Stop Chasing Trends. Double Down on Who You’re Actually For.
Why the studios that last aren’t the ones adding more... they’re the ones getting clearer.
A studio owner recently came to me with what felt like a very logical question.
“Do you think we should add a heated format?”
They are one of my biggest clients. Nearly 50 studios nationwide. On paper, it made sense. Heated classes are everywhere right now. They’re buzzy, they’re full in certain markets, and they look like growth. From the outside, adding heat felt like evolution: a way to attract new clients and stay culturally relevant.
But after digging into their studio: their attendance data, their schedule, and most importantly, their clients, my answer was simple:
No.
Not because heated formats don’t work. They absolutely do. But they didn’t work for them.
And that distinction is where most studios go wrong.
The Most Common Mistake Studios Make
Studios often assume growth comes from attracting new audiences. When momentum slows or attendance plateaus, the instinct is to look outward: to trends, competitors, or whatever format feels culturally hot at the moment. Heated classes, hybrid concepts, new modalities. Something new must equal progress.
But most studios don’t actually have an acquisition problem. They have an identity problem.
They stop serving the people who already love them in pursuit of people who were never theirs to begin with. And in doing so, they unintentionally dilute the very thing that made clients loyal in the first place
.
What the Data Actually Said
When we looked closer at this studio’s client base, a very clear picture emerged. Their audience wasn’t Gen Z trend chasers looking for intensity theater or sweat-as-status workouts. Their core clients were older millennials and Gen X professionals: people with structured schedules, demanding lives, and a strong preference for routine.
These clients weren’t coming for novelty. They were coming for consistency, intelligent movement, community, and longevity. They valued feeling good more than feeling destroyed. This was the basis of their workout. A heated format wouldn’t expand their audience; it would confuse it.
Growth doesn’t happen when you become someone else. It happens when you become more clearly who you already are.
