Episode 301: Revenue Streams: Workshops for Technicians

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🎙️ Female emPOWERED Podcast Episode:
How Hosting Workshops Can Grow Your Revenue, Community & Credibility

Episode Summary:
In this episode, Christa Gurka shares everything studio owners need to know about hosting in-house workshops — not just attending them. If you’ve been searching for new ways to increase revenue, train your team, and build your brand’s authority in your local wellness community, workshops may be your next power move.

Christa breaks down exactly how and why hosting workshops (for clients and instructors) can be a profitable and strategic tool for boutique fitness studios. She also shares all the details about her upcoming workshop, Pilates for Injuries & Special Populations, happening on October 25th at Balance Yoga & Pilates in Glen Ellyn, IL — and how you can attend or bring her to your studio in 2026.

🎓 Learn more & register for Christa’s Glen Ellyn workshop:
👉 https://www.balanceyogapilates.com/pilates-workshops

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• Why hosting workshops can be a high-value, low-overhead revenue stream
• How workshops help with instructor training, staff retention & CEU savings
• The different types of workshops you can host (staff-only, public, client-facing)
• How to price and structure workshops based on your goals and costs
• The difference between good and great instructors — and how workshops can help bridge the gap
• Real examples of business and movement workshops Christa teaches
• How to partner with guest educators and tap into their audiences
• Tips for testing new services or programming with short-term workshops

📍 Join Christa LIVE at Balance Yoga & Pilates
If you're a Pilates instructor, physical therapist, or wellness pro near the Chicago area, don’t miss your chance to train in person with Christa on October 25th! She’ll be teaching two hands-on workshops focused on Pilates for injuries & special populations, and cueing, corrections, and compensation patterns.

🎟️ Reserve your spot here: https://www.balanceyogapilates.com/pilates-workshops

Interested in hosting Christa at your studio?
She offers customized workshops for owners, teams, and clients in both business strategy and movement education. Email christa@christagurka.com or DM @christagurka to learn more and grab her services + pricing package.

Connect with Christa:
🌐 Website: fitbizstrategies.com
📸 Instagram: @christagurka
🎙️ Podcast: Female emPOWERED

Transcript

Christa Gurka (she/her): 0:51

Hey there everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Female Empowered Podcast. I'm your host, Christa Gurka, and I have an interesting episode I wanted to share with you today. I wanna talk about workshops, but not workshops where we as practitioners are going to another like-minded business to present a workshop. I'm talking about workshops that you host in your place of business. We all as technicians we should go get continuing education credits, we should take workshops, we should keep learning. If we're physical therapists, most states have some sort of a renewal process. Not all of them in the state of Florida in. November of every odd year, we have to have done, at least 24 continuing education credits. Pilates is similar, yoga is similar. So what I wanna talk about today is why workshops can be another revenue stream for your brick and mortar, wellness business. also there's lots of people that are also looking for host sites, where they'll do things Offer you two free. Enrollments into their program, or they'll pay for the ability to host it at your studio. and what that does, even if it's not a huge revenue generator, it's bringing people there, maybe other clinicians, maybe other local business people, so that it's just legitimizing you in the community. Maybe you get. Introduced to people who you could hire. Eventually, maybe you just get introduced to other colleagues, which you can start connections with. So these are all really, really great opportunities. So I. now that I've sold Pilates in the Grove, I have a lot more time and I love teaching. So one of the things that I'm doing, for the rest of 2025 and into 2026 is I am going to different studios and PT clinics around the country and teaching multiple things, business training as well as getting back to my roots, which is. Biomechanics anatomy, principles, Pilates, et cetera, et cetera. So I am actually teaching at a workshop that is being hosted by Balance Yoga and Pilates in Glen Ellyn Illinois. It's going to be October, 25th. And, we'll drop the link in the show notes here, and I will also have it on my website and on my social media. But I will be teaching a workshop for Pilates for injuries and special populations. basically what that is is. With my expertise of being a physical therapist for over 20 years, oh my God, that's way over 20 years. It's like 27 years. and being a Pilates instructor for 20 years, I have a very special knack for being able to work with people that have special populations. This course specifically is going to be geared around people that have back. Issues, stenosis, herniated disc, et cetera. osteoporosis. and so we're gonna talk about what to look for with those specific injuries or diagnoses or conditions. and we're also gonna do pre and postnatal, what you should do, what you shouldn't do. Basically, the idea for me when teach these kind of workshops is the more education I can give people, the more knowledge we have about anything, the more choices we have and the more confident we feel in saying, this is good, this is not good. Right? So the more knowledge we have, I don't care if you're talking about investing business, you just have more choices and more options versus being like, yeah, I have no idea what that is. I can't work with that. So we're doing that workshop in the morning, and then in the afternoon I am teaching a. cueing corrections and compensation workshop. And basically what that workshop is going to be is how to look and see what your clients are doing on the equipment for Pilates and what that means. So, for example, if their knees are. Rolling out or they're rolling out onto their foot, the outside of the foot when they're doing lunges or things like that. What is that telling you about? What's happening in their body? What's happening up the chain at their knee, at their hip, at their foot, and how you can cue efficiently and effectively to get those little nuances that make a huge difference in your teaching. Okay. So how you can make those slight adjustments. How you can look and see with our own eyes what is really happening with our clients when they're performing exercises. Why do clients cramp when they bridge? And what are we looking for to improve that movement pattern? So those are two workshops that I am personally teaching. again, balance Yoga and Pilates. We'll link that link in the show notes. So if you want. To attend those, I'd love to meet you in person and, so you can sign up. I think there's still space available. I think we have like four or five spaces left. so me going to teach is something that I love to do. And what is that gonna do for this studio? Well, there's a couple things. So for one, obviously they're charging for the workshop. Right. So they can generate revenue by bringing me there. I think the workshop is if you buy both of'em, I think it's f.$350. Let's say you get 10 people to sign up, that's a$3,500 day for the studio so it's not only is it$3,500 day, that means that the owner of the studio can take that continuing education workshop for free, get knowledge, get training that owner can. Allow, if they want their staff to take that continuing education workshop for free or for a low cost. So that's a benefit that you're giving to your employees. So they are gonna be better instructors for that reason. And it creates a lot of buy-in and trust with them because they're like, oh, I get to take these education. My owner, my boss is really invested And you're saving money. If you do offer a continuing education stipend, you're saving money by then. These people don't have to travel. They don't have to pay for, room and board somewhere, et cetera, airline tickets and all of that stuff. So it's a win-win for the studio. My feeling is even if the studio owner breaks, even on the cost of bringing that instructor or professional in to teach the workshop, it's still a win because. For example, I'm going to Orlando for a continuing education workshop in September, and the cost was$800 for the workshop. So that's gonna cost me$800 plus I have to get there. So that's gonna be another, let's say a hundred or$200, right? Then I have to pay for a hotel room two nights. So that's gonna be another, even if I get a cheap one at$150 a night, that's another$300. So we're talking right there. Almost$1,200,$1,300 that I'm spending. So if I look at it this way. If I have to pay an instructor$2,000 or$2,500 to come in and I can make a little money by promoting and selling the workshop, I'm saving myself money.'cause now I don't have to travel to go get those continuing education credits or even learn, forget about the credits. It's really just about. Absorbing that knowledge and information, which I think is very, very valuable. And now a lot of people will say, well, what if I train my staff and do all these great things and they leave and I'm gonna say it, I say it all the time. What if you don't do it? And they stay? Competition is really. Big right now. And so making your team the best kind of team so they are giving your clients high quality service is super, super beneficial for you and your company as a whole. Plus, not to mention the fact that I love working for this company. They bring someone in every year. We're learning, they're invested in our development. It creates a lot of buy-in and a good culture fit for your studio. So. Some things to consider. Alright. There's a couple different ways you can do these kind of workshops, right? You can have, again, a teaching workshop where you're teaching the clinicians, the providers, the technicians in your business, right? So you can have one where you don't invite outside people and you're just educating the people in your. Facility. And while you won't necessarily make a lot of money in that because you have to pay for the professional to come in, you are getting a good training. It can be very honed in on your team and it's creates a ton of buy in with your team. So that's number one. Number two, you can do the same thing and open it up for outside registration. You can charge anywhere from the going rate. I would say, depending on the instructor, and depending on the professional, can be anywhere from 50 to$150 an hour. So if you're doing a two hour workshop, you might sell it for$99, or you might sell it for$299, depending on the value that that's providing. So if you're selling a four hour workshop, that can be anywhere from. You know,$299 to$799 the prices range. And also anything else in business, we should set the price based on our costs and expenses. So instructors, professionals, experts, that provide these different types of workshops. they have all sorts of different contracts. So for example, if you bring me, which by the way, if you're interested in hosting me to come teach a workshop, I'll talk a little bit about that at the end. But you can reach out to me, you can DM me over on Instagram at Christa Gurka or shoot me an email christa@christagurka.com. The way that I do my contract is I have a flat fee per day. That's up to. Seven hours, which is usually two, three hour workshops. Or you can do three, two hour workshops and an hour for lunch. So I have a flat fee for the day. so that's one day. And then if you do two days, it's a flat fee for both days. I pay my own travel and accommodations. So that's just basically rolled up into the day rate. Other, practitioners do it differently. They might have a flat fee, plus they get a percentage of the registrations. there's a lot of different ways you can broker these kind of relationships and negotiations, but what you should look at is what is it gonna cost you and how do you set your price? So let's say it's gonna cost you$3,000 to bring in an expert. For a one day workshop, so let's say seven hours. So you can, again, you can do two, three hour workshops. You can do three, two hour workshops. You can do, two, two hour workshops, and a one hour class or a 90 minute class. There's lots of ways that you can construct it, and most experts have a variety of topics and ways that they can come and work with you and make it. Custom white labeled for you and your business. So then if you're gonna spend$3,000, then I would say you wanna try to make at least$3,000 so you break even. So you can charge, if you get 10 people at$300, you broke even if you get 15 people at$300, right? You've made$1,500 in profit. If you get, five people at.$600, then you've broken even. So you just kind of have to make sure, where is the sweet spot? So you're at least trying to break even. So why are workshops a decent revenue stream for your business? Well, there's low overhead for the most part. If you get, a good contract relationship with an expert that's gonna come in. Okay, so it's low overhead. It's one-time cost. It's, you know, there's lots of ways to negotiate where it's mutually beneficial for everyone. You can target, excuse me, a specific audience. So I was saying before, and I got a little sidetracked. You can do it for only your staff, your team members. You can do it for outside technicians or you can have client ones. At Pilates in the Grove. We used to have clients. Workshops. You see this a lot in yoga inversion workshops, handstand workshops in Pilates, you can do how to progress from beginner to intermediate. We had won Pilates for golf. We did Pilates for low back pain. So there's lots of ways that you can have also workshops for your clientele. And not only your clientele can come in, but maybe someone in the community is also interested in learning about that. So you can have client facing. Workshops or just even education, right? So those are things that you can do as, alternative revenue streams in your business. And again, it's very, it's low cost, low overhead for the most part. You can create urgency around these seasonal, or one time. Offers at Pilates in the Grove, I taught every year a Pilates for injuries and special populations workshop. It actually was the end, the last module of our teacher training program, and we always held it in September, October, which is right before Florida goes into their physical therapy. License renewal. So it was like urgency around people being like, do you still need CECs? Do you need CEUs? You should come. This is a great workshop. So you can create some urgency through one time or seasonal offers. You can bundle it in as part of a teacher training program. Maybe you do a workshop like Pilates for, the advanced client and you can have teachers come in to learn it. And you can also have clients attend, like maybe there are some clients. We all know that there's certain advanced Pilates repertoire that we don't normally teach in a group setting'cause it's not safe. So you can have workshops around that, maybe clients can come, and then you get other instructors that are learning the more advanced, repertoire, especially now that Pilate studios are popping up on every single corner. And so there's a lot of, there's a lot of instructors that just don't have the right kind of training and maybe they're looking for more advanced training or more in depth training now that they've been introduced to the world of Pilates and realize that there's a lot more out there. Another benefit is it builds you your studio as subject matter experts, right? You can possibly teach these workshops if you don't wanna bring people in, right? You as the owner or maybe one of your practitioners, or, one of your other instructors could teach the workshop. So now the overhead's even lower'cause you're not bringing another expert or professional in. Some of the beauty of bringing another professional in, is they get, you get to tap into their network. So for example, for this. Workshop that I'm doing in Glen Ellyn, they get to tap into my network on social media, my contacts, people that know me by name that are like, oh, I wanna learn from Christa. I'm gonna go to that workshop. So it's a benefit. It's a win-win for them as well.'cause I'm also promoting the workshop through on this podcast, on my website, through my emails, et cetera. so it's a great way to also maybe test new services. So if you're doing a, advanced Pilates choreography or something like that, and you get a lot of clients that come in, you're like, oh, this might be a good workshop series. Maybe you could do a workshop series, advanced Pilates series. It's a four week series learning the advanced repertoire, so you could test those formats maybe in a workshop. Before committing, you could test prenatal Pilates or yoga in a workshop before committing to a full-blown program. These are all great ways and benefits of having workshops at your establishment. So like I said, we talked about the technician focus workshops. The goal really is to educate and uplevel. Skill-wise, your team, Pilates instructors, PTs, massage therapists, different types of complimentary therapists, yoga instructors, et cetera. you could do new teaching techniques with this. You could do things like, I've taught workshops on how to teach a great intro session and how to convert intro clients into long-term memberships. You can do things around. Sales strategies with your teams, you can do, How to talk to clients about converting into long-term memberships. You can do retention strategies. So it, it could be not only skill-wise, but it could also be business, right? So when I go to Glen Ellyn, I am gonna be doing a business portion on Friday with the owner of the studio where I'm gonna be doing an audit, and I'll be in there during the day and seeing how their day to day runs. Talking to some of their staff and their clients and then giving this business owner feedback. And then I'm also gonna do on Sunday of that weekend, a. Training just for her team. So on Friday I'm doing a business training with her as the owner. On Saturday we're doing public facing workshops. And then on Sunday I'm doing trainings just with her team where they can bring all their questions. she has a lot of new instructors'cause her Pilates business is going crazy, bonkers. And, Giving these new instructors the ability to see movement in their clients in a different light, right? How can we step back and see the forest through the trees and teaching newer instructors what to be looking for? So you go from just teaching exercises to really teaching a method and programming properly and going from a good instructor to a great instructor.'cause my opinion of a great instructor is. Someone who can look at the body in front of them, watch how they move and teach a class A person feel like they had that class taught exactly for them, which is a skill. It's a learned skill. So a great instructor can look at a body moving and say, oh, they're having struggled doing the teaser. If I break down their movement. What is that limiting factor? Why are they having trouble doing the teaser? Is it because their hip flexors are a little weaker? Is it because they don't have actually thoracic flexion in their thoracic spine? It's not often just that they don't have great abdominal strength. Are they actually not using the springs? Especially if you're doing it on the reformer properly, to push into the tension to. Pull up into your teaser. So where is the problem and how can I, as practitioner, as instructor address it to impact their movement? That's a great instructor, right? So there are good instructors that just teach exercises. There are better instructors that really get people to move forward. And then there are great instructors that can look at the movement and dissect it to know exactly what's going on with that client, where it's coming from, and how to impact it for improvement. Okay. And those are the goals. When I teach people, I wanna teach people how to fish. I don't just wanna give them the fish, right? So I don't just wanna give them, oh, here's an advanced repertoire I wanna give them. Here's how you get these people to move from never being able to do teaser to being able to do teaser. effectively. Okay, so that's the way that I like to teach my workshops. so those are technician face workshops. Now you can have client facing workshops where your goal is to provide extra value to your client base. So you can do things like injury prevention, how to prevent. Falls when you have osteoporosis, how to improve your balance so you don't fall with osteoporosis. tips and tricks for clients that have osteoporosis, pelvic floor workshops. Okay, you can do, intro to a new piece of equipment. Intro to the chair, intro to Advanced Reformer, Pilates for golf. Low back workshop, knee pain workshops. There's all sorts of things that you can do now. Usually client facing workshops are 90 to 120 minutes, and on average, I would say they cost. Roughly 45,$50 an hour. So if you do a two hour workshop, it could be$90,$129. if you do a one hour workshop, it should just be more than your group class fee. So if your drop in rate for group class is 45, that one hour workshop should be a little bit more. but there's all sorts of ways that you can create client loyalty. With this, you can upsell into memberships and into workshop series. You can get more, Position as an expert and maybe some people bring their friends with them and it's just a great thing to do a little bit outside the box so that your clientele is yeah, they do a lot of really exciting things in, our studio. That's not just the exercise. It brings people, build community. you can use it for social media and content and blogs and things on your website and besides being a good revenue stream, it is a good way to build community in your studio. so lastly what I would say is I wouldn't advise doing workshops every month. I think that that can get very time consuming and very daunting, and we've had people in. Our inner circle, and even in Fit Biz, our monthly membership where we talk about workshops and stuff, and it just is a lot, it's a lot to keep up. but maybe doing them quarterly, bi-annually, twice a year or once a year. Right. if anything, maybe test it out. Maybe look into could you bring an expert into your. Place and teach your team. Right. if you're interested in hosting me to do a workshop again, I could come in, we could do business training. I could do with the owner. I have a whole list of workshops that I teach from a technical perspective, not just business. We can work with your team on sales strategies, how you convert intro people into long-term memberships and. You can reach out to me, I'm happy to do it. you can also see who has certain skill sets on your team who might be interested in doing workshops at your studio. You could do a foam rolling workshop. Maybe if you don't have mat class, maybe you could do a pop-up. Mat class workshop like once a quarter, but these are just different ways, especially if you're oh, I need a little cash injection into my business. You can utilize this strategy to position you as an expert to also grow some revenue and decide oh, is this working out? Is this something I want to put on my business plan, my marketing plan for 2026, and how can I do that appropriately? So if you're interested in coming to Glen Ellyn, Illinois, which is just outside of Chicago, I will be there October 25th for the workshop. I am going to link the workshop, URL in the show notes. So at some point go ahead and grab this workshop, URL. There are still spaces available for there. you can go right to their website and register. So if you're gonna be in and around the Chicago area end of October, I would love to see you. And then, like I said, if you're interested in possibly hosting me for a Pilates or physical therapy or even business workshop in your facility, and we can do all three. We could do one on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Reach out. I'm happy to share my, rates and my services package with you. You can, like I said, DM me on Instagram at Christa Gurka If you're interested or, email me, I'm christa@christagurka.com. Alright, thanks so much, ladies and gentlemen, and until next time, bye for now.