This is a transcription from the episode: Stop Doing Drop in Tumbling that aired on Apple Podcast and Spotify, Oct. 5, 2024. To listen to the episode on Spotify, click here.
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Cheer Biz podcast. Today we are talking about why you absolutely must stop running your tumbling program as a drop in only program. Now I am heated about this right now and I’m heated not because anyone did anything wrong specifically because it came up today and I was having this conversation with Tori as I was driving over to the gym to do some recording and I was like
How is it that there are still people who don’t know about this yet? Because when we first started, there were no cheer podcasts. There was no ASGA. There was no Facebook groups or anyone out there presenting any other information. And so I was like, how could this possibly be? And the reason this came up is because I got onto a call with someone and I was helping them out with some of the things going on in their business. And we were helping strategize how to run some advertising. I was helping them.
figure out how to get some things set up within Meta so they could start running paid ads. Now, before we got into running the paid ads though, after we’d gone through everything, I said, hey, let me look at a couple things and talk through a couple things with you. So I wanted to look at their website and I wanted to see how people got enrolled because if you’re gonna run paid ads and you’re going to do marketing, you have to send people to a location that actually works to convert them to a paying client.
What I don’t want to do is pay a bunch of money to send people to a page that just has my phone number on it. That is an absolute abundant waste of your finite resources. I want to send people to a page that’s going to give them information, that’s going to elicit response to get their email and phone number, but give them something that they think is valuable, but doesn’t cost me a lot of money. And on top of that, I eventually want them to enroll right through that. I love nothing more than waking up in the morning, opening my email,
and seeing that we made a sale overnight and I did nothing to make it happen aside from the work I did on the front end on my landing page. And so I wanted to dive into how that worked for them. And looking at their website, it was a little bit hard to find. And then once I did find it, I realized as we were talking that they were selling their classes as individual one-off a la carte options that you could drop into at any time. And so they were running
Dan (02:29.662)
their recreational tumbling that way. And I asked some questions and I said, know, hey, why are you doing it this way? And they talked about parent convenience and some other things that I think are really great to think about, but they hadn’t ever really considered some of the other options. And I really, really want you to understand that there is no one, no one in the cheerleading industry or gymnastics industry or tumbling industry
that should be running the majority of their programming as drop in programming. You can have drop in offerings here or there, like an open gym is a drop in offering. Maybe you do a parents night out that you can drop into, but you should not be running the bulk of your revenue as drop in offerings for a variety of reasons. Now, I want to talk through all of those and just really stress why it is so important that you don’t
build your business to function off of drop-ins. Number one, first and foremost is drop-ins inherently make it nearly impossible to run your business efficiently because you cannot plan for revenue. In order to run an effective company, I need to have a good idea of what revenue I’m going to be bringing in every month so I know that I can cover my expenses. I need to know what I have coming in. I want to know what my
outstanding accounts receivable are, like what I have left to come in, what my cash on hand is, I need to know all of those things. And it’s impossible for me to predict if I’m basing everything off of whether or not someone is going to choose to drop in on a given night. Even if I’m charging a fairly high rate for that, I still make it very, very difficult to plan and budget. So that’s number one is you cannot make, you cannot have predictable revenue when we have drop in.
Which brings me to the concept of reoccurring revenue is king. That is the number one thing we care about as a business is reoccurring revenue. That is the most valuable revenue we can have because it is reliably and consistently coming in a customer is buying from us consistently, which is why so many cheer gyms focus on all stars because that is more reliable revenue. Your all stars enroll for a season.
Dan (04:49.26)
they’re with you for that 12 months, you know you have their tuition coming in every single month. And that’s fantastic. We can do the same thing with our tumbling classes, but not if we’re doing drop in. Number two is drop in is inherently loosey goosey. So it makes it very difficult for your coaches to even plan and have a structure as well as do one of the most important things they’re going to do.
with your athletes, which is create relationships and for those athletes to create relationships within their class with other athletes. I was talking about this with a client today as well. It is family over flips. It is the friendships and family that matters much more than the flips that you’re going to get an athlete in a class. In fact, the athletes that are going to be coming to classes regularly because they’re going to learn how to do cool flips is
Fewer and farther between than the kids who are going to come somewhere where they feel valued and they feel important and they feel they have friends where they’re part of a community that is far superior to whether or not you have the absolute best tumbling technique and tumbling progressions in the world. Because ultimately that flip is important to some people. But what means even more is feeling important and feeling valued.
And if you have a drop-in program, you can’t really ever get that consistency to build the relationships and have the kids build the relationships in the program. On top of that, drop-in programming from a progressional standpoint is horrendous. Tumbling once a week is really not enough to learn new skills as it is. And on top of that, if you’re doing it here and there, willy-nilly, drop-in for one class, this, that, and the other thing, it actually is going to not really help your
kiddos progression. Whether you’re a parent or a coach listening to this, you should know that once a week isn’t enough and once every other week is like you may as well not really do it. I’m not going to say that, but it’s it is just about that much. If you’re looking for progression, it’s not really functional. Can you help sustain? Can you maintain? Yeah, a little bit. But even then, if I were to only go to the gym once every couple weeks and work out, I wouldn’t be in good shape. I
Dan (07:05.194)
And I’m not even saying I’m in the best shape I could possibly be in, but I would be in much worse shape. You cannot, let alone change how your body looks and what your body composition is. The same thing is going to apply for tumbling, which is an incredibly complex skill that requires a profound amount of muscle memory so you can recall things in the moment of doing a skill. So it is bad for revenue. It is bad for long-term retention, and it is bad for skill progression. There is essentially
no value to drop in tumbling beyond, it is convenient for your clients to be able to drop in whenever they see fit. When it fits into their schedule, it is nice for them to be able to be like, yeah, let’s go tumble tonight. We have some free time. And it is, it feels good to have that flexibility, but that is quite literally the only benefit.
On top of that, there are ways that you can make it even more laborious. Like if in order to do a drop-in tumbling class, you actually have to sign up ahead of time, which requires you to go online and fill out a form, and you have to do that every single time you want to take a class. Every time we create what’s considered a friction point for our client, we’re making it more likely that they’re not going to take advantage of the opportunity we are providing them. So I want to make sure that we are understanding that drop-in tumbling is a hard no.
the only case you should be doing a drop-in tumbling class is if you are using it as a lead magnet where you can’t get someone to join on a regular membership and they’re just really insistent on trying a class out, then you could consider offering a one-time class for a high rate. Okay, it should be higher than it would cost someone on a membership. So don’t just divide your membership by 4.3 and say this is what it costs for one class.
make it more than that. So have to commit a little bit extra. So you can also use that as a sales point to say, hey, you should just do the monthly membership because you’re really paying only 50 % more for three more classes than you are to do this one singular class and check it out. When realistically, you can cancel at the end of the month. Which brings me to what I think you should be doing and what I do in my gym and what I recommend every client of mine does. And I walk them through how to build this system, which is monthly
Dan (09:17.888)
reoccurring memberships. That’s it. Now, there are some people who like to run sessions and I will talk about sessions, the pros and cons and why I don’t do them except in certain instances. But the gold standard is monthly reoccurring memberships. Think of this as if you signed up for a membership at Planet Fitness. I have a membership. I can go there and I can work out when I want to. Now, it’s going to be a little bit different, but that is a membership that I will have until I choose to cancel it.
And it is the same thing. You’re getting a membership with the facility and you have that until you choose to cancel. Now let’s talk about a situation where we’re doing a session, right? Why would we want to do a session and what are some negative drawbacks of sessions? So tumbling as sessions I inherently don’t like. Number one is I don’t like anything that has an artificial ending attached to it. That makes it so I can’t have predictable reoccurring revenue.
Yes, people can drop and you can have churn, but I’m looking for predictable reoccurring revenue. I don’t want to know that I’m making this revenue for six weeks and then I’m starting over and I’ve got to resell these people on joining my program. I don’t want to do that. Sales is fun. It’s great. It’s awesome. I don’t want to sell people every single six weeks or every single month. I want to sell them with my product and their experience, but I don’t actually have to have a conversation where we’re breaking everything down and we’re going through the whole
sales process, we’re doing the whole closer framework. I don’t want to do that because it’s just too much work. Sessions have a false out of the relationship and I don’t like those. So that’s the main reason I don’t like sessions. Additionally, it makes it so people can only join at certain periods of time. So if you miss the start date of the session, then you’re not going to join midway through a session.
And if you do, then I have to prorate and then I only get you for four weeks or maybe it’s even three weeks. And then I’ve got to resell you again on doing another session. And it just creates a whole bunch of headaches for me and for my customer that I ultimately don’t want to do. I want working with me and doing business with my business to be as easy as humanly possible. I want to add value to people’s lives, not cause problems and headaches. So that’s why I don’t like sessions. Now, there are certain things that I would do sessions for.
Dan (11:40.928)
Let’s say you’re going to stand up a program like for us, we’re looking at adding dance next season. So we will do some sessions for dance or you have kids who are just learning, wanting to check out cheerleading. Fundamentals is huge in our gym. We’re running a fundamental session right now with I believe 25 kiddos enrolled in it and it is a session. It is three months. They learn a routine. They do some exhibitions and that’s it. And then it ends designed to
introduce them to the sport of cheer in a team environment, let them experience it, and then prep them for next season if they want to enroll in our classic novice and prep program, or they want to jump into the elite programming that we have. Those are certain circumstances that I think sessions do make sense, but again, they’re few and far between, and they tend to relate more towards really specialty items that we’re only running for a specific period of time, and there’s a reason that we would only run it for that specific period of time.
For my tumbling and recreational classes, I want that to be a monthly reoccurring membership. That’s it. And so when you hear me talk about this, I’m going to say it’s a membership. It’s a monthly membership. I say it all the time because that’s exactly what you’re getting. You’re getting a monthly membership that you can cancel within whatever your setting is for us. It’s two weeks prior to the renewal date. You can cancel. And honestly, if we have someone who calls us and they’re like, hey, this came up, we need to cancel.
At the end of the day, do I hold their feet to the fire and say, you didn’t give me 14 days notice or for some gyms 30 days notice and then make them pay for a month that they’re not actually getting? No, I don’t. And if you’re curious about reasons why you might not want to do that, go listen to my episode on charge backs with Matthew Becker. We talk about how that creates a lot of negative animosity and you can end up getting credit card charge backs because of it, which is not something any of us want to deal with. So if people choose to drop their monthly membership, I do.
Now, when I’m doing a monthly membership, my goal is to provide immense value. So when I’m looking at a monthly membership, this is ways you can package it to make it more reasonable for your clients, especially if they’re used to drop-in tumbling. You create a monthly membership and for us, we have a package for once a week tumbling, twice a week tumbling, three times a week, and four times a week tumbling. Those are our four package levels and we do bronze, silver, gold, and platinum.
Dan (13:57.964)
For those package levels, they get a certain amount of classes. They also get other perks. It’s called bundling. I go into that a lot more in some other episodes as well as in my book that will be out in January. So if you’re looking for those things, make sure you check that out. But we can do this in a number of different ways and we can add value to the client. If you’re looking to add that flexibility piece, then what you can do is you can have unlimited make-ups where if you miss a class, you just have to call in and we’ll let you use a make-up.
class that is of the same class as long as there’s an opening and we’ll get you in. So if something comes up this week, your practice time changes and you can’t get to your normal class, then just give us a call and we’ll find one that you can come to. Or maybe you do two next week when you have a little bit more flexibility and you can still accomplish the same thing while getting reoccurring revenue. On top of that, a lot of times, like this particular person I was talking to, if she had taken her once a week or the drop in tumbling rate,
and multiplied it by 4.3, she would have been over $100 a month, which means she could have created a package that was a little bit less than drop-in tumbling. So, when she pitches this to her clients, she says, look, you get the convenience of the drop-in tumbling. It’s not truly drop-in. You do pick a class, but it’s a reoccurring membership. But if you miss a class, we’ll get you into another one. Just call ahead. We’ll make sure there’s a spot in the class and that there’s enough instructors for it. And it’s actually going to save you money than if you were to do every single class every week.
or one class a week on the drop-in rate. So it’s actually going to be cheaper for you. It’s going to be better for me because I’m going to have reliable revenue and it’s a win, win, win for everyone involved. So there’s a way to package this if you are doing drop-in tumbling into a monthly membership subscription that is a win for everyone and everyone leaves smiling and happy and ultimately that’s our goal. Now the last thing I want to talk about is
How do you get enrollments in something like this? Like, how do we get people to sign up for a monthly membership? Because it can seem intimidating, especially for a brand new client who doesn’t know anything about us. How are we selling these people on enrolling with us for a month? So number one, the gold standard that we’ve used within NextGen for a really long time is selling a paid trial. And a paid trial is an absolutely fantastic method to get more people to know about your gym, participate in it.
Dan (16:23.306)
at a slightly reduced rate and have an experience where they can then feel like they are not under pressure to make a long-term commitment. That’s number one, is you can do some sort of a paid trial. If you’re going to do a paid trial, I encourage you to get with NextGen. We can walk you through exactly how to do it. There are a lot of pitfalls to running a paid trial, and I’d like to help you avoid those because they can absolutely cause you some problems and you can lose some clients if you don’t do your paid trial correctly.
A next method would be to offer your monthly membership, but offer incentives and specials to get people to enroll. This is more what I do now. So I’ll just be completely honest, we did paid trials for a long time and then I’ve moved to this method. One of the reasons I moved to this method is because we have high customer satisfaction in our classes. So I felt like it was the right time. We were having a really good retention in our trials. So it made sense to move away from the paid trial process and simply do an enrollment.
with an incentive to purchase. So for instance, what are some incentives you might do? Well, you can do a discount, which we just finished running a back to school special that had a 20 % discount on new members enrolling in recreational classes. In October, we’re running a special where if you register for a month of classes, you get a free semi-private lesson, which is a $50 value. We’re gonna run others that are like our Black Friday specials.
We’ve done money back guarantees and I’m continually trying to test and refine and figure out which offers convert the best for my clients. And you’ve got to kind of figure those pieces out. So there’s a number of different ways that you can incentivize people to try things out. You also could run a paid drop in class or if you really wanted, which I’m not a huge fan of, is the free trial class. Now the free trial class is not necessarily a horrible thing to offer.
The thing I don’t like about it is, is oftentimes, especially with this particular sport, sometimes it feels like when you really promote something being free, people are less likely to show up. They just don’t have as much skin in the game. And so you can end up filling classes with people who are going to be taking up free spots that then don’t show. And then other people who might have shown up don’t take advantage of it. And generally speaking, when people put their money into something, they’re much more likely to show up. So
Dan (18:41.836)
That’s one of the reasons I don’t like free trial classes. I’d much prefer a paid trial class. Now, if you wanted to have them do a paid trial class and you did a once one time drop in paid trial class where you charge them, you know, $25 or 20 bucks or whatever it is you want to charge, could you at the end of that class say, hey, we’d love to get you enrolled when they’re really excited and they’re pumped. Let’s get you enrolled in some classes. And you know what? Because you’re here today and because you just paid for the trial class, I’ll go ahead and credit.
what you paid for the class towards your membership since you just took a class. And then bada boom, bada bing, you just credit that right to them and it really didn’t cost them anything. So you really did give it for free, but they put some money in on the forefront end. So that can actually work really, really well and be a great sales tactic and a conversion technique. Now,
The best thing about monthly reoccurring memberships, I’m kind of backtracking here, is that there’s no artificial end date. It can go on forever. And this allows you to track a really good length of engagement with your clients and know how long people are staying on that monthly enrollment. How long are you getting that engagement and that investment in your program? And I absolutely love having monthly reoccurring revenue in my class program. It absolutely sustains my program.
All-Stars is a huge revenue stream for us and our recreational tumbling classes are a huge revenue stream for us. Those are our two biggest in our gym and they both get an equal amount of attention. But if I was doing drop-in classes, it would not be the same. And I’ll take you back quite a few years. I mentioned when Tori and I opened our gym, there was nothing like this. There were no podcasts. There were no business coaches. There was no one to help you learn how to run your gym. And we did all of our classes at just drop-in tumbling.
It was drop-in tumbling. We did it because that’s what the owner that we purchased the gym from, who was our previous boss, did forever. And it was $5 to drop in and take a tumbling class. And that was literally the dumbest thing ever. There was no reliability to income. And the reality was, is that we were viewing it as an add-on to help really more just to help our all-stars get better at tumbling. Hey, you want to get better at your tumbling and you can’t afford to do a private lesson? Do a drop-in tumbling class, pay five bucks, get a tumbling class.
Dan (20:52.886)
But here I was as a really good tumbling coach, giving classes and basically saying my monetary value for that was five bucks. It just wasn’t a good fit. We had no reliable income. Our recreational tumbling numbers would vary from, you know, right before high school tryouts, we’d have 30 and 40 kids dropping in in a week to then in the winter times, we’d have five kids maybe dropping in the scope of a week. So it just wasn’t reliable. We couldn’t make any sort of predictable revenue and it just sucks.
So we eventually transitioned away from this to a monthly reoccurring revenue. We made some missteps. We started out because we’d gotten some advice to do contracts. So we did seven and 12 month contracts and we did unlimited membership. One, don’t do unlimited membership. I have an entire episode on that. Do not do it. It’s horrible. No. Seven and 12 month contracts. No one likes to be on a long-term contract. It makes it much harder to close your sale.
And at the end of the day, you’re just going to let people out of their contract anyways. And if you don’t, they’re going to charge back on their credit card. So do yourself the favor and just don’t sell people that they have to join for 12 months in your program to take recreational tumbling classes. made it just a much harder sell because people were like, well, we play softball and we’re probably going to be too busy during softball season. And instead of getting that person in the gym, I had them walk out the door because they didn’t want to sign a seven or a 12 month contract. So.
I would not recommend doing contracts. And then we transition to doing a non-contract based monthly membership. Now there’s still a contractual agreement of what we’re going to deliver, but it is basically a contract in perpetuity rather than a 12 month contract that they can cancel at any time, which feels a lot better for most people because they’re like, well, I can cancel this if it’s no longer working for me. So that feels really, really good.
So ultimately you want to transition to those monthly memberships. And if you’re having trouble doing this or you don’t know how to execute it, again, this is something that we can help you with in NextGen in our coaches academy. So this is where we work with your owners and we’re going to help you stand up all of these systems so you can really grow your business. Now my last parting thing of something I want to make sure that you guys consider, you’re already in your season so you probably cannot change this. But as you go into next season, please for the love
Dan (23:16.914)
of your business, stop including a tumbling class in your All-Star team’s tuition. You can tumble during your practices. You should not be including a tumbling class in your All-Star team’s tuition because two reasons. One is unless they’re just working on team oriented tumbling skills, it’s not really for the team. So they’re progressing things outside of the skill and not really working on the things they need for the team.
And if you’re requiring them to only work on things they need for the team, it’s likely you’re going to have mediocre attendance unless you have consequences and force them to attend. And number two is it de-incentivizes your all-stars taking additional classes and or private lessons to prevent progress their skills. Wow, sorry about that. To progress their skills because they’re already getting an included tumbling class. So why pay more? So just stop offering that as an included asset. If you want to tumble within your practices and you want to tell your
your families, hey, we’re going to tumble for at least 20 minutes every single practice. So they’re still going to be working on their tumbling, but we’re not doing a structured tumbling class. That’s one thing. Now we do offer a tumbling class in the summers because we practice three times a week during the school year. So we practice on a Tuesday, Thursday or a Monday, Wednesday, and then we practice on a Sunday. And in the summers, who wants to be at the gym on a Sunday when they can be at the lake? So we make Sundays an optional
level appropriate tumbling day. That way we don’t change their tuition in the summertime and kids who want to come and tumble tumble. Now attendance at those generally kind of sucks, but from a revenue perspective, I don’t have to articulate why their tuition doesn’t drop in the summertime because they are getting offered those hours. They’re just choosing not to take advantage of them. And we’re not doing a structured practice where people feel like they have to be there and there’s animosity when kids are missing. So as you leave the episode…
I’m hoping that you got a ton of actionable information from this. I hope that you are leaving this going, man, if you’re currently doing drop in tumbling, I’m not going to do this anymore and I am going to make a change. And I promise you, you can make a change. And any of those voices in the back of your head that are saying, don’t do that. Your parents won’t like it. Everyone will quit. Well, first off, everyone can’t quit because they already aren’t a member. They are only attending once, twice, maybe even three times a week here or there willy nilly. So they’re really not quitting.
Dan (25:38.614)
Number two, there are ways to design this. So not only is it better for your business, but it’s better for your customers. And they’re going to actually appreciate the thought and attention and care in which you went about creating this new product. So there are ways to craft this so it can be a boon for your business and a positive for your clients, a positive for your staff, and a positive for your athletes. In fact,
I am confident enough that I would be willing to guarantee you that if you do this the right way, it absolutely will be that thing. So please just stop doing drop-in tumbling. It’s not helping you. It’s only holding you back from doing what you really can do with your gym. All right, everyone. Thank you for joining us. And with that, we’ll catch you on the next episode.
Chat GPT simplified versionÂ
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Cheer Biz podcast. Today, we’re talking about why you absolutely must stop running your tumbling program as a drop-in-only program. I’m really fired up about this because it came up during a conversation I had with Tori while heading to the gym to do some recording. I started wondering, how is it that people are still running drop-in programs?
When we first started, there were no cheer podcasts, no ASGA, no Facebook groups—no one was offering guidance on running a gym or managing programs. But now, with all the resources available, how are gyms still doing this?
The reason it came up is because I was on a call helping someone strategize their advertising and business setup. Before we dove into running paid ads, I asked to check out their website to see how people were enrolling. After all, if you’re going to run ads, you need to send people to a page that actually converts them into paying clients. The last thing you want is to spend money sending people to a page with just a phone number—that’s a waste of resources. You need a landing page that gathers valuable information like emails and phone numbers, and ideally, allows clients to enroll directly.
As I explored their site, I noticed they were offering their tumbling classes as individual, one-off, a la carte options. I asked them why they were doing this, and they mentioned parent convenience and a few other factors. But what they hadn’t considered was the major drawbacks of this approach.
Let me be clear—there’s no one in the cheer, gymnastics, or tumbling industries that should be running the bulk of their programs as drop-in offerings. You can offer drop-ins for special events, like open gym or parents’ night out, but drop-in tumbling as your primary revenue stream? It just doesn’t work.
Here’s why:
- Unpredictable Revenue
Running a business efficiently requires knowing what revenue is coming in each month. If you’re relying on people randomly dropping in, it’s impossible to plan or budget effectively. Even if you’re charging a premium for drop-ins, you’re still left with a revenue stream that fluctuates too much to count on. - Lack of Structure and Relationships
Drop-in programs make it hard for coaches to plan and structure their classes. More importantly, they make it difficult to build strong relationships with students and between the students themselves. It’s not just about the flips; it’s about the friendships and community that keep kids coming back. - Poor Skill Progression
Tumbling once a week isn’t enough to see real progress, and if students are dropping in inconsistently, it’s even worse. Tumbling requires muscle memory and regular practice, and drop-in classes don’t support that. It’s like going to the gym once every couple of weeks—it just won’t work.
The only real advantage of drop-ins is convenience for parents, but that’s outweighed by the negative impact on revenue, retention, and skill development. Plus, from a business standpoint, drop-in programs create unnecessary friction. If clients have to sign up every time they want to drop in, they’re less likely to follow through.
Instead, what you should be offering is monthly recurring memberships. This gives you predictable revenue, helps students progress, and builds strong relationships. Memberships also offer more flexibility, allowing parents to schedule make-up classes if needed. You can package your memberships in different tiers to fit clients’ needs—once a week, twice a week, and so on.
Now, how do you get people to enroll? You can offer paid trials, which allow people to try your gym without committing long-term right away. Or you can provide enrollment incentives, like discounts or a free private lesson with their first month of classes.
Ultimately, transitioning to monthly memberships will be a game-changer for your gym. It’s a win for your business, your clients, and your athletes.
Thank you for tuning in today! I hope this helped clarify why drop-in programs are not the way to go. If you’re currently running one, it’s time to make a change. I promise, once you do, it will transform your business for the better.
Catch you on the next episode!
Chat GPT Re-written but only for clarityÂ
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Cheer Biz podcast. Today, we’re discussing why you absolutely must stop running your tumbling program as a drop-in-only program. I’m really fired up about this topic, not because anyone has done anything wrong, but because this issue came up during a conversation I had with Tori while driving to the gym for some recording. I couldn’t help but think, How is it possible that people still don’t know about this?
When we first started, there were no cheerleading podcasts, no ASGA, no Facebook groups—nobody was providing this kind of information. But with so many resources available now, it’s surprising that drop-in programs are still a thing.
This issue came up because I was on a call helping someone strategize for their business. We were working on setting up some advertising, and I was helping them figure out how to get things set up on Meta so they could start running paid ads. But before diving into ads, I wanted to take a look at their website and see how people were enrolling. If you’re going to run paid ads and invest in marketing, you need to send people to a page that actually converts them into paying clients. What you don’t want is to spend money directing people to a page that just lists your phone number—that’s an absolute waste of your resources.
You want a page that gives potential clients enough information to elicit a response, captures their email and phone number, and provides something valuable without costing you much. Ideally, the page should also allow for direct enrollment. There’s nothing I love more than waking up to an email notification that we’ve made a sale overnight—without having to do anything except for the work I did on the front end with my landing page. So, I wanted to explore how this person’s website was functioning.
When I looked at their site, it was a bit hard to find the class registration information. When I finally did, I realized they were offering their tumbling classes as individual, one-off, a la carte options that you could drop into at any time. Their recreational tumbling program was structured this way, and I asked why. They mentioned the convenience for parents and a few other reasons, which were worth considering. However, they hadn’t fully explored the other options available to them.
I really want to stress that no one in the cheerleading, gymnastics, or tumbling industry should be running the majority of their programs as drop-in programs. Drop-in options can exist for things like open gym or a parent’s night out, but they should not be the backbone of your business. Here’s why:
1. Unpredictable Revenue
Drop-in programs make it almost impossible to run your business efficiently because you can’t plan for revenue. To run an effective business, you need to have a clear understanding of the revenue you’ll be generating each month to cover your expenses. You need to know what’s coming in, what’s still due (accounts receivable), and what cash you have on hand. When your income depends on whether someone decides to drop in on a given day, you can’t plan or budget effectively. Even if you’re charging a higher rate for drop-ins, it’s still too unpredictable.
2. Recurring Revenue is King
The most valuable revenue you can have is recurring revenue—money you can rely on consistently. This is why so many cheer gyms focus on All Stars; it’s dependable. Athletes enroll for a season and pay tuition monthly for the entire year. You can create that same consistency with your tumbling program, but not if you’re offering drop-ins. Recurring revenue is vital for long-term success.
3. Lack of Structure and Relationship Building
Drop-in programs make it difficult for coaches to plan and implement a structured curriculum. More importantly, it disrupts one of the most critical elements of your program—relationship building. Relationships between coaches and athletes, and among athletes themselves, are key. I often say, “It’s family over flips.” The community your athletes feel is far more valuable than the flips they might learn in class. Yes, tumbling skills are important, but kids are more likely to return to a place where they feel valued, have friends, and are part of a community.
When your program is drop-in-based, athletes don’t have the consistency needed to build those relationships. And from a progress standpoint, tumbling once a week is already difficult for skill development. But if athletes are dropping in sporadically, their progression is almost non-existent. Whether you’re a parent or coach, you should know that tumbling once every few weeks won’t cut it if you want significant progress.
4. Friction and Convenience
The only real advantage of drop-in programs is convenience for parents. It allows them to fit tumbling into their schedules whenever it works. However, from a business perspective, drop-in programs often create unnecessary friction. If clients have to sign up each time they want to drop in, it adds steps (or friction points), making it more likely they won’t follow through.
So, I encourage you to stop building your business around drop-ins. There’s no consistent revenue, no relationship-building, and poor skill progression. It’s convenient for your clients, sure, but it’s doing more harm than good for your business.
Transitioning to Monthly Memberships
Instead, I recommend transitioning to a monthly recurring membership model. This will give you predictable revenue, allow for better skill progression, and help foster stronger relationships between athletes and coaches. You can still offer flexibility by allowing make-up classes if students miss a session. In my gym, we offer different membership tiers—once a week, twice a week, and so on—so that parents can choose what works best for them.
Getting Enrollments
Now, how do you get people to sign up for a monthly membership? One great approach is offering a paid trial. This lets potential clients try out your program at a reduced rate without committing long-term. Another method is offering enrollment incentives, such as discounts or a free private lesson with their first month of classes.
The key is to provide immense value in your monthly membership, so clients feel like they’re getting more for their money. For instance, if your drop-in rate divided by 4.3 (the average number of weeks in a month) is more expensive than the monthly membership, you can pitch the membership as the more cost-effective option.
To sum it up, transitioning to a monthly membership model can completely transform your business. It’s better for your revenue, your clients, and your athletes.
I hope this episode has given you plenty of actionable insights. If you’re currently offering drop-in tumbling, I urge you to make the switch. It may seem daunting, but I guarantee it will be worth it in the long run for both you and your customers.
Thank you for listening, and we’ll catch you on the next episode!
