Most studio growth plans are a list of twenty tactics, and the studio does four of them at once for a month and then stops. The plan that works is shorter and stricter: four stages, in an order that cannot be swapped, each two to four weeks long, each moving specific numbers against a baseline taken in week one. Ninety days is the right length because every lever in it has visibly moved by then — and it is too short to spend on a rebrand, a new location, or a new booking platform, which is the point.
Everything below stitches together notes already on this site; each stage links to the piece that works it in full. This is the sequence, and the reason for the order.
Weeks 1–2: definitions, then a baseline
Nothing else can be measured until "member", "churn" and "intro conversion" mean one thing each. Write the definitions down — does paid-in-full count, is a freeze churn, does an intro cohort start at the purchase or the first class — and put them where the numbers are. The definitions guide is the list of decisions. Then take the baseline: the five numbers, this month and the trailing three, under those definitions, on one page. The dashboard piece is the page. Do not change anything yet. The baseline is what makes the next ten weeks legible.
Weeks 3–4: the leaks
The money that comes back fastest is money the studio already earned. Two lists, two schedules, no persuasion: the open declines, worked on the seven-day playbook — note, link, call by day five, decide by day seven — and the fade list, every member whose gap has reached about double her own usual gap, reached out to warmly and specifically this week. Recovered payments land within days; saves show at sixty days. A studio that runs an ad campaign before this stage is pouring new members into a room that is leaking the old ones. The playbook and the churn piece are the two schedules.
Weeks 5–8: the funnel
Now the front door, in the order the money moves. First, speed to lead: every new lead gets a human-quality touch within the hour and a five-touch cadence over fourteen days, worked from a list rather than an inbox, because the research on response time is the most unambiguous in the whole business. Second, the four intro moments — the second visit inside a week, the mid-window gap, the visit-three conversation, the week before expiry — each with its note, because the intro is decided during the intro and not at the sales conversation on day thirty. Third, cost per member by channel, so that by week eight you know which ad channel buys members and which buys leads who never book. The lead piece, the intro piece and the templates are the working parts.
Weeks 9–12: the schedule
Last, because it is the slowest to show and the easiest to get wrong without the first three stages: every slot against its own break-even headcount, not the studio average. The chronic underfills get a decision — move, merge, or a targeted push to the members most likely to take them — and the waitlisted sellouts get read as demand. One change per fortnight, and the honest test is total attendance, because a new 6:30 that drains the 5:30 has added an instructor-hour and nothing else. The fill-rate piece has the break-even method; the waitlist piece the demand reading.
The Monday rhythm runs through all of it
The stages are what changes; the rhythm is what stays the same. Every Monday, the five numbers — is money coming in, where do members come from, who is fading, do first-timers come back, what is this week's move — in the same shape, against the baseline, with the week's lists attached: the declines, the fades, the call sheet for the leads, the intros ending this week, the slots worth a second look. Twenty minutes. The plan survives the week the owner is sick because the list does not depend on anyone remembering it.
| Weeks | Stage | The work | What moves, and when |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–2 | Definitions, baseline | write the rules; five numbers, trailing 3, one page | nothing yet · the baseline is the point |
| 3–4 | The leaks | declines on the 7-day schedule; the fade list, weekly | recovered $ within days; saves at +60 |
| 5–8 | The funnel | speed to lead; the four intro moments; cost per member by channel | speed to lead in week 5; conversion as a cohort at week 12 |
| 9–12 | The schedule | each slot vs its own break-even; one change per fortnight | fill per slot in a month; total attendance is the test |
| every | Monday | the five numbers, the week's lists | twenty minutes |
What day ninety looks like
Nothing on that board is a new member bought from an ad. It is the studio's own leaks closed, its own funnel worked, its own schedule judged honestly — and every line is a number that existed on the baseline page in week one, moved. That is what ninety days is for. The growth piece ranks the four levers this plan pulls by what they cost; this is the order to pull them in.
Start in October and day ninety is January
Run the plan from the start of October and it finishes in January, the month most studios count on. The order does not change, and each stage picks up a January reason. The leaks come first because a regular who is drifting in October is a January cancellation in waiting. The funnel comes next because the January intro wave is only worth what your follow-up converts, and the follow-up has to be working before the wave arrives, not during it. The schedule comes last because a class that waitlists in November overflows in January, and a second slot takes weeks to fill.
Then count it honestly. On January 31 the number is net members, joins minus exits, not sign-ups. A January that adds forty and loses thirty was a busy month, not a good one.
Where this lives
The plan needs three things: a baseline, a definitions sheet, and someone who works the lists every Monday. Most studios manage the first two in a spreadsheet. What fails is the third, around week seven, because the lists only stay true if something rebuilds them every day and the follow-up loses to the front desk. That is the one job worth giving to software, if you give it any.
That is the shape Xyzios gives a studio running the plan. It connects on top of Mindbody or Mariana Tek — the platform stays your system of record — holds your definitions, paces every number against your own trailing months, and drafts the member notes the week needs — the payment fix-ups, the saves, the intro follow-ups — for your approval, beside a ranked call sheet for the leads and the slots worth a second look. The plan is yours; the list arrives finished. Nothing reaches a member without you, and nothing is written to Mindbody except what you tap or approve.
Whatever you run it in, take the baseline before you change anything, and pull the levers in order. Take the two-minute studio check to see which stage you are actually at, or start with what counts as a member.