Case Study: How I Run My Business with StudioFlow

DanceFit and Mat Pilates across two venues in West Cork — here's how Cathy manages clients, attendance, and marketing without a spreadsheet in sight.

Cathy

DanceFit & Mat Pilates instructor · West Cork

I teach DanceFit and Mat Pilates in Clonakilty and Dunmanway. About sixty clients come in any given term, but I need a contact list of over two hundred people to keep those classes full — regulars, people who dip in and out, people who went quiet but might come back. For years all of that lived in a spreadsheet, a folder of paper sign-up forms in my car, and a long string of individual text messages I'd send one at a time until I got fed up halfway through. It was not a system.

The paper forms

Every new term started the same way. I'd hand around a sign-up sheet at the end of class, collect whatever came back, and then spend an evening at the kitchen table squinting at handwriting and typing it all into a spreadsheet. Medical details went on one sheet, payments on another, emergency contacts on a third. The folder that held all of it lived in my car because that was where I needed it.

If someone mentioned a health issue between classes and I wanted to check what they'd written on their form, I'd be out in the car park looking for it. That happened more than once.

Getting everything in one place

When I set up StudioFlow, the first thing I did was import my phone contacts. Anyone I already had saved came straight in — that covered most of my active clients and took about twenty minutes.

The paper forms were a bigger job. I had years of them. I photographed each one and the app pulled the information and created a client record from it. I did them in batches over a few evenings while I was watching TV. It took about a week of that. At the end, everything was in the same place for the first time since I'd started teaching.

The messaging

Before, when I wanted to fill a class before a new term, I'd start texting people individually. Not a broadcast — real one-at-a-time messages, because I didn't want anyone to feel like a number. I'd do ten or fifteen, feel embarrassed about bothering people, and give up. The class would be half-empty and I'd feel vaguely guilty about who I hadn't gotten around to.

With StudioFlow I can filter my contacts — people who came last term but haven't re-enrolled, people who haven't been in a few months — write one message, and send it to all of them. I can include their name so it doesn't read like a mailshot. It takes about five minutes and I actually do it now, every term, instead of dreading it and stopping halfway through.

Two venues

Clonakilty and Dunmanway are separate terms in the app, with their own enrolment lists and attendance. When I arrive at class I open that session and mark people off as they come in. At the end of a term I can see what each venue made, who attended, who I need to follow up with — without cross-referencing two different spreadsheets that I was never fully sure were current.

The pricing

I'd looked at other fitness management software before and the monthly fees put me off. Most wanted €50 or more regardless of whether I was actually teaching. That never sat right with me — my classes don't run in August, and I shouldn't be paying a subscription while I'm on summer break.

StudioFlow charges per client, per term. When I'm busy, the cost reflects that. When I'm not, I'm not paying for something I'm not using.

Where it's at now

I still teach in school halls and community venues, still run the same two locations, still have the same mix of regulars and new faces every term. The difference is that the admin side of it doesn't follow me home the way it used to. StudioFlow runs on my phone, it's simple enough that I use it at every class, and it's the first thing I've tried that actually replaced the folder in my car.