two different numbers. With the right offer in place, summer can be one of your highest-revenue months even while attendance is at its lowest.

What is a premium value offer for a yoga or Pilates studio? A PVO is something outside your normal membership, typically four figures or higher, designed to help members reach a new result—often a teacher training, but not always.

Why is summer a good time to sell a high-ticket offer? Members often have more time and headspace in summer. If they're sticking with you through the season, that's when you have the capacity to extend a bigger offer.

Should I change my class schedule for the summer? Be proactive, not reactive. Review your schedule at the start of summer using the last six months of data, then make strategic adjustments instead of scrambling later.

How should a studio handle membership pauses over summer? Set a clear start, end, and restart date the moment a member requests a pause. Booking the restart from day one removes the "should I come back?" decision.

When should I start planning my summer strategy? Now. Your schedule, offers, and pause policy heading into summer determine your fall momentum and your following January.

Work with Jackie Murphy

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Transcript

Studio CEO Welcome

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Welcome to the Studio CEO, the only podcast that empowers yoga and Pilates teachers and studio owners to step confidently into their role as CEO. If you are ready to show up with passion, take your business seriously, and scale to new heights without burning out, you are in the right place. I'm your host, Jackie Murphy, an award-winning certified business coach with over 12 years of experience inside the yoga industry. I have seen firsthand what it takes to build a profitable and scalable business. Join me as we dive into strategies, insights, and real-world advice that will help you grow your revenue, build a thriving team, and create a business that serves you as much as you serve your students. It's time to embrace your inner CEO and make more money without working more. This is just the beginning. Hello

Summer Slowdown Myth And Mindset

SPEAKER_00 1:25

and welcome back to the Studio CEO podcast. I am Jackie Murphy. Today we are talking about summer. This has been a conversation that has come up a lot over the last few months as the northern hemisphere. Most of my clients are in the US prepare for summer. And it is really, really common or typical to think, oh, there's a summer slowdown coming. We need to really figure out how to quote unquote make it through the summer. And so I wanted to record this episode to give you not only some strategies and things to try, but also the mindset behind how I think about summer and what mindset I think would really serve you. The truth is that summer can create a natural slow season in your business. Attendance can drop, members are traveling more, the energy maybe shifts a little bit from that like new year energy, back to school energy to like, I will take class when I can, but I'm really prioritizing being outside. And so the natural response or the reactive response will say is to almost white knuckle through it and just like wait for September, wait for the fall. But summer is actually your setup quarter. It's wild to think that like what you're doing in June of 2026 is gonna determine what your January of 2027 looks like. But that truly is how business works. Every move right now that you make will determine whether your September is full of people coming back into the studio, high momentum, high vibe, or you're like, all right, we gotta get momentum going again. We gotta hold a climb out of now. And so the businesses that really win Q4 or they win January Q1 of 2027 are the ones who stayed with their foot on the gas during the summer, who protected their business in the summer, who built their business in the summer. And so that's what we're talking about today. Now, maybe you already have your summer planned. You're doing some sort of challenge or special offer. Yes, that is incredible. I still want you to listen to this episode because we're gonna talk about four different things that I just want you to consider as you're going into summer. And each of them are different parts or aspects of your business. And so while you may have one thing planned, you might hear another really solid idea or thought or just the mindset anchoring in that like this is your quarter to stay committed, to keep your foot on the gas. So

Attendance Drops Revenue Does Not

SPEAKER_00 4:20

keep listening, even if you already have summer planned. Here is the misconception that I want to just like break down right now. Because attendance slows down in the summer, and that's not even true for every studio, right? If you're a tourist town, your attendance might literally increase in the summer, and there's different strategies for capitalizing on that. But for most businesses in the northern hemisphere, you're gonna see attendance drop or at least slow down in the summer. The misconception is that because attendance slows down, that your revenue also has to drop. And I want to challenge that directly because it's not true and it might be costing you. Summer is actually one of the best times to sell what I call a premium value offer. This is a PVO. It's something I teach inside of my grow mastermind. When your members are in a season where they have more time, more flexibility, more headspace, when they are sticking with you through summer, it's a really good idea to have some sort of offer that's outside of your normal monthly membership or outside of your normal offer. And this could be a premium value offer, typically meaning it's at least four figures or higher in cost and is designed to help them create a new level of result. So for a lot of studios, a premium value offer is teacher training, but that may not be your premium value offer. But here's what I want you to think. If you have the opportunity to connect more with members because you're not quite as busy in the summer, and you have an offer that you can extend to them that brings in four figures, your revenue can actually really, really grow over the summer versus slow down, even if your attendance drops a little bit. So I really want you to think about like, just because habits and class patterns change over this time period, it doesn't have to correlate or reflect what my revenue can be. So continuing to say, like, what do I want my revenue to be over the summer? Do I want it to continue to grow? Do I want it to grow month over month? Do I want it to grow year over year? And how can I divorce myself from the idea that attendance means high revenue and really understand that attendance and revenue are not the same thing. Summer is when that distinction matters most. Now, I'm not saying that your attendance doesn't impact your revenue. Obviously, it does, but it is not the only thing that will impact your revenue. And I think that's what we have to break down for really having a strong summer. So we're gonna talk about four different moves, four different strategies that you could make now to prep your business for summer. If your

Fix The Schedule With Data

SPEAKER_00 7:25

yoga or Pilates business has a group class schedule or any sort of class schedule, what I do recommend is you doing some sort of schedule analysis now to adjust for the classes that you have on your schedule. So being proactive about what classes are we keeping? How many classes do we need to keep? You don't have to wait for the attendance to drop and then react, but you can actually look at, okay, last summer, what does the data say? Uh for the last six months, what does the data say? What classes were consistently underperforming, meaning that they weren't attended well enough, didn't have the number of students in them to be able to either break even for the studio or make a profit for the studio. What time slots held no matter what? And you may start to see patterns. You may start to see that certain teachers hold their attendance really well no matter what, and you may start to see that regardless of season, it could be January, certain teachers maybe don't have the attendance that they should, is quote unquote what I'm saying, but like the attendance that you want each class to have. Or maybe you see it's not even teacher related at all. It's format related. And you start to make shifts of okay, instead of this format at this time in the summer, let's try our top performing format at this time in the summer. It may be that you're making those shifts or changes, and it may be that you're pulling classes off of your schedule and you're working with a leaner schedule with more people in each class so that the classes that you do have, one, are working for the business, but also are working for the student experience. They have a high energy, they have, you know, the the vibe of the community is still there and really a healthier bottom line than a very robust schedule that is like half empty mostly. So you cannot make this decision without data. And typically, what I see is that you need to collect the data yourself. Now, this is not to say that you can't rely on the softwares and the booking softwares that you use, but oftentimes there are discrepancies in that. I was just going through this with a client last week. And so I really recommend that you have some way to track your schedule and the attendance that you have to track what is my break-even number, how many students do I need in this class in order to keep it on the schedule, in order for it to make sense. And what classes overall have a solid attendance? What classes consistently for the last six months are not performing or underperforming? And what classes do I maybe want to test or tweak or change? Now, with this, I really just recommend and want to reiterate that I'm not recommending you change your schedule like every month. I I don't think you should do that. It only creates a really solid client experience. I want it to feel consistent. I want them to trust the schedule that it stays the same, that classes are there. But reviewing your schedule at the beginning of summer to make these strategic changes ahead of time, great. And then obviously we're going to need to do this in the fall again when maybe it's time to add classes. So that's move number one. Move number two is just

Pause Policies That Protect Membership

SPEAKER_00 10:55

making sure that if you have some sort of pause policy within your offer, that that pause policy is very clear. There is a start date and there is an end date and there is a restart date booked in from day one. So if you have a member request to pause their membership because they're going to Europe for three months, we say, great, have a lovely trip. Bring us back something from Europe. We'll pause your membership starting on X date. We'll restart it on this date, and you'll be charged on this date, and you're coming right back into membership. That's going to remove one decision from your members' hands when they get back and they're like, oh my gosh, should I restart it? Should I not restart it? Should I go back? Should I not go back? You always want your people making as few decisions as possible in order to continue practicing with you. So what I mean by that is it is so much better for your members to have to like spend time, energy, and their own brain power being like, should I cancel, than having every single month or at the end of a pause, think, should I restart? This is why I recommend auto-recurring because it takes that one decision off of their plate where they can just know, like, it's gonna restart. I'm coming back. I don't even have to think about that. If for some reason I actually truly do need to cancel, like that will be very clear. That decision is right in front of them versus them having to think about that every single month. Do I buy again? Do I restart? Do I resign? We don't want that decision in their hands. So we just make the path of least resistance coming back instead of the path of least resistance being not coming back. So this is how you set yourself up. It's okay if people pause, it's okay if they're traveling, what's not a huge deal. And it will be a huge deal if 50% of the people who pause don't actually restart their membership in September. Now, the other thing I'll just say here, because I want to put this in operationally, you also have to have policies around pauses. Like there's no need for your team to be spending time and energy and you paying your team to pause a membership for one week, two weeks. So just making sure that your pause policies are very clear. They're supportive of your team and the time that they're spending working with clients on this, and they make it possible that the path of least resistance is coming back to the studio and restarting again.

Retention Challenge And Re-Engagement

SPEAKER_00 13:30

Okay, move number three is some sort of member or client retention challenge. So this is not a challenge to get new students in the door necessarily, but this is a challenge to get your people engaged because it is it is so easy to be like, oh, I'm just gonna relax and go to the pool and go to the beach and I'll work out back in September. And so it's our job to be like, no, just like I'm right here with you right now, being like, keep your foot on the gas, keep your foot on the gas. That's what you want to turn around and do for your students. And having some sort of challenge makes it really easy for them to keep their foot on the gas with their practice, with their wellness habits. And it's also just showing them that there is still a reason to show up consistently, that you still have things going on, that you want them to be a part of this thing that's maybe more social or like more um perks than they normally have when they go into the studio. So coming up with some sort of client challenge that keeps them engaged, that keeps them coming in over the summer. It could even be like a studio-wide goal that everyone is working towards together. So when those members engage in this challenge, they stay committed, they keep taking class, you're not even thinking, are they gonna come back in September? Because they're already back, right? September could be a member celebration month or a referral month instead, where they're bringing new people in, not necessarily can we get them back in. Now, the other thing that you really want to watch here is you have um what we will say like your outlier members. These are the members or the clients who are members or they're class back holders, and like they they start to come in once a week, and then they come in once every two weeks, and then they start to slow down, they come in once a month. Those are the members that are at the highest risk of leaving and canceling. And so part of what I want you to focus on, both in this challenge and just in general in your studio, is re-engaging the people who are not engaged with what you're offering. And so, can you make sure that like once a week you're pulling a report who took class only once this week? Can we reach out to them? Can we get them scheduled? Can we see what their goals are? Can we celebrate their progress or their success with them? Like making sure that you're taking the time to say, hey, I see you on the perimeter, like one foot in, one foot out, come back in. We would love to have you. That will mean so much to them. And I think the opposite is our like gut reaction. It's like, oh my God, they if I reach out, they might cancel. Like it's truly not the case. If you reach out and notice that they haven't been there, they're gonna be floored away. Floored away, is that a word? They're gonna be floored, blown away. And that's what the experience we want to give your people. Like, we see you, we care about you, we miss you. What are your goals? What have you already accomplished? What do you want to accomplish next? Come back into the studio. Okay, move number four. Now, we just talked about giving

Summer Lead Generation Outside Studio

SPEAKER_00 16:55

and loving on your current clients with some sort of challenge or some sort of re-engagement. Move number four is the counterpart of that. Think of this like PBJ, right? You've got your peanut butter, you're working on member retention. This is your jelly. You're still gonna work on lead generation. But lead generation in the summer, in my opinion, looks very different than lead generation in January. In January, you will have the natural influx of people walking by, people searching you on Google, people calling, people wanting information, people wanting to start. It's like the leads are coming from outside into your business or to your online website, and they're asking for information. That almost flips in the summer where your future leads, the people who new students who haven't come into the studio yet, instead of looking for new studios to try in the summer, they're like taking their Saturday morning to be to farmer's market, or they are spending the day at the beach, or they are um getting coffee and doing a hot girl walk with their friends. Like they're outside of the studio. So if you want to attract and collect new leads in the summer, we have to go where the leads are. So this is a really good time to put your business in front of new people outside of your business. So think about like outdoor classes, pop up at a local coffee shop, pop up at a park. It's a great time for a summer solstice event, um, a community morning workout at the beach or down by the place where they do the hot girl walks. Like, where can you go that your future people already are in the summer? Give them a great experience, give them something to remember you by, and then from there work to bring them in. And maybe they come in in July or August when you meet them, but maybe they don't. Maybe you get their email at this pop-up event, and then in September you're emailing them, being like, it was so nice to meet you over the summer. Hopefully you've emailed them before that, but so nice to meet you over the summer when we now have this thing going on. Come back in or come in for the first time, or inviting them into the studio. So this is a long game play, but I still would have a lead goal that's new student goal for your business over the summer. So you're growing your email list, you're growing your new students still. Just where you find those leads can change. Okay. And just remember if you're going out there and you're offering free classes, every single event, whether you're offering a class or you have set up a table at a farmer's market, every single thing that you do comes with a clear next step with a deadline. So you can get this class for free when you come in in the next week. Okay. Or you can get two weeks for half off your normal two-week intro rate when you purchase in the next five days or whatever. So just making sure that you're giving people the next step to take. Some of them will, some of them won't. Either way, we're still working to grow your pipeline in your lead list. That way you walk into September with a full lead pipeline instead of being like, okay, let's go find leads. Like you can then nurture them and get them ready. So this is the four things I want you to focus on. I feel like it was more like five, but four things, five things that I want you to focus on so that when September rolls around, you're not trying to re-engage members. You are not trying to come out of not having any leads, no new people knowing you. You're not trying to climb out of a hole where you were in the red and not profitable because you had too many classes on your schedule over the summer. And you are not trying to get members to come back, right? Like restart those paused membership. Your September then can be all about what does this Q4 look like to keep this momentum going, to turn it up even higher, so that by the time January hits, we have such a solid foundation that our business feels so strong that we are welcoming people in and we know they're coming. But at the same time, we're not needing people on January

Action Steps And Next Support

SPEAKER_00 21:30

1 to come into the door because we've built something over the summer and over Q4 that really could carry us and has created year over year growth. So go back, listen to this episode if you want to. Figure out which one of those four things you want to implement in your business. Because if you just listen to this and then don't take action, what's the point, my friend? What's the point? Go and implement something from this. Just pick one thing, start there, and then. Make sure that you're just using the summer as a way to grow your business and make sure that you're thinking just because attendance drops doesn't mean my revenue has to. Can be my highest month of the whole year, and attendance could be the lowest. And I have seen that time and time and time again. So that can be true for you as well. Now, if you want more strategies, if you're like Jackie, this seems like a lot, or I just want to know more details. How would you implement this? What would you do? I would love to help you inside of the Grow Mastermind for some of this, and then also the studio CEO program. So we'll link both of those in the show notes. And if this episode was helpful, send it to another studio owner. Send it to someone on your team and say, listen to this so we can talk about summer at our next meeting. All right, y'all. I'll talk to you in the next episode. Bye.