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If opening your P&L spikes your heart rate, this conversation will feel like a deep breath. We bring on Lauren and Lisa from Active Core Consulting to turn finance anxiety into focused action, showing how simple metrics and a steady mindset can reshape a studio’s future. Instead of treating numbers like a verdict, we use them as a map to smarter pricing, cleaner costs, and clearer decisions that grow profit without chaos.

We start with the emotional side of money—why shame keeps owners from looking at data—and walk through the Finance & Flow approach that pairs mindset with method. From there, we dig into the Owner Pay Roadmap to define what you need to take home, then reverse engineer revenue targets, capacity, and acquisition. On marketing, we set practical guardrails (5–10% of revenue) and press the key question: is the spend producing the right results? With a simple funnel—lead cost, trial conversion, member conversion, retention, LTV—you’ll know where to fix leaks and where to double down.

Operations and payroll come into focus next. We connect offers to staffing and schedule design so your team supports demand sustainably. You’ll hear how a tiny $12.40 per-class improvement rolled into more than $20,000 a year, proving that small, low-risk changes compound. We also cover trimming expenses with a blunt filter—either elevate the customer experience or drive top-line revenue—and show how phases of testing turn “risk” into structured learning that powers scale.

Along the way, Lauren and Lisa share a client journey from heavy credit card debt to multi-studio growth, four months of reserves, and confident marketing investment tied to ROI. If you’re a newer owner with at least a year in business and $250K in revenue, or a multi-location leader chasing optimization, you’ll find a clear, actionable path here. Join the conversation, borrow the KPIs, and start acting like the CEO your studio needs. If this resonates, subscribe, share the episode with a fellow owner, and leave a review telling us the one metric you’ll track this week.

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Ever wonder if you're wasting money on marketing or not spending enough to truly grow your studio? You're not alone. Most studio owners rely on guesswork, copying competitors, or arbitrary budgeting - approaches that lead to either burning cash without results or stunting growth through underinvestment.

In this eye-opening episode, I break down the critical formula successful studios use to optimize their marketing spend: the Lifetime Value to Customer Acquisition Cost (LTV/CAC) ratio. This powerful metric transforms how you view marketing expenses by showing exactly what you should spend to acquire new members based on their long-term value to your business. The ideal ratio? 3:1 - for every dollar spent on acquisition, aim to generate three dollars in lifetime value. I walk through practical examples, like how a studio charging $300 monthly with 10-month average retention can confidently spend up to $1,000 to acquire each new member while maintaining healthy profitability.

What makes this approach particularly valuable is its ability to evaluate different marketing channels. Google ads might attract members who stay longer than those from Facebook campaigns. Community events might bring fewer leads but with higher conversion rates and retention. By tracking channel-specific metrics, you'll discover where to double down and where to cut back, optimizing your entire marketing strategy. As HubSpot research confirms, businesses tracking these metrics grow 2.5 times faster than those flying blind. Download our free worksheet from the description to calculate your own LTV/CAC ratio and transform your studio's growth trajectory. Stop guessing with your marketing budget - start scaling with confidence based on real numbers that matter.

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What if one clean calculation could tell you exactly where to spend, what to price, and how to grow without burning cash? We walk through a fast, no-fluff method to calculate lifetime value (LTV) that replaces guesswork with clarity—and turns scattered marketing into a reliable growth system.

We start by nailing your real monthly revenue per member across all packages, not just the headline price. Then we layer in average membership lifespan, showing why channel and offer matter: a Facebook challenge member who stays two months isn’t worth the same as an intent-driven Google member who sticks for ten. Multiply to get gross LTV, and you’ll see immediately which campaigns deserve budget and which ones quietly drain profit.

From there, we tighten the model with profit-adjusted LTV by subtracting the actual costs to serve—coaching labor, processing, and other variable expenses—so you can set smart CAC targets and know your break-even window with confidence. We share a client example where LTV rose from $500 to $1,500 once the numbers were measured correctly, unlocking bolder, smarter acquisition and more sustainable scale. And we highlight why retention is the real multiplier: one extra month can add meaningful profit without a single extra ad dollar. Expect practical guidance on segmenting LTV by channel, deciding when to reallocate spend, and building simple retention systems that keep members engaged longer.

Ready to make your marketing dollars work harder? Listen now, download our free LTV/CAC calculator from the description, and tell us which channel brings your stickiest members. If this helped, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a studio owner who could use clearer numbers and calmer growth.

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