Ep. 176 - Three Revenue Streams That Could Add Significant Growth to Your Bottom Line

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Show Notes:

In this episode we get practical about gross revenue growth for gymnastics gyms, ninja programs, and youth sports businesses by treating revenue streams like a diversified portfolio: keep the 80% strong, then build a reliable 20% that smooths out the year and lifts your top line on the P&L.

We walk through three add-on revenue ideas we’ve tested at our own facilities. First: camps, including the big summer camp engine and the underrated no-school camps that families desperately need when school is out but work is not. We talk staffing, lesson plans, calendar planning, and why clear ownership (like an events director) can make the difference.

Next: special events such as birthday parties, skill clinics, parents’ night out, and themed programs that let current members go deeper while giving new families a low-commitment way to try your facility. Then we move into specialty classes and programs, including middle school and high school gymnastics, advanced pre-K done by invitation, tumbling and tramp and tumble for cheer and dance demand, and a new Ninja Sport class built directly from staff passion and customer requests.

If you’re trying to maximize square footage, fill dead hours, and grow revenue without sacrificing quality, this is your playbook. Subscribe and share this with another gym owner or program director. What add-on revenue stream are you considering next?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome back to Learning to Thrive. I'm Courtney. And I'm Michaela. And today we continue our theme of April, which is our finance theme. And we are talking today about revenue streams that can add significant growth to your bottom line. So back to gross revenue. So we're talking we're focusing on gross revenue as far as getting that top line item on your PL, profit and loss statement, as high as we can or increasing it year over year, right? And for many of our sports programs, there is a core foundation that creates probably 80%, I would say, of the gross revenue, right? For us, it's our gymnastics, our recreational gymnastics classes. That is that is the core of our revenue. And then there are things that add to that that get us to our total revenue, right? And so today we're not talking necessarily about that core revenue. So that thing that keeps keep keeps steadily going. It's how can we take that and then add some smaller pieces to it so that we get a bigger bottom or bigger top line.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Yeah, really kind of round out, you know, serving in as many ways as we can once we've got that core, like you said, really solid and kind of established.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Yes. And why would this be important? This would be important because you when you have dips in the year, so enrollment dips, so summer comes to mind as one that's a pretty big one, then you can have something in your portfolio that counterbalances it, right? It's just like having a diverse investment portfolio. You don't want all of your eggs in one basket. Well, you can if you want, but depending on your risk level, right? You want to have a diversification of revenue. And that means that sometimes you're gonna have, for example, summer camps, summertime revenue when your enrollment for classes probably dips a little bit. Or you're going to have, you know, let's say you're not nobody wants a Saturday, 2 p.m. class in the middle of their Saturday, but they do want birthday parties, right? So we're looking at the space usage, we're looking at the revenue, and we're looking at the demands from customers and the asks from customers, right? So making sure that you are paying attention to what your customers are asking for and then thinking about how you can monetize that to add to your gross revenue, essentially. And I think, I think the thing is, I'll say I'll say this from my perspective is trying something, especially if you have that core revenue, trying something new can also be fun, right? You don't necessarily would say every third idea of ours works. Like you have two failures and then one that sticks. Two failures, like we've done dance. We've done what are some things that didn't work for us. Dance did work for us, but you have to have a really specialty the energy output was was kind of in line with the revenue, didn't quite work out that way.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

But yeah, and there's a slight differences in space usage and yeah, expertise in terms of teaching and coaching, and yeah. We tried dance, we did it for a little while, but it wasn't really wasn't where we wanted to put our time and energy. Yeah. We've done a couple different things. We did out Georgie Massachusetts once. Don't do that, you know. We did. That worked for the time. That was out of necessity.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

That worked out of necessity during COVID, but uh yeah, that didn't work long term, right? So yeah, yeah, you gotta throw some spaghetti at the wall sometimes and see what sticks and what doesn't stick. Yeah, um, but these are some that for us stuck and also provide um a really good source of additional revenue. So let's jump into it.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

Yeah, so our first one, and it's a big one for us,

Camps

SPEAKER_01 3:46

is camps. So we run a large summer camp program every year. It's definitely something that we have built and we've shaped and we've developed over time. That also has come over iterations. Yes, yes. But summer camp for us, like you were saying, Courtney, is a huge one that kind of offsets that natural cyclical dip that happens in terms of class enrollment in the summer. But a little bit newer to us in the last few years, I would say, is being really intentional about no school camps, getting those on the calendar early, uh staffed well, with a full lesson plan, you know, treating them the same as we do our summer camps, same level of intentionality and things like that. But they're just more, you know, those one-off days where the kids are out of school for this reason or that reason. Yeah. And providing those as sort of drop-in one day.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Yeah, because you're serving your customers because the cut the the kid, the kids that are off school on a random Tuesday, like the parents still have to work. Right. And so it's like, what am I gonna do with my kid? I got meetings and stuff. And so it's a service to the community, but it's also good for us because it allows us to keep in contact with some of our campers throughout the year. And it also just adds that. And usually our staff is also off school. So that it's not as hard, it's not that hard to staff because they have the day off as well and they'd like to make a little extra money, you know, on their day off. So it works well. The no school camp piece. We also have our events director, like the when when she came on as events director, that was one of her that's big things. She we had had them before, but they had become too, they were not manageable for the because we were using the current AM staff to also stamp staff no school camps on that day, and that was not a great choice. Yeah. She came in with the her eyes exclusively on them, making sure that she's staffing them, making sure where they're gonna go in the gym, making sure that she's on top of pickup and drop off. Like it does help to have somebody on your team who's maybe in charge of just no school camps. That could be a great way to expand somebody's role. It can be a great way to grow their revenue themselves because you could also pay them in a different, you know, like you could bonus pay them or you could pay them in a different manner for helping you to add the no school camps and taking care of all the logistics so that it doesn't disrupt your regular class day. Right.

unknown 6:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Right. Because they are sporadic. Yes. And sometimes that doesn't work.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

And they're nice little boosts of revenue throughout the year. You know, summer camp is a little bit different because it's, you know, it's a longer stretch of time. There's a little bit more consistency with it. It's for us, we do 10 weeks straight, you know. Whereas the no school camps, it is, it's, you know, one in April and three in March. And like it's a little bit more random, but you get these nice little like these nice little upticks, you know.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Um and I would say for our summer camp, if you're if you're considering summer camp, you're thinking about your summer camps or you're interested in up-leveling your summer camps, go back to our March episodes. We share a lot of information on how to be doing that. And also, if you need an idea as far as lesson plans for your summer camps or for a no school camp, you can sign up for our free ninja camp course, and that will give you all you need to run successful ninja lesson plan for our camp. So you could try that for a no school camp day, and maybe you know it's Ninja Ninja No School Camp. Yeah. Right? People love that. And maybe you don't even have a ninja program, but that might let you test out whether or not you want one, right? What's the interest level there? Um, so you can you can get that off of our uh we'll link it in the show notes if you'd like to see what that course looks like. We would love to share that with you. And if you need help with summer camp execution, go back to our March episodes because that's a lot of information there.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Yeah. No, camps are camps are huge, especially if you put the effort and the time and the intentionality behind them. They can be huge, you know, revenue drivers. So agreed. Another

Special Events

SPEAKER_01 7:50

revenue stream that you could look at adding in once you feel like you've got, you know, your core kind of solid is special events. Yep. So this could be anything from birthday parties to skill clinics, parent nights out, we do ninja nights out as well. The parents night out is the one where we partner with artworks, right? And they do some art in the beginning. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

And then they do gymnastics class and then they have dinner, like parents pack a pack a dinner, and then they do an hour and a half of gymnastics. Right. So open gym style.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Yes. And these are all wonderful kind of one-off events that you can do. I mean, I would schedule them regularly, but they're one-offs for like the kids to sign up for that allow you to better serve your existing students. So maybe you have a kid who's in a beginner or an intro level class and they're really wanting to work on this one particular skill, they can sign up for a skill clinic that focuses on that to help them get that little bit of extra attention or one-on-one or work on that particular skill so that they can eventually move up to the next level or progress within their sport that they're doing. So better serve your existing clientele as well as give people the opportunity to kind of try out what you're doing. You know, maybe we can't commit to a regular class because our schedule's too busy, but we do, you know, parents' night out every month and it's date night for the parents or something like that. So it allows you to just do more beyond just your classes.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

Yeah. And I and having those touch points for families is a way for them to engage with you, to fill a need that they have, and also for the new ones, you know, to test out your facility without committing. So I think the key to those is only do the ones you can do as well as you do your classes.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

So if you're going to add it, and again, it helps to have somebody who's in charge of it, right? Somebody whose eyes are on how is the quality. Again, back to our events director. But events directing, that could be a part of somebody, you know, if you have a really solid part-time instructor and wants to have a little more responsibility, maybe skill clinics is their like add-on. They want to be, but make sure that the quality of the skills clinic is as high as your classes or higher. Make sure there's a value add in there, make sure there's communication with the parents, make sure it's consistent. You don't want to be canceling things. If you have a low, if you have an enrollment number that you need to hit to run it, make sure that that happens two weeks ahead of time, not the day before. You know, like, and I say that because we've done it wrong so many times.

unknown 10:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

And as you go. Yeah. And so if you're thinking, yeah, I do want to add special events, add one, do it as well as you can before you add another. And and do something that you're already you either have customer demand for or you have staff demand for. If there's a staff member who really loves art and is like, I'd love to teach an hour art class and then have open gym, can I be in charge of that? Heck yeah. Dance, you could do a dance, you know, parents' night out where they, you know, like you can theme it, skills clinics. You might have somebody who's really loves back tumbling. Like follow the interests of your staff and follow the the requests of your customers, and you will see good results from that.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Okay,

Specialty Classes & Programs

SPEAKER_01 11:26

our final one is, and I would honestly do these kind of in order of how we've gone over them, right? Is uh to add specialty classes or programs. So the reason being is let's take your class structure, okay, and you've got, you know, for any sport, for any activity, you've got let's say beginner, intermediate, and maybe you've got some advanced as well. And that is going and that is solid, and that is your core, right? And that is that's going well. You've got that down. Then we start to add in some of these extra things, right? We start to add in the summer camps, we start to add in the special events, things like that. The next level, I think, personally, because these are typically more of like you might only have one or two of these running a week and it's a class. So it's going to be a lower enrollment number than like a summer camp with 100 kids, you know. But if you add these in and you do them well, it takes your existing clientele base and I think provides them almost anything they need within the realm of what you uh are doing to serve them, right? So, like for us, it's gymnastics. So an example of this would be we run middle school, high school gymnastics classes. And the reason for that is we found over the years that we had have always had things structured by skill level, so beginner, intermediate, advanced, but then you might have, you know, a 14-year-old who's like, I really want to learn how to do a backbend kickover, you know, or I really want to try out for my high school like dance team or something like that. But they're a beginner, they've never done it before, but they're interested in it, they want to learn. But when we had everything just structured by skill level, they might end up in a class with an eight-year-old. And they're 14.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Yeah, that's not a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

And they don't want yeah, not great for the teacher, not great for the students, they don't like it. So we started separating out this kind of middle school, high school age group. And we have at this point now, we've got a few of them that run. They're very popular. They are, yes. But it's by age, not necessarily by level. We've grown within our middle school, high school to the point where we can have a beginner intermediate and an intermediate and advanced. So kind of two levels, but really it's it's more so based on age. That way they can be with peers that are in the same boat as them, especially if they're beginners. We're all here, we're all trying it together, we're all a little bit older, and we're here to like have fun and learn.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Yeah. And I think a I think a middle schooler would rather fail in front of another middle schooler than in front of an eight-year-old who can do it better than they can. Yes. Yeah. And so that's where the that's where that class came from. But the response from the customers at that class, because sometimes they don't try gymnastics until they're in middle school, then it's real awkward. Yeah. Yeah. So it gives them an outlet and it also gives you another revenue stream. Now, the only thing I would say about that is you do have to have an adult teaching that class.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

For sure. Yeah, you can't have a high schooler teaching high schoolers. Yes. So hard enough.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Staffing on these specialty classes can be, it's not going to be your mainstream staff. You need to make sure that the time, the time, the where you're putting these on the schedule is where you either are strong, like on a teaching, a strong teaching night, or you have a team coach who is like willing to stay and teach a class so they can make a full shift. You know what I mean? So specialty age groups, yeah, the middle school, high school, I could not recommend it enough. And it also is a nod to the fact that you don't think that gymnastics is a sport for just the young and you know.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Yeah, it's more inclusive.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

Yes, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

Yeah, yeah. It's much more inclusive. Similarly to that, I would say would be your advanced pre-K classes. So this is one that I feel like we had it for a little while, then it kind of went away, then we brought it back. But basically, you have some kids who maybe they've been doing classes with you since they were. We started our classes at six months old. So maybe they've been with you for a long time. They're very advanced. Some of them. Uh maybe, maybe they are just those kids who just have wicked gross motor skill development.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

You're not two-year-olds where you can be, you're like, oh, okay. Yeah. You're you're catching on faster than most. Yeah. Or you're wildly strong. Naturally gifted. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

So not that they're going to be Olympians, just that they, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Yeah. So being able to serve that customer base, that clientele base, with maybe they're getting bored. Yeah. In the in your, you know, traditional three to four-year-old class or four to five-year-old class. Maybe they're, maybe they're starting to get bored. They're they like it, like they like the gym. They think gymnastics is fun, but it's just they're flying through your obstacle courses because it's just too easy.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

Yes. And and if they've spent a year or two in parent child and they've learned their donkey kick and their monkey jump and like whatever, then they are ready to move on to maybe a one, two, three monkey jump or a cartwheel at the age of three. But that I wouldn't, I would not say that that's where I would tell my pre-K instructors to teach at. Like they could definitely up to challenge them, but like the majority of three-year-olds are still working on class management. They're working on, you know. So yeah, it's yeah, serving the that long-term customer or just to naturally, or the or the childhood's like the fifth of like the youngest of five.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

And they've been keeping up with their older siblings. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

So they're just they're just meant to, like, they've already figured it out. They don't need the instruction on how to stay on their spot. Like they're ready for something more.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

Yeah. But you're you can't age them up into an older age group because they're still four.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

And we we did try to do that, which is how the advanced pre-K came back.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

We had a couple of four-year-olds in our galaxies, and it just for them it was not successful. Like it was, but it wasn't. It wasn't, it wasn't up to the same quality as our other classes. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

So yeah. So that's another example of again, it's it's age-based. This one though is age and skill-based. Right. Yeah. So the middle school, high school is less about the skill level, it's more about just being with peers your own age, whereas the advanced pre-K is more skill-based. But we can't age you up into a class with nine and 10-year-olds because you're four years old.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

Yeah. So yeah. And very important that those are not left to open enrollment on the internet. Those need to be where you talk to somebody.

unknown 18:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

That's invited because what is an advanced pre-K? There could be so many different definitions of that. So we just want to make sure that we don't have somebody that ends up in that either by accident and they're like, oh my gosh, or we have different definitions of advanced. Right. Yeah.

unknown 18:32

Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

So another idea for a specialty class or program would be tumbling classes or tramp and tumble. This is definitely more for the, I would say, gymnastics gyms out there, the dance studios out there. We happen to have our two tumble tracks and our multiple trampolines. So we we have classes that are specifically tramp and tumble. So they're learning those trampoline skills.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

And they use a T-trainer too, like a mini tramp. So it's mini tramp, trampoline, and then tumble track.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Right. And then we also have our tumbling skills because you you're gonna have people, again, we're primarily gymnastics, right? You're gonna have people who come in and they're like, I just want to learn how to flip. They're like, I, you know, beam, not really for me.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

Yeah. Cheerleaders, dancers, athletes that are just like, yeah, teach me, teach me the tumbling skills. I don't really want to mess with the other stuff.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Yeah. Yeah. So that, and that I would say we we have more classes of that.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

That one is fairly fairly aligned with our core classes of gymnastics because right, you're taking, you're taking basically trampling, tumbling, like, yeah, yeah, it's just more aligned. You're just leaving out a couple of events. So I think that that one is more popular. And I think there's a a demand, uh like the cheer world right now. And so if you own a cheer gym and you and you're competing, teams and stuff like that, you should be adding, well, sorry, I don't like to tell people what they should be doing. I would recommend adding tumbling classes because that's a great source of revenue and your market's already there. Right? And you also have dancers who so much of dance now is aerials front, you know.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

Front aerial, side aerial, yeah, like part wheels, splits, all the years, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:14

So you can tap into those, and it's also a way to keep kids that maybe you had before engaged. They went on to dance, but they still want to be a part of your gym. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

And then finally, this is a fun one we added this year, so I figured we'd we'd throw it in. It's new to us, so we're still, you know, trialing it, if you will. But we have a fairly successful ninja program, fairly large ninja program. And we found that there were this group of kids, so this is two parts. One, there was a group of kids who wanted to do a little bit more in terms of like the tricks and the flips and all of that. And pair that with, you know, an instructor or two who's really passionate about that, like the tricking and the, you know, all that. So we created this class called Ninja Sport, which is for our ninja students. Is it invite only?

SPEAKER_00 21:09

I think it's invite only and it's a little bit older, like they're later grade school and middle school.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Yeah. And they're working more on those like specialty skills within the ninja program. And so far, it seems like it's going really well. I think the people like it. Instructors love it, the kids love it, but it's new. But again, it it came from what you were saying before, Courtney, about following the passions and the interests of your staff, as well as following the requests of your existing clientele base. You pair those two things together, we we only have the one that runs, but the kids love it. So it gives them a place to grow to, yeah, and chat continue to challenge them in a slightly different way than what just their normal class does. Because a lot of these kids who are in the ninja. Ninja sport class, I think, also do their ninja. Like they have their, you know, their higher in the color system or yeah. So they have their normal class that they do, and then they do this ninja sport as well, because they they want it a little bit more. They wanted to continue to be challenged in this particular way. And so far it's worked out well, but it's still new. So I was like, we'll throw it in.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Yeah, and I think the I think one one common denominator in all of these classes, with maybe the exception being advanced pre-K, is these can be these can be classes because they're specialty classes that you put at odd times, right? Because the the person who's gonna take NinjaSport, like our Ninja Sport classes, I think 7:30 to 8:45 or something like that, like the later end of the night. Our middle school, high school classes are seven to eight usually. I mean, we have we have one or two at five o'clock, but the middle there, these are ones that you can put at those really early times, really late times, and people will still sign up for them because of the specialty nature of them. So that kind of helps to make the schedule work. And also the fact that they use different equipment, you you can also kind of squeeze them in, maybe at an odd rotation. Like if all your classes start at four, five, and six, you could do a 530 and a 630 of these specialty classes. And because they use different equipment or different rotations of equipment, you can slide them in. So it's a good way to maximize your square footage and maximize your enrollment.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Yeah, and round out your schedule.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

And round it out, yeah. And I would say, you know, Michaela's right in the sense of these specialty classes aren't going to make or break your bottom line or your like, but every little bit helps, right? So if you pair them with the camps and you pair them with the special events and your, you know, your standard bread and butter of your program, then it's going to add that little bit extra that kind of trickles down. So it's worth the investment again, with the warning of don't do it unless you can do it as well as what you're currently offering. So if you don't have anybody who's passionate about a tramp and tumble class, don't put it in. Don't put it in. Right. Now, if you do have somebody passionate about it and they'll write lesson plans for you, and then let's say they leave in a year, you can continue it once it's established. But I don't know that I would establish it without somebody who's super passionate about it. Right. Look for something that they are passionate about. For those of you that are in the sports world, let's say like lacrosse or basketball or field hockey, this would be what kind of specialty classes are you doing for the younger kids or the kids who need more work on skills, right? So do you have a dribbling class, right? To add to your, let's say you have an AAU program. Can you put a dribbling class on there? Can you put a class for the great, you know, the grad year that's going to be up and coming? Can you put in, you know, do you do birthday parties? You know, your kids are passionate about what they're into. Do you do skills clinics? Is there time for it for them to learn other skills or, you know, even speed and agility if you're talking about the sports world as well? So thinking outside the box, but doing it as well as you do your regular stuff and following the interests of your staff so that you can also do it well or the demands of your customers. Yeah. Makes a big difference. But don't let that take your eye off of your 80%.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Yeah, because this 20%, it's just how you kind of hit that like extra little level. That next level. Yeah, that next level. But it it's 20%. Yeah. It this should this is not make or break. This is not a miracle. This is not make or break. This is our 80% is going well. Yeah. Very well. How can we level up? Yep. What can we do to take things one step above what we're already doing? Agreed.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

All right. We hope you enjoyed this and share with us. What are you adding now? Or what are you considering adding? And do you need do you need some feedback on it? We're happy to share what we know. We're happy to help. We're happy to listen. So shoot us a message and let us know. How are you going to implement this or what are you thinking? Is there something we missed? Maybe there's something you have that we could add. Yeah. Be awesome. Yeah. All right, everybody, keep on thriving.