How One Studio Added $60,000 Revenue in Open Week

Hello friends, I'm Amanda Barr and I'm Rebecca Lou Brennan, and welcome to Dance Principles United, the podcast.

Together we are passionate about helping studio owners with the business of running their studio.

Join us as we talk everything from marketing, systems, studio culture, motherhood, life, and everything in between.

This is the Dance Principles United podcast. Hey friends, and welcome to a Dance Principals United podcast. Bec, I'm so excited to be in Penrith with you today.

Are you excited to be in Penrith? That's the real question.

I'm excited to be with you. We had a beautiful lunch.

We did actually have a nice lunch. I do love the Log Cabin. It's out on the water. It is very nice.

It is lovely. And you know, it's been a while since we've been up here. We've been busy. I know you've had some guests up here without me.

I missed you.

I didn't get to be with some of the incredible guests that you've had on the podcast recently. That's true. And I missed out on all of that, but I'm excited to be back into it. So we've got a whole series that we're doing today, right?

We have. I— if you're watching this back on YouTube, I'm in my exercise gear today because I'm about to go teach for 4.5 hours because all my staff are in Europe right now.

Fucking Euro summers.

I'm so jealous.

Why do they all get to do the Euro summer and the studio owner doesn't? That's the big question.

To be fair, Amanda Barr, I was in Euro summer the last 2 years running.

Yes, you were. I was not.

And you were.

It's fine. Just leave me to run the business back here. You go enjoy your Euro summer. Don't worry about it. But absolutely right. Like, I feel like so many studio owners are feeling that though. The teachers get to jet off and we're here picking up the pieces because I know you're teaching and covering for him.

I am teaching so much at the moment. It is insanity. But that's all right. We just have to do what we have to do sometimes as a studio owner, don't we?

Absolutely. And it's that thing, right? Like, no one cares as much about our business as we do, and nor should they.

True.

Nor should they. Like, I get it. You know, some of those teachers that we're, you know, talking about, they're 25.

Go and have fun.

I get it.

I also could cover myself, but I also want to win the next competition coming up.

So you competitive as fuck. Who would have thought it? That's a shocking revelation for the podcast today. But we thought we'd update because it's been a while since we've been on the pod together.

It has been. A very long time, I feel.

I feel like it's been ages. I don't know, we haven't actually got the numbers on that, but it feels like a while.

Yes.

So we thought we'd update on a few things that have been going on in our lives. So much going on, so much exciting shit going on, right?

Oh, well, there's something we can't quite tell you about yet, but something that we are working very, very hard on behind the scenes. It is going to be, well, we feel super epic for studio owners and for studios. So that's like a big secret, but we're—

I know it's a bad day. We really can't tell people about it yet, but it's a— we'll just tease it out there. We'll leave you with the crush. But that's taking up a lot of our time at the moment because it's exciting.

It is exciting. It's incredible. It's going to be incredible for every studio on Earth, really.

But anyway, that's our goal, is it?

That's our goal.

We're going to take over Earth, maybe take another planet next. We'll just keep going out into the whole solar system.

No, but I'm— I genuinely think it is a game changer for everyone.

Absolutely.

So that's exciting.

We've just left that crumb.

If you're wondering what it is or if you've got some guesses, let us know in our DMs. We'd love to know some guesses.

Oh, I want to know the guesses.

Yeah, same.

That's interesting.

Yeah, that'll be fun.

I wonder what people are going to say. They're going to say random shit. Yeah, but we'd love to know. We're excited. We're just going to drop those crumbs there and then you'll have to come back and listen to the podcast after we've like kind of sprinkled some crumbs. But we're gearing up for so many live events as well, which is so exciting, right?

Yeah, we've got our retreat in Fiji.

Oh my gosh. SGC, Studio Growth Club retreat in Fiji coming up in 2 months. 2 months. Yeah. 2 and a half months. Oh my God. That's going to be incredible.

That's coming up really soon. Then we've got retreat in January.

Yep.

And then we've got Expo.

We haven't actually announced. We haven't even put on our socials yet that we are— our Expo dates for 2027. So excited. 17th and 18th of April in Sydney. New venue.

New venue, which is going to be epic. We went and looked at it and it's so— I mean, it's, it's bigger, which is great because we need more room. It's getting so crazy now. Yeah, but it's going to have, yeah, all the bells and whistles, but I think better location and better venue.

Yeah. And some more surprises for you.

Oh yeah.

So make sure you put that in your diary now. 17th and 18th of April. It is going to be incredible. So, so exciting. We've been doing a lot with our Studio Growth Club members too. They're in the middle of running a big open week competition that we're kind of running internally. I love the studios, like, having a bit of fun competitiveness against each other.

Well, we ran it last year for the first time, which was your idea.

Yeah.

And then I traveled to rural Queensland because of it. And we look at some of our members who are killing it this time as well. And they are again quite rural. And what I love about this and You know, when I jump on calls with people, we just had a new studio join this week who is even more rural than you can imagine that. And when I jump on with them and they don't think that Facebook ads are going to work, and then we get their Facebook ads working and they kill it, or, you know, they don't realize the power of what we can do for them. Just seeing people like that accelerate is insane. But one of our rural Very Rural Studios has done the most insane results so far. So it's not over yet, the competition.

The competition's not over. And, uh, for those of you who are listening, uh, we run, um, this open week, uh, project release, um, and we do that, uh, as a way to teach our members ways to really go all in, go all in on their marketing, their conversions, and give it their all for an entire week, which I think is an incredible, incredible thing. However, doing that, you know, it's exciting because sometimes it's fun to have a bit of internal competition with the studios and we like incentivize them and stuff. And to see what some of them are capable of is so incredible, right?

Can I just say something about that though? Because I feel like people think that you get success just because you're lucky or— No, no. I've heard it said about my studio in Penrith, like they're like, oh, that Paws has all of the kids or Like, it's just like, actually, I work my guts out for that. And these people who have got insane results from Open Week have worked their guts out.

Yeah, they didn't just put one little Instagram post up.

And that's the thing, like, you can see that that success is because of damn hard work.

Yeah, one of our regional studios, she is super regional, uh, you know, and not a big studio either, right? Like Not a huge— yeah, but like, you know, some of these, when we're talking about some of these figures, you know, we're not talking about studios that are doing $2 million a year. We're talking about, you know, a very like normal size studio.

Yep.

Right. And so when we're changing these amounts and talking these amounts, like how huge is that for them? Like, you know, one of these studios, you know, for example, She is doing an extra $2,090 a week.

Just from Open Week.

Just from Open Week. She added that in one week in fees. So just to be super clear, that's in fees alone that she's added on top of what she was already doing, which if we're like looking at that for the 20 weeks remaining in the year, that's about $41,000 extra for the second half of the year. But that doesn't include uniforms, costumes, tickets. You know, any of those sort of things on top of that. Isn't that fucking incredible? $41,000 additional in the year.

Crazy. So proud of her.

So, so incredible. And then we've got people like, uh, she is, uh, added so much money into hers as well. She's increased her class placements like a huge amount, and she's doing an extra just over $3,000 a week in additional fees. $61,000 over the year. Like the second half of the year. Isn't that just nuts?

Crazy. And also, I think studio owners don't realize that at this time of year you can make that sort of money because I think, you know, we all just think it's in January that we're going to get all the new people in and then we're not going to have any more growth, right? Yeah, it's not true. And so what is an open week?

Okay, so an open week is definitely— it's a marketing event because to me it's all about a marketing event. It's how you really go all in on marketing and converting new students and current students to upsell them class placements, right? And like anything, like we've talked about before, Black Friday, you know, click frenzy, any of those retail events, they're a made-up event, right? They're a made-up event that gets people excited and they feel like, hey, I've got to buy now or I'm going to miss out. Have you ever felt like that about Black Friday? Like, oh my God, I've got to buy it right now or I'm going to miss out. Oh my God.

We just at my house when 3 package is going to deliver it in the space of 2 hours.

It's not Black Friday today.

It doesn't even need to be that. What is it at the moment? End of financial year sale. I have bought so much shit. It is a joke.

Yeah, absolutely. Because we get that. It's the marketing, right?

Right.

It is all about good marketing. We were just talking about this bunch of products.

We need to talk about this.

Yeah.

So you actually introduced me to this brand called Contempi.

Yeah.

And then is that what it's called?

I think that's what it's called. Yeah.

Why are you looking at me strange then?

No, because I was like, I think I told you that I'd ordered and then I don't actually have them, so I don't know if I never ordered That's why I'm thinking, looking at it strangely. I'm like, I feel like I had it in my head or it was in my cart and I never checked it out.

Okay. So then I've been getting the 5,000 different flower shop, you know, buy a vase and flowers thing. And their marketing is out of control.

So good.

So then they had some sort of—

they follow you around Instagram.

They do.

Yeah.

So then they had some sort of a sale on and I've been looking at it for a good, what, 3 months now? And I was like, fuck it, I'm going to buy it.

Yeah.

So then it turned up and you saw it this morning.

It wasn't bad.

Those, those fake flowers, Amanda, were—

they were a little bit sad. They could have been more.

They were like $120 for those fake flowers.

Yeah. And there wasn't a lot of them.

No, no. The vase is nice, but really for $120 for those fake flowers, I feel like I was a bit ripped.

Yeah. But it's good marketing.

Insane marketing. And they make the flowers look so perfect and they tell you that the flowers are perfect. And then, and am I going to do anything about it? No, couldn't care less. In fact, you know what my solution was? I'll buy another $120 thing of flowers so it looks more full. I'm not joking. That was my solution. So what we're saying is marketing is where it's at. And when people say to me, you know, oh, this studio is just bigger because they're getting more kids. Well, they're getting more kids because they're better marketing at marketing than you. That is literally all it is. Contempi is better at marketing than anyone else in their space. So therefore I'm going to buy from them. And that's, it's that simple.

Absolutely.

And that's what all the big brands do. And that's what the biggest studio in your area does is they market better than you.

Absolutely.

Now, do they need to have a good product? Yes. Am I probably going to opt into that product again? Probably not.

And we just told everybody just now on the podcast, P.S., if you have good flower brands for us, please drop us a DM.

But do you know what I'm saying? Absolutely. That's the thing, right?

So you buy from them once and you're done.

Okay. And that's the other problem. And this was something I said to the SGC members when I was doing Leadership Month is you can have the best marketing in the world, but if you don't actually have a good product, you can get people into your studio. But if the class isn't great or if the teacher's not doing a good job and that person doesn't convert because of that, then that's also a problem. That's a whole other podcast. But that's the problem with this flower brand is the marketing was insane. We've opted in.

Eh, the product, not so much.

Not so good.

So tough. And, you know, to me, an open week event is about the marketing. It's about the hype. It's about the FOMO. It's about the one week only. Let's go really hard for one week and push huge numbers. Like, you know, we've had clients, another one of our regional studios has 240 registered to trial this week.

Yeah, that was insane.

Like, fuck me. Isn't that crazy?

Crazy.

So, so crazy. So many of them, 100, 120, 130, like absolutely crazy numbers. And that's because of great marketing, great FOMO. Could they have got those kids over a 10-week period? Yes, probably. But it doesn't have that same excitement and that same hype.

I see. Yeah. And I still don't think without great marketing, they're not going to.

No, absolutely not. And so, you know, getting them in the door is one thing. Yeah. Marketing, getting them to sign up. The great product is another, but it's also converting them on the spot. And, you know, we're very big on incentivizing on-the-spot conversions because you— if the people have to go home and think about it, you're adding extra money to them because you have to pay, whether it's yourself or an admin person, you have to pay someone to chase them. You have to pay someone to pick up the phone and go, hey, I just want to check in how your trial was yesterday. Or, hey, I noticed you haven't enrolled yet. Here's the link to the whatever that is. But that's costing you money. Whereas if you could sign them up on the spot, number one, the excitement's better, the vibe's better. It keeps that momentum going and it's worth sometimes incentivizing it a little bit.

Yeah. And we did this year with Paws, which we haven't done before, which was your idea, a Season 26 pack. This worked so well. I'll tell you why. The reasons it worked well is one, And you were worried about this. You were like, I'm not sure if this is going to work because people won't, won't think—

what was it?

Something because it's season 26. I don't know. You had some issues.

I had concerns. Yeah. I just didn't want you to spend too much money, I think was more my biggest concern.

But yeah, look, I think the season 26 thing worked because people thought we were starting the season mid-year because like, how do they know when a dance season starts? Nobody knows. Like soccer season starts what?

Term 2? Random.

Like random.

Term 1?

Like, who knows? But yeah, so they thought it was a new season, so we got heaps of people in for that.

Wow.

New season.

Let's start dance. And it kind of is, right? Like you're starting your end of year routines after you finish your mid-year routines. Yep.

Yep. So we did a little tote bag, a t-shirt that we specially made for it, a Butters squishy. I'll talk about that in a second. A paw neato, a fidget spinner. And then we did like 20% off uniform. 20% off a birthday party and a free workshop in school holidays. The free workshop in school holidays got a lot of people over. So with Open Week, you're not just marketing to new people coming in, you're also marketing to people within your studio. So then what we do at Paws is we start the hype. So we put like, you know how at the Easter Show they have the boards with like, here's your show bag, like a show bag, like what's included type thing. So we had that up at both studios. We have two locations. Both studios up. So as soon as they walk in, they see it. Yeah, we at every class did the big hype, mostly me doing the big hype, but going in and being like, and you get a Buttersquishy. And the kids are like, oh, now they can go buy a Buttersquishy at Napi and Centro for $15. But they were that excited about the stupid Buttersquishy. That's all they cared about. I'm not even kidding. Parents loved the free workshop in school holidays. That was a big seller. But then when my staff are on the phone talking to people for Open Week when they're going to come in, new people, they're like, wow, I can't believe we get so much out of Open Week. So that really incentivized everybody to join a new class.

So good, so good. What were your results?

Uh, 161 class placements, new class placements, correct, in 7 days, correct. I think it's about $3,500 extra a week. Exciting news, we made it to $45K a week. So excited.

That's so incredible.

Finally there.

So for those people listening, $45K a week recurring revenue on your tuition every single week. Tuition only, right?

Correct.

Yeah, class fees. Yes, yes.

So yeah, made an extra $3.5K per week just from Open Week, which was insane.

Isn't that amazing? Congrats and snaps to you. But we—

oh God, we did all the things like You didn't go half-hearted.

No, no, I'm exhausted.

So we did invitations out to every child with that they could give their friends, which they could write on and say, come and join us. We put on, because a lot of our kids do all the classes, so we put on a new adult class and we did like a champagne before the adult class with Justin and I.

So I want to come to that.

39 people turned up to that shit. Is that insane? Yes. We did flyers out to various primary schools that we work with. We did a competition on social media where people had to tag and repost the fact that it was open week. Yeah, we did flyers on every seat at Midyear Concert and I talked about it at Midyear Concert. Like we did everything on top of that.

Obviously ads.

So much on ads.

So much huge spend on ads. Also a very seamless booking process that they could book into specific classes.

Thanks to SGC.

Yeah, a follow-up process, a, you know, a warming up process once they've done that. Like, don't forget you've got your trial, plus a phone call, the text, the emails, what to expect. Like, it's a huge amount of work, but 160 class placements. So for those of you who are listening, like, there's some studios that only have 160 class placements in total for a week. We've added that, you know, and obviously you've got a big team, but God, that's huge. That is life-changing to some studios and anyone could do it.

Well, look at Amanda Barr. She doesn't have a big team. Yeah, we just talked about her.

Yes, she did similar numbers and better.

She outdid me. Yeah, numbers class placement-wise, and she's done it mostly herself. Now, did she probably work insane hours? Like I said to my team, because it was insane hours for them. I said to them, it's 2 weeks of hard and then you can take it easier, take a bit easier. But it was well worth it. I gave my main team members a bonus because they deserved it, because they did great numbers and they knew that beforehand.

Yeah.

So yeah, so cool.

And are all the kids rocking the Season 26 shirt?

Yes. And one of our— so Bibi has created this trend in the studio where you cut t-shirts up Right? I'm not joking. So all of her t-shirts have— you know how you can do the real cool cutting of t-shirts? Have you seen this?

No, I'm not that cool.

Well, you need to be. No, so she's like, stop cutting your clothes, they're expensive.

I'm that lady, you know, the old man that's like, oh, there's some holes in your knees of your jeans.

She started a trend.

Yeah.

And everyone now cuts their t-shirts. But one of the mums made the t-shirt into like a halter neck. It's really cool, like a tight-fitting. So they all have— yes, there is a lot of them rocking the Season 26 t-shirt, but they're all cutting it up because that's apparently what you do because Bibi's so cool.

Just want to be just like her.

It's interesting though, talking quickly about that.

Yep.

Okay, when you— sorry, it's off topic, but let's hear it.

I want to hear it.

When you bring your uniform in, the best thing you can do is dress your coolest kids in that uniform and give it to them for free. And the coolest teacher, 100%, because everybody wants to be like them. So So if Bibi's wearing something and her posse, like not just Bibi.

Yeah.

You know, all those little—

and they're your junior teachers plus exactly your dancers.

Exactly.

Those 16, 17-year-olds, like, yep.

And we will bring an item in and Justin will say to that group, will you wear it? And if the answer's no, we won't buy the item.

Yeah. Because we know if they don't wear it, no one else will wear it.

Hmm.

So interesting.

Very.

I am so excited for the rest of our open week competition.

Yes, I am too.

We've got another 2 weeks to go in the competition and then we're going to have to announce our winners. I feel like we need to announce it on the podcast. We might have to have some of them in. We did that last time and they did some, you know, podcasts with us to celebrate their successes. But how good. I'm so excited for so many of our SGC studios.

So excited. Bags going to New Zealand.

What?

I just bags it.

Bags go to New Zealand. I want to go to New Zealand. One of our studio owners that for sure is going to win is in New Zealand. I've never been. Have you been? Maybe. Okay, shotgun, shotgun. You went out west last time.

Did you have to go on a plane with the fellas on the outside?

But I was in Hervey Bay and stuck in a storm. There was a cyclone. Not as bad as your cyclone.

Do you know what? It's not even up to us. Our studio owners get to decide who goes with to theirs.

Let's all just go everywhere. It just sounds like so much more fun. Yeah, yeah, let's go together.

That will be more fun.

What a vibe. All right. I hope you've enjoyed today's podcast. You know, really think about, you know, what are you putting in to get out? You know, I think that's the biggest lesson.

Yes.

Whether you're running the open week, you know, the same as what we're doing, whatever it is, none of these studios were luck. They worked their guts out. They absolutely worked their guts out and they reaped the rewards. And congrats to them, right?

No one successful is luck. What do I always say? Beyoncé is probably one of the hardest working people on earth. Absolutely. Like, that's how she's got her success. Yeah, it's not luck.

It is absolutely not. Anyway, hope you've enjoyed today's Dance Principles United podcast. Find us on Instagram, say hi, reach out. We'd love to hear all the things from you.

Thanks, Bec.

Thanks, friends.

Bye.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dance Principles United podcast. If you'd love to learn more from us, we have a special offer just for our podcast listeners. Go to the link in the show notes right right now to get 2 weeks free in Dance Principles United Tribe. We would love to see you there.