Sell the Month, Not the Session Pack

Imagine a Pilates instructor named Cordelia Marlow who teaches private sessions in her own studio, above a bookshop in town. She sells packs of 10 sessions for $1,400, as most studios near her do.

In January, Mrs. Ingleby buys her first pack. She runs an architecture firm, and her back aches after long days at her desk. She comes on Tuesdays and Fridays at seven in the morning.

The pack runs out in the second week of February. Cordelia has a client at eight, so she sends a quick text. “So sorry to chase! Your pack has finished. Would you like another? No pressure at all.” Mrs. Ingleby has a deadline that week. She writes back that she will sort it out after Friday, and she buys a second pack the next week.

In April, Mr. Ingleby asks whether he could come too. Cordelia sends him the price of a pack of his own. He means to reply, and he does not.

The second pack runs out in May, in the week Mrs. Ingleby’s firm moves offices. Cordelia sends the same text. Mrs. Ingleby says she will pick it up again in June. In June, a colleague takes her to a studio near the new office, and she signs up there.

Suppose instead that Cordelia works by the month. On the first call, Mrs. Ingleby asks how the packs work. “I don’t sell packs,” Cordelia says. “Clients keep the same times each week and pay by the month. Twice a week is $1,300 a month, paid on the first. If you miss a session, we find another time that month.” Then she stops.

Mrs. Ingleby asks whether Tuesdays and Fridays at seven are free. They are, and she starts the next Tuesday.

In May, the firm moves offices, and she cancels a Friday. Cordelia offers Saturday at nine, and Mrs. Ingleby takes it. On June 1, the month is paid as usual, and nobody has to ask about it. That week, Mr. Ingleby asks whether he could come on Wednesdays. “For the two of you, it’s $2,000 a month, on one bill,” Cordelia says. In the autumn, both of them are still training.

Cordelia taught the same sessions in the same studio both times. In the first version, every pack ended in a question, whether to buy another. Cordelia had to ask it, with an apology, and the answer came in a busy week. In the second version, the month carried on until Mrs. Ingleby chose to stop. Cordelia said how she works once, on the first call, and she did not have to ask for money again. Mr. Ingleby joined the arrangement his wife already had.

So give each client set times every week for one monthly fee, and say it as the way you work. Here is why a pack keeps asking the client to decide, and what three trainers found.

A session pack runs out, and the client has to decide all over again

Here is the course’s view of a session pack. A wealthy fitness client is paying to become someone who keeps training. A pack sells them a count of sessions, and the count runs down. The unit you sell in decides what the client keeps an eye on. So a client on a pack watches the sessions they have left. When the count reaches zero, the training stops until the client decides to buy more.

That decision comes whenever the count runs out, not when the client has time to think about it. For a client who runs a firm, it can land in the busiest week of the month. A client who says “after Friday” has not said no. They have put training off, and putting it off is what they hired you to stop.

The pack also leaves the asking to you. Each new pack needs a message from you about money, and it is an easy message to soften with an apology.

A monthly arrangement works the other way. The client keeps the same times each week and pays on the first of the month. The month carries on until the client says they want to stop. So no count runs out, and nobody has to ask.

A La Jolla studio owner bills by the month, so he never asks a client for more money

Ethan Kopsh is a trainer who opened his own studio, Bird Rock Fit, in La Jolla, California. In 2012, he told the American Council on Exercise’s Certified News how his clients pay. Each client chooses whether to train once, twice, or three times a week, and pays by the month. “If they miss a session, they must make it up sometime within that month or they will lose it,” he said.

The article reports that Kopsh has found this way of paying “instills more accountability among his clients, while decreasing cancellations and helping clients stay on track.” Kopsh named one more gain, and it was his own. “There is never that moment when you have to ask your client for more money. Nobody likes doing that,” he said. “It takes the whole sales part away from me.”

He puts part of his studio’s success down to not selling. “We are not pushy about sales; we make it easy for people to train,” he said.

Kopsh’s clients choose how often they come, and the month takes care of the rest. A missed session moves to another day that month. There is no pack to run out, so there is no moment when he has to ask for money. His clients keep training, and he stops selling.

A trainer let clients take as long as they liked to finish a package, and called it his biggest mistake

Jim Massaro is a trainer who wrote The Complete Coaches Manual of Sports Performance. In the same article, he described a policy he started with. “Some of the hard lessons were at first, letting clients take as long as they wanted to finish a session package,” he said. “That policy cost me too much money and the client didn’t get much from their training.”

He called it his biggest mistake. The article says he now puts a time limit on clients’ session packages. Since the change, he said, “the retention rate has increased, results have been much improved and my bottom line has increased.”

Measured against this lesson, Massaro’s fix goes part of the way. A pack with a time limit no longer drifts for months, so the client trains more often. It still runs out, though, and the client still has to decide to buy the next one. A month that renews on the first still asks the client to use the sessions that month. It drops the decision to buy more.

A Texas in-home trainer bills every client on the first, before any session

Kay Cross is an in-home personal trainer in Fort Worth, Texas. In 2008, she wrote a column for IDEA Health & Fitness Association about running an in-home training business well. “To prevent late cancellations with no pay, I bill each client monthly, with payment due on the 1st before any sessions occur,” she wrote. If a payment has not come by the fifth, she calls or sends an email.

Her reason is the work behind each session. “In-home personal training is not like a salon that takes ‘walk-ins,’” she wrote. “You have to prepare for your clients, so filling late cancellations is difficult, if not impossible.” Her clients can still move a session. “I allow clients to reschedule in the same month if they give at least 24 hours’ notice,” she wrote.

She also gave trainers a test for their own rules on cancellations and scheduling. “If they cost you more than 10% of your income per year, you need to make some changes,” she wrote.

Cross’s clients pay before the month starts, so a late cancellation does not cost her the hour she set aside. Her clients keep a way back to the session they missed, a new time in the same month. So payment on the first protects the trainer’s time, and the rule for the month protects the client’s session.

A partner or a child joins the arrangement the household already has

Here is the course’s suggestion for a household where a partner or a teenage son wants to train too. Add them to the same arrangement, with their own times each week. The household gets one fee on one bill. Here is the reason. A second pack means a second count, a second date when it runs out, and a second message about money. One arrangement for the household keeps one decision, and the household has already made it.

Give the household fee as one figure. Sometimes two people train back to back, and it saves you work, such as a second trip to the house. Then you can set the fee lower for that reason. Say it as one fee, not as a saving, because a saving makes each part look cheaper.

Say the month once, as the way you work

When a new client asks what you charge, the month is your answer, not a request. Give the times, the fee, and the day it is paid, in a sentence or two. Then stop.

A new client judges your work partly by its price, before they have seen much of the work. That is how price creates belief. “Sorry, I only work by the month” tells them that you doubt your own terms. “I hope that’s all right” after the fee does the same, because a softening word turns a statement into an apology.

Leave out what the month works out to per session, too. A sum per session puts the count back in front of the client. The month was meant to take the count away.

Why offering the month with an apology goes wrong

Imagine a yoga teacher named Margery Dunleavy who teaches private clients in a room at her house. Mr. Tremayne has bought packs of 10 from her for two years, at $1,500 a pack. In August, Margery decides to move all her private clients to the month.

She writes to them late on a Sunday, after a weekend of teaching. “I’m so sorry to do this,” she writes to Mr. Tremayne. “I’m moving to monthly billing, and I hope that’s okay! It’s $1,300 a month for Mondays and Thursdays, which works out at about $150 a session, the same as your packs. If you’d rather stay on packs, just say, and I’ll make an exception for you.”

Mr. Tremayne writes back that packs suit him. At his tennis club, he mentions the exception to another of Margery’s clients, and she asks for the same exception. By October, Margery runs both ways of paying. She still sends a message about money each time a pack runs out. When Mr. Tremayne’s pack runs out in the week before Christmas, he says he will start again in January.

Margery’s month was a good arrangement at a fair fee. Her mistake was offering it as a favor she needed. The apology told Mr. Tremayne that she expected him to mind. The sum per session put the count of sessions back in front of him. The exception told him that the month was optional, and an exception for one client reached a second client within weeks.

The version that works gives the change as a fact, with a date. “From November 1, I’m working by the month,” Margery writes. “Your Mondays and Thursdays at eight stay yours, and it’s $1,300 a month, paid on the first. Your current pack runs as usual until then.” Mr. Tremayne asks whether a missed Monday could move to a Wednesday. “Any day that month,” Margery writes back. He starts on the month in November.

Paying for the month ahead is not locking the client in

Asking for a month in advance can feel like a gym contract. A trainer might worry that a client will feel trapped, or will leave rather than sign up.

A pack is paid ahead too. Cordelia’s pack of 10 covers five weeks at two sessions a week. Mrs. Ingleby pays for all of it before the first session. The month asks for one month’s fee at a time, and it ends when the client gives notice. A missed session moves to another day that month. So the month holds the client to less than a pack does, not more.

What the month does hold is the client’s times. Cordelia’s Tuesdays and Fridays at seven stay Mrs. Ingleby’s, whether or not she has sessions left. A client who hired you to keep them training wants those times kept.

How to move your clients from packs to the month

1. Choose how often a client can train each week, such as once, twice, or three times, as Kopsh does. Price the month from what the same sessions come to at your session price. Round it up to a figure you meant. For example, a strength coach who charges $100 a session might set twice a week at $900 a month. Three times a week might be $1,300.
2. Write the rules for the month. Payment is due on the first, before any session. A missed session moves to another day that month, or it is lost, as at Kopsh’s studio. Ask for 24 hours’ notice to move one, as Cross does. For example, a trainer with a private studio might write, “Give me a day’s notice, and we’ll find another time that month.”
3. Write how the month ends, and what it covers. The course suggests notice by the 15th for the next month. That gives you two weeks to offer the times to someone else. Count the messages between sessions as part of the fee, so a client does not weigh a question against a charge. For example, a nutrition coach might write, “The month covers our two calls and any message in between. Tell me by the 15th if you’d like to stop.”
4. When a new client asks what you charge, or whether you sell packs, give the month in one or two sentences. Then stop. Leave out any apology, any “I hope that’s all right,” and what the month works out to per session. For example, a trainer with a studio can say, “I work by the month. Twice a week is $900, paid on the first, and your times stay yours.”
5. When a second person in the household wants to train, add them to the same arrangement, with times of their own. Give the household one fee on one bill. For example, a trainer who works with older clients can say, “For you and your mother, Mondays and Thursdays each, it’s $1,800 a month, on one bill.”
6. Start new clients on the month from a date you choose. The same week, tell your clients on packs that packs end on a date at least three months away. This follows the order for raising your price in stages. Let each one finish the pack they have. For example, a stretch therapist can write, “From March 1, I’ll see clients by the month. Your Wednesday hour is held for you, at $600 a month. Use the sessions you have until then.”
7. If a client asks to stay on packs, say no kindly, and give the date again. For example, a trainer for new mothers can say, “Packs end for everyone on March 1. Your Friday morning stays yours on the month.”

Next: You will see why discretion and clear limits build a client’s trust when your work is close and physical.