The Fit to Grit Cast
Fit to Grit is an audio/video/newsletter hybrid featuring in-depth conversations with leadership within the athletic space. Guests range from top executives within the athletic space to professionals in adjacent industries with a proven track record of success working in the athletic industry.
We explore visionary ideas and practical strategies driving the industry forward, covering areas such as marketing, finance, branding, equipment, product development, biz dev, and more. Join us as we share actionable insights and real-world experiences while embodying the "fit to grit" spirit.
The Fit to Grit Cast
How Your Studio’s Look Impacts Pricing Power
What if your pricing strategy could boost conversions by 30%? That's exactly what happens when fitness studios align their visual pricing displays with strategic verbal communication.
Many studio owners excel at verbal sales pitches but stumble when creating effective visual pricing materials. This disconnect creates confusion for potential clients and leaves money on the table. Whether you're showing pricing on your website, in-studio displays, or handouts during consultations, the visual presentation matters tremendously.
Looking at real-world examples makes this crystal clear. Planet Fitness uses vibrant purples and yellows with approachable messaging to attract fitness beginners, while high-end studios like Exos employ minimalist black and white aesthetics to signal premium value. These visual choices aren't accidental—they're strategic decisions that perfectly align with their target audience and pricing strategy.
The secret to effective pricing materials? Simplicity. Forget overwhelming potential members with numerous options and complicated terms. Instead, present just three clear packages: a basic entry point, a value-packed middle option (where you want most people to land), and a premium choice that makes your middle tier look even more attractive. This approach creates clarity while giving your sales team room to customize during conversations.
Your verbal communication should match your pricing tier. For budget-friendly memberships, focus on being approachable and removing barriers. Mid-range studios should balance approachability with expertise, asking thoughtful questions to customize offerings. Premium studios should lead with expert positioning, emphasizing assessment processes and exclusive value that justifies higher investment.
The beauty of this approach extends beyond initial sales. When pricing communication is clear from the beginning, client expectations align with reality, dramatically improving retention rates. This retention benefit begins in the pre-purchase phase, making your pricing presentation one of your most valuable tools for building lasting client relationships.
Ready to transform your studio's growth? Start by examining how your visual and verbal pricing strategies work together. The results will speak for themselves in higher conversions, increased revenue, and improved client retention.
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never been to a Planet Fitness in my life. It's not really my cup of tea, it's not really my jam, I'm not their audience, but they were very approachable. I called them young person on the phone. Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of the Fit to Grit cast. I'm your host, zach Coleman.
Speaker 0:We're getting close to the end of the foundational series, getting close to our advanced series. So you know, with that we're going to do something a little bit different today. We're going to kind of give some real life examples here, and so if you're listening on the podcast version, you may want to head over to the visual version, our YouTube channel, to kind of watch it, but if not, that's okay too. You'll get a lot out of this episode. But we're going to talk a lot about visual versus verbal real life pricing examples that can actually transform your studio's growth and your selling opportunities. According to Kissmeter, clear and cohesive visual pricing that's structured and paired with your verbal communication can boost overall conversion rate by nearly 30%. If you watched our last episode on website, that could kind of be an example, or episode before where we talked about pricing pitfalls. You know both of those can be seen in the comments below or up there towards the end of this video.
Speaker 0:But I think fitness studio owners really underestimate the power of combining strong visuals. I mean, I've said this countless times this is an industry that needs to understand how important visual communication is to the experience that they're providing for their customers. I mean, people are in there moving around doing exercises and the way that the people speak to them, it's like the verbal becomes so important. But I think studio owners and this happens in a lot of industries, but studios in specific forget how important some of those visual cues are. You know, for instance, if you're streamlining red probe lights, if your your whole layout is just completely black and it makes people feel tired, like those are good examples of how those experiences can actually push people away and not want to, why you could be having low retention rate, you know. But we're really going to dive into how you can visually represent and present your pricing either to support your verbal and really help that and possibly even help that retention rate moving forward. Look, I get it, you're watching videos on me talking all about fitness and building your studio. But if you finally got to that place where you need to build consistency amongst multiple locations, well, guess what? Developing a good branding system takes time, energy and it might be that time that you really start building that momentum and consistency. Head over to Creative right now and set up a consultation call where we can help you develop a branding system that doesn't just help you internally build better operations within your team and the consistency of your messaging, but can also help you build your external messaging and really hit those offers in the right location at the right time with the right people. Again, head over to creativecom now. Take advantage of our branding system packages so that you can start building that consistency you need for your multi studio location growth.
Speaker 0:You know I remember in the early days of my business. You know I'm a designer at heart, like I got my degree 15 years ago in communication before I got my MBA. But the visual side it clicks for me. I understand it, but I know a lot of you don't. You don't understand, and I know at the very beginning phases of my business I actually was really just focused on the sales right, the verbal pricing pitches, like verbally pricing to people, giving them an understanding. I continue to have built confidence with the verbal side, but I didn't really have any sort of way to visually display my information very effectively and why this is very important for this industry in particular.
Speaker 0:Because I see this with plenty of clients coming in. We ask what their pricing are when we're doing their advertisement or we're doing their design, and what ends up happening is they give us this two to three page price sheet sometimes. Oh well, we have a lot of offers, so just be ready. And I'm like dude, you need to send this down. I mean, look at, let's just look at restaurants, for instance. Are you McDonald's or I'll just say Filiberto's? With Filiberto's they're like 80 million things on the menu with 80 different pricing. Or are you one of those really fancy restaurants where you go in and they have three options and each one's like 600 bucks, not saying that there's, that's very black and white. One way or another.
Speaker 0:I've always said that you guys kind of place yourself in the middle. So how do you place yourself in the middle there and show still show your a la carte and your different offerings without overcomplicating and communicating to your audience? So we're going to kind of go into some real life examples here, some visual, verbal mismatch and how they affect client decisions. We're going to give tips on creating visually appealing pricing material and how you can align your pitch to reinforce some of that visual pricing material, right. So let's start off by the mismatch. So this video in particular, like I said, we're going to show some examples, and the best way for me to do this is probably by showcasing a couple of different examples of extremes here, and so I'm going to show on the screen here and hopefully my video editor pushes me down to the corner here so that you can see some of these examples.
Speaker 0:But you're gonna see, we're gonna say Planet Fitness versus exos. You know, exos is very, very luxury, oriented towards a higher demo market and they're able to pull off better marketing campaigns because of that. But you can see the difference in in these two, visually right, you're going to see a smaller pricing. You're going to see a more so detailed pricing model where they have certain prices and they have certain add-ons. And you're going to see from a, from a color scheme in an interior perspective. They communicate that. You know the purples and the in the yellows, excitement, young colors, vibrant. It really hits an audience that may be more, um, intimidated because they're trying to bring excitement to it. So they're trying to hit a certain demo based off of that color scheme and in those fonts and all the all the visual stuff, and even by their interiors you can see they have a red light that they put when they say don't lift heavy weights. That's their way to help the intimidation so that they don't get certain types of people in there. It's a vetting out process on purpose. So that's a vetting out process that they're utilizing from an experience. You know that, like they have, you know pizza weeks, but you just look at their logo and you look at their brand and you look at everything that they're doing from a visual perspective they're very much like that and when it comes to the verbal side of how they communicate with you, they are very approachable.
Speaker 0:You know that if you go to a planet, fitness that you're going to get. Actually, I'll use this as an example because I have a real life experience here. I went and did a speech out in California. I think last year is besides the point, but I went out to California. I needed somewhere to work out while I was there. My workouts are always what I use for motivation before I do speeches, and so I went out there to do a speech and so I use.
Speaker 0:The planet Fitness is the closest to my hotel that I possibly could. Never been to a Planet Fitness in my life. It's not really my, my cup of tea, it's not really my jam, I'm not their audience, but they were very approachable. I called them, young person on the phone, very nice. They had every sort of opportunity to get a one day pass. You know on the website you can come in. They didn't restrict anything from me. So, from a verbal perspective and a visual, they really highlighted that right, they I was able to be, go in there and have a conversation with them and they, they were just nice and they said here's your free day pass. They didn't constrict me, I didn't feel like anyone's watching me, and so that's really what's how planet Fitness is from a verbal and a visual and a visual perspective.
Speaker 0:Now, exos I've never been, but I have been to a lot of high end health and wellness type facilities that are similar to Exos. It's kind of the exact opposite, right. They want to vet you out because they don't want to deal with the people that are going to Planet Fitness. They have to vet you out because they don't have time. So, from just looking at it. From a visual representation or visual communication, you could tell right away that it's simple, it's clean. They've spent money and time on making their key points as clear as possible. People know the simpler is just better when it comes to understanding. Just subconsciously, we just know that. Back to the restaurant perspective. You have three options on the menu. It's easy. You pick one.
Speaker 0:So, looking at their colors black and white, very simple name, very elegant, elegant, thin type font that they use or the logo type is what we call it and they really they they very much made it clear, like, I'm not going to go into naming right now, but what I will say is you can just see it visually. You know that they're expensive. By everything that they showcase, from their pictures to their scenery, to their experience, that they provide on their website and their their online material, you could just feel it. You know that they're going to be a higher price. Those colors play a huge part of that.
Speaker 0:So when it comes to becoming a member, they have a lot more restriction. They're just not going to let you call them up. For instance, you're going to have to probably fill out a form. You're going to have to fill out certain requirements, even come in and do a much larger assessment. In a lot of studios these days, with InBody and things like that, you can do those assessments. It's geared towards higher packages, but you know that these much more in depth and you charge for it and they charge for those right, it's not just a free workout. They charge for those in depth because it's experience. They know that they're getting someone and you're paying for accountability and experience and so that's what you're really paying for. And so they find a way to do that.
Speaker 0:Planet fitness, like I said, bright, vibrant, very appealing. When it comes to approachable, you know. And then you have eos over here where you're like, oh, it's not as approachable, but I'm not even there. On exos clientele, you know, like I don't. I don't want to spend a thousand dollars on a membership. I don't. I have a family. Right now I need a daycare. My time is very valuable to me. It's not honestly the price, but it more comes down to my time. So they're separating me out. I don't want to take my time to do that. Right now I don't have the free time. I'm not a multi-billion dollar, you know. I'm just using this as an example. But millionaire, our billionaire, a millionaire that has the free time at this point to really put that much time and energy into that right? So that's just a good example on the two different audiences and how visual and some real life examples here on how there's a mismatch, on how it can affect client decisions.
Speaker 0:And my experience I hope that I was talking about can showcase when you're thinking about rebranding or you're thinking about expanding or you're just at a place where you're thinking about your touch points and how easy it is for someone to get a hold of you or become a member. Pricing is going to play a huge effect into that communication. So what are some easy tips like you're like well, zach, that's great that you can do, for, let's say, we want to make this one sheet, or right? Let's say we want to make this one sheet, or right? Let's say you want to make a one sheet or you want to show your pricing. What's it? What's an easy, an easy way to do this, and I kind of talked about this on my last episode on the visual communication side, but I'm going to talk about it a little more, a little bit more here. So, pricing sheet again last episode website. Watch it up there.
Speaker 0:But for this in particular, you really need to focus on simplicity. You should still highlight all of your different activities. If you're on the lower price range let's say 75 to $200 a month and I still think that's low yeah, I think 400 is pretty good for higher semi-private, but if you're on that range, you still want to show up because you're still hitting that middle tier of people that have the money, but they want a little bit more information up front. So you're going to want to display the different types of classes that you do. You're going to want to possibly take your group classes and organize them in a way that hits these different programs, but you're going to want to display them in a way on your price sheet. But it's still very simple.
Speaker 0:So back to my main pricing tip. If you've been watching this last month's worth of videos and you've been talking a lot about pricing, I'm going to say this again Focus on the lowest price out of all of your packages and find a way to keep all of the other information suitable for a conversation. You don't need to show all the different commitments and let them go home and make a decision. What you need to do is be like. Here's what it is for a simple membership. You know, 93 a month is our lowest, 125 is for this and then like 180 is for for for this, oh well, what happens if I want to sign up for, uh, just a month to try it out? Oh well, it goes up to 120. So show, use your pricing sheet. Basically don't overcrowd your pricing sheet with 80 different prices.
Speaker 0:Show three basic pricing models, just three. If you have four, you can do four, have three. If you have one, you have one, that's fine. But you know, the strategy still comes down to. Most likely how this is going to work is you're going to strategically have three and you're going to have a very small one. You're going to have one that has not as much stuff in it, a medium-sized one that shows where that's where a lot of the value is. And then you're going to have just a really expensive one, and that could be your fourth one, if you want, but like something that's where a lot of the value is. And then you're going to have just a really expensive one, and that could be your fourth one if you want, but like something that's outrageously crazy, that you're just like. I'll be happy if someone pays that amount of money, like $10,000 a month, like kind of stuff you know, so have that, because you never know right, you may get someone that wants that, but you know people are going to be like whoa, like thanks for all these options.
Speaker 0:Three or four is enough to not overburden people. But I like this 120 a month option here and you say this is the lowest can you give me. And this is then when you have a conversation with the phone and they're like oh well, I want to know more. That's when you have them come in or you finish the deal over the phone, which is fine, but you say, oh yeah, that's that's. If you want to, that that 120 is. If you wanna give a 12 month commitment, would you like to give a 12 month commitment? Oh yeah, that's fine, then you have it. If they're very antsy, that's when you can say something like oh well, we do have a two month, we do have a six month commitment, we do have a three month commitment. Oh, but we also have an opportunity you know, if it's summertime to do this.
Speaker 0:So basically, what I'm saying is keep all the ambiguous stuff on a price sheet. That's simple for your sales team or your trainers on the side and let them learn it and continue to learn sales and understand how to sell from those packages. But then utilize the three simplistic style packages for your consumers, for your customers, for your ideal members that you want to come into the door. So, with all this talk about real world examples and tips, how do you align your verbal pitch to reinforce visual pricing elements? I'm going to go back to the real world examples I gave. So let's talk about pitch.
Speaker 0:If you're selling a $50 membership, you want to be inviting. You want to be inviting. You want to give them every opportunity to come in. You're selling a low offer, a volume-based offer. Your biggest differentiation is just going to be you just have very nice welcoming people that allow you into the door, so you want to give them as much opportunity for your verbal pitch to be very inviting. You're not going to be trying to upsell them or do all these different things. Really, you're just going to be like oh yeah, come give it a shot. Blah, blah, blah, blah. It's a volume-based package. One client isn't going to make the difference at that point in time, right? So that's what I would say from your verbal perspective.
Speaker 0:If you're in the medium ground, like we've talked about, you're going to want to do things a little bit differently. You're still going to want to help them. You want it to align with your, your visual pricing model, right? So you know, when you're having verbal communication with them, most likely your pricing models a little bit higher because you have some accountability in there. So you're going to want to dig deep into some of them. Here's a really good example when you have a phone call with them, you know, and it really depends on the type of studio you have and the type of questions you're going to ask, right?
Speaker 0:But let's just say that you live in Arizona, and this is a great example, because this is something that a lot of people don't think about. You know Arizona, it's hot here. You know a lot of people go away for the summer. So you could ask oh, so are you? Are you in just Arizona visiting or do you live here full time? Oh, you vacation a lot? Oh, no, we're. Usually. We have young kids, we're here all the time. So right, then you know that they may need a daycare. So if you have a daycare, great, they don't go away for the summer, but let's say that they. It's the exact opposite. We have no kids. We love our summers. Yeah, we tend to go. Oh, that's great.
Speaker 0:So you're building rapport and you're still being approach below, and so when you're talking them through the pricing and you said, hey, here's our three options and you're going through those from a verbal perspective, you're now able to look at those three options and you're able to say, you know what, you'd be great at the 120,. You know, but you're probably going to be gone all summer. So how about we? You know, we'll just tack on an extra, you know, $10 a month, so that we can keep your account on a hold and you don't come back and accidentally, you know our pricing may go up at the end of the year. You know if you're following goals and you're adjusting your price, so would that be okay with you? Oh, yeah, that would be great. We would hate for our pricing to go up next year. And you say, okay, great. So you're able to take that communication and your verbal pitch of being approachable and you're able to bring in a little bit of accountability and a little bit of your ability to be the expert. So now, if you're moving much more towards the higher frame and you only have three packages all together and you're like this is it? You try not to talk to people that much. You know that they're coming in, then your verbal pitch is going to be very much tailored towards being an expert, completely.
Speaker 0:Hey, before we even give you prices, I think you need to come in and do an assessment. That's going to really help us define what your, what these packages are going to be. There you go. I would most likely already been through the grind work having that kind of money. I have some experience in life, so I'd understand and I'd say, yeah, you're probably right. And if you put your some pricing structure on your website, I probably already kind of know a little. I have some experience in life, so I'd understand and I'd say, yeah, you're probably right, and if you put your some pricing structure on your website, I probably already kind of know a little bit what you have. But then I'd be willing to come in and do that assessment. Oh, the assessment's $200. But we're really going to go over this, this and this, because it seems like this may be your issue. Is that okay? Yes, so then you're getting a $200 upfront and then if they don't purchase. So I would say you're just going to go.
Speaker 0:In summary, you're going to go from being approachable much more towards being an expert and I think that that's kind of how you have to define, based off of your pricing, the type of communication you have with your audience. Aligning that verbal and visual clarity and confident communication significantly will transform your client interactions, I promise you. It will also help increase in conversions and it will honestly improve your studio's revenue and even possibly your retention if you're having this clear communication with them overall pre-sale. So the big takeaway I would take away from this whole video is basically what I just said is understanding that retention play can be taken into account on pre purchase. So think about that up front when you're going through and thinking about your communication. I think that's it for today's episode. I'm your host, zach Coleman, the Sophisticated Cast, and, like always, I'll see you on the next one.
